ys, with or without notice, they were to be proclaimed
outlaws and to forfeit their lives and property. The governor also sent
out a request for volunteers to march against the "rebels," but the
Assembly refused to grant money for this warlike purpose.

Governor Tryon had shown himself as unjust and tyrannous as Governor
Berkeley of Virginia had done in his contest with Bacon. It did not take
him long to foment the rebellion which he seemed determined to provoke.
When the Regulators heard that their representative had been thrown into
prison, and that they were threatened with exile or death as outlaws,
they prepared to march on Newbern for the rescue of Husbands, filling
the governor with such alarm for the safety of his fine new palace that
he felt it wise to release his captive. He tried to indict the sturdy
Highlander for a pretended libel, but the Grand Jury refused to support
him in this, and Husbands was set free. The Regulators thereupon
dispersed, after a party of them had visited the Superior Court at
Salisbury and expressed their opinion very freely about the lawyers, the
officials, and the Riot Act, which they declared had no warrant in the
laws of England.

As yet the Regulators had done little more than to protest against
tyranny and oppression and to show an intention to defend their
representative against unjust imprisonment, yet they had done enough to
arouse their lordly governor to revenge. Rebels they were, for they had
dared to question his acts, and rebels he would hold them. As the Grand
Jury would not support him in his purpose, he took steps to obtain
juries and witnesses on whom he could rely, and then brought charges
against many of the leading Regulators of Orange County, several of whom
had been quietly at home during the riots of which they were accused.

The governor's next step was to call the Grand Jury to his palace and
volunteer to them to lead troops into the western counties, the haunt of
the Regulators. The jurymen, who were his own creatures, hastened to
applaud his purpose, and the Council agreed. The Assembly refused to
provide funds for such a purpose, but Tryon got over this difficulty by
issuing a paper currency.

A force of militia was now raised in the lower part of the colony and
the country of the Regulators was invaded. Tryon marched at the head of
a strong force into Orange County, and proceeded to deal with it as if
it were a country conquered in war. As he advanced,