At first he looked distrustful, almost shy," While thus I mused, still gazing, gazing still, CHAPTER XXVIII. CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY. 1783. THE war for independence was over, though the British government did not formally admit that America was free and independent till November, 1782, more than a year after the surrender at Yorktown, and the last British army did not leave New York City till November, 1783. In that month General Washington disbanded his war-worn army, took leave of his veteran officers, and resigned his commission to Congress, then in session at Annapolis. It was now a critical time in the history of our country. Each one of the thirteen States had its own government to adjust, its own disorders to heal, its own impoverished soldiers to pay off, its own finances to consider. There was no general government or real solid union among the States. When the war ended, when the pressure of danger was no longer felt, the States began to fall apart. A common danger has the good effect to bind states. as well as people closer together. It required all the wisdom, firmness, good feeling, and good management of the leading men of America to induce the thirteen States to form a lasting union and inaugurate a general government. So many questions arose, so many interests had to be consulted, so many doubts and fears had to be met and allayed. How were the States to become one, and yet all remain free? How much power should the people have? How much should be allowed the government? Great and good men differed widely as to these things. Every State held conventions and sent delegates to a General Congress for several years in succession without adopting any plan. One of the most important questions was, how should the finances or money matters be arranged, and, above all, how should the war debts be settled and the brave army be paid off? General Washington had refused any pay for his services. When he gave in his accounts to Congress it appeared that his expenditures for the public service amounted to $74,485. The total pecuniary cost of the war, exclusive of the immense losses from the ravages of the enemy, burning and plundering of towns and private property, was $170,000,000. Two-thirds of this Congress had spent; the different States spent the rest. It had been paid by taxes-taxes in the shape of depreciating paper money, taxes directly and indirectly imposed -paid by borrowing and by running in debt. North Carolina had furnished in Continental troops and militia 22,910 men. The whole amount of paper money issued by the State was $76,375,000. It depreciated in value steadily till in 1782 one dollar in silver would buy $800 of the paper money. Mrs. Governor Nash said that it took the governor's whole salary for one year to buy her a dress. This money had purchased all the supplies for our armies and paid all the wages of our officers and soldiers. At the value of 800 for 1 it was worth $95,000 in silver. The price of corn then was about 33 cents a bushel ; wheat, 43 cents; rice, 81 cents. Pork was 33 cents a pound; beef, 23 cents; flour, 24 cents; salt, 23 cents. Tobacco was $3 a hundred. Linen cloth, yard wide, was from 33 cents to 75 cents, according to its quality; cotton cloth was not known or thought of. The burdensome taxes were lightened by the order that one-half might be paid in such products as these. 1784. Richard Caswell was again elected governor in 1784, and served till 1787. During his rule the General Congress, which still continued to meet, though the States had not agreed upon the terms of union, was greatly embarrassed by want of means to pay off either the soldiers of the Revolution or the public debt contracted in the war. It had to call on the different States for their proportion of the debt. North Carolina was in difficulties about her own debts, but she rose to this call with a noble sense of duty and of public spirit. The territory then belonging to North Carolina extended at this time to the Mississippi River. It had once been bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, but that was in the days of King Charles's "grant" to the Lords Proprie tors. We owned in 1784 no more than the fine country now called the State of Tennessee, which was then mostly a wild, unbroken forest, where the Indian and the buffalo yet roamed and disputed inch by inch the advance of the white man. But for some years before the Revolution and during it many brave adventurers from North Carolina and from Virginia had been crossing the Blue Ridge and making new homes for themselves and their families in that noble and fertile land on the eastern side of Tennessee next to North Carolina. John Sevier of Virginia and James Robertson of Wake county, North Carolina, were the first leaders of this movement, and they were followed by long trains of staunch, hardy emigrants-wild bordermen to whom the crack of the rifle was a sweeter sound than the church- · going bell. They built themselves log houses and log forts, and defended themselves successfully against the fierce Cherokees of the mountains and the Creeks and Choctaws of the river-valleys. These high-spirited, free, and fearless backwoodsmen were devoted to their leaders and felt themselves quite independent. They were unwilling that North Carolina or any other State should claim any authority to dispose of the land they had rescued from the Indians. They had shed their blood freely, not only to establish themselves there, but to establish American independence. They had left their wives and children almost undefended from the savages while they recrossed the mountains to fight for North Carolina, and at the battle of King's Mountain had shown |