First Legislative Assembly.—The Governor and People at Variance.—Removal of the Seat of Government to Wilmington.
arrears of quit-rent. This was highly satisfactory. His second, under instructions, was to send a deputation into the interior to conciliate the Indians, particularly the Cherokees. The first Legislative Assembly was convened at Edenton in April, 1731,April 13 where the future policy of the royal government was unfolded by Burrington. The representatives of the people were dissatisfied with its aspeet, and when, in the king's name, the governor demanded of them a sufficient revenue for defraying the expenses of the local government, and a sufficient salary for the governor, his council, and the officers employed in the administration of justice, they murmured. In these requisitions they could not recognize the promised advantages of a change in ownership, and they early showed a disposition to pay very little attention to these demands of the chief magistrate. Three years afterward, commercial restrictions, hitherto unknown, increased the discontents of the people,1 and the seeds of revolution were planted in a generous soil. The Assembly uttered the old complaint of exorbitant fees on the part of public officers; the governor rejected their remonstrance with contempt. The former refused to vote a revenue or to pass any acts, and sent a complaint to England of Burrington's "violence and tyranny in the administration of government." The Board of Trade reprimanded and deposed him, and then appointed in his place Gabriel Johnston,Nove 1734 late steward of Lord Wilmington, a prudent and cunning Scotchman.
The new governor encountered quite as much trouble as his predecessor. The Assembly were refractory, and Johnston attempted to collect the rents ** on his own authority. Payment was resisted, and the Assembly not only denied the legality of the governor's proceedings,March 1737 but imprisoned the officers who had distrained for quit-rents. Johnston made concessions to the people, but his arrangements were rejected by the home government, as yielding too much to the popular will. For nearly ten years the quarrel concerning rents continued between the governor and the Assembly, and, in the mean while, the salaries of government officials remained in arrears, for the rents, which produced the sole fund for the payment of the royal officers, were inadequate. The governor now resorted to cunning management as a last effort to sustain his authority. The province had been divided into several counties. The southern counties, lately settled, were more tractable than the northern ones, but they had only two members each in the Assembly, while the others had five. The governor, at a time when several of the northern members were absent, procured the passage of an act, placing all the counties upon an equal footing as to representation, and also for the removal of the seat of government from Edenton to Wilmington, a new town, lately established at the head of ship navigation, on the Cape Fear River, and named in honor of Lord Wilmington, Johnston's patron. The six northern counties refused to acknowledge the newly-organized Assembly as legal, and carried their complaint to England. They were obliged to submit, and at last the governor procured the passage of an aet,1748 by which the expenses of government were provided for.
It was during the administration of Governor Johnston that two important occurrences
* The settlers procured furs from the Indians with great facility, and the manufacture of hats from this material was becoming a source of considerable revenue to several of the colonists. They exported hats to the West India Islands, Spain, and Portugal. The jealousy of England was awakened, and to secure those markets for her home manufactures, Parliament forbade the exportation of hats from the American colonies. They were not allowed to send them from one colony to another. None but persons who had served seven years apprenticeship to the trade were allowed to make hats, and no master was permitted to have more than two apprentices at a time. The business was soon confined within narrow limits, for severe penalties accompanied these enactments. Obstacles were also thrown in the way of the manufacture of ropes and cordage in America, and other kinds of business soon felt the cheeks of a narrow and unjust commercial policy.
** The whole soil belonged to the crown. The people were required, by the governor, to pay the expenses of the government, in addition to the stipulated rents.
Immigration of Scotch Highlanders.—The Rebellion of '45.—Peril and Flight of 'The Pretender.—Extinction of his Family.
took place, which, though separate and dissimilar, tended, in a remarkable degree, toward a union of the provinces in political and social interest, and in fostering that spirit of civil and religious freedom which prevailed in the South, and particularly in North Carolina, where the oppressive measures of the first ten years of the reign of George the Third produced rebellion in America. I allude to the commencement of hostilities between France and England in 1745; and the immigration hither of a large number of Presbyterians from Scotland and the north of Ireland, the former on account of their participation in the famous rebellion of that year. *
* The Scottish insurrection, known as The Rebellion of 45, was in favor of Charles Edward, the son of James II. who shared his father's exile in France. Claiming the throne of England as his right, and regarding George of Hanover as a usurper, he determined to make an effort for the crown. In June, 1745, he embarked in an eighteen-gun frigate, and landed at Borodale, in the southwest part of Scotland, with a few Scotch and Irish followers. His arms were chiefly on board another vessel, which had been obliged to put back to France. The Highlanders in the vicinity arose in his favor, and in a few days fifteen hundred strong men surrounded his standard—a piece of taffeta which he brought from France. The Pretender (as he was called) marched to Perth, where he was joined by some Scotch lords and their retainers. With his increasing army, he entered Edinburgh in triumph, though the castle held out for King George. All England trembled with alarm. The premier (the king was in Hanover) offered a reward of $750,000 for the person of the Pretender. From Edinburgh the insurgents marched toward the border, and were every where successful, until encountered by the Duke of Cumberland, at Culloden, where, on the sixteenth of April, 1745, they were defeated and dispersed. The jails of England were soon filled with the prisoners. Lords Balmerino and Lovat, and Mr. Radcliffe, a brother of the Earl of Derwentwater * were beheaded, the last who suffered death, in that way, in England. Many others were executed, and a large number of the Highlanders were transported to America, and became settlers in North Carolina. The Pretender was the last to leave the field at Culloden. For almost five months he was a fugitive among the Highlands, closely scented by the officers of government. After various concealments by the people, he escaped to the Isle of Skye, in the character and disguise of Betty Bourke, an Irish servant to Miss Flora M'Donald, daughter of a Highlander. After several perilous adventures, he reached the Continent in September, 1746. He died at Rome in 1784. His brother, Cardinal York, the last representative of the house of Stuart, died in 1807 and the family became extinct.
The Scotch-Irish and their Principles.—Their Emigration to Carolina.—Moravian Settlements.