George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 8

[96] necessity of American resistance; but having once

Chap. XLVI.} 1775. July to Oct.

chosen his part, he advocated the most resolute conduct, and even censured the Newbern committee for to allowing the governor to escape.

On Monday, the twenty-first of August, the people of North Carolina assembled at Hillsborough in a congress, composed of more than one hundred and eighty members. A spirit of moderation controlled and guided their zeal; Caswell proposed Samuel Johnston as president, and he was unanimously elected. In a vituperative, incoherent, interminable proclamation, Martin had warned the people against the convention, as tending to unnatural rebellion; that body, in reply, voted his proclamation ‘a false and seditious libel,’ and ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman. They professed allegiance to the king, but in the plainest words avowed the purpose to resist parliamentary taxation ‘to the utmost.’ They resolved, that the people of the province, singly and collectively, were bound by the acts of the continental and provincial congresses, because in both they were represented by persons chosen by themselves. A conference was had with the Regulators, whose religious and political scruples were thus removed. The intrigue of Martin with the Highlanders was divulged by Farquhard Campbell, and a committee, on which were many Scots, urged them, not wholly without success, to unite with the other inhabitants of America in defence of rights derived from God and the constitution. The meditated resistance involved the institution of government; a treasury, which for the time was supplied by an emission of paper money; the purchase of ammunition and arms; an embodying of a