School History of North Carolina : from 1584 to the present time

by John W. Moore

1681.

2. At last, in 1681, the authorities in England concluded that if one of their own number went over he might exert more influence upon the people than a hired agent. Therefore, they induced Seth Sothel, who had bought the interest first granted to the Earl of Clarendon, to venture on the doubtful expedient.

1683-88.

3. To the great good fortune of the province, this abandoned man was captured at sea by Algerine pirates. Thus he became the slave of these corsairs for two years. When he arrived it was soon seen what a beastly and detestable monster had been sent as a reformer of the morals of the people of Albemarle. He was the most shameless reprobate ever seen as a Governor in America. He took bribes, stole property and appropriated the Indian trade to his own uses, growing worse and worse until the people, in 1688, could no longer endure his iniquities, and drove him from the place he disgraced. He went to South Carolina, and after his sentence to twelve months exile had expired, returned to North Carolina and died in 1692.

1689-93.

4. Philip Ludwell and Alexander Lillington were the next rulers in North Carolina, and the administration of the latter witnessed the triumph of the colonists in the consent of the Lords Proprietors to the abolition of the Fundamental Constitutions. This event occurred in 1693, and brought no little joy to the men who had so long and successfully opposed it as the Constitution of North Carolina.

1695-96.

5. Thomas Harvey ruled next in Albemarle, while John Archdale, a wise and benevolent Quaker, was put in charge of all the settlements in what was North Carolina, and also those on Cooper and Ashley Rivers, in South Carolina. In the year 1696 a severe pestilential fever visited all the tribes of Indians along Pamlico Sound and destroyed nearly all of them. The Colonists, soon after this, feeling somewhat safer from Indian attacks, began to form settlements southward.

1704.

6. Henderson Walker succeeded to the rule by virtue of his place as President of the Council. After him Colonel Robert Daniel, who had made reputation in an expedition against the Spaniards in Florida, became, in 1704, the Governor of the province.