LIFE OF WASHINGTON.

Chapter 1.

North Carolina-Difficulties of its Invasion-Character of the People and Country—Sumter, his Character and Story-Rocky Mount-Hanging Rock-Slow Advance of De Kalb-Gates Takes CommandDesolate March-Battle of Camden-Flight of Gates-Sumter Surprised by Tarleton at the Waxhaws-Washington's Opinion of Militia-His Letter

to Gates.

L

ORD CORNWALLIS, when left in military command at the South by Sir Henry Clinton, was charged, it will be recollected, with the invasion of North Carolina. It was an enterprise in which much difficulty was to be apprehended, both from the character of the people and the country. The original settlers were from various parts, most of them men who had experienced polit

VOL. VI.-I

ical or religious oppression, and had brought with them a quick sensibility to wrong, a stern appreciation of their rights, and an indomitable spirit of freedom and independence. In the heart of the State was a hardy Presbyterian stock, the Scotch Irish, as they were called, having emigrated from Scotland to Ireland, and thence to America; and who were said to possess the impulsiveness of the Irishman, with the dogged resolution of the Covenanter.

The early history of the colony abounds with instances of this spirit among its people. "They always behaved insolently to their governors," complains Governor Barrington. in 1731; some they have driven out of the country-at other times they set up a government of their own choice, supported by men under arms." It was in fact the spirit of popular liberty and self-government which stirred within them, and gave birth to the glorious axiom: "The rights of the many against the exactions of the few." So ripe was this spirit at an early day, that when the boundary line was run, in 1727, between North Carolina and Virginia, the borderers were eager to be included within the former province, "as there they paid no tribute to God or Cæsar."

It was this spirit which gave rise to the confederacy, called the Regulation, formed to