tude from the Atlantic to the South Seas, or Pacific Ocean. This territory was erected into a province, by the name of Carolina; and Sir Robert, in 1648, conveyed the province to Lord Multravers, Earl of Arundel and Surry.

The Earl of Arundel failing to plant a colony, the territory, on the 24th of March, 1663, was granted to General, Monk, then Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, the Earl of Shaftsbury, Sir John Colleton, Lord John Berkely, Sir William Berkely, and Sir John Carteret; and the authority of these proprietaries was nearly absolute-a barren allegiance only being reserved.

This grant was made in March; and in a few months, the proprietors ascertained that a colony existed in their province, or at least between it and Virginia.

XII.

On the north shore of Albemarle Sound, between the Perquimmons and Little Rivers, or rather the wide estuaries which form the mouths of those streams, in the present county of Perquimmons, is a tongue of land, called Durant's Neck; and the grant for this land, by the chief of the Yeopim Indians, to George Durant, in the year 1662, is the oldest in the State, of which any account is preserved.

Here it is known that, in 1663, a colony, consisting of sixtyseven persons, existed, planted by George Cathmaid, of Virginia; speaking of which, Bancroft says:-"There is reason to believe that volunteer emigrants had preceded them." In the year

1660 or 1661, the people of New England planted a colony on the south side of the Cape-Fear River, on Old Town Creek, in the present county of Brunswick; and in 1663 this settlement was found still to be in existence.

Why does Bancroft suppose that the little colony of Cathmaid may have been preceded by volunteers? To the writer of. this historical sketch, this supposition seems to be well-founded; but he can only allude to some of the considerations which have induced this belief.

In the year 1643, under the administration of Sir William Berkely, a law was passed in Virginia prohibiting religious toleration, and establishing the Church of England; in other words, no minister was allowed to preach or teach, publicly or privately, except in conformity to the constitutions of the Church of England, and nonconformists were banished from the colony.

Massachusetts was equally intolerant; and none but orthodox Puritans were allowed to dwell or to worship within her borders. In the year 1656, the Quakers first began to appear in Massachu

setts, and in the same year they were banished, and a severe persecution began.

Whither could the Quakers fly, from Massachusetts? Where went the nonconformists of Virginia? Some there were in both colonies, with minds fortified with extreme zeal, who braved the laws and courted the crown of martyrdom; but a majority of those who suffered by these unwise and unjust laws were men who desired freedom and repose, and judiciously sought them where alone they could be found.

There were men in whose minds important truths began to dawn; and the new scenes of a new world kindled within them sentiments to which the greatest philosophers had been strangers. Protection to their persons and property seemed to them the only object of law; and from the war of opinion begun in the infant American settlements they could escape only by taking refuge in the wilderness. Nonconformists, and especially Quakers, must have fled in considerable numbers from Virginia; Massachusetts was a long way off, and there religious bigotry reigned in the civil councils.

It was known that the lands south of Virginia had been explored before Virginia was settled: these lands were fertile, and the country was near and inviting. Numbers of the Quakers, especially, must have come to Carolina; and at an early period, 1672, the province was said to be a refuge for "renegadoes" from ecclesiastical oppression.

The character of the population confirms this theory; and in 1672, George Fox, the founder of the Quaker sect, crossed the Great Dismal Swamp, from Virginia, and found a rural and primitive race scattered among the woods, simple, virtuous, benevolent in reason and conduct, and inculcating and cherishing the most absolute freedom of conscience.'

A fondness for political as well as religious freedom was a characteristic of those first recognised by history as settlers in Carolina; and as early as 1678, there was a deliberate uprising of the people and a complete revolution.

A governor was deposed and another elected in his place; and a manifesto was published, or drawn and signed, breathing the same spirit and uttering doctrines and sentiments much like those which, one century later, pervaded and agitated the whole of British America..

Was this the conduct of a handful of refugees from justice? Was it like the action of men just settled on new lands? Did any planted colony ever thus immediately rise up and assert and maintain new political doctrines, and argue grave questions connected with the theory and science of government?

These are the acts of indigenous races, or of those who have founded and subdued a country for themselves: of a people who have enjoyed rights, and learned by enjoyment to know their worth. Athletic hunters, with free thoughts and free limbs, fugitives from religious intolerance, and musing, philosophic hermits, with wives and children, planted themselves quietly in different parts of North-Carolina; and unknown by the world, and forgetting its busy cares and pliant arts and devious sciences, they were taught by nature in her woody solitudes, and worshipped the God of nature "in spirit and in truth," in that majestic temple where the presence of the All-seeing is recognised in his mighty works. There they learned those simple truths which never beamed on the understanding of Locke or Shaftesbury; those regenerating political principles first baptized on the banks of the classic Alamane, and spreading thence with revolutionizing and vivifying force over this continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Bancroft, in one place, is tempted to exclaim, "North-Carolina was settled by the freest of the free; by men to whom the restraints of other colonies were too severe.

There was neither city nor township; there was hardly even a hamlet or one house within sight of another; nor were there roads, except as the paths from house to house were distinguished by notches in the trees.

But the settlers were gentle in their tempers, of serene minds, enemies to violence and bloodshed. Not all the successive revolutions had kindled vindictive passions; freedom, entire freedom was enjoyed, without anxiety as without guaranties; the charities of life were scattered at their feet like the flowers of their meadows; and the spirit of humanity maintained its influence in the Arcadia, as royalist writers will have it, of "rogues and rebels."

Such were the first founders of our State; men not suckled by wolves, nor yet skilled in the sophistries and the dialectics of the schools. Neither Mars nor Mercury nor Apollo was their patron deity: they were not characterized by the doubtful virtues attributed to any heathen gods.

They were not sent out by monarchs ambitious of extending their empires; they were not led by courtiers covetous of gold, nor by military chieftains seeking exploits of arms; they were not paupers nor convicts transported from plethoric states; nor were they fiery and zealous propagandists, nor adventurous freebooters and cavaliers, attracted by sparkling mines, spicy groves, and rich provinces to be plundered.

They came not from one religious sect, with one creed of bigotry they were not from one land, or of one profession.

All creeds and all classes and all nations furnished their quota; but they were all brethren in heart, the first fathers of that political Israel whose seed are destined to possess the earththe gathered remnants in whose minds were germinating those "self-evident truths" which immortalized the pen of Jefferson, and blossomed with enduring splendour in the character of Washington!

NORTH-CAROLINA FROM 1662 To 1669.

XIII.

As already related, the soil of Carolina, between thirty-one and thirty-six degrees of north latitude, was bestowed on eight proprietaries on the 30th of June, 1665, a second charter was granted. This included the lands that lie between the latitude of twenty-nine degrees, the beginning of that degree, and thirtysix degrees, thirty minutes, and extending from the Atlantic to the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. Two settlements had already been formed within this territory; one at Old Town Creek, in the present county of Brunswick, by emigrants from Massachusetts; the other, south-east of Chowan River, on the waters of Albemarle.

The little colony at Old Town Creek was soon engaged in trade; and when its existence came to the knowledge of the proprietaries, it already had partners in London. Anxious to encourage population and emigration, the proprietaries were disposed to deal liberally with their colonists; and to one of their number, Sir William Berkely, Governor of Virginia, sent a commission, (8th September, 1663,) with instructions to appoint governors, &c., for their infant settlements.

The following extracts will show the nature of these instructions :-"We are informed that there are some people settled on the north-east part of the River Chowan, and that others have inclinations to plant there, as also on the larboard-side entering of the same river; so that we hold it convenient that a governor be forthwith appointed for the colony; and for that end we have, by Captain Whittey, sent you a power to constitute one or two governors and councils, and other officers, unto which power we refer ourselves, we having only reserved the nomination of a surveyor and secretaries, as officers that will be fit to take care of your and our interests; the one by faithfully laying out the lands, the other by justly recording the same. We do likewise send you proposals to all that will plant, which we prepared upon