PUBLISHED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF THE TRUS- OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY COLLECTED AND EDITED BY WILLIAM L. SAUNDERS SECRETARY OF STATE VOL. III-1728 TO 1734 RALEIGH P. M. HALE, PRINTER TO THE STATE 1886 STANFORD JUNIOR LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Copyright, 1886, by WILLIẨM L. SAUNDERS, Secretary of State, for the benefit of the State of North Carolina. PRESSES OF E. M. UZZELL, RALEIGH, N. C. PREFATORY NOTES TO THIRD VOLUME. The third volume covers the period from the surrender of the Lords Proprietors to the end of Burrington's administration as Royal Governor, almost six years in duration. For more than two years of this period Sir Richard Everard was Governor, being allowed by the Crown to hold over until his successor under the new régime was ready to enter upon the discharge of his duties. During this time the Legislature met only once, in November, 1729, and enacted a number of laws, the originals of which, with all the endorsements thereon, are now preserved in the office of the Secretary of State in Raleigh. The validity of these laws being called in question, as it was recited in the enacting clauses that they were passed by authority of the Lords Proprietors, the matter was referred to the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General of the Crown, and they declared them to be null and void. In spite of this, however, they were regularly brought forward as valid in all of our Revisals. On the 25th February, 1731, Burrington, who had just arrived in the colony, took the oaths of office as Governor before the Council, assembled in Edenton, and his administration terminated on the 12th November, 1734, when in the same town he received a proclamation announcing that his successor, Gabriel Johnston, had arrived at Cape Fear and qualified according to law. His first Legislature met on 13th April, 1731, the second on 3d July, 1733, and the third and last on the 5th November, 1734. Historians have fallen into grave errors in regard to Governor Burrington. The minutes of the last meeting of the Council held before Governor Johnston's arrival, so far as now appears, record the fact that on the 15th April, 1734, Nathaniel Rice being the oldest Councillor, took upon him the administration of the government in consequence of the |
