1725.
5. This weak and wicked ruler only remained
one year in charge, when Sir Richard Everhard came
to replace him. They were brothers in iniquity,
and before Burrington left Edenton these two men disgraced
themselves by fighting in the streets of that village.
The General Assembly met at Edenton, and by enactment
of law the dividing line between North Carolina and
Virginia was run in November of this year.
1729.
6. Such rulers as have just been mentioned so
utterly disgusted every one in the colony that the
King and Parliament were petitioned to buy the province
and abolish the rule of those who had only hindered
its growth. So, in 1729, for the sum of forty-five
thousand dollars, all of the proprietors except Lord
Carteret, sold to the crown their interest in Carolina
. Thus, after sixty-six years of unbounded misrule,
these men in London who had so greatly cursed North
Carolina by their ignorance and mistakes, surrendered
their title to property which had never paid them
more than about one hundred dollars a piece in any
one year.
7. They had never really cared for the people
whom they were so anxious to disturb with their crude
notions of religion. The schemes of London merchants
were of far more moment thanthe welfare of Albemarle,
and the folly of the Fundamental Constitutions was
to be upheld even at the ruin of the province.
8. As an earnest of the want of care King George
I. was to exhibit towards the colony, Governor Burrington
was sent back to the people who were already so well
acquainted with his faults of temper and character.
He soon got into trouble with the leading men of
the province, and pretending to go to South Carolina,
returned to England, where he was soon after killed
in a night-brawl in the city of London.
1734.
9. Nathaniel Rice was Governor until the arrival
and qualification of Gabriel Johnston, who took the
oaths of office at Brunswick, on the Cape Fear River.
Governor Johnston was a Scotchman, who had lived
for several years in London, and was to prove the
wisest and best of all the men sent over to rule the
people in Carolina. He married Penelope Eden,
daughter of the late Governor, and dwelt at her home
on the Chowan River.
10. There were no troubles between the Governor
and people in the time of Governor Johnston’s
administration. Sometimes Edward Moseley, always
a stickler for the rights of the colonists, would
carry some dispute into the General Assembly, but the
measures of Governor Johnston, as a general thing,
were pleasing to all classes of the people and received
their support.
11. At this period, Dr. John Brickell, with
a party of white men and Indians, was sent by the
General Assembly to explore the mountain region of
Western North Carolina. He went into East Tennessee
in his travels among the Cherokees. He brought
back wondrous accounts of the beauty of the region
and of the simplicity and kindness of the natives.
Dr. Brickell practiced medicine in Edenton and wrote
an interesting book about the North Carolina of that
day.
