Very ample notes and materials are ready for a volume, relating to the events of the revolutionary war, and another, detailing subsequent transactions, till the writer's departure from Newbern, in 1809. If God yield him life and health, and his fellow citizens in North Carolina appear desirous these should follow the two volumes, now presented to them, it is not improbable they will appear.

Gentilly, near New-Orleans,

THE

HISTORY

OF

NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER I.

THE Country, the history of which is now attempted to be traced, was first known to the Europeans, in the year 1512, twenty years after the landing of Christopher Columbus in the new world, as an undefined part of the vast section of the northern continent of America, which was then discovered by Juan Ponce de Leon, a subject of the crown of Spain. He gave it the name of Florida, either from its flowery appearance, or from the circumstance of his first discovering it on Palm Sunday. He landed on the most southern part of the continent, near a small river, which falls into the gulf of Mexico, a few leagues to the south of the present town of Pensacola.

Sebastian Cabot, however, had fifteen years before sailed along the eastern coast of that continent, from that latitude to the 56th degree, under a commission from Henry VII. of England, without any attempt towards a settlement.

On the return of Juan Ponce de Leon to Spain, his sovereign bestowed on him a grant of Florida. He soon after made a second voyage; but on his landing, the Indians fell on his men and massacred

N. CAROLINA. 1

the greater part of them. In the conflict, the chief received a wound, which put an end to his existence, shortly after his arrival in Spain.

The French made three fruitless attempts to establish a colony on the continent of North America, in the year 1535. In the year 1506, nearly thirty years before, Jean Denys, one of their navigators, sailed from Rouen, visited and drew a chart of the gulf of St. Lawrence; and Thomas Aubert of Dieppe, in the year 1508, had sailed up the river of that name, and it is said, that as early as the year 1504, fishermen from Normandy and Brittany visited its shores.

Lucas Vasquez de Aillon, in 1520, equipped two vessels in Hispaniola, for Florida, with the view of seizing on a number of Indians, reducing them to slavery, and employing them in working in the mines. He passed through the Lucaye islands, and discovered the continent in the thirty-second degree of northern latitude, and anchored between two capes, then called Chicora and Guadalpe, on the river afterwards called Jordan river. The Indians fled, on the landing of the Spaniards, who overtook two of them and carried them on board; and after giving them meat and drink, they suffered them to return to their friends. This courteous demeanor, induced the Indians to come on board in great numbers, bringing a large quantity of fowls and vegetables. The Spaniards landed again, and proceeded a considerable distance in the interior of the country, where they were received with great hospitality and friendship.

On their return, they invited a number of Indians to an entertainment on board; and weighing anchors in the

midst of it, brought away their unsuspecting hosts. One of the vessels was lost at sea; the other reached Hispaniola, but most of the Indians on board, perished, victims to their sadness, or an obstinate abstinence.

Other vessels went from Hispaniola to Florida, and brought away a number of Indians, who were reduced to slavery, and employed in working the mines.

Vasquez having obtained the king's privilege, sent several vessels to Florida, in 1524; and his ambition being excited by the information which he received, that the land was extremely fertile and contained mines of gold, sailed with those vessels in 1525, and proceeded to the river Jordan, where he lost one of his vessels on

the cape

cape of St. Helena, and two hundred of his men were, on his landing, massacred by the Indians.

In 1523 and the two following years, the same coast was explored with a considerable degree of accuracy, by Giovano Veranzzany, employed by Francis I. of France.

Pamphilo de Narvaez obtained, in 1526, from Charles I. of Spain, the office of governor of all the lands which he might discover, from Rio de Palmas, to the confines of Florida. He sailed in the latter part of the year 1528, from the port of Yagua, on the southern coast of the island of Cuba; and having passed round the island, they left its nothern coast, at the distance of twelve leagues above the Havana; and taking advantage of a strong southern wind, they reached the coast of Florida, in the gulf of Mexico, on the 12th of April. He landed on the next day, and procured fish and venison from the natives. It is said, one of their huts was so capacious as to be capable of sheltering three hundred men. He discovered in the possession of

the Indians, a cymbal of gold, which induced Narvaez to believe that this metal was in abundance in the neighborhood. He landed ten men and forty horses, and took possession of the land with the accustomed ceremonies. The Indians, though they could not make themselves understood by the Spaniards, manifested by their countenances and demeanor, the reluctance with which they received them. The Spaniards, proceeding farther, came to a tribe of Indians who received them better, and supplied them with corn; and saw here some boxes containing the skeletons of dead men, covered with skins. Narvaez sojourned several days near these Indians, and made frequent excursions into the country, during which he had several skirmishes with them. At last, destitute of provisions, and finding nothing but a sterile country and impassable roads, he re-embarked; but the greatest part of his men perished, through fatigue, hunger and disease. Those who escaped these complicated disasters, reached Rio de Palmas. Narvaez was not among them: his ship foundered in a storm, and he was never heard of.

A little more than ten years after, Ferdinand de Soto was sent by the crown of Spain as governor of Florida. More fortunate or more prudent, at first, than those who had preceded him, he effected the landing of the colonists who accompanied him, without the loss of any of them: they were as numerous as those whom Narvaez had brought from Spain. For a while, this was the first successful establishment of a colony of Europeans on the continent of North America. It supported itself during five years against the natives who at last vanquished and destroyed it. The Spaniards during that