If this paper
be really taken from the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I wonder it should
have escaped Ritchie, who culls what is good from every paper, as the
bee from every flower; and the National Intelligencer, too, which is
edited by a North-Carolinian: and that the fire should blaze out all at
once in Essex, one thousand miles from where the spark is said to
have fallen. But if really taken from the Raleigh Register, who is the
narrator, and is the name subscribed real, or is it as fictitious as the
paper itself? It appeals, too, to an original book, which is burnt, to
Mr. Alexander, who is dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hughes, and
Hooper, all dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent
to Doctor Williamson, now probably dead, whose memory did not recollect,
in the history he has written of North Carolina, this gigantic step
of its county of Mecklenburg. Horry, too, is silent in his history of
Marion, whose scene of action was the country bordering On Mecklenburg.
Ramsay, Marshall, Jones, Girardin, Wirt, historians of the adjacent
States, all silent. When Mr. Henry's resolutions, far short of
independence, flew like lightning through every paper, and kindled both
sides of the Atlantic, this flaming declaration of the same date, of the
independence of Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, absolving it from
the British allegiance, and abjuring all political connection with that
nation, although sent to Congress, too, is never heard of.
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