At the beginning of July, preparations for a servile insurrection on the Tar River were
* William Hooper, of the county of Orange, Joseph Hewes, of the town of Edenton, and Richard Caswell, of the county of Dobbs were chosen deputies. They were instructed to carry out the principles embodied in the preamble and resolutions adopted by the convention, the substance of which is given in the text.
** To this proclamation the General Committee of Safety of the District of Wilmington, as appears by their proceedings, issued an answer, denying many of its allegations, and proclaiming the governor to be an instrument in the hands of administration to rivet those chains so wickedly forged for America." This answer was drawn up and adopted in the session of the committee, at the court-house in Wilmington, on the twentieth of June, 1775.
Symptoms of a Servile Insurrection.—Destruction of Fort Johnson.—Provincial Congress at Hillsborough
discovered. This plot was disclosed to Thomas Rispess, a former member of the Assembly from Beaufort, by one of his slaves. It was generally supposed that Governor Martin was an accessory in inducing the slaves to rise and murder their masters. *
Fired with indignation by this opinion, the exasperated people determined to demolish Fort Johnson, lest the governor should strengthen it, and make it a place of reception for a hostile force and insurgent negroes. Under Colonel John Ashe, a body of about five hundred men marched to the fort, when it was ascertained that the governor had fled to the sloop of war Cruiser, lying in the river, and that Collett, the commander of the fortress, had removed all the small arms, ammunition, and part of the artillery, to a transport hired for the purpose. The militia immediately set fire to the buildings, and demolished a large portion of the walls of the fort. ** The Committee of Safety of Wilmington, at the same time, publicly charged the governor with fomenting a civil war, and endeavoring to excite an insurrection among the negroes. They declared him an enemy to his country and the province, and forbade all persons holding any communication with him. While these events were transpiring on the coast, the people of Mecklenburg county, over the Yadkin, met by representatives, and, by a series of resolutions, virtually declared themselves independent of the British crown, and established republican government in that county. This important movement will be considered in the next chapter.
Pursuant to a resolve of the late convention, delegates from the several towns in the state were summoned to meet in Provincial Congress at Hillsborough, on the twentieth of August. * When this summons appeared, Governor Martin, yet on board the Cruiser, issued a long proclamation, in which he stigmatized the incendiaries of Fort Johnson as traitors to the king; pronounced the proceedings of the Wilmington committee as base and scandalous; denounced the movement in Mecklenburg in May; *** warned the people not to send delegates to Hillsborough; denounced Colonels Ashe **** and Howe as rebels; and offered the king's pardon for all past outrages to those who should return to their allegiance. The people defied the governor's threats, and mocked his proffers of forgiveness; and on Sunday, the twentieth of August, every county and chief town in the province had a delegate in Hillsborough. They organized on Monday, (v) when one hundred and eighty-four deputies were present. One of their first acts was to declare their determination to hold the ægis of popular power over the Regulators, who were liable to punishment, and had not been cajoled into submission by the governor's promises. They also declared the governor's proclamation to be a "false, scurrilous, malicious, and seditious libel," and tending to stir up