out a path up Powell's valley, and through mountains and canebrakes beyond. On the twenty-fifth of the same month they were waylaid by Indians, who killed two men and wounded another very severely. Two days later the savages killed and scalped two more. "Now," wrote Daniel Boone, "is the time to keep the country while we are in it. If we give way now, it will ever be the case;" and he pressed forward to the Kentucky river. There, on the first of April, at the distance of about sixty yards from its west bank, near the mouth of Otter creek, he began a stockade fort, which took the name of Boonesborough. The founders of the colony rested their titles to their lands on occupancy and a deed from head warriors. of the Cherokees. The commonwealth of Kentucky, which its fathers at first named Transylvania, began with independence. Richard Calloway was one of its early martyrs. In the town of St. Asaph resided John Floyd, a surveyor, who emigrated from south-western Virginia; an able writer, respected for his culture; of innate good-breeding; ready to defend the weak; to follow the trail of the savage; heedless of his own life, if he could recover women and children who had been made captive; destined to do good service, and survive the dangers of western life till American independence should be fought for and won. At Boiling Spring lived James Harrod, the same who, in 1774, had led a party of forty-one to Harrodsburg, and during the summer of that year had built the first log-cabin in Kentucky; a tall and resolute backwoodsman; unlettered, but not ignorant; intrepid, yet gentle; revered for energy and for benevolence; always caring for others, as a father, brother, and protector; unsparing of himself; never weary of kind offices to those around him; the first to pursue a stray horse, or to go to the rescue of prisoners; himself a skilful hunter, for whom the rifle had a companionship and the wilderness a charm; so that in age his delight was in excursions to the distant range of the receding buffaloes, till at last he plunged into the remote forest, and was never heard of more.

The state, now that it has become great and populous, honors the memory of Boone, the simple-hearted man, who is best known as its pioneer. He was kindly in his nature, and never wronged a human being, not even a red man. "I with others

have fought Indians," he would say, "but I do not know that I ever killed one; if I did, it was in battle, and I never knew it." He was no hater of them, and never desired their extermination. In woodcraft he was acknowledged to be the first among men. It was in his nature to love to hover on the frontier, with no abiding place, accompanied by the wife of his youth, who was the companion of his long life and travel. When at last death put them both to rest, Kentucky reclaimed their bones from their graves far up the Missouri, and now they lie buried above the cliffs of the Kentucky river, overlooking the lovely valley of the capital of that commonwealth. Around them are emblems of wilderness life; the turf of the blue grass lies lightly above them; and they are laid with their faces turned upward and westward, and their feet toward the setting sun.

A like spirit of independence prevailed in the highlands which hold the head-springs of the Yadkin and the Catawba. The region was peopled chiefly by Presbyterians of ScotchIrish descent, who brought to the New World the creed, the spirit of resistance, and the courage of the covenanters.

The people of the county of Mecklenburg had carefully observed the progress of the controversy with Britain; and, during the winter, political meetings had repeatedly been held in Charlotte. That town had been chosen for the seat of the Presbyterian college, which the legislature of North Carolina had chartered, but which the king had disallowed; and it was the centre of the culture of that part of the province. The number of houses in the village was not more than twenty; but the district was already well settled by herdsmen who lived apart on their farms. In May 1775, they received the address to the king of the preceding February, in which both houses of parliament declared the American colonies to be in a state of rebellion. This was to them evidence that the crisis in American affairs was come, and they proposed among themselves to abrogate all dependence on the royal authority. But the militia companies were sworn to allegiance; and "how," it was objected, "can we be absolved from our oath?" "The oath," it was answered, "binds only while the king protects." At the instance of Thomas Polk, the commander of the militia of the county, two delegates from each company were called

together in Charlotte, as a representative committee. Before their consultations had ended, the message of the innocent blood shed at Lexington came up from Charleston, and inflamed their zeal. They were impatient that their remoteness forbade their direct activity; had it been possible, they would have sent a hundred bullocks from their fields to the poor of Boston. No minutes of the committee are known to exist, but the result of their deliberations, framed with superior skill, precision, and comprehensiveness, remains as a monument of their wisdom and their courage. Among the delegates to that memorable assembly was Ephraim Brevard, one of a numerous family of patriot brothers, himself in the end a martyr to the public cause. Trained in the college at Princeton, ripened among the brave Presbyterians of middle Carolina, he digested the system which was then adopted, and which formed in effect a declaration of independence, as well as a system of government. "All laws

and commissions confirmed by or derived from the authority of the king or parliament," such are the well-considered words of these daring statesmen, "are annulled and vacated; all commissions, civil and military, heretofore granted by the crown to be exercised in the colonies, are void; the provincial congress of each province, under the direction of the great continental congress, is invested with all legislative and executive powers within the respective provinces, and no other legislative or executive power does or can exist at this time in any part of these colonies. As all former laws are now suspended in this province, and the congress has not yet provided others, we judge it necessary, for the better preservation of good order, to form certain rules and regulations for the internal government of this country, until laws shall be provided for us by the congress."

In accordance with these principles, the freemen of the county formed themselves into nine military companies, electing their own officers. The tenure alike of military and civil officers was "the pleasure of their several constituents." All public and county taxes, all quit-rents to the crown, were sequestered; and it was voted that persons receiving new commissions from the king, or exercising old ones, should be dealt with as enemies of the country.

The resolves were to be enforced till the provincial congress should otherwise ordain, or the British parliament resign its arbitrary pretensions with respect to America. At the same time, the militia companies were directed to provide themselves with arms; and Thomas Polk and Joseph Kenedy were appointed to purchase flints, lead, and powder.

On the thirty-first of May the resolutions were signed by Brevard as clerk of the committee, and were adopted by the people with the enthusiasm which springs from the combined influence of religion and the love of civil liberty. The resolves were transmitted with all speed to be printed in Charleston; they startled the governors of Georgia and North Carolina, who forwarded them to the British government. An authentic copy of the resolves was despatched by order of the convention to the continental congress, that the world might know their authors had renounced their allegiance to the king of Great Britain, and constituted a government for themselves.

The messenger stopped on his way at Salisbury; and there, to a crowd round the court-house, the resolves were read and approved. The western counties were the most populous part of North Carolina; and the royal governor had written: “I have no doubt that I might command their best services at a word on any emergency. I consider I have the means in my own hands to maintain the sovereignty of this country to my royal master in all events." And yet he was obliged to transmit the resolutions of Mecklenburg, which he described as "most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of the laws and constitution, and setting up a system of rule and regulation subversive of his majesty's government."

CHAPTER XIII.

MASSACHUSETTS ASKS FOR GEORGE WASHINGTON AS COMMANDERIN-CHIEF.

MAY-JUNE 17, 1775.

"UNHAPPY it is," said Washington, "to reflect that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?" He foresaw the long contest which was to precede the successful vindication of the liberties of America; and from the first he avowed to his friends "his full intention to devote his life and fortune" to the cause. To mark the necessity of immediate preparation for war, he wore in congress his uniform as an officer.

Franklin, who knew with certainty that every method of peaceful entreaty had been exhausted, reproved irresoluteness and delay. "Make yourselves sheep," he would say, "and the wolves will eat you;" and again, "God helps them who help themselves;" adding, hopefully: "United, we are well able to repel force by force." Thus "he encouraged the revolution," yet wishing for independence as the spontaneous action of a united people. The people of the continent, now that independence was become inevitable, still longed that the necessity for it might pass by.

In this state of things Dickinson seconded the motion of Jay for one more petition to the king; but his determination to sustain Massachusetts was never in doubt. He did not ask merely relief from parliamentary taxation; he insisted on