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SETTING OF THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF 
 INDEPENDENCE 
 
 By a. J. Morrison 
 
 The General Assembly of North Carolina, in session during 
 the month of March, 1774, was dissolved by Governor Martin 
 March 30th, the Assembly in the Governor's mind 'having 
 assumed to themselves a power unconstitutional and repug-, 
 nant to the laws.' The main point at issue, ostensibly, was 
 the constitution and jurisdiction of the law courts of the 
 province. Speaker Harvey and Samuel Johnston, on their 
 way up from Newberne to their homes across All'emarle 
 Sound, lodged at Colonel Edward Buncombe's in Tyrrell 
 County the night of April 4th; and 'as they sat up very late 
 the conversation turned on continental and provincial affairs.' 
 The next day Mr. Johnston wrote to his friend and fellow 
 lawyer, William Hooper at Wilmington, giving some account 
 of the talk at Colonel Buncombe's. 
 
 "Mr. Bigglestone (Govenior Martin's Secretary) told Colonel Har- 
 vey that the Governor did not intend to convene another assembly 
 until he sav/ some chance of a better one than the last. Colcntl Har- 
 vey told the Secretary that then the people would convene one them- 
 selves. He was in a very violent mood, and declared he was for 
 assembling a convention independent of the G<cvernor and urged 
 upon us to cooperate with him. He says he will lead the way and 
 will issue hand bills under his own name, and that the Ccmmiitee of 
 Correspondence ' ought to go to wcrk at once. As for my own part, 
 I do not know what better can be done. Without courts to sustain 
 the property and to exercise the talents cf the country, and the 
 people alarmed and dissatisfied, we must do something to save (^ur- 
 
 'Dec. 8, 1773: 'The Speaker communicated to the House the Re- 
 solves cf the Virginia House of Burgesses of March 12, 1773, for a 
 system of correspondence; approved. A standing committee of En- 
 quiry and Correspondence appointed,' viz. the Speaker (John Har- 
 vey), Robert Howe, Cornelius Harnett, William Hooper, Richard 
 Caswell, Edward Vail, John Ashe, Joseph Hewes, Samuel Johnston. 
 
'' '" . Q 
 
 16 The Texas Review 
 
 selves. Cclonel Harvey said he had mentioned the matter only tt) 
 Willie (pron. Wyly) Jones of Halifax, whom he had met the day 
 before, and that he thought well of it and promised to exert him- 
 self in its favor. I beg your friendly counsel and advice on the sub- 
 ject and hope you will speak of it to Mr. Harnett and Colonel Ashe 
 or any other such men." 
 
 The thoughts of William Hooper, as both a Bostonian and 
 a Carolinian, were already at work on these questions of Im- 
 perial and Amcriciin policy. April 26 Mr. Hooper said in a 
 letter to James Iredell of Chowan, -'With you I anticipate the 
 important share the Colonies must soon have in regulating the 
 political balance. They are striding fast to independence, 
 and ere long will build an empire upon the ruins of Great 
 Britain.' Then a word as to the decline and fall of Rome — 
 'reserve the catastrophe,' added Mr. Hooper, 'and might not 
 Great Britain be the original from which this picture is 
 taken? America is perhaps reserved to be their asylum; 
 may they find it the asylum of liberty too. Be it our en- 
 deavour to guard against every measure that may have a 
 tendency to prevent so desirable an object.' Mr, Hooper's 
 inmost opinion at the time seems to have been that it was the 
 destiny of America to set Great Britain a definite lesson in 
 the nature of political freedom, no matter if serious fracas 
 and for a while separation was to be the result. 
 
 So July 21, with the revolving year, Mr. Hooper called to 
 order a meeting at Wilmington for the purpose of issuing a 
 letter to the counties with respect to Parliamentary acts 
 lately made in oppression of 'our sister colony of the Massa- 
 chusetts Bay for having exerted itself in defence of the 
 constitutional rights of America'; the counties to be asked 
 to send deputies to a Provincial Congress for debate upon 
 'the present alarming state of British America, and in con- 
 cert with the other colonies to adopt and prosecute such 
 measures as will most effectually tend to avert the miseries 
 which threaten us;' such Provincial Congress also to consider 
 the convening of a general congress, 'for alteration of British 
 policy and a change honorable and beneficial to all America. ' 
 
Setting of the Mecklenburg DeclarxItion 17 
 
 Word, then, came to the counties of the proposed measures, 
 and Governor Martin learned of what was a-foot. The Gov- 
 ernor in council at Newberne was advised that no steps could 
 properly be taken in the circumstances other than to issue 
 forthwith a proclamation to discourage and prevent meetings 
 and assembling's of the people. But in response to the eirculai 
 letter sent them from Wilmington the people of the counties 
 began to assemble, earlier in August far from the coast, later 
 in the month as you neared the coast. The Congress was to 
 meet at Newberne on the 25th, and counties adjacent could 
 select their deputies a mere few days beforehand. 
 
 Freeholders of the far western county of Rowan, meeting 
 on the 8th of August, declared that they were ready to main- 
 tain at the expense of their lives and fortunes His Majesty's 
 right and title to the crown of Great Britain and dominion 
 in America: 'that the right to impose taxes and duties to be 
 paid by the inhabitants within this province for any purpose 
 whatsoever is peculiar and essential to the General A&sembly 
 in whom the legislative authority of the Colony is vested: 
 that any attempt to impose such taxes or duties by any other 
 authority is an arbitrary exertion of power, and an infringe- 
 ment of the constitutional rights and liberties of the colonies: 
 that the cause of the town of Boston is the common cause of 
 the American colonies: that it is the essential duty of all the 
 American colonies firmly to unite in an indissoluble union 
 and association to oppose by every just and proper means the 
 infringement of their common rights and privileges. ' 
 
 Anson County of the West, at its meeting on the 18th, was 
 not careful to register phrases of loyalty but resolved at the 
 outset, 'that it is the opinion of this meeting that the late arbi- 
 trary and cruel acts of the British Parliament and other un- 
 constitutional and oppressive measures of the British minis- 
 try, against the Town and Port of Boston and Province of 
 Massachusetts Bay are no other than the most alarming pre- 
 lude to that yoke of slavery already manufactured by the 
 said ministry and by them intended to be laid on all the in- 
 
18 The Texas Review 
 
 habitants of British America and their posterity forever.' No 
 Mecklenburg Resolutions of August, 1774, have been pre- 
 served. It is not impossible that many people in Mecklenburg 
 were still uncertain whether South or North Carolina was 
 their territory. Rowan and Anson, to the north and east of 
 Mecklenburg, are more conspicuously on record in these 
 grave mixed affairs of the summer of '74. Farther east — 
 Johnston on the 12th, Granville on the 15th, Chowan on the 
 22nd, Halifax Town on the 22nd — freeholders in assembly 
 knew how to temper independence with loyalty; but Pitt 
 County on the 15th stated bluntly, with no sort of qualifica- 
 tion, that the people was the 'foundation from whence all 
 power and legislation flow.' 
 
 Call for the Congress had come from the East, and in re- 
 sponse the East was no less outspoken than the West. But 
 of all these August Resolutions, those of Granville County on 
 the 15th (Granville of the mid- country) have the noblest 
 sound, beginning. "Resolved, that those absolute rights we 
 are entitled to as men, by the immutable laws of nature, are 
 antecedent to all social and relative duties whatsoever: that 
 by the civil compact subsisting between our King and his 
 people, allegiance is the right of the first magistrate and pro- 
 tection the right of the people: that a violation of this com- 
 pact would rescind the civil institution binding both King 
 and people together;" and ending, "Resolved, therefore, 
 that all such acts of the British Parliament as either express 
 or imply the Parliament's right to tax America, that abro- 
 gate our legislative or judicial powers, that tend to deprive 
 us of our property without a trial by jury or that point out 
 to the executive magistrate a form of proceeding excluding 
 the civil institutions of our country, have a tendency to sub- 
 vert our liberties and reduce us to a state of slavery." 
 
 August 25th being the day set for the Congress at New- 
 berne, the Governor in Council at Newberne desiring the ad- 
 vice of Council whether he could take any further measures 
 to stop the Provincial Congress come to town. Council was 
 
Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 19 
 
 of the unanimous opinion that no other steps could be prop- 
 erly taken at this juncture. The march of events was putting 
 to test as never before that system of government, a governor 
 and council appointed from overseas to thwart or to execute 
 the will of the people as declared by their representatives. 
 There had been little of tyranny in the old system, for the 
 Council also was representative and had been obstinate 
 enough on occasion. Here, however, with August, '74, was a 
 startling assumption of the grounds of British freedom, — a 
 Congress of the peoples' deputies, and Governor and Council 
 sitting by to no effect. It is very likely the Governor him- 
 self saw plainly now that the British Constitution could 
 hardly be made to work two ways. His neighbors of the Con- 
 gi'ess were explicit in their belief that they themselves had 
 the traditional, right understanding of the Constitution. 
 They professed themselves his Majesty's most dutiful and 
 loyal subjects, with the most sacred respect for the British 
 Constitution, "but at the same time conceiving it a duty 
 which we owe to ourselves and to posterity in the present 
 alarming state of British America, when our most essential 
 rights are invaded by powers unwarrantably assumed by the 
 Parliament of Great Britain, to declare our sentiments in the 
 most public manner, lest silence should be construed as ac- 
 quiescence . . . . : that we claim no more than the rights of 
 Englishmen without diminution or abridgement ; that it is our 
 iudispensal)le duty and will be our constant endeavor to main- 
 tain those rights to the utmost of our power, consistently 
 with the loyalty which we owe our sovereign, and sacred re- 
 gard for the British Constitution: .... that Liberty is the 
 spirit of the British Constitution, and that it is the duty and 
 will be the endeavour of us as British Americans to transmit 
 this Constitution to our posterity in a state if possible better 
 than we found it." 
 
 The Congress convening on Thursday, Speaker Harvey was 
 chosen Moderator. He might have been addressed as "Mr. 
 Operator." On Friday the state of the country was con- 
 
20 The Texas Review 
 
 sidered, correspondence of the Committee of Correspondence, 
 laid before the deputies by Mr. Hewes of Edcnton, merchant 
 in close touch with Philadelphia, On Saturday the Congress 
 drew up, through Mr. Hooper, their resolutions of respect 
 and fortitude; chose Hooper, Hewes, and Caswell their dele- 
 gates to the General Congress at Philadelphia, with power 
 to act, and any act done by them to be oblisatory upon evcrj' 
 inhabitant of the province, 'not an alien to his country's 
 good and an apostate to the liberties of America.' Then the 
 deputies, having affixed their names to their Resolutions, dis- 
 persed and went home. 
 
 Contemporary opinion verbatim is worth more than any 
 summary, most certainly if the opinion is that of a man of 
 brains. Samuel Johnston, a deputy from Chowan to the late 
 Congress, wrote a letter Sept. 23rd to his friend Alexander 
 Elmsly of London. Mr. Elmsly had spent some years in 
 North Carolina as a lawyer at Halifax, and was now in ac- 
 tive business in London. He was besides at the time political 
 agent of the North Carolina General Assembly, a man of 
 clear head but apt to take an altogether matter of fact view 
 of the difficult business pending between the Colonies and 
 Great Britain. Mr. Johnston said to him — 
 
 "You will not wonder at my being more warmly affected with 
 affairs of America than you seem to be. I came over so early and 
 and so riveted to it by my connections that I cannot help feeling for 
 it as if it were my natale solum. The Ministry from the time of 
 passing the declaratory act, on the repeal of the Stamp Act, seem 
 to have used every opportunity of teizing and fretting the people 
 here as if on purpose to draw them into rebellion or some violent 
 opposition to government, at a time when the inhabitants of Boston 
 were every man quietly employed about their own private affairs. 
 The wise members of your House of Commons, on the authority of 
 ministerial scribbles, declare they are in a state of open rebellion. 
 On the strength of this they pass a set of laws which from their 
 severity and injustice cannot be carried into execution but by a 
 military force, which they have very wisely provided, being con- 
 scious that no people who had once tasted the sweets of freedom 
 would ever submit to them except in the last extremity. Thny 
 have now brought things to a crisis, and God only knows where it 
 
/ 
 
 Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 21 
 
 will end. It is useless in disputes between different countries to 
 talk about the right which 'one has to give laws to the other, as that 
 generally attends the power, tho' where that power is wantonly or 
 cruelly exercised, there are instances where the weaker state has 
 resisted with success. Fcr when once the sword is drawn all nice 
 distinctions fall to the ground, the difference between internal and 
 external taxation will be little attended to, and it will hereafter be 
 considered of no consequence whether the act be to regulate trade 
 or raise a fund to support a majority in the House of Ccmmons. 
 By this desperate push the Ministry will either confirm their power 
 of making laws to bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever, or 
 give up the right of making laws to bind them in any case, a right 
 which they might have exercised in mcst cases to the mutual ad- 
 vantage of Great Britain and the Colonies for ages to come, had 
 they exercised it with discretion." 
 
 It was also Governor's Martin's opinion that the time was 
 critical indeed. The Governor was no lawyer, bnt a soldier 
 by trade; and in these preliminary days, although minded of 
 justice and constitutionality within limits, was always fret- 
 ting that matters could not be sharply brought round by the 
 military arm. Immediately after the Newberne Congress of 
 August the Governor had gone to New York to consult a 
 physician and observe the state of the country to the north- 
 ward. In a private letter from New York, Nov. 4, to the 
 Earl of Dartmouth, Governor Martin said 'The crisis, my 
 Lord, is come in my humble opinion, and perhaps in the best 
 time when Britain must assert and establish her just rights 
 and authority in the colonies, whatever they may be, or give 
 up forever all pretensions to dominion over them.' Governor 
 Martin came home by land in late December and January, 
 but could not well send Lord Dartmouth a report of what he 
 had seen on his journey down until March 10, 1775. The 
 Governor had seen that the ferment in the colonies was un- 
 mistakably active. He still had hopes that General Gage and 
 other military men might by promptitude impose the will of 
 government upon America. In Virginia he had observed that 
 the committees appointed under the prescriptions of Congress 
 were proceeding 'in some places to the most arbitrary and un- 
 
22 The Texas Review 
 
 warranted exertions of power.' On the other hand, he said, 
 he had the satisfaction to find the people in the western parts 
 of North Carolina were withstanding 'for the most part 
 steadily all the efforts of the factions to seduce them from 
 their duty.' Among those who were thus withstanding, the 
 Governor (it is to be supposed), was not counting certain 
 inhabitants of Orange and Granville, Richard Henderson & 
 Company, to wit, whom he had on Februars^ 10th — 'in his 
 Majesty's name and also in behalf of the Earl Granville' — 
 strictly forbidden to prosecute the planting of the colony of 
 Transylvania, 'on pain of his Majesty's highest displeasure 
 and of suffering the most rigorous penalties of the law.' 
 Those of the Centre and West held by the Governor to be yet 
 steadfast in duty and loyalty were certain inhabitants of 
 Dobbs, Guilford, Surry, Rowan, and Anson who had during 
 February sent down to Newberne most emphatically Tory 
 addresses, signing their names to the number of five or six 
 hundred. During the spring of 1775 Governor Martin had 
 been careful to distribute packets of Tory pamphlets in the 
 Centre and West. With regard to the loyal response he got 
 from those quarters he remarked in his dispatch to the Earl 
 of Dartmouth, 'I am hopeful the originality and imperfection 
 of the stile will not extenuate the merit of the sentiments.* 
 To the last the Governor was as cheerful as he could be in the 
 hope that he might accomplish something solid, with the back- 
 ing of his Tory correspondents of the West and Centre 
 strengthened by the Highlanders of the Cape Fear. 
 
 Strange spectacles enough were preparing and were 
 staged in and for the province of North Carolina during the 
 spring of the year 1775. Over against Governor IMartin 
 there was, for instance. Colonel Harvey of Perquimans, 
 Speaker and Moderator, Author and Shaper. From his 
 house in Perquimans on Albemarle, John Harvey as modera- 
 tor issued this advertisement February 11th — 'The respec- 
 tive Counties and Towns in this Colony are requested to 
 elect Delegates to represent them in Convention, who are 
 
Setting op the Mecklenburg Declaration 23 
 
 desired to p-'eet at the Town qP Newbern on Monday the 3rd 
 day of April next.' Apparently it was Colonel Harvey who 
 staged the intricate business of the first week in April. The 
 Governor had prorogued the Assembly to March 27. Col- 
 onel Harvey's advertisement reaching him, on March 1st the 
 Oovern'^r bv pro'^lamrtion put his veto, under the prerosra- 
 tive. ur>cn the Colonel's Convention. Delegates to the As- 
 semblv began coming in to Newberne the last week in March, 
 but there was not a quorum on the 27th. The Governor 
 prorogued the Assembly from day to day. Meantime it be- 
 came very obvious that the Assemblymen arriving at New- 
 berne bad almost without exception been chosen by the 
 counties as deputies to Colonel Harvey's Convention. Here 
 was without question a prcblem in practical politics. The 
 Governor knew what he faced. It pleased him, April 2nd, 
 sitting m CoT-n^il, to desire the advice of Council whether he 
 could properly take any further measures (beyond further 
 protest and injunction) to prevent these Assemblymen at 
 Newberne meeting at Newberne in a Convention of their 
 own. This was the polite prologue in Council. And it 
 pleased the Governor, reporting to the Earl of Dartmouth a 
 few days later, to say that he had hoped the Assemblv on 
 what he had to say to it would secede from this Convention ; 
 'althouf^h I well knew,' added the Governor, 'that many of 
 the members had been sent as deputies to it.' Governor 
 Martin was playing for position, as we say, and not unskil- 
 fullv, en the principle that any man may harangue in the 
 park, but if action follows then let whatever law there is in 
 the premises take steps. As the premises were, Colonel 
 Harvey had the position. This Convention assembled for 
 business on the 3rd. If the Convention could assemble with 
 an ample working quorum, the General Assembly could un- 
 questionably meet. On the 4th it met, and with all the 
 elaborate formalities of custom. So April 4th, 5th, 6th, and 
 7th. representatves of the counties and towns of the province 
 were in assembly at Newberne 'transforming themselves,.* as 
 
1:4 The Texas Review 
 
 the Governor remarked 'from time to time into a Convention 
 or an Assembly.' Speaker Harvey was Moderator Harvey. 
 Tlie Chair was doubly dignified. The House was energized 
 to new functioning. It is interesting to note that the last 
 Assembly (under the Crown) of North Carolina, sitting by 
 writ under the prerogative, was also a Convention of the 
 people, chosen by the people of their own motion. Dutifully 
 the Governor drew the distinction, recognizing the one body, 
 not recognizing the other. He argued in his address as to 
 the impropriety, the unwisdom of popular assemblies, and of 
 this convention in especial presuming to sit *at this very 
 time and place in the face of the Legislature; whereas you 
 Gentlemen of the Assembly, are the only legal and propei: 
 channel.' The Governor enlarged upon these fine distinc- 
 tions and adverted a little to the Assembly's constituency — 
 he was gratified, he said, at the numerous loyal addresses 
 he had received from certain counties, and spoke of the base 
 arts that must have been employed to stir up the people to 
 frame disloyal utterances. The Assembly in their draft of 
 answer to the Governor 's speech declared : ' It is the undoubted 
 right of his Majesty's subjects to petition for a redress of 
 grievances either in a separate or collective capacity, and in 
 order to agree upon such petition or remonstrance they have 
 a right to collect themselves together. The Assembly there- 
 fore can never deem the meeting of the present Convention 
 at Newberne an illegal meeting nor conceive it derogatory to 
 the power and authority of the Assembly, and though the 
 Assembly are the legal representatives and perhaps adequate 
 to every purpose of the people, yet the frequent prorogations 
 gave the people no reason to expect that the Assembly would 
 be permitted to meet 'til it was too late to send delegates to 
 the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, a measure which 
 Ameica in general and this province in particular thought 
 abso'utely necessary.' The Governor was assured that His 
 Majes'^y had no subjects more loyal than those of North 
 Card na, nor none more ready at the expense of their lives 
 
Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 25 
 
 and fortunes to protect and support His Majesty's person, 
 crown, and dignity. The Assembly spoke of their gratifica- 
 tion in the matter of loj^al addresses received by the Gov- 
 ernor, 'that in so numerous a colony, so few could be found 
 weak enough to be seduced from their duty and prevailed on 
 by base arts and artful measures so contrary to the sense of 
 all America, and so destructive of those just rights and pri- 
 vileges it was their duty to support.' This draft of answer 
 was slightly modified in committee, but the tenor of the an- 
 swer was the same : i. e., — we are good subjects, but if we are 
 to continue so, the King must change the ways of Parlia- 
 ment, so to speak. Assembly expressly endorsed every act of 
 Convention, and approved every act of Convention's three 
 delegates now reappointed to the General Congress. 
 
 Very solemn fooling such procedure appeared to Alex- 
 ander Elmsly in London. April 7th he was writing to Sam 
 Johnston, 'your politics are past my expectations and out of 
 my reach.' A little earlier he had set down as his opinion, 
 'it is your numbers and importance that gives you conse- 
 quence and every other argument in your favour teems with 
 absurdity. ' 
 
 Governor Martin, of course, was at this time standing on 
 difficult ground. The General Assembly was occupying 
 difficult ground and also the Convention. Was the King to 
 permit his subjects in North America to interpret to him and 
 the Parliament the essential nature of the British Constitu- 
 tion? Who was to yield in the large or small business of in- 
 terpretation? And was interpretation comfortably at one 
 throughout the province of North Carolina itself? Andrew 
 Millar, merchant of Halifax, said of the Resolves of the first 
 Newberne Congress: 
 
 "I am told they were drawn by Mr. Hooper, for whom there was 
 such injusace used by the meeting to get him appointed a delegate 
 [to Philadelphia], that I hope the western countries will pay no 
 share of tha delegate's expenses, as they had no share in the nomi- 
 nation, having only one or two members for a county ana me 
 
2G The Texas Review 
 
 southern and lower counties had some of them six votes. It is not 
 in character to dispute the power of Parliament, when we say we 
 are nnt represented, and yet quickly submit to so unequal a repre- 
 sentation in a body formed by ourselves." 
 
 Very true. Mecklenburg, for example, had but one delegate 
 to represent that vast county in the first Newberne Congress 
 (Benjamin Patton, a signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration), 
 whereas Chowan had five delegates, and Onslow three. Mr. 
 jMillar, a Tory of parts, was arguing for the insidious effect, 
 but there was ground of dispute, plenty of it, and there had 
 long been. The Northern Counties, precincts of Old Albe- 
 marle, had the precedence and their representation in the 
 General Assembly had been disproportionately large for 
 many years. The Southern Counties had protested, gover- 
 nors had protested, but nothing had been done. As the more 
 western counties were set off they fell in line with a re- 
 stricted representation. North Carolina came up to the be- 
 ginnings of the Revolution on that footing. Not until the 
 third Provincial Congress, held at Hillsborough, was there 
 attempt made to have the counties represented on an equality. 
 We know that there was a very considerable Tory party in 
 the West. At the height of the war, locally, the Tories raided 
 Hillsborough and carried off the people's Governor. It is not 
 unlikely opinion was a good deal confused in the West dur- 
 ing the spring of 1775. At any rate Anson and Mecklenburg 
 were represented in the first Newberne Congress, and were 
 not represented in the second. Governor Martin had not 
 long before advised government that the ill consequences of 
 the mode of representation in North Carolina had become 
 very apparent to the inhabitants of the Western country^ 
 'who must be ever governed by the conjunction of the North- 
 ern and Southern interests, although that district is often 
 times their extent and four times more populous.' When 
 Messrs. Hooper, Hewes, and Caswell were chosen as dele- 
 gates to the Continental Congress, the idea seems to have 
 been that Mr. Hewes stood for the Northern counties, Mr. 
 
Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 27 
 
 Hooper for the Southern, and Mr. Caswell for the West. 
 Mr. Caswell lived in Johnston, a sort of compromise 
 county, both North and South, and then he had once been 
 c]erk of Orange Court. At least Governor Martin, con- 
 sidering all these things, could flatter himself April 20, 
 1775, in the avowed belief that he could count upon the 
 West. The West had been slimly represented in the late 
 Convention. Old Regulators, (whom Tryon had faced, 
 chastened, and dealt fairly with) had just now as- 
 sured his successor of their readiness to support him in 
 maintaining the constitution and laws upon all occasions, 'and 
 I have no doubt that I might command their best services at 
 a word on any emergency. This affords me the highest sat- 
 isfaction, for as these counties are by far the most populous 
 part of the Province, I consider I have the means in my own 
 hands to maintain the sovereignty of this country to my 
 royal master in all events.' It is scarcely possible that Gov- 
 ernor Martin can have been wholly a deluded man. At that 
 juncture of half lights generally. Governor Martin had 
 reason to think that there were many inhabitants of the 
 Western Counties who would not break with the King. But 
 there were men in the West who were willing to break with 
 the King, who wanted new forms of liberty and felt that the 
 time was near come for no uncertain action. At the moment 
 almost, Alexander Elmsly was writing from London, 'They 
 say your seaports are to be turned into garrison towns, and 
 the people of the country left at liberty to form any estab- 
 lishment they think proper.' If that was to be the strategy, 
 then Mecklenburg County, running west to the Cherokee 
 Mountains and beyond at a push, once its people were con- 
 sentaneous might set up independence with no great ado. 
 For what was the Colony of Transylvania about already in 
 the month of May? 'Is Dick Henderson out of his head?', 
 somebody asked Mr. Millar of Halifax. Were not Richard 
 Henderson & Company, of Granville County and that region, 
 setting up a new state in the month of May, Transylvania, 
 
28 The Texas Review 
 
 in flat contravention of Governor Martin; 'without ^ving 
 offence,' as those Transylvanians blandly asserted, 'without 
 giving offence to Great Britain or any of the American Col- 
 onies, without disturbing the repose of any society or com- 
 munity under Heaven.' 
 
 It is plain enough now, that that spring and that summer 
 of 1775 was the balancing time. Joseph Hewes, merchant 
 of Edenton, delegate to the General Congress, arrived at 
 Philadelphia May 9th. On the 11th he sent a letter to Sam- 
 uel Johnston who, upon the death of Colonel Harvey in May, 
 became the head of the Whig party in North Carolina, Mr. 
 Hewes in his letter mentioned gossip and outstanding fact, 
 and drew an argument from what he saw. 
 
 "Galloway," he said, "has turned apostate. A few days ago a box 
 was left at his lodgings in this city directed for Jos. Galloway, 
 Esqr. ; he opened it before several gentlemen then present and was 
 much surprised to find it contained a halter with a note in the?o 
 wicrds, 'All the satisfaction you can now give your injured country 
 is to make a proper use of this and rid the world of a damned 
 scoundrel.' He is gone off nobody can tell where, tho' it is thought 
 to New York. All kinds of business is at a stand here, nothing 
 is heard but the sound of drum and fife, all ranks and degrees of 
 men are in arms learning the manual exercise, evolutions, and 
 management of artillery. . . . All the Quakers except a few of the 
 eld ones have taken up arms. . . . The battle near Boston and 
 the Act of Parliament for restraining the trade of all the colonies 
 except New York and North Carolina has wrought the conversion of 
 New York; I wish to God it may have the same effect on our 
 province. I tremble for N. Carolina. Every county ought to have 
 at least one company formed and exercised. Pray encourage it, speak 
 to the people, write to them, urge strongly the necessity for it. 1 
 had rather perish ten thousand times than they should give up the 
 matter now in the time of tryal." 
 
 Governor Martin had reported to Lord Dartmouth, dur- 
 ing the Newberne Congress of April, that a proposal made 
 in Convention on the 6th to organize the militia had been 
 overruled. Government had some show of reason to think 
 that North Carolina and New York might be held as very 
 
Setting op the Mecklenburg Declaration 29 
 
 useful salients among the Colonies. It was Governor Tryon's 
 idea, and he was familiar with both regions, that manipula- 
 tion there and here might be practicable; he was at the time 
 in London, and in the business of North Carolina was sec- 
 onded by Mr. Elmsly, political agent, who was willing to 
 take a certain liberty with his principals and give them a 
 chance to compound. There is no saying what might have 
 happened unless the tension in Massachusetts Bay had been 
 of a sort to admit of no compromise. The muskets of Lex- 
 ington were heard a long way off. Those men of the western 
 counties in North Carolina, rather far from the depots of 
 overseas trade, living among Tories of all complexions — 
 Thomas Polk and his friends of the West, who had been by 
 the negative record neutral until now, Tom Polk and his 
 friends of Mecklenburg, we say, declared for independence. 
 That was a loosely defined territory. People were not sure 
 where they belonged, whether to South or to North Carolina. 
 Such a territorial status made for independence, honest and 
 dishonest. Men of brains like Polk, the Alexanders, and their 
 friends were saying, 'We might as well set up our own gov- 
 ernment — we are forced to it by all the circumstances — we 
 must have our law courts and we must show these Tories 
 that we are not to be trifled with.' (Pardon us now, a cen- 
 tury after the clever and silly argument began, if we ape 
 Thucydides a little) — Then before the middle of May^ Thomas 
 Polk and his friends heard the shooting and the hard com- 
 mands at Lexington. They met together in convention at 
 their Court House and spoke their thoughts, without any 
 
 * It is not in rea&on to suppose that news of the battle at Lexing- 
 ton reached Mecklenburg County later than the middle of May. 
 For instance Edmund Fanning wrote a letter to Governor Tryon, 
 dated Hillsborough, April 23, 1768. This letter was received at 
 "Wilmington the night of April 26. Fanning said he expected to 
 receive an answer by three o'clock in the afternoon on Sunday the 
 first of May next. The express with the Lexington news was at 
 Newberne on May 6th. (See North Carolina Records, VII. 713, 
 715, 719; IX, 1236-1238). 
 
30 The Texas Review 
 
 polite preamble?. Apparently they had had no Committee 
 of Safety until then : they had been too careless, on whatever 
 grounds, and now they organized a Committee of Safety and 
 got down to the business of running their own affairs. What 
 they did became at once so commonplace, as governmental 
 routine came to be in the West, that nothing was easier from 
 1819 on than to question their outright common sense, cor- 
 nered as they were around the middle of May '75. Those 
 Mecklenburg men were speaking out, not only to Governor 
 Martin and his principals, but to the managers of the Whig 
 party. At any rate, in the third Provincial Congress, at 
 Hillsborough in August, there was a flat equality of repre- 
 sentation among the counties. Mecklenburg had six dele- 
 gates, all new men in these new Provincial affairs, and four 
 of them had signed the Declaration in May. Governor Mar- 
 tin had been immensely impressed. His line of communica- 
 tions was more open towards the sea, and he retired to Fort 
 Johnston, at the mouth of the Cape Fear, early in June. 
 Sending a dispatch thence to the Earl of Dartmouth on the 
 30th he said, 'the Resolves of the Committee of Meckenburg, 
 which your Lordship will find in the enclosed newspaper, sur- 
 pass all the horrid and treasonable publications that the in- 
 flammatory spirits of this continent have yet produced.' In 
 July the Governor thought it well to look further to his line 
 of communications, and withdrew to H. M. Sloop Cruizer in 
 River Cape Fear. There on the 18th he held a meeting of his 
 Council, when Mr. President Hasell gave it as his opinion 
 that 'His Excellency should take every law^ful measure in 
 his power to suppress the unnatural rebellion now fomenting 
 in Mecklenburg and other parts of the province to overturn 
 the Constitution and his just prerogative.' 
 
 Mecklenburg County, by getting down to the essential busi- 
 ness of the time, had unquestionably made itself rather con- 
 spicuous. But neither the country nor North Carolina was 
 yet ready to go all lengths. July 6th the Congress at Phila- 
 delphia addressed the Inhabitants of Great Britain in a very 
 
Setting of the Mecklenburg Declaration 31 
 
 conciliatory manner. July 8tTi the Congress at Philadelphia 
 petitioned the throne in a most conciliatory manner. Pat- 
 rick Henry and his fellows signed their names to such pacific 
 paragraphs as, "For such arrangements as your Majesty's 
 wisdom can form, for collecting the united sense of your 
 American people, we are convinced your Majesty would re- 
 ceive such satisfactory proofs of the disposition of the colon- 
 ists toward their sovereign and parent state that the wished 
 for opportunity would soon be restored to them of evincing 
 the sincerity of their professions by every testimony of de- 
 votion becoming the most dutiful subjects and the most 
 affectionate colonists." July 10th four ministers of Phila- 
 delphia addressed the Presbyterians of North Carolina 
 (Mecklenburg was for Presbytery) — "Believe no man that 
 dares to say we desire to be independent of our mother 
 country." Mr. Hooper and Mr. Hewes had affixed their 
 names just below that of Mr. Jefferson to the Petition to 
 the Throne of July 8th, yet on the same day Mr. Hewes wrote 
 to Samuel Johnston (head of the North Carolina Whigs, but 
 very much a conservative) "I consider myself now over head 
 and ears in what the Ministry call Rebellion." Were not 
 these mixed affairs? Who can know clearly what he is doing 
 when he breaks with his old government? And so the Con- 
 gress of Hillsborough, (August and September, 1775), that 
 armed the province, was willing to endorse an address to 
 the Inhabitants of the British Empire, Mr. Hooper's work, 
 in which Mr. Hooper said, "We have been told that inde- 
 pendence is our object: that we seek to shake off all connec- 
 tion with the parent state. Cruel suggestion ! Do not all our 
 professions, all our actions uniformly contradict this?" Mr. 
 Hooper went even beyond the General Congress and said it 
 was the desire of North Carolina to be restored to its con- 
 dition of the early part of the year 1763. Those delegates 
 from Mecklenburg who had signed the Meckenburg Declara- 
 tion, (Messrs. Polk, Alexander, Avery, and Phifer), signed 
 Mr. Hooper's address, just as Mr. Henry and Mr. Jefferson 
 
32 The Texas Review 
 
 had sigmed John Dickinson's address. The Mecklenburg del- 
 egates knew at least that they represented a vast county that 
 was, and had advertised itself as being, a self-governing ter- 
 ritory. And exactly when were drawn up the remarkable 
 Instructions for the Delegates of Mecklenburg County (quite 
 as remarkable as the Declaration) beginning "you are in- 
 structed to vote that the late province of North Carolina is 
 and of right ought to be a free and independent state invested 
 with all the power of legislation capable of making laws to 
 regulate all its internal policy subject only in its external 
 connections and foreign commerce to a negative of a conti- 
 nental Senate — you are instructed to vote for the erection 
 of a civil government under the authority of the people for 
 the future security of all the rights, privileges and preroga- 
 tives of the state and the private natural and unalienable 
 rights of the constituting members thereof either as men or 
 Christians. If this should not be confirmed in Congress or 
 Convention — protest. ' ' 
 
 There were declarations being made within the province 
 of North Carolina and up and down the coastal plain that 
 amazed Governor Martin. Patiently keeping open his line of 
 communications, on board the Cruizer sloop of war, he was 
 afforded opportunity to reflect at large upon politics, wis- 
 dom, war, and other things. In October he wrote to the Earl 
 of Dartmouth, who was also nearing his end as an American 
 official. 
 
 "I have now and then, my Lord, the heart breaking pain to hear 
 the murmurings and lamentations of a loyal subject who^ steals 
 down here to unbosom his griefs, to complain of the want of sup- 
 port from government, and to enquire when it may be expected. 
 And while I labour to console and encourage him under his suf- 
 fering's, I am doubly sensible of my own impotent and disg-aceful 
 condition and circumstances, my feel'ngs of which and for the dig- 
 nity of his Majesty's government it is impossible for me to express 
 or describe." 
 
 ^l^ortlx Carolina Records, X. 239. 
 
Setting of the Mecklenburg DeclxVration 33 
 
 The Governor (in partibus) gave his chief a very interest- 
 ing and very discerning account of the doings in Congress, 
 both at Philadelphia and at Hillsborough. He was amazed 
 and puzzled at the political force and skill of these men— 
 'Heaven knows what are the views of them at large! It 
 is nevertheless far from me and my intentions to judge them. 
 I for my part deplore most sincerely the unnatural subsisting 
 contest, and most devoutly pray for a just, constitutional, 
 honorable and speedy termination of it.' And then Josiah 
 Martin wrote off the wisest words he ever used — 
 
 'The restraints of trade that have been highly expedient, proper, 
 and necessary, will doubtless by slow operation produce effect in 
 time, if foreign states and foreign wars do not interpose, but they 
 will never cure the instant and fatal growing distemper of rebellion 
 or alter the principle of it, nor do they promise to be the means of 
 conciliating the affections of this people. And whatever measures 
 the wisdom of government shall employ for reducing the colony to 
 present obedience, the more pleasing task of reconciling them to it 
 lastingly, as I humbly and perhaps ignorantly conceive, will be ac- 
 complished only by some great act of State, deciding all claims 
 with precision and settling a permanent and just system of political 
 relation and dependance between the parent state and her colonies, 
 that will be an immense and glorious work but pregnant with 
 difficulties, many of which it is probable my short sight, [nor as we 
 know, the sight of William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth], does not 
 comprehend.' 
 
 What a commentary — is not that a commentary? — upon 
 wisdom and politics! 
 
WHY DO WE LAUGH AT FALSTAFF? 
 
 By Thomas Vernor Smith 
 
 J- 
 
 If yon will,, immediately after enjoying a heart/ laugh, 
 serionsly proposal to yourself the question, now precisely why 
 did I larph? yrn^ill find yonrself confronted 1^^ a question 
 which in its subtlery, has interested all and baffled many of 
 the world's greatest i^khilosophers. Laught§^ itself is, of 
 course, ensy, indeed alnr^st gratuitous; bu^ its explnnation is 
 from every viewpoint diff%ilt. I have a,^riend, for instance, 
 who has spent several monl-'hs in an ^ort, not this time to 
 explain the comic, but only %J;o eliififeify humor upon some 
 logical basis. But even in thf^ fysj^^erficial task he tells me 
 that he has utterly failed. Your%ill see, therefore, that the 
 question of the comic both in jiterature and in liie is worthy 
 of the best efforts of the j^enest rainds. For the purpose 
 of the present inquiry it/%iakes no difference whether the 
 question be put. Why \d Falstaff funny? or Why do we 
 laugh at Falstaff? To/ask the question in either form is in 
 reality to inquire wkat is the comic in human experience. 
 You will see, then, , that I propose not so much to set forth 
 an interpretation /f the character Falstaff as to enunciate a 
 theory of the coisfiic, or rather to amplify and apply a theory 
 of the comic ajti'eady enunciated by the French philosopher, 
 Henri Bergso^. It happens that Falstaff' is the best personality 
 in English ^^terature upon which to hang the object lesson; 
 first, becavfse he is the funniest character in our literature, 
 and, sec'6ndly, because he, through his association with 
 Shakespeare's Prince Henry, is already used to being made 
 a tool. 
 
 I \ 
 
 f 
 
 In good earnest, then, I submit the question, — Why is 
 Falstaff funny ? Falstaff is funny, 'first, because he is humanV, 
 
B113-1019-400-2741 
 
 The Texas Review 
 
 VOL. V. OCTOBER, 1919. No. 1 
 
 Entered as second-class matter June 7, 1915, at the postoffice at 
 Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
 
 EDITOR, Robert Adger Law. 
 MANAGING EDITOR, E. M. Clark. 
 
 ADVISORY EDITORS: 
 
 Lilia M. Casis, Howard Mnmford Jones, 
 
 Edwin W. Fay, Thad W. Riker, 
 
 G. Watts Cunningham, James Finch Roystor. 
 
 CONTENTS OF THE OCTOBER NUMBER 
 
 October's Child Mrs. W. 8. Hendrix 1 
 
 The Seeker Robert Calvin WMtford 2 
 
 King Arthur's Return WiUia7n Dyer Moore 5 
 
 Mr. Alfred Noyes and the Literary Rebels 
 
 James Finch Royster 10 
 
 etting of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence 
 A. J. Morrison 15 
 
 Why Do We Laugh at Falstaff ? . . Thomas Vernor Smith 34 
 
 Humanism and the Modern Spirit. Perct/ Hazen Houston 49 
 
 An Irish Mme. de Stael Benjamin M. Woodhridge 70 
 
 The Pump Room — 
 
 On Razor Straps Charles R. Lingley 84 
 
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS NUMBER 
 
 Mrs, W. S. Hendrix, of Austin, Texas, has written many 
 verses for the Review. 
 
 Robert Calvin Whitford is assistant professor of English 
 in Knox Collegre, Illinois. 
 
 WiLiiiAM Dyer Moore is teaching in the Brackenridge High 
 School of San Antonio, 
 
 James Pinch Royster is professor of English in the Uni- 
 versity of Texas. 
 
 A, J. Morrison of Hampden-Sidney, Virginia, wrote "Four 
 Revolntions and Virginia Education" for the Beview in 
 January, 1919, 
 
 Thomas Vernor Smith, recently of the faculty of Texas 
 Christian University, is now Oldright fellow in philosophy 
 in the University of Texas. 
 
 Percy Hazen Houston, first managing editor of the Texas 
 Review, now of the English department of the United 
 States Naval Academy, Annapolis, wrote "Winds of 
 Doctrine" in the April Review. 
 
 Benjamin Mather Woodbridge, associate professor of French 
 in Rice Institute, Texas, contributed "Benjamin Con- 
 stant's Adolpha" to the Review of October, 1916, 
 
 Charles R. Lingley, assistant professor of history in Dart- 
 mouth College, New Hampshire, wrote "Public Opinion 
 and the Third Term Tradition" for the Review of 
 April, 1916. 
 
 o?v 
 
 / 
 
OCTOBER, 1919 
 
 THE 
 
 TEXAS 
 REVIEW 
 
 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 
 
 $2.00 a Year 50 cent» a Copy 
 
 Vol. V, No. 1