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Chapter 5

This webpage reproduces a chapter of
History of North Carolina

The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York, 1919
Volume I by
R. D. W. Connor

The text is in the public domain.

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.
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Chapter 7
This site is not affiliated with the US Military Academy.

Vol. I
p84
Chapter 6
The Cary Rebellion

The reign of peace and progress which North Carolina enjoyed under Ludwell and Archdale, and their deputies, was of short duration. Henderson Walker, whose administration came to a close in 1703, bequeathed to his successors an issue that for several years divided the people into contending factions, stirred up bitter strife and rebellion, and indirectly brought upon the colony the worst disaster in its history. This issue was the question of an Established Church.

From the creation of their proprietary in 1663, the Lords Proprietors had offered liberal terms, as liberality in religious matters was construed in those days, to all Protestants who should settle in Carolina. In their proposals of August, 1663, to prospective settlers at Cape Fear, they promised "in as ample manner as the undertakers shall desire, freedom and liberty of conscience in all religious or spiritual things, and to be kept inviolably with them, we having power in our charter so to do." A few weeks later, in a letter to Sir William Berkeley, they explained that their reason for authorizing him to appoint two governors in Albemarle was that "some persons that are for liberty of conscience may desire a governor of their own proposing." Moreover, both in the Concessions of 1665 and in the Fundamental Constitutions they provided toleration for all forms of Christian worship in order "that civil peace may be obtained amidst diversity of opinion."

On the other hand, neither the Lords Proprietors nor the settlers understood these promises to be inconsistent with the setting up of an establishment in the colony. Both of the charters of the Lords Proprietors assumed that the Church of England would be the Established Church in Carolina; and in all their plans the Lords Proprietors proceeded upon this assumption. In the Concessions of 1665, in their instructions to their governors, and in the Fundamental Constitutions, their intentions to establish the Church are repeatedly set  p85 forth. The Fundamental Constitutions provide that it should be the duty of "parliament to take care for the building of churches and the public maintenance of divines, to be employed in the exercise of religion according to the Church of England; which being the only true and orthodox, and the national religion of all the king's dominions, is so also of Carolina, and therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive public maintenance by grant of parliament."

The Lords Proprietors, therefore, were quite as much committed to the policy of an establishment as they were to that of religious toleration; but as they had allowed nearly two score years to pass without attempting to carry it into effect, the colonists generally had come to think of it as a dead letter. The attempt, therefore, after so many years of neglect to set up an establishment according to these provisions aroused a bitter and determined opposition from all classes of Dissenters. The increase of the Dissenters, especially of Quakers, in numbers and influence, is the most important fact of the early religious development of the colony. This growth was so great as to lead the early North Carolina historians into the error of believing that the colony was settled by religious refugees. As a rule the earliest settlers of North Carolina had been reared within the pale of the Church of England, and had the Church followed them into their new home they would doubtless have remained loyal to her; but forty years passed before a minister of the Established Church found his way into the Carolina wilderness, and in the meantime the field had been occupied and zealously cultivated by others.

The first voice of a Christian preacher heard in North Carolina was the voice of the Quaker, William Edmundson, who came hither in 1672, a worthy bearer of the Christian faith to a new land. In himself he personified the Christian virtues of simplicity, piety, zeal, and charity. Undaunted by the difficulties, discomforts, and dangers of his undertaking, he courageously plunged into the Carolina wilderness to carry his message to the scattered pioneers whom the Church had forgotten, and by his earnestness and eloquence won many of them to his cause. Soon after entering the province he arrived at the house of Henry Phillips who, with his wife "had been convinced of the truth in New England, and came here to live; and not having seen a Friend for seven years before, they wept for joy to see us." Phillips hastily summoned the neighboring planters to a meeting. Because their manners were crude and they violated the proprieties by  p86 smoking their pipes during the meeting, Edmundson at first thought they had "little or no religion"; but the readiness with which they "received the testimony" and confessed their faith soon undeceived him. Among the converts at this meeting were a prominent justice of the peace, Francis Toms, and his wife, both of whom "received the truth with gladness." At their urgent request, Edmundson held another meeting at their plantation where they had "a blessed time for several were tendered with a sense of the power of God, received the truth, and abode in it."

The work so successfully begun by Edmundson was taken up by others. In the winter of 1672, George Fox himself, the founder of the Society of Friends, visited the colony where he received an hospitable welcome not only from the Friends but also from the governor and other officials. Passing through Chowan, Pasquotank, and Perquimans precincts, he held several "precious" meetings and made many converts. Then, as he recorded in his journal, "having visited the north part of Carolina and made a little entrance for the truth among the people there, we began to return again towards Virginia, having several meetings on our way, wherein we had good service for the Lord, the people being generally tender and open." Four years later Edmundson returned to Carolina following about the same route that he had taken in 1672. These four years had worked a great change in the colony. Whereas on his first visit, Edmundson had found only two Friends, Henry Phillips and his wife, he now found the Friends quite numerous and well established. "I had several precious meetings in that colony," he says, "and several turned to the Lord. People were tender and loving, and there was no room for the priests, for Friends were firmly settled, and I left things well amongst them." From time to time, during the next quarter of a century, other Quaker missionaries came to Carolina, held "many comfortable meetings," made converts, and organized quarterly meetings. The Carolina Quakers also received accessions to their strength by immigration, especially from Pennsylvania, but the greatest impetus given to their cause was the appointment, in 1694, of John Archdale, a convert of George Fox, as governor. Under Archdale the influence of the Quakers reached its climax. They not only had the governor, but also gained control of the courts, the Council, and the Assembly, for, as Doctor Weeks says, "There was a material reward for being a Quaker, and Churchmen and others who thus found it to their interest  p87 deserted their own creeds to enroll themselves among the Friends."1

Though the Quakers were the most influential religious body in the colony, there were other bodies of Dissenters who were not so well organized. Rev. John Blair, a missionary of the Church, writing in 1704, declared that according to religious preferences, the people of the colony fell into four classes: (1) the Quakers, who "stand truly to one another in whatsoever may be to their interest"; (2) "a great many who have no religion, but would be Quakers if by that they were not obliged to lead a more moral life than they are willing to comply to"; (3) a class "something like Presbyterians," whose leaders "preach and baptize through the country, without any manner of orders from any sect or pretended Church"; and (4) Churchmen, "who are really zealous for the interest of the Church, [but] are the fewest in number." Under the leader­ship of the Quakers, who, says Blair, "are the most powerful enemies to Church government," the first three classes had united "in one common cause to prevent any thing that will be chargeable to them, as they allege the Church government will be, if once established by law," and against this combination the Church party had been unable to make any headway.

For this situation the Church had only herself to blame. The elaborate organization provided for in the Fundamental Constitutions existed in theory only; no parishes had been laid off, no churches erected, no tithes levied, and no minister had been sent to the colony. Governor Walker wrote to the Bishop of London, within whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction all the American colonies lay, that for fifty years the colony had been "without priest or altar," adding: "George Fox, some years ago, came into these parts, and, by strange infatuations, did infuse the Quakers' principles into some small number of the people; which did and hath continued to grow ever since very numerous, by reason of their yearly sending in men to encourage and exhort them to their wicked principles; and there was none to dispute nor to oppose them in carrying on their pernicious principles for many years." At last, in 1700, the Church of England, aroused to show an interest in the welfare of her scattered flock in Carolina, sent out a clergyman, Rev. Daniel Brett, to that colony. This sudden interest, however, proved more disastrous than the long neglect  p88 which had preceded it for Brett turned out to be "ye Monster of ye Age." His conduct in North Carolina was so shameful that it wrung from Governor Walker, a zealous Churchman, a bitter cry of protest to the Bishop of London. "It hath been a great trouble and grief to us who have a great veneration for the Church," he wrote, "that the first minister who was sent to us should prove so ill as to give the Dissenters so much occasion to charge us with him."

The Church party needed a leader who could unite and organize its scattered forces. This leader was found in Governor Walker who, upon assuming his duties as governor in 1699, resolved to devote his best energies to the task of securing the necessary legislation for the support of an establishment. Success crowned his efforts in 1701 when the Church party, under his leader­ship, by "a great deal of care and management," secured control of the Assembly which passed the first vestry act in the history of the colony. This act provided for the organization of vestries, the laying off of parishes, the erection of churches, the maintenance of a clergy, and the levy and collection of a poll tax for these purposes. Elated at their success, the Churchmen of the province began at once to carry the act into execution, and within the next two years erected three churches. The first parish organized in the colony was the Chowan Parish, afterwards known as St. Paul's. Its vestry met for organization December 15, 1701, and has had a continuous existence since that date. "It is not only the oldest organized religious body in the State," observes Bishop Cheshire, "it is the oldest corporation of any kind in North Carolina."​2 The activity of the Churchmen aroused a determined opposition. Those who opposed an establishment on principle allied themselves with those who merely objected to the new taxes to overthrow the Church party and repeal the obnoxious act. "We have an Assembly to sit the 3d November next," wrote Walker to the Bishop of London, in October, 1703, "and there is above one half of the burgesses that are chosen that are Quakers, and have declared their design of making void the act for establishing the Church." In this, however, they were anticipated by the Lords Proprietors themselves who returned the act with their disapproval because of the inadequacy of the support provided for clergymen.

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St. Paul's Church at Edenton

The ground on which the Lords Proprietors based their  p90 veto indicated that the struggle had just begun and both parties prepared themselves for it. Two new influences entered the contest in the Church party's favor. One was a new governor, the other the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Lord John Granville, palatine and zealous Churchman, about this time determined on a more vigorous policy with regard to the Church in Carolina and issued positive instructions to the governor-general, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, to secure whatever legislation was necessary. Sir Nathaniel undertook to direct personally the fight in South Carolina, while in the summer of 1703 he superseded Walker as deputy-governor of North Carolina with Col. Robert Daniel of South Carolina. It was an unfortunate change. While Walker was a zealous Churchman, he was also a patriotic citizen and was greatly concerned for the welfare of the province; and although he had earnestly favored the act of 1701, he had done so in such a way as to arouse as little friction and strife as possible; compared with what was to follow he had given to the colony, as the inscription on his tombstone justly claims, "that tranquillity which it is to be wished it may never want." Daniel was a zealous Churchman, but his zeal ran into bigotry, and he was ruthless and unscrupulous in his methods. Coincident with his appointment, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, recently organized in England, sent its first missionary, Rev. John Blair, to North Carolina. The two events were part of the same scheme for pushing the Establishment. Blair reached North Carolina in January, 1704, and although he remained here only a few months his presence was not without influence on the situation. It helped to bring out clearly the views of every public man in the colony and to array him on one side or the other; it solidified the Dissenters and their sympathizers and united and encouraged the Churchmen for the struggle which all knew was at hand.

Daniel had been instructed to secure the establishment of the Church in North Carolina, and Blair had come to the colony expecting to find those instructions already enacted into law. But in the Assembly of November, 1703, the first to meet after Daniel's arrival, the Quakers as we have seen were in the majority, and in the March Assembly, 1704, which Blair expected "would propose a settlement of my [his] maintenance," they still were "the greatest number" and unanimously resolved "to prevent any such law passing." The only hope of the Church party, therefore, was to find some means of purging the General Assembly of its Quaker members;  p91 but this seemed so improbable that Blair gave up in despair and withdrew from his mission. Governor Daniel, however, was determined and fertile in resources; and he soon found a weapon suitable for his purpose. This weapon was the act of Parliament of 1702, which settled the oath of allegiance to Queen Anne who had recently come to the throne. It was nothing more than the usual oath which any good Protestant could take, but as the Quakers would take no oath, their scruples had always been respected in North Carolina. In the new oath, which did not reach North Carolina until the summer of 1704, Daniel saw the weapon he was looking for and resolved to require all officials to take it before entering upon their offices. The Quakers, as he anticipated, declined, and the governor accordingly refused to permit them to take their seats in the courts, the Council, and the Assembly. The expulsion of the Quakers left the Church party in control of the government, and by a majority of "one or two votes" that party put through the Assembly a second vestry act. To make assurance doubly sure, by preventing the return of the Quakers to power, the same Assembly provided an oath of office, without making any exception for Quakers, which all officials and members of the Assembly must take in the future. But the Quakers were not helpless. The other Dissenters rallied to their support; and it seems certain that some influential Churchmen, either because they were opposed to an establishment, or because they resented Daniel's highhanded methods, also came to their assistance. Complaints against Daniel were sent to Sir Nathaniel Johnson, accompanied by a petition for his removal; and Sir Nathaniel, who was involved in a bitter fight over the same question in South Carolina, thought it wise to comply with the North Carolina petition. He removed Daniel and sent Thomas Cary to succeed him.

Cary had long been prominent in the affairs of South Carolina. Although he had been implicated in a rebellion in that province, this offense was more than counter-balanced in the eyes of Governor Johnson by the fact that he was one of the governor's bondsmen. Restless, ambitious, without settled political principles, he knew no rule of action in politics except to support the party which could best advance his own fortunes. Since Cary's chief had so promptly removed Daniel upon complaint of the Quakers, members of that party at once jumped to the conclusion that Cary would espouse their cause, and they accepted his appointment as a signal for a renewal of their political activities. Great was their wrath,  p92 therefore, when they found in him a more serious obstacle than Daniel himself had been. Coming into North Carolina with an eye to his own interests, Cary found the Church party strongly entrenched in power and promptly aligned himself with it. He not only repudiated the claims of the Quakers and dismissed them from office upon their refusal to take the oaths, but prevailed upon the Assembly to pass an act imposing a heavy fine upon any person who should presume to perform an official duty without taking the required oaths, or who should promote his own election to any office. Exasperated by this unexpected turn of affairs, the Quakers and their allies determined to carry their case directly to the Lords Proprietors, and in 1706 they sent John Porter to England to seek a redress of their grievances.

Porter was successful in his mission. Through the influence of John Archdale, he obtained from the Lords Proprietors an order suspending the authority of Sir Nathaniel Johnson in North Carolina, removing Cary, naming five new deputies, and authorizing the Council to elect a president who should perform the duties of governor. Returning to North Carolina in October, 1707, armed with this order, Porter found Cary absent and William Glover temporarily administering the government. Since Glover's administration seemed to be giving satisfaction, Porter determined not to disturb it; he, therefore, called together the newly appointed deputies and induced them to elect Glover president of the Council. Though the commission under which he acted required the presence of Cary and the former deputies to make this election legal, Porter concealed this fact from the deputies as well as from Glover; and later when he found that he could not dictate the latter's policy, he pleaded the illegality of Glover's election to justify himself in forcing his removal from office. Porter's apologists have not been able to discern in his conduct anything more than a shrewd political move, but less partial critics will doubtless think it deserving of a severer condemnation.​3 However reprehensible, measured by modern ideals, the policy of the Church party may have been, the actions of its leaders throughout these controversies had been open and above board: on the other hand concealment and dissimulation characterized Porter's conduct in this affair and it cannot be justified by any standard of political ethics that places the public welfare above a partisan triumph.  p93 Not only did Porter induce the newly appointed deputies, by concealing from them their lack of legal power to act, to choose Glover as president, he himself later joined such of the former deputies as were retained by the new commission from the Lords Proprietors, including Thomas Cary, in an official proclamation calling upon the people to render to Glover that obedience which was due to him as governor of the province.

Porter, however, soon discovered that he could not control Glover. When the newly appointed Quaker deputies appeared to take their seats in the Council, Glover tendered them the prescribed oaths and upon their declining to take them, refused to admit them to their seats. The old quarrel flared up with renewed bitterness. Fuel was added to the flame by the recent arrival in the colony of two missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the prospect of a revival of the activities of the Church party increased the alarm of the Dissenters, who now felt justified in resorting to violent measures to protect their interests. Accordingly Porter summoned both the old and the new deputies, informed them of the alleged defect in Glover's title to his office, and over the protest of Glover induced them to declare his election illegal and void. In the meantime the Quaker party had gained a new recruit. When Cary saw how the tide was running, he deserted the Church party and went over, bag and baggage, to its opponents. He and Porter struck a bargain as a result of which Cary was chosen president "by the votes of the very same Councillors who had before chosen Mr. Glover, and all this by virtue of that very same commission which removed him [Cary] from the government." Glover refused to yield; both sides took up arms; blood was shed and the colony reduced to the verge of civil war.

However, better counsels prevailed and the contending factions agreed to submit their claims to an Assembly. At once a new complication arose: by whose writ could an election be legally held? To answer this question was to decide the dispute; accordingly both Glover and Cary issued writs and the election was held amid bitter strife and tumult. When the Assembly met, October 11, 1708, both the Glover set of councillors and the Cary set appeared each claiming the right to be recognized as the upper house of the Assembly. An amusing side-light on this curious situation is found in the action of former Deputy-Governor Daniel. As a landgrave, one of the ranks of nobility under the Fundamental Constitution, he was entitled to sit in the Council; but unable to decide  p94 which was the true and lawful Council, and fearful of making a mistake, he sat first with one group and then with the other, "and," as one historian facetiously remarks, "was equally uncomfortable with both."​4 Glover refused to recognize the newly appointed Quaker deputies because they declined to take the required oaths. But in the election of assemblymen, the Cary party had carried the colony, and they proceeded at once to organize the lower house regardless of Glover's protests.

The Cary party organized the Assembly by the election of Edward Moseley as speaker. This election was the beginning of the most remarkable career in our colonial history. For forty years Moseley's biography is practically the history of North Carolina, so varied were his activities and so deeply did he impress his personality on his times. His was that sort of character toward which men cannot be neutral. Those who did not hate him adored him. The explanation of this fact is found not merely in the forcefulness of his personality, but also in the contradictions of his life and career. An aristocrat by nature, he was a democrat by convictions and in practice. Often an official of the Lords Proprietors and later of the Crown, he firmly resisted all encroachments on the rights of the people. Possessed of vast estates, of many slaves, and of great wealth, he lived in great simplicity and was genuinely sympathetic with the poor and the unfortunate. A devoted Churchman, he steadfastly espoused the cause of the Dissenters in their fight against an establishment. His enemies while condemning his character could not withhold their admiration of his abilities. The Virginia boundary-line commissioners in 1710, who could find no terms too strong for denouncing his motives, at the same time could not refrain from testifying to "the subtlety [in debate] whereof he is Master"; and Governor Burrington, his uncompromising foe, while admitting that Moseley was "a person of sufficient ability" to be public treasurer, wished that his "integrity was equal to his ability." The denunciations of his enemies no less than the eulogies of his friends reveal the dynamics inherent in the man. He had, as has been well said, the boldness of thought and of action that people admire in their leaders; the common sense and self-poise on which people rely in troublous times; and the honesty of purpose which, regardless of his own interests, made it impossible for him to wink at the usurpations of authority. An active man of  p95 affairs, he was also a student and a lover of learning; his private library, which late in life he gave to the town of Edenton as a foundation for a public library, contained a large collection of books on law, theology, history, and general literature. Looking beneath the surface of the tumult and strife in which his life was largely passed; putting to the acid test of impartial history the hasty and prejudiced judgment of his contemporaries; studying his career in the light of subsequent developments, one is prepared to accept the verdict of the careful historian who says of Edward Moseley: "it was not necessary for him 'to usurp a patriot's all-atoning name,' for he seems to have sincerely loved his adopted colony, and to have served it with the steadfast purpose of making it a home fit for free men."5

Such was the man whom the Cary party in the first flush of their triumph elevated to the leader­ship of the General Assembly. The victors were not disposed to show the vanquished much consideration. They brushed aside the claims of the contesting Glover delegations; passed an act nullifying the test oaths; and declared Cary president of the council and ex‑officio governor. Against these actions Glover protested. He declared first, that members returned under Cary's writ could not constitute a lawful Assembly because Cary, not being president of the Council, had no authority to issue a writ; and, secondly, that even if legally elected they could not sit as assemblymen until they had taken the oaths required by law, which, of course, the Quaker members had not done. It was, he declared, "a betraying of the trust reposed in the Lords Proprietors by the Crown, to submit the determinations of the Government to any number of men howsoever chosen and delegated, though by the unanimous voice of the whole countrys Except such persons shall first acknowledge their allegiance to the Queen, which both the Common Law and the Statute Law requires to be done by an oath: with which Law the Queen hath not, and the Lords Proprietors can not dispence." This protest was addressed "To the Gentlemen met and pretending themselves to be the House of Burgesses." Glover unquestionably had the better of the legal argument; but Cary had the votes and his Assembly returned Glover's protest to him with the curt statement "that they would not concern themselves in that matter." Glover, seeing that he  p97 had lost his fight, wisely abandoned the field and beat a strategic retreat into Virginia, leaving Cary in possession of the government and the colony in confusion.

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Colonial Currency

Showing autograph of Edward Moseley

This condition continued for nearly two years before the Lords Proprietors decided to interfere. Finally in 1710 they sent out Edward Hyde, a near kinsman of the queen, as deputy-governor. Hyde arrived in Virginia in August expecting to receive there his commission from Edward Tynte of Charleston, who had succeeded Sir Nathaniel Johnson as governor of Carolina. But before Hyde's arrival Governor Tynte had died without having made out Hyde's commission and although Hyde had in his possession private letters that confirmed his appointment, without a commission he could not legally take over the government. This technical defect in his title, the Gloverites, in their eagerness to dispossess Cary, were willing to overlook, while Cary and his immediate supporters, whatever may have been their personal sentiments, were over-awed by the evident desire of the people for the restoration of peace and harmony and by the "awefull respect" felt for Hyde on account of his family connections. Accordingly all who could pretend to any right to a voice in the matter, including Cary himself, joined in a petition to Hyde to assume the duties of president of the Council until his commission should arrive from the Lords Proprietors, and Hyde promptly complied with their request. In the meantime the Lords Proprietors had decided, December 7, 1710, to appoint a governor of North Carolina "independent of the Governour of South Carolina," and had nominated Hyde for that dignity; but as a recent act of Parliament required the assent of the Crown to appointments of governors of proprietary colonies, a full year passed before all the formalities were finally completed. Hyde's commission as the first governor of North Carolina, therefore, was not issued until January 24th, 1712; he opened it and qualified before the Council May 9th. Henceforth the governments oncc and South Carolina were separate and distinct.

In the meantime North Carolina had been passing through one of the stormiest episodes in its stormy career. Hyde's administration had failed to produce the good results so eagerly anticipated. He allowed himself to fall completely under the influence of the Glover faction, insisted that all office-holders must take the prescribed oaths, and in this way purged both the Council and the Assembly of their Quaker members. The other Dissenters, seeing the drift of events, deserted their Quaker colleagues and rode in on the rising tide. Of Hyde's  p98 first Assembly, which met in March, 1711, John Urmstone, a minister of the Established Church, wrote: "With much difficulty we had the majority * * * The Assembly was made up a strange mixture of men of various opinions and inclinations; a few Churchmen, many Presbyterians, Independents, but most anythingarians — some out of principle, others out of hopes of power and authority in the government to the end that they might lord it over their neighbours, all combined to act answerably to the desire of the president and Council." The party in control could not resist the opportunity to punish its enemies. Even Governor Spotswood of Virginia, who detested a Quaker and sympathized with the principles of the Gloverites, declared that the latter forced through the Assembly legislation "wherein it must be confessed they showed more their resentment of their ill usage during Mr. Cary's usurpation (as they call it) than their prudence to reconcile the distractions of the country." Their legislation embraced a sedition law for the punishment of "seditious words or speeches" or "scurrilous libels" against the existing government; fixed a fine of £100 upon all officials who refused to qualify "according to the strictness of the laws in Great Britain now in force"; provided that "all such laws made for the establishment of the Church" should be still in force; and declared null and void all court proceedings during Cary's second administration. They also directed Cary to account to Hyde for all funds collected during his term of office; required Edward Moseley to give security for certain fees which he was accused of illegally collecting; and impeaching Cary and Porter of high crimes and misdemeanors, ordered them into the custody of the provost-marshal.

Cary determined not to submit tamely to these drastic measures. Collecting his followers, he withdrew to his plantation on the Pamlico and fortifying his house "with great Guns and other warlike stores," bade defiance to Hyde. So strongly was he entrenched that "when the Government had taken a resolution to apprehend him they found it impracticable to attempt it." Emboldened by Hyde's irresolution, Cary took the offensive, and reinforced by "a Brigantine of six Guns, furnished him by a leading Quaker," and "some other vessels equipp'd in a warlike manner," he denounced Hyde for attempting to exercise executive authority without a commission, proclaimed himself president of the Council, and moved to attack Hyde and his Council. Governor Spotswood of Virginia offered to mediate between the warring factions. Hyde promptly accepted but Cary "obstinately rejected all  p99 offers of accommodation." On June 30, he assailed Hyde's forces which had been gathered at Thomas Pollock's plantation on the Chowan and was severely repulsed leaving his brigantine and her six guns in the hands of the enemy. Cary thereupon fled to the Pamlico where he reassembled his scattered followers and entrenched himself in the house of Captain Richard Roach, who, though an agent of one of the Lords Proprietors, had embraced Cary's cause. Hyde finding himself too weak to attack applied for aid to Spotswood who promptly dispatched to him a company of royal marines. The sight of the queen's uniform so "frighted the Rebellious party" that they threw down their arms and dispersed. Cary and several of his followers fled to Virginia where at Hyde's request they were apprehended and sent to England for trial on charges of sedition and rebellion. No evidence, however, was forwarded to sustain the charges and the prisoners were soon discharged from custody.


The Author's Notes:

1 The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina, p33. (J. H. U. Studies, 10th Series, Nos. V‑VI.)

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2 "How Our Church Came to North Carolina" in The Spirit of Missions, Vol. LXXXIII, No. 5, p350.

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3 Weeks: The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina, p56.

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4 Hill, D. H.: Young People's History of North Carolina, p75.

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5 Hill, D. H.: Edward Moseley: Character Sketch. (North Carolina Booklet, Vol. V, No. 3, p205.)


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