George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

[132] desired and had obtained the presence of troops to

chap. VI.} 1754.

intimidate the wild tribes on their frontiers and to overawe their slaves. The people were yeomen, owing the king small quitrents, which could, never be rigorously exacted; a title to portions of the royal domain was granted on easy terms; and who would disturb the adventurer that, at his own will, built his cabin and pastured his herds in savannas and forests which had never been owned in severalty? The slave-merchant too willingly supplied laborers on credit. Free from excessive taxation, protected by soldiers in British pay, the frugal planter enjoyed the undivided returns of his enterprise, and might double his capital in three or four years. The love for rural life prevailed universally; the thrifty mechanic exchanged his workshop, the merchant abandoned the exciting risks of the sea, to plant estates of their own.

North Carolina, with nearly twice as many white inhabitants as its southern neighbor, had not one considerable village. Its rich swamps near the sea produced rice; its alluvial lands teemed with maize; free labor, little aided by negroes, busily drew turpentine and tar from the pines of its white, sandy plains; a hardy and rapidly increasing people, masters of their own free wills, lay scattered among its fertile uplands. There, through the boundless wilderness, hardy emigrants, careless of the strifes of Europe, ignorant of deceit, free from tithes, answerable to no master, fearlessly occupied lands that seemed without an owner. Their swine had the range of the forest; the open greenwood was the pasture of their untold herds; their young men, disciplined to frugality