excitement, and extensive preparations
for war, in 1775, did not deter the Highlanders in Scotland from seeking
a home in America. On October 21st, a body of one hundred and
seventy-two Highlanders, including men, women and children arrived in
the Cape Fear river, on board the George, and made application for lands
near those already located by their relatives. The governor took his
usual precautions with them, for in a letter to the earl of Dartmouth,
dated November 12th, he says:

"On the most solemn assurances of their firm and unalterable loyalty
and attachment to the King, and their readiness to lay down their
lives in the support and defence of his Majesty's Government, I was
induced to Grant their request on the Terms of their taking such
lands in the proportions allowed by his Majesty's Royal Instructions,
and subject to all the conditions prescribed by them whenever grants
may be passed in due form, thinking it were advisable to attach these
people to Government by granting as matter of favor and courtesy to
them what I had not power to prevent than to leave them to possess
themselves by violence of the King's lands, without owing or
acknowledging any obligation for them, as it was only the means of
securing these People against the seditions of the Rebels, but
gaining so much strength to Government that is equally important at
this time, without making any concessions injurious to the rights and
interests of the Crown, or that it has effectual power to
withhold."[41]

In the same letter is the further information that "a ship is this
moment arrived from Scotland with upwards of one hundred and thirty
Emigrants Men, Women and Children to whom I shall think it proper (after
administering the Oath of Allegiance to the Men) to give permission to
settle on the vacant lands of the Crown here on the same principles and
conditions that I granted that indulgence to the Emigrants lately
imported in the ship George."

Many of the emigrants appear to have been seized with the idea that all
that was necessary was to land in America, and the avenues of affluence
would be opened to them. Hence there were those who landed in a
distressed condition. Such was the state of the last party that arrived
before the Peace of 1783. There was "a Petition from sundry distressed
Highlanders, lately arrived from Scotland, praying that they might be
permitted to go to Cape Fear, in North