5. On the third Tuesday in October in each year delegates to a Congress were to be elected, which Congress was to meet on the 10th of November following, unless otherwise directed. When in session Congress was, of course, supreme; when not in session, ample authority was vested in a general or provisional council and subordinate or district committees of safety. The province was divided into six military districts, and as far as possible, put on a war footing.

6. The ordinary militia organization was perfected and monthly drills ordered; a special organization of minutemen, as that class of troops was called, was provided for each district, and, in addition, two regiments of regulars were ordered as the contingent of the province for the Continental army. Provision was also made for the purchase, anywhere and everywhere, of arms, powder, lead, salt and saltpetre; for the manufacture at home of salt, saltpetre, powder, and for the refining of sulphur; for the manufacture of brown and writing paper, cotton and woolen cards, linen and woolen cloths, pins and needles, and for the erection of furnaces for making iron and steel and iron hollow ware, and of rolling mills for making nails, large premiums were offered. A census, too, was ordered to be taken without delay.

7. An issue of money to meet expenses was also provided for. In a word, every function of government was from that time exercised in the name and by the authority of the people of North Carolina. Virtually the province was under martial law, but it was under martial law self-imposed.

8. It is evident that the men who constituted the Hillsboro, or third Provincial Congress, knew perfectly well what they were doing, and had fully counted the cost. Success meant freedom, and would make them patriots; failure meant abject submission to a foreign government, and would make them traitors. Knowing this, they deliberately put a government of the people in the place of the government of the King; they put an army in the field and provided it with arms and ammunition; and, as if looking ahead to a long and protracted struggle, during which their ports would be doubtless blockaded, they sought at once, by the offer of large bounties to encourage the manufacture at home of such articles as were of common use and prime necessity. They were indeed both bold and far-seeing, those men of the Hillsboro Congress, and well they might be, for they were the best and bravest of the province-men whose names are now household words throughout the State.

9. The Hillsboro Congress had not called out troops any too soon, for it was discovered that both Governor Martin, in North Carolina, and Lord Dunmore, in Virginia, were engaged in schemes to excite insurrections among the negro slaves. Colonel Robert Howe, with the Second North Carolina Regiment, was sent to Norfolk, in Virginia, where the British troops, being beaten at Great Bridge, were soon driven from the soil of the "Old Dominion."

10. This occurred in December, 1775. About the same time Colonels Griffith Rutherford, Thomas Polk and James Martin embodied their militia regiments and went to South Carolina, where they speedily crushed a Tory insurrection of certain men called the "Scovilites." The militia were, of course, aided by Whig troops of that province. The readiness with which North Carolina marched troops both to Virginia and to South Carolina caused her to stand very high in the estimation of the Continental Congress.

11. The term "Tory" was applied to men who upheld the royal authority, and were opposed to any movement to defend the colonies against the exactions of the Crown and Parliament. The "Whigs," on the contrary, were at that day demanding that American commerce should be free, and that no taxes should be imposed by Great Britain upon the colonies. They were not enemies to the King, and only opposed to that which they considered oppressive in the designs of his ministers.

QUESTIONS.

1. Who had been selected to take Colonel Harvey's place? When and where did the third Provincial Congress meet?

2. In what condition were public affairs when the Congress met?