the expenses of the governor and council, a fee of thirty pounds of tobacco was exacted in every lawsuit. The laws were sufficient, were confirmed by the proprietaries, were reenacted in 1715, and were valid in North Carolina for more than half a century.

Hardly had these laws been established when the new constitution was forwarded to Albemarle. Its promulgation did but favor anarchy by invalidating the existing system, which it could not replace. The proprietaries, contrary to stipulations with the colonists, superseded the existing government, and the colonists resolutely rejected the substitute.

Far different was the welcome with which the inhabitants of North Carolina met the first messengers of religion. From the beginning of the settlement there seems not to have been a minister in the land; there was no public worship but such as burst from the heart when natural feeling took the form of words. But man is prone to religious impressions, and when William Edmundson in 1672 came to visit his Quaker brethren

among the groves of Albemarle, "he met with a tender people," delivered his instructions as supported by the authority of self-evident truth, and added converts to the society of Friends. A quarterly meeting of discipline was established, and the society, of which opposition to spiritual authority is the badge, was the first to organize a religious community in Carolina.

In the autumn of the same year, George Fox-the father of the sect, the upright man who could say of himself, "What I am in words, I am the same in life "-travelled across "the great bogs" of the Dismal Swamp, commonly "lying abroad a-nights in the woods by a fire," till at last he reached a house in Carolina, and obtained the luxury of a mat by the fireside. He was made welcome to the refuge of Quakers and fugitives from ecclesiastical oppression. The people "lived lonely in the woods," with no other guardian to their solitary houses than a watch-dog. There have been religious communities which, binding themselves by a vow to a life of study and reflection, have planted their monasteries in the recesses of the desert, where they might best lift up their hearts to contemplative enjoyments. Here were men from civilized

life, scattered among the forests, hermits with wives and chil dren, resting on the bosom of nature, in harmony with the wilderness of their gentle clime. With absolute freedom of conscience, reason and good-will to man were the simple rule of their conduct. Such was the people to whom George Fox opened many things concerning the light and spirit of God that is in every one.' He became the guest of the governor of the province, who, with his wife," received him lovingly." The plantations of that day were upon the bay, and along the streams that flow into it; the rivers and the inlets were the highways of Carolina; the boat and the lighter birchen skiff the only equipage; every man knew how to handle the oar; and there was hardly a woman but could paddle a canoe. When Fox continued his journey, the governor, having been admonished to listen to the voice of truth in the oracles of nature, accompanied him to the water's edge, and, as the chief magistrate of North Carolina and the envoy of humanity travelled together on foot through the ancient woods, it might indeed have seemed, rather than in the companionship of Shaftesbury and Locke, that the days of the legislation of philosophy were revived. For in the character of his wisdom, in the method of its acquisition by deep feeling, reflection, and travel, and in its fruits, George Fox far more nearly resembled the ancient sages, the peers of Thales and Solon, whom common fame has immortalized. From the house of the governor, the traveller continued his journey to the residence of "Joseph Scot, one of the representatives of the country," where he had "a sound and precious meeting" with the people. His eloquence reached their hearts; for he did but assert the paramount value of the impulses and feelings which had guided them in the wilderness. He "had a sense of all conditions;" for, "how else could he have spoken to all conditions?" At another meeting, "the chief secretary of the province," who "had been formerly convinced," was present; and Fox became his guest, yet not without "much ado;" for, as the boat approached his plantation, it grounded in the shallow channel, and could not be brought to shore. But the wife of the secretary of state shot promptly to the traveller's relief in a canoe, and brought him to her hospitable home. As he

turned again toward Virginia, he could say that he had found the people of North Carolina "generally tender and open;" and that he had made among them "a little entrance for truth."

While it was uncertain what was the government of North Carolina, the country, in 1674, was left without a governor by the death of Stevens. The assembly, conforming to a prudent instruction of the proprietaries, elected a successor; and Cartwright, their speaker, acted for two years at the head of the administration. Persons into whose hands the proprietaries had committed the government interfered with violence and injustice to prevent the progress of discovery and colonization to the southward; and those who had planted on the south side of the Chowan and the Roanoke were commanded back, to their great prejudice and inconvenience. Moreover, fears prevailed that "Sir William Berkeley was become the sole proprietary" of that part of Carolina. Moved "by these apprehensions and the conjunction of the times," the North Carolinians themselves "ordered and settled the council and government," until an appeal could be taken to the proprietaries. To them, Thomas Miller carried letters from the selfconstituted government of Albemarle; and Eastchurch, the new speaker of the assembly, followed as its agent to explain the public grievances. The proprietaries, after some of them had "discoursed with " Eastchurch and Miller, wrote to the assembly: "They have fully satisfied us that the fault was not in you, but in those persons into whose hands we committed the government." They gave their promise "not to part with the county of Albemarle to any person, but to maintain the province of Carolina entire as it was, that they might preserve the inhabitants in English rights and liberties." Instead of insisting on the introduction of the grand model, they restored the simple government which had existed in the beginning of the settlement.

For governor of Albemarle, they selected Eastchurch himself, "because," they said, "he seems to us a very discreet and worthy man, and very much concerned for your prosperity and welfare, and, by the opportunity of his being here, is well instructed in our desires." For the grand council they named

their own deputies, and invited the assembly to choose as many more. While they praised the good disposition of the North Carolinians to administer "fair justice among themselves," they added: "We utterly dislike trying or condemning any person, either in criminal or civil causes, without a jury; and evidence clandestinely taken can be of no validity otherwise than to cause the criminal person to be secured, where the crime is of a high nature." They desired to connect their own interests with those of the colony, and were willing to approve any measures that the assembly might propose for extending colonization on the Pamlico and the Neuse, and opening connection by land with plantations in South Carolina.

They attempted to restrain the scattered manner of life of the colonists. "Without towns," they wrote, "you will not long continue civilized, or even be considerable or secure." Miller, who had been the bearer of their letters, was appointed secretary of the province; while the complaints which he had made were referred to the council and assembly in the place. Miller received from the crown a commission as collector of the customs.

The new officers embarked for Carolina by way of the West Indies, where Eastchurch remained for a season; while Miller, in July, 1677, proceeded to the province to hold the triple office of president or governor, secretary, and collector.

The government had for about a year been left in what royalists called "ill order and worse hands;" that is, it had been a government of the people themselves. The suppression of a fierce insurrection in Virginia had been followed by vindictive punishments; and "runaways, rogues, and rebels”— that is to say, fugitives from arbitrary tribunals, non-conformists, and friends to liberty-" fled daily to Carolina, as their common subterfuge and lurking-place." Did letters from Virginia demand the surrender of leaders in the rebellion, Carolina refused to betray the fugitives.

The presence of such emigrants made oppression more difficult than ever; but here, as throughout the colonies, the navigation acts were the cause for greater restlessness and more permanent discontent. And never did national avarice exhibit itself more meanly than in the relations of English

legislation to North Carolina. The district hardly contained four thousand inhabitants; a few fat cattle, a little maize, and eight hundred hogsheads of tobacco, formed all their exports; their humble commerce had attracted none but small craft from New England; and the mariners of Boston, guiding their vessels through the narrow entrances of the bay, brought to the doors of the planters the few foreign articles which the exchange of their produce could purchase. And yet this inconsiderable traffic, so little alluring, but so convenient to the colonists, was envied by the English merchant; the law of 1672 was to be enforced; the traders of Boston were to be crowded from the market by an unreasonable duty; and the planters to send their produce to England as they could.

How unwelcome, then, must have been the presence of Miller, who levied the hateful tribute of a penny on every pound of tobacco exported to New England! It was attempted to foster a jealousy of the northern colonies. But never did one American colony repine at the prosperity of another. The traffic with Boston continued, though burdened with a tax which produced an annual revenue of twelve thousand dollars, an enormous burden for the petty commerce and the few inhabitants of that day.

The planters of Albemarle were tranquil when they were left to take care of themselves. Any government imposed from abroad was hard to be borne. The attempt at enforcing the navigation acts hastened an insurrection, which was fostered by the refugees from Virginia and the New England men. Excessive taxation, the change in the form of government with the "denial of a free election of an assembly," and the unwise interruption of the natural channels of commerce, were the threefold grievances of the colony. Its leader in the insurrection was John Culpepper, one of those very ill men" who loved popular liberty, and whom the royalists of that day denounced as having merited "hanging, for endeavoring to set the poor people to plunder the rich." One of the counsellors joined in the rebellion; the rest, with Miller, were imprisoned; "that thereby the country may have a free parliament, and may send home their grievances." Having deposed and imprisoned the president

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