emselves on the Cape Fear River. Hardly had New
England received within her bosom a few scanty colonies, before her
citizens began roaming the continent and traversing the seas in quest of
untried fortune. A little bark, navigated by New England men, had
hovered off the coast of Carolinia. They had carefully watched the
dangers of its navigation, had found their way into the Cape Fear River,
had purchased of the Indian chiefs a title to the soil, and had boldly
planted a little colony of herdsmen far to the south of any English
settlement on the continent. Already they had partners in London, and
hardly was the grant of Carolinia made known before their agents pleaded
their discovery, occupancy and purchase, as affording a valid title to
the soil, while they claimed the privilege of self-government as a
natural right. A compromise was offered, and the proprietaries, in their
"proposal to all that would plant in Carolinia," promised emigrants from
New England a governor and council to be elected from among a number
whom the emigrants themselves should nominate; a representative
assembly, independent legislation, subject only to the negative of the
proprietaries, land at a rent of half a penny per acre and such freedom
from customs as the charter would warrant.

Notwithstanding all these offers, but few availed themselves of them,
and the lands were for most part abandoned to wild beasts and natives.
From Nansemond, Virginia, a party of explorers was formed to traverse
the forests and rivers that flow into the Albemarle Sound. The company
which started in July, 1653, was led by Roger Green, whose services
were rewarded by a grant of a thousand acres, while ten thousand acres
were offered to any colony of one hundred persons who would plant on the
banks of the Roanoke, or the south side of the Chowan and its tributary
streams. These conditional grants seem not to have taken effect, yet the
enterprise of Virginia did not flag, and Thomas Dew, once the speaker of
the assembly, formed a plan for exploring the navigable rivers still
further to the south, between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear. How far this
spirit of discovery led to immediate emigration, it is not possible to
determine. The country of Nansemond had long abounded in nonconformists,
and the settlements on Albemarle Sound were the result of spontaneous
overflowings from Virginia. A few vagrant families were planted within
the limits of Carolinia; but it is quite cert