This he did to save what was indispensable to | about twelve, and that previous to this, he him and to prevent any interruption to swimming by the scabbard, should Middleton, as he presumed, when disappointed at the bridge, take the measures adopted by him. The pursuit was rapid and close, as the stop occasioned by the sergeant's preparation for swimming had brought Middleton within two or three hundred yards. As soon as Champe got abreast of the galleys, he dismounted, and running through the marsh to the river, plunged into it, calling upon the galleys for help. This was readily given; they fired upon our horse, and sent a boat to meet Champe, who was taken on board, and conveyed to New-York, with a letter from the captain of the galley stating the past scene, all of which he had seen." Washington was highly pleased with the result of his adventure. The eagerness of the pursuit he thought would be decisive evidence to the British commander, that this was a real and not a feigned desertion. Champe was immediately brought before sir Henry Clinton, and questioned by him on a variety of subjects, and amongst the rest, if any American officers were suspected of desertion, and who those officers were. The sergeant was forewarned on this point, and gave such answers as would more effectually mislead. After this examination he was consigned to the care of general Arnold, and by him retained in his former rank. Washington hoped and believed, that the trial of Andre would occupy much time, and enable Champe to accomplish his designs. That gallant officer disdaining all subterfuge, completely foiled this hope, by broadly confessing the nature of his connection with Arnold. The commander in chief offered to exchange Andre for Arnold, a proposal sir Henry Clinton, for obvious motives, declined. Had this gallant officer protracted his trial, and the plot proved successful, the life of Andre would have been saved, not by the intrigues of sir Henry Clinton, but of Washington in his favor. The honest and precipitate intrepidity of the British officer defeated this benevolent project, and no alternative remained but a speedy death. The sergeant, unfortunate as he was in this, was more successful in obtaining evidence the most full and satisfactory, that the suspicions resting on several American officers were foul calumnies, and a forgery of the enemy. He now determined on making a bold attempt for the seizure of Arnold. Having been allowed, at all times, free access to Arnold, marked all his habits and movements, he awaited only a favorable opportunity for the execution of his project. He had ascertained that Arnold usually retired to rest spent some time in a private garden, adjoining his quarters. He was there to have been seized, bound and gagged, and under the pretext that he was a soldier in a state of intoxication, to have been conveyed through bye paths, and unsuspected places to a boat lying in readiness, in the river Hudson. Champe engaged two confederates, and major Lee, who co-operated in the plan, received timely intelligence of the night fixed on for its execution. At the appointed time that officer, attended by a small party well mounted, laid in wait on the other side of the Hudson with two spare horses, one for Champe, and the other for Arnold. The return of day light announced the discomfiture of the plan, and Lee and his party retired to the camp with melancholy forebodings that the life of the gallant sergeant had been sacrificed to his zeal in the service of his country. Consoling was the intelligence, shortly after received from the confederates, that on the night preceding the one fixed for Arnold's arrest, that officer had shifted his quarters. It appeared that he was employed to superintend the embarkation of certain troops composed chiefly of American deserters, and it was apprehended that unless they were removed from their barracks, which were adjacent to the shore, many might seize that opportunity to escape. This attempt was never afterwards renewed. On the junction of Arnold with lord Cornwallis, in Virginia, the sergeant found means to elude the vigilance of the British lines, and to reach in safety the army of general Greene. Having been furnished by that officer with the means of escaping to Washington's camp, he arrived there to the astonishment and joy of his old confederates in arms. When Washington assumed the command of the army under president Adams, he caused strict enquiry to be made for the man who had so honorably distinguished himself, intending to honor such tried fidelity with military promotion, and heard to his great sorrow that he died but a short time before, in the state of Kentucky. These facts are taken and condensed from the interesting manuscript of major general Lee. SKETCH OF GEN. JOHN CROPPER, A DISTINGUISHED OFFICER OF THE VIR GINIA CONTINENTAL LINE. DIED At his seat on Bowman's Folly, at sixteen minutes past two o'clock on the morn ing of Monday, 15th of January, 1821, general | About the middle of the engagement, com. W's John Cropper, in the 66th year of his age, after magazine took fire, at which time several of an illness of eleven days. He embarked early his men were overboard hanging by the rigin the cause of his country, and was chosen a ging-29 men out of 69 men were killed on captain, in the 9th Virginia regiment on conti- board of com. W's barge, together with the nental establishment, when only nineteen or commodore himself. In this engagement gentwenty years of age, and marched in December eral Cropper had to contend with two white 1776, to the north to join the army under the men and one negro, all armed with cutlasses, command of the illustrious Washington. Gen- and boarding pikes, and defended himself with eral Cropper was promoted from a captaincy a musket and bayonet.-One of the general's in the 9th Virginia regiment to a major in the antagonists struck him with a cutlass on the 5th Virginia regiment. Gen. C. was at the head, which nearly brought him down. In the battle of Brandywine, when the 5th Virginia middle of this individual conflict, the negro disregiment was nearly cut to pieces, and from covering his young master to be the person which, during the action, his colonel and lieu- with whom he and the two white men were tenant both ran away. Gen. C. then retreated engaged, cried out, "Save him-he is my young with the remainder of the regiment, and lay master!"-Gen. Cropper afterwards set this concealed in some bushes on the battle ground, faithful man free, and settled him in the city of until near day-break of the same night of the Baltimore.-General John Cropper, was in the engagement between mid-night and day- service of his beloved country about 45 years. break, he stole off and marched to Chester, Those who were acquainted with him, know with a red handkerchief lashed to a ramrod for how he discharged his duty in every station in colors. On Chester Bridge, general C. was which he was placed. Gen. C. retained to the met by the illustrious George Washington and last hour of his life the veneration and love he general Woodford. The latter alighted from bore for the illustrious Washington, the savior his horse, embraced gen. Cropper, and pressed of his country. He tried to imitate him in his him to his bosom and said, "He whom we conduct as a soldier and citizen. The deeds thought was lost, is found.”—Gen. C. was then of this great, good, and illustrious American promoted to a lieutenant colonel in the 7th was the theme of general Cropper at all times. Virginia regiment, and was at the battles He could not bear to hear the least whisper of Germantown and Monmouth Courthouse. derogatory to the character of the best of men From the 7th Virginia regiment he was pro--and more than once has gen. Cropper been moted to the command of the eleventh Virginia regiment, by the Marquis De La Fayette, which regiment he commanded until his return to Virginia on the 30th of November, 1782. The day on which the preliminary articles of peace were signed at Paris, Gen. Cropper was engaged with com. Whaley, in the barge Victory, in the Chesapeake Bay, against five British barges, under the command of com. Perry. At the commencement of this engagement, there were attached to com. Whaley's squadron three other American barges, all of which ran off as soon as the engagement commenced, and left com. Whaley alone to contend with five British barges, full manned.—Com. W. had on board his barge 69 men, principally citizens of the counties of Accomack and Northampton. I deceased. personally engaged to defend his fame. Gen. C. had the honor to die possessed with a written document, from the pen of this illustrious personage, which evidenced the high opinion he entertained of the worth of the deceased as an officer. This document was treasured up as a miser would treasure his gold, and but few persons were permitted to read it, or hear it read. It was the more highly prized, because this illustrious general and statesman was cautious in discovering his opinions, or showing his attachment to individuals.-Gen. Cropper was the soldier's friend.-The deceased has left a widow and seven children, and ten grandchildren, to deplore his loss. The writer of this is one who was well acquainted with the ADDRESS NORTH CAROLINA. OF THE ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA, were compelled to take for that salutary purpose. It is not to be controverted, that his ma TO GOVERNOR JOSIAH MARTIN, APRIL 1775. jesty's subjects have a right to petition for a To his excellency Josiah Martin, esq., captain redress of grievances, or to remonstrate general, governor, and commander in chief, against them; and as it is only in a meeting of in and over the province of North Carolina. the people, that their sense, respecting such SIR-We, his majesty's most dutiful and petition and remonstrance, can be obtained, loyal subjects, the members of the assembly of that the right of assembling is as undoubted. North Carolina, have taken into consideration-To attempt, therefore, under the mask of your excellency's speech, at the opening of this authority, to prevent or forbid a meeting of the session. We met in general assembly, with minds superior to private dissension, determined calmly, unitedly, and faithfully, to discharge the sacred trust reposed in us by our constituents. Actuated by sentiments like these, it behoves us to declare, that the assembly of this colony have the highest sense of their allegiance to the king of Great Britain, to whom alone, as our constitutional sovereign, we acknowledge allegiance to be due, and to whom we so cheerfully and repeatedly have sworn it, that to remind us of the oath was unnecessary. This allegiance, all past assemblies have, upon every occasion, amply expressed; and we, the present representatives of the people, shall be always ready, by our actions, with pleasure to testify; sensible, however, that the same constitution which established that allegiance, and enjoined the oath in consequence of it, hath bound his majesty under as solemn obligations, to protect subjects inviolate in all their just rights and privileges, wisely intending, by reciprocal dependence, to secure the happiness of both. We contemplate, with a degree of horror, the unhappy state of America, involved in the most embarrassing difficulties and distresses, by a number of unconstitutional invasions of their just rights and privileges; by which, the inhabitants of the continent in general, and of this province in particular, have been precipitated into measures, extraordinary perhaps in their nature, but warranted by necessity, from whence, among many other measures, the appointment of committees, in the several towns and counties, took its birth, to prevent, as much as in them lay, the operations of such unconstitutional encroachments. And the assembly remain unconvinced of any steps taken by those committees, but such as they people for such purposes, or to interrupt their proceedings when met, would be a vain effort, unduly to exercise power in direct opposition to the constitution. Far be it from us, then, sir, even to wish to prevent the operations of the convention now held at Newbern, or to agree with your excellency in bestowing upon them the injurious epithet of an illegal meeting. They are, sir, the respectable representatives of the people, appointed for a special and important purpose, to which, though our constituents might have thought us adequate, yet, as our meeting depended upon the pleasure of the crown, they would have been unwise to have trusted to so precarious a contingence, especially as the frequent and unexpected prorogations of the assembly, one of them in particular, as if all respect and attention to the convenience of their representatives hath been lost, was proclaimed but two or three days before the time which had been appoinied for the meetings, gave the people not the least reason to expect that their assembly would have been permitted to sit till it was too late to appoint delegates to attend the continental congress at Philadelphia; a measure which they joined the rest of America in thinking essential to its interest. The house, sir, neither know, nor believe that any base arts have been practised upon the people in order to lead them from their duty; but we know with certainty, that the steps they have taken proceeded from a full conviction, that the parliament of Great Britain had, by a variety of oppressive and unconstitu tional proceedings, made those steps absolutely necessary. We think it, therefore, a duty we owe the people, to assert, that their conduct has not been owing to base arts, practised upon them by wicked and designing men; and have it much to lament, that your excellency should add your sanction to such groundless imputations, as it has a manifest tendency to weaken the influence which the united petition of his majesty's American subjects might otherwise have, upon their sovereign, for a redress of those grievances of which they so justly complain. with the other colonies in every effort to retain It DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. is not probably known to many of our readers, that the citizens of Mecklenburg county, in this state, made a declaration of independence more than a year before congress made theirs. The following document on the subject has lately come to the hands of the editor from unquestionable authority, and is published that it may go down to posterity. FROM THE RALEIGH REGISTER. We should feel inexpressible concern at the information, given us by your excellency, of your being authorized to say, that the appointment of delegates, to attend the congress at Philadelphia, now in agitation, will be highly offensive to the king, had we not recently been informed, from the best authority, that his majesty has been pleased to receive, very graciously, the united petition of his American subjects, addressed to him by the continental delegates, lately convened at Philadelphia. We have not, therefore, the least reason to suppose, that a similar application to the throne, will give offence to his majesty, or prevent his receiving a petition for the redress of [As the genuineness of this declaration of Ingrievances, which his American subjects have dependence has been recently questioned in a right to present, either separately or unitedly. different sections of the country, reference is We shall always receive, with pleasure, the particularly requested to an extract from a letinformation of any marks of loyalty to the king,ter written by Sir James Wright, Governor of given to your excellency, by the inhabitants of this colony; but we are greatly concerned, lest the manner in which you have thought proper to convey this information, should excite a belief, that a great number of the people of this province are disaffected to their sovereign, to prevent which, it is incumbent upon us, in this manner, solemnly to testify to the world, that his majesty has no subjects more faithful than the inhabitants of North Carolina, or more ready, at the expense of their lives and fortunes, to protect and support his person, crown, and dignity. If, however, by the signal proofs your excellency speaks of, you mean those addresses lately published in the North Carolina Gazette, and said to be presented to you, the assembly can receive no pleasure from your congratulations thereupon, but what results from the consideration that so few have been found in so populous a province, weak enough to be seduced from their duty, and prevailed upon by the base arts of wicked and designing men, to adopt principles so contrary to the sense of all America, and so destructive of those rights and privileges, it was their duty to maintain. We take this opportunity, sir, the first that has been given us, to express the warm attachment we have to our sister colonies in general, and the heart-felt compassion we entertain for the deplorable state of the town of Boston in particular, and also to declare the fixed and determined resolution of this colony, to unite Georgia, to the home government, of date June 20th, 1775,* one month after the date of that that "by the enclosed paper your lordship will declaration (May 20th, 1775,) in which he states see the extraordinary resolves by the people in Charlotte Town, Mecklenburgh county." This statement settles for all time, the authenticity of that declaration. The extract was recently furnished to the reviser of this work, March 7, 1876, by the Historical Society of Georgia.] NORTH CAROLINA, MECKLENBURG COUNTY, May 20, 1775. In the spring of 1775, the leading characters of Mecklenburg county, stimulated by the enthusiastic patriotism which elevates the mind above considerations of individual aggrandisement, and scorning to shelter themselves from the impending storm, by submission to lawless power, etc. etc., held several detached meetings, in each of which the individual senti ments were "that the cause of Boston was the cause of all; that their destinies were indissolubly connected with those of their eastern fellow-citizens—and that they must either submit to all the impositions which an unprincipled and to them an unrepresented parliament might impose or support their brethren who were doomed to sustain the first shock of that power, which, if successful there, would ultimately overwhelm all in the common calamity. Conformably to these principles, col. Adam Alex * See Georgia, p. 390. ander, through solicitation, issued an order to government of the congress: to the mainteeach captain's company in the county of Meck-nance of which independence, we solemnly lenburg, (then comprising the present county pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, of Cabarrus) directing each militia company to our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred elect two persons, and delegate to them ample honor. power to devise ways and means to aid and assist their suffering brethren in Boston, and also generally to adopt measures to extricate themselves from the impending storm, and to secure, unimpaired, their inalienable rights, privileges and liberties, from the dominant grasp of British imposition and tyranny. 4. Resolved, That, as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or military within this county, we do hereby ordain and adopt, as a rule of life, all, each, and every of our former lawswherein, nevertheless, the crown of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authority therein. 5. Resolved, That it is also further decreed, that all, each, and every military officer in this county is hereby reinstated to his former command and authority, he acting conformably to these regulations. And that every member present of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz., a justice of the peace, in the character of a Committee man,' to issue process, hear and determine all matters of contro In conforming to said order, on the 19th of May, 1775, the said delegation met in Charlotte, vested with unlimited powers; at which time official news, by express, arrived of the battle of Lexington on that day of the preceding month. Every delegate felt the value and importance of the prize, and the awful and solemn crisis which had arrived-every bosom swelled with indignation at the malice, inveteracy, and insatiable revenge developed in the late attack at Lexington. The universal senti-versy, according to said adopted laws, and to ment was let us not flatter ourselves that preserve peace, and union, and harmony, in popular harangues-or resolves; that popular said county; and to use every exertion to spread vapor will avert the storm, or vanquish our the love of country and fire of freedom throughcommon enemy-let us deliberate-let us cal-out America, until a more general and orgaculate the issue the probable result: and nized government be established in this then let us act with energy as brethren leagued province. to preserve our property—our lives,—and what is still more endearing, the liberties of America. Adam Alexander was then elected chairman, and John M'Knitt Alexander, clerk. After a free and full discussion of the various objects for which the delegation had been convened, it was unanimously ordained 1. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form or manner, countenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy to this country-to America-and to the inherent and inalienable rights of man. 2. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg county, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from allegiance to the British crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, association with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on our right and liberties—and inhumanly shed the innocent blood of American patriots at Lexington. INCIDENTS RELATING TO THE DECLARA- A number of by-laws were also added, merely to protect the association from confusion, and to regulate their general conduct as citizens. After sitting in the court-house all night, neither sleepy, hungry or fatigued, and after discussing every paragraph, they were all passed, sanctioned, and decreed, unanimously, about 2 o'clock, A. M. May 20. In a few days, a deputation of said delegation convened, when capt. James Jack, of Charlotte, was deputed as express to the congress at Philadelphia, with a copy of said resolves and proceedings, together with a letter addressed to our three representatives, viz., Richard Caswell, Wm. Hooper, and Joseph Hughes, under express injunction, personally, and through the state representation, to use all possible means to have said proceedings sanctioned and approved by the general congress. On the return of capt. Jack, the delegation learned that their proceed 3. Resolved, That we do hereby declare our-ings were individually approved by the memselves a free and independent people; are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing association, under the control of no power other than that of God and the general bers of congress, but that it was deemed premature to lay them before the house. A joint letter from said three members of congress was also received, complimentary of the zeal in the |