He took his seat when the Legislature met. By that body, under the then constitutional mode, he was, on joint ballot, elected Governor of the State on December 4th, 1798, over Benjamin Williams (afterwards Governor), and was inaugurated December 7th. Nothing of special note took place during his tenure of office. President Adams appointed an embassy to treat with the French Directory, consisting of Mr. Murray, then our Minister to Holland, Chief Justice Ellsworth, and Patrick Henry. The latter having declined on the ground of age and ill health, Governor Davie was appointed in his stead, June 1, 1799. On September 10th he resigned the office of Governor, and on the 22nd, left Halifax to join Mr. Ellsworth at Trenton. At his departure the people of Halifax and vicinity presented him with a complimentary address, which was written by a political adversary and signed by large numbers of the same party.
On November 3, 1799, Messrs. Ellsworth and Davie embarked in the frigate United States, from Newport, Rhode Island. Aware of the changes constantly taking place in the French government, they touched at Lisbon on the 27th of November. They left on the 21st of December, but being driven out of their course by a storm, they put into Corunna the 11th of January, 1800, which they left by land on the 27th, and on February 9th, at Burgos, in Spain, they met a courier from Talleyrand, the French Minister, inviting them, on the part of Bonaparte, who had become First Consul, to proceed to Paris, which place they reached on March 2d. These dates will show the vast difference which less than a century has made in the modes of traveling and the transmission of intelligence. On April 8th the Commissioners were received with marked politeness by the First Consul. Napoleon having left for Italy on the famous campaign of Marengo, the negotiations dragged till his return. On September 30, 1800, the treaty between the United States and France was signed by our Commissioners and by Joseph Bonaparte, Roederer, and Fleurieu, on the part of France. The conclusion of the treaty was celebrated with éclat at Morfontaine (the country-seat of Joseph Bonaparte), the First Consul and a brilliant staff attending. One who was then in Paris writes: "A man of his (Davie's) imposing appearance and dignified deportment could not fail to attract especial attention and remark wherever he went. I could not but remark that Bonaparte, in addressing the American legation at his levees, seemed for the time to forget that Governor Davie was second in the commission, his attention being more particularly directed to him." In the brilliant circles of the nascent empire of Napoleon he was distinguished by his elegance and his popular manners. His sojourn in Paris was very agreeable to him. He was an accomplished linguist and spoke French and Spanish fluently.
In the fall of that year Governor Davie returned directly home. It is significant that the very day after the treaty was signed, France, by the treaty of St. Ildefonso, reacquired Louisiana from Spain, which it so soon after sold to the United States.
On his return home Davie was solicited to become a candidate for Congress in 1801, but his private affairs, by reason of his long absence, required his attention, and he declined. Willis Alston, then a member of the same political party, was elected. In June of that year President Jefferson appointed Governor Davie head of a commission, with General Wilkinson and Benjamin Hawkins, to negotiate with the Creeks and other Indians for further cession of lands. This he declined for the same reason that he had refused an election to Congress. In 1802 he was appointed by President Jefferson a commissioner on the part of the United States in the treaty to be made between North Carolina and the Tuscaroras, most of whom had moved from this State, but had retained a valuable landed interest in Bertie county. He met the agents of the State and the chiefs of the Indians at Raleigh, and the treaty was signed December 4th, 1802, by virtue of which King Blount and the remainder of the tribe removed to New York in June, 1803. In the spring of 1803, Alston having gone over to the opposite political party, General Davie was again solicited by his friends to become a candidate for Congress. He accepted the nomination, but declined to make any canvass. He was charged with being an aristocrat and with being opposed to Mr. Jefferson, whose prestige was then all-powerful. He was defeated at the polls.
He had lost his wife not long after his return from France. This, together with his political defeat, determined him to withdraw altogether from public life. In November, 1805, he removed to an estate he possessed at Tivoli, near Landsford, in South Carolina, just across the line from Mecklenburg county in this State. Here he lived in dignified ease and leisure.
Many men, after the bufferings of a stormy or a busy life, have in like manner felt the need of rest before going hence. It was thus that the Emperor Charles V., at Juste, and Wolsey, who had "sounded all the depths and shoals of honor," at Leicester Abbey, had sought to put a space of contemplation between the active duties of life and the grave. Davie's country, however, did not forget him. During the second war with Great Britain, President Madison appointed him a major-general in the United States army, and he was confirmed by the Senate, March 2d, 1813. But "time steals fire from the mind as vigor from the limbs." Though not an old man, General Davie's early campaigns had told upon him. The sword which twenty-five years before had almost leapt of itself from the scabbard was now constrained to hang idly by his side, and he declined the appointment. General Harrison (afterwards President) was appointed in his stead and fought the battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813 in which Tecumseh was slain. The next year he in turn resigned and General Andrew Jackson was appointed to succeed him, and the battle of New Orleans followed on January 8, 1815.
General Davie's seat at Tivoli, on the Catawba, was the resort of many of the Revolutionary characters. In their journeys by private conveyance to Virginia or the North, the custom was to arrange to spend a day or two there with him, where he kept open house for his friends, and, sitting under an immense oak, from which there was a view of miles of the Catawba, they fought over the war together or discussed the workings of the new government and the Constitution they had established. This was all the more interesting, as much of his campaigning had taken place on and around this very spot. In this connection it is interesting to state that after his retirement to Tivoli he was much sought after in drawing wills. He drew some of the most famous wills in that State—indeed, it is said, all of them in that part in which he resided, not one of which, except his own, was ever assailed. In this respect he had the fortune of Sugden (Lord Saint Leonard's), Governor Tilden, and many other famous lawyers. The contest over Governor Davie's will has just been settled by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, filed the 28th of March of this year (1892), in the case of Bedon vs. Davie, 144 U. S., 142, a very interesting case.
His correspondence and other materials for history must have been very large and very valuable. It was from his papers that the copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20th, 1775, was procured, which is known as the "Davie Copy." Unfortunately all his family papers and all the historical material which had been carefully preserved by him for publication at some future time were destroyed during Sherman's raid. The banks of the Catawba were said to have been strewn with them, and nothing of the collection now remains.
In retirement he displayed his accustomed public spirit by introducing improved methods of farming, and mainly at his instance a State Agricultural Society in South Carolina was formed, of which he was the first president. By his practice at the bar he had accumulated a large estate, which he dispensed with liberality and hospitality.