The principal event in the history of the settlement of North Carolina was the fancy constitution furnished for it in 1669, by John Locke, whose understanding about it differed wholly from that of the people, through whose heads it never could be got. Besides having plenty of time on his hands, Locke made his constitution so long, and divided it up into so many parts, that the youngest settler died before he had read it half through, and bequeathed the further perusal of it to his descendants, with all his shares in what it most resembled,—the Dismal Swamp.
A sniff of this vague, shadowy constitution, or bundle of airy rights, by the adjacent settlement of South Carolina, affected her with such a fit of sneezing, that it kept on from that time until 1865, and from which she only found relief now and then in her cotton pocket-handkerchiefs.
We may remark that it is a vulgar error to suppose that the rivers in South Carolina run up hill,—just as it is a common mistake to believe that the Tar River, in North Carolina, originates in a turpentine district, and flows in a thick stream into Pamlico Sound. We may as well, also, correct the almost universal notion, that the inhabitants of Charleston have a particular fondness for fire as a steady, every-day diet.
The chief incident which marked the uneventful record of the Georgia settlement was the advent, in 1736, of John Wesley.
He preached in the Methodist language to the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees; but those short-lived tribes, attending on a certain occasion one of his camp-meetings, and listening to the benevolent missionary giving out one of his brother Charles’s hymns, became so discouraged that they went back to their own camp and ways.
In addition to what we have already said of Maryland, we would state that its mild climate attracted canvas-back ducks, as its mild principles of religious toleration brought to its borders swarms of emigrants. Both have had a damp residence amid its amphibious shores, where the land seems two thirds water, and the water a little more moist than elsewhere.
Map of Maryland.
(p. 105)
CHAPTER III.
JOHN SMITH.
John Smith historically considered.—The Number in Leading Cities stated.—How classified.—Why he is not put in a separate Volume or in an Appendix.—Origin of the Smiths.—American Genealogical Trees.—Smiths up a Stump, in the Sap, and dangling from the Branches.—The Antiquity and Ubiquity of the Smiths.—Variety and Extent of their Occupations and Operations.—Will probably in time own all the World.—Comic Situations of John Smiths in Cities, at Family Dinner-Parties, at Prayer-Meetings, at Balls, in Titles to Real Estate, etc.—Whether he can be sued.—Other Legal Questions in reference to him considered.—John Smith of Pocahontas Fame a Myth.