y an express whom we dispatched hence last Friday, that if any defence could be rovided on the rivers by fortifications or small vessels it might be done immediely. In the spring, 10,000 men more are to come over. They are to be procured y taking away two-thirds of the garrison at Gibraltar (who are to be replaced by me Hessians), by 2,000 Highlanders and 5,000 Roman Catholics, whom they proose to raise in Ireland. Instead of the Roman Catholics, however, some of our counts say foreigners are to be sent. Their plan is this. They are to take posssion of New York and Albany, keeping up a communication between them by eans of their vessels. Between Albany and St. John's, they propose also to keep en the communication, and again between St. John's, Quebec, and Boston. By is means they expect Gage, Tryon, and Carleton may distress us on every side, ting in concert with one another. By means of Hudson's River, they expect to t off all correspondence between the northern and southern rivers. Gage was pointed Governor-General of all America; but Sir Jeffery Amherst consented erwards to come over, so that Gage is to be recalled; but it is believed Amherst 1 not come till the spring; in the meantime Howe will have the command. The operation of the Canadians is taken for granted in all the ministerial schemes. e hope, therefore, they will all be dislocated by the events in that quarter. For account of these I must refer you to Patty. My warmest affections attend Mrs. pes. Adieu. FRANCIS EPPES, in Charles City County, Virginia. TH. JEFFERSON. PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 24, 1775. DEAR SIR: Since my last, we have nothing new from England or from the ps at either Cambridge or St. John's. Our eyes are turned to the latter place no little anxiety, the weather having been uncommonly bad for troops in that rter, exposed to the inclemencies of the sky without any protection. Carleton. tired to Quebec, and though it does not appear he has any intimation of Arnold's edition, yet we hear he has embodied 1,100 men to be on his guard. A small el was the other day cast away on the Jersey shore (she was one of the transs which had some time ago brought over troops to Boston), on board of which è a captain, with his subordinate officers and marines, amounting to 23 in all, also a Duncan Campbell, who was going to recruit men at New York for GeneGage, he having some time before undertaken the same business in the same , and actually carried off 60 men. The marines and their officers were all taken ediately, except their captain and the recruiting gentleman; these pushed off little boat, and coasted it to Long Island, where they got on board a sloop h was to have sailed in an hour, when the party sent after them came upon They were brought to this city this morning, the marines having been here time. Our good old Speaker died the night before last. For the particulars at melancholy event I must refer you to Patty. My affections attend Mrs. S. Adieu. To MR. FRANCIS EPPES, Forest, in Charles City County, Virginia. TH. JEFFERSON. PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 7, 1775. DEAR SIR: We have no late intelligence here except of the surrender of Chambly, with 90 prisoners of war, 6 tons of powder, 150 stands of arms, and some other small matters. The acquisition of this powder, we hope, has before this made us masters of St. John's, on which Montreal and the upper parts of St. Lawrence will of course be ours. The fate of Arnold's expedition we know not as yet. We have had some disagreeable accounts of internal commotions in South Carolina. I have never received the scrip of a pen from any mortal in Virginia since I left it, nor been able by any inquiries I could make to hear of my family. I had hoped that when Mrs. Byrd came I should have heard something of them; but she could tell me nothing about them. The suspense under which I am is too terrible to be endured. If anything has happened, for God's sake let me know it. My best affections to Mrs. Eppes. Adieu. TO MR. FRANCIS EPPES, At the Forest, Charles City. TH. JEFFERSON. PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 21st, 1775. DEAR SIR: After sealing my last letter to you, we received an account of the capture of St. John's, which I wrote on the letter. What I then gave you was a true account of that matter. We consider this as having determined the fate of Canada. A committee of Congress is gone to improve circumstances, so as to bring the Canadians into our Union. We have accounts of Arnold as late as October 13. All well and in fine spirits. We cannot help hoping him in possession of Quebec, as we know Carleton to be absent in the neighborhood of Montreal. Our armed vessels to the northward have taken some of the ships coming with provisions from Ireland to Boston. By the intercepted letters we have a confirmation that they will have an army of four or five and twenty thousands there by the spring, but they will be raw-teagues. 3,000 are lately arrived there. I have written to Patty a proposi tion to keep yourselves at a distance from the alarms of Ld. Dunmore. To her, therefore, for want of time, I must refer you, and shall hope to meet you as proposed. I am, dear Sir, with my best affections to Mrs. Eppes, The following is a copy of this paper as it was first published in the Raleigh (N. C.) Register, April 30th, 1819. The phrases coinciding with those of the National Declaration of Independence are placed in italics: 20th May, 1775. "That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner, countenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by of Great Britain, is an enemy to this country, to America, and the rights of man. "Resolved, That we; the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us with the mother country, and absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, abjuring all political connection with a nation that has wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the innocent blood of Americans at Lexington. "Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people; that we are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing people, under the power of God and the General Congress; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual coöperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor. " 'Resolved, That we hereby order and adopt, as rules of conduct, all and each of our former laws, and the crown of Great Britain cannot be considered hereafter as holding any rights, privileges, or immunities among us. "Resolved, That all officers, both civil and military, in this county, be entitled to exercise the same powers and authorities as heretofore: that every member of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer, and exercise the powers of a Justice of the Peace, issue process, hear and determine controversies, according to law, preserve peace, union and harmony in the country, and use every exertion to spread the love of liberty and of country, until a more general and better organized system of government be established. "Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted, by express, to the President of the Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, to be laid before that body." There are different accounts of the origin of this paper, but none that we have seen pretend to say from whom, or under what circumstances Judge Martin obtained it. A writer in the North Carolina University Magazine, obviously well informed in all the facts, and familiar with all the documents pertaining to the subject, says: "Although inquiry was made of Judge Martin, it is not known whence he obtained this paper. His copy is evidently a polished edition of the Davie [Alexander] copy-polished, because its guardians knew that this was not an extract from original records, and therefore felt no particular reverence for it." 1 The next phase of this curious affair is, that Colonel Peter Force, of Washington, (the indefatigable compiler of the American Archives), discovered in an English periodical, a proclamation issued by Martin, then royal governor of North Carolina, on the 8th August, 1775, from which he copied the following extract: "And whereas, I have also seen a most infamous publication in the Cape Fear Mercury, importing to be resolves of a set of people, styling themselves a committee for the county of Mecklenburg, most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of the laws, government, and constitution of this country, and setting up a system of rule and regulation, repugnant to the laws and subversive of his Majesty's government," etc." This established beyond question two facts-that resolutions of an analogous tenor to those given from memory by J. McN. Alexander, were adopted by a "committee for the county of Mecklenburg" (the same body or authority to whom Alexander assigned the passage of the resolutions), and that the resolutions were contemporaneously published in a newspaper printed in the same State. 1 See University Magazine for May, 1853, pp. 170, 175. 2. Martin's original proclamation-book was discovered a few months after this, and it contained! the proclamation thus quoted by Colonel Force. genuine sense of America at that moment was never so well expressed before or since." This use of, and consequent claim of priority to, expressions in the national Declaration of Independence, and something in the tone of Mr. Adams's inconsistent' and not very delicate critique imparted, perhaps, a portion of its liveliness to the following reply from Mr. Jefferson (July 9th): "But what has attracted my peculiar notice, is the paper from Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, published in the Essex Register, which you were so kind as to inclose in your last, of June the 22d. And you seem to think it genuine. I believe it spurious. I deem it to be a very unjustifiable quiz, like that of the vol cano, so minutely related to us as having broken out in North Carolina, some half dozen years ago, in that part of the country, and perhaps in that very county of Mecklenburg, for I do not remember its precise locality. If this paper be really taken from the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I wonder it should have escaped Ritchie, who culls what is good from every paper, as the bee from every flower; and the National Intelligencer, too, which is edited by a North Carolinian: and that the fire should blaze out all at once in Essex, one thousand miles from where the spark is said to have fallen. But if really taken from the Raleigh Register, who is the narrator, and is the name subscribed real, or is it as fictitious as the paper itself? It appeals, too, to an original book, which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who is dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hughes, and Hooper, all dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent to Dr. Williamson, now probably dead, whose memory did not recollect, in the history he has written of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its county of Mecklenburg. Horry, too, is silent in his history of Marion, whose scene of action was the country bordering on Mecklenburg. Ramsay, Marshall, Jones, Girardin, Wirt, historians of the adjacent States, all silent. When Mr. Henry's resolutions, far short of independence, flew like lightning through every paper, and kindled both sides of the Atlantic, this flaming declaration of the same date, of the independence of Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, absolving it from the British allegiance, and abjuring all political connection with that nation, although sent to Congress, too, is never heard of. It is not known even a twelvemonth after, when a similar proposition is first made in that body. Armed with this bold example, would not you have addressed our timid brethren in peals of thunder, on their tardy fears? Would not every advocate of independence have rung the glories of Mecklenburg county, in North Corolina, in the ears of the doubting Dickinson and others, who hung so heavily on us? Yet the example of independent Mecklenburgh county, in North Carolina, was never once quoted. The paper speaks, too, of the continued exertions of their delegation (Caswell, Hooper, Hughes) in the cause of liberty and independence.' Now you remember as well as I do, that we had not a greater tory in Congress than Hooper; that Hughes was very wavering, sometimes firm, sometimes feeble, according as the day was clear or cloudy; that Caswell, indeed, was a good whig, and kept these gentlemen to the notch, while he was present; but that he left us soon, and their line of conduct became then uncertain until Penn came, who fixed Hughes and the vote of the State. I must not be understood as suggesting any doubtfulness in the State of North Carolina. No State was more fixed or forward. Nor do I affirm, positively, 1 After reading Mr. Adams's phrase about the "genuine sense of America at that moment," the reader is requested to turn to his declarations in Vol. i. pp. 123–125, et seq. have not yet provided others, we judge it necessary, for the better preservation of good order, to form certain rules and regulations for the internal government of the County, until laws shall be provided for us by the Congress. "4th. That the inhabitants of this County do meet on a certain day appointed by this Committee, and having formed themselves into nine Companies, to wit: eight in the County, and one in the Town of Charlotte, do choose a Colonel and other military officers, who shall hold and exercise their several powers by virtue of this choice, and independent of the Crown of Great Britain and former Constitution of this Province. "5th. That for the better preservation of the peace, and administration of justice, each of those companies do choose from their own body two discreet freehold. ers, who shall be empowered each by himself and singly, to decide and determine all matters of controversy arising within said Company, under the sum of twenty shillings; and jointly and together all controversies under the sum of forty shillings; yet so as that their decisions may admit of appeal to the Convention of the select men of the County; and also, that any one of these men shall have power to exam-. ine and commit to confinement persons accused of petit larceny. "6th. That those two select men thus chosen, do jointly and together choose from the body of their particular company, two persons properly qualified to act as constables, who may assist them in the execution of their office. "7th. That upon the complaint of any persons to either of these select men, he do issue his warrant, directed to the Constable, commanding him to bring the aggressor before him or them, to answer said complaint. "8th. That these eighteen select men thus appointed, do meet every third Thursday in January, April, July, and October, at the Courthouse in Charlotte, to hear and determine all matters of controversy for sums exceeding forty shillings, also appeals; and in case of felony, to commit the person or persons convicted thereof to close confinement, until the Provincial Congress shall provide and establish laws and modes of proceeding in all such cases. "9th. That these eighteen select men, thus convened, do choose a clerk to record the transactions of said Convention; and that said clerk, upon the application of any person or persons aggrieved, do issue his warrant to one of the constables of the Company to which the offender belongs, directing said Constable to summons and warn said offender to appear before the Convention at their next sitting, to answer the aforesaid complaint. "10th. That any person making complaint upon oath to the Clerk or any member of the Convention, that he has reason to suspect that any person or persons indebted to him in a sum above forty shillings, intend clandestinely to withdraw from the County without paying such debt, the Clerk or such member shall issue his warrant to the Constable commanding him to take said person or persons into safe custody, until the next sitting of the Convention. "11th. That when a debtor for a sum below forty shillings shall abscond and leave the County, the warrant granted as aforesaid shall extend to any goods or chattels of said debtor as may be found, and such goods or chattels be seized and held in custody by the Constable for the space of thirty days; in which time, if the debtor fail to return and discharge the debt, the Constable shall return the warrant to one of the select men of the Company, where the goods are found, who shall issue orders to the Constable to sell such part of said goods as shall amount to the sum due; that when the debt exceeds forty shillings, the return shall be made to the Convention, who shall issue orders for sale. VOL. III.-37 |