10. What sad news next thrilled North Carolina?
11. What was done by Governor Martin? What occurred at Fort Johnston?
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CONGRESS AT HILLSBORO.
A. D. 1775.
It had been seen at New Bern that Colonel Harvey's days were numbered, and Samuel Johnston had been empowered, in case of the Moderator's death, to order an election for another Congress to meet at Hillsboro whenever he should deem it necessary. Accordingly (Colonel Harvey having died) the Congress met, at the call of Mr. Johnston, in Hillsboro, on the 20th of August, 1775, and a memorable Congress it was. Samuel Johnston was its President.
2. When Governor Martin left New Bern royal authority was virtually at an end in North Carolina, but it was at Hillsboro, and by the Congress there assembled, that its last vestige was swept away. The time had come when, if North Carolina intended to stand with her sister colonies, she must take up arms and appeal to the God of battles. This she was ready to do without any hesitation, and this she did do at Hillsboro, giving publicly to the world her reasons for so doing.
3. The Governor sent to Samuel Johnston a copy of his proclamation, dated on board His Majesty's ship Cruiser, at Cape Fear, on the 8th of August, 1775, in which he warned the people against the Hillsboro Congress as a dangerous and unconstitutional assembly, and of baneful influence; and further, that to assemble men in arms in the province without authority from the King, was a violation of law for which they would be held answerable. In reply to this proclamation, which was duly laid before the Congress by the Moderator, Mr. Johnston, it was formally resolved that the proclamation was a false, scandalous, scurrilous and seditious libel, tending to disunite the good people of the province; "and further, that the said paper be burnt by the common hangman."
4. Accepting the recent flight of Governor Martin to the British war-sloop Cruiser as an abdication of the government of the Crown, the Congress proceeded to put in its place a government of the people, and established what in this day would be called a provisional government. Cornelius Harnett* was at its head.
*This man was the second of the name. His father came to Clarendon in Governor Burrington's time, and was all his life afterwards a member of the council. This Cornelius Harnett was well educated, and was so intensely devoted to the American cause that he was called in that day "the Samuel Adams of North Carolina."