Save the meek spirit's luster;
And faith and hope beamed in her eye;
And angels bowed as she passed by."
Sakah Josepha Hale.
Ere this her body doubtless reposes in the orchard, by the side of that of her little brother who had gone before.
The next day was the Sabbath. Leaving Mr. Bacon's at dawn, I rode into Hillsborough * in time for breakfast and comfortable quarters at the Union Hotel, where I spent the day before a glowing wood fire. On Monday morning I called upon the Reverend James Wilson, D.D., with a letter of introduction, and to his kind courtesy I am much indebted. He accompanied me to places of interest in the town, and gave me all the information I desired concerning the history of the vicinity. Before noticing these strictly local matters, let us open the records of North Carolina, and take a brief general view of the history of the state, from its settlement until the war of the Revolution commenced.
The principal discoveries on the coast of the Carolinas have already been noticed in the introduction to this work and in the account of the first efforts at settlement in Virginia, by which it appears that to North Carolina belongs the honor of having had the first English settlement in America, within its domain. We will now consider, briefly, the progress of settlement below the Nansemond and Roanoke.
We have seen the difficulties which attended the first explorations of the Roanoke, and the abandonment of the Carolina coast after the failure of Raleigh's expeditions Notwithstanding a fertile region was here open for the labor and enterprise of the English, who were rapidly populating Virginia along the banks of the Powhatan and other large streams, yet no permanent settlement appears to have been attempted south of the Dismal Swamp, until nearly fifty years after the building of Jamestown. As early as 1609, the country on Nansemond River, on the southern frontier of Virginia, had been settled; and in 1622, Porey, then Secretary of Virginia, and a man of great courage and perseverance, penetrated the country southward to the Chowan River. ** The kindness of the natives, and the fertility and beauty of the country, were highly extolled by Porey, and new desires for extending settlements southward were awakened. The vigilance with which the Spaniards watched the coast below Cape Fear, and the remembrance of their cruelty in exercising their power at an earlier day against the French in Florida, doubtless caused hesitation on the part of the English. But persecution during the administration of Berkeley, at length drove some of Virginia's best children from her household, and they, with others who were influenced by lower motives than a desire for religious liberty, began the work of founding a new state. New England, also, where persecution was not a stranger, contributed essential aid in the work.
* Hillsborough was laid out in 1709 by W. Childs, and was first called Childsburg, in honor of the then Attorney Genera! of the province. Its name was afterward changed to Hillsborough, in compliment, according to Martin (ii., 104), to the Earl of Hillsborough, the Secretary of Slate for the colonies.
** The Chowan is formed bv the union of Nottaway, Meherrin, and Blackwater Rivers, which flow from Virginia into Albemarle Sound, a little north of the mouth of the Roanoke.