Despite Governor Martin’s frantic proclamation forbidding its meeting, the independent convention gathered in New Bern on the 25th of August, 1774.[I] No assembly of its kind had ever before convened in America. It was followed by others of like character. Delegates to the Continental Congress were elected. The breach with Great Britain became wider, and finally, as a last resort, independence was declared. And it may be well just here to observe that North Carolina was the very first colony to authorize a national declaration of independence, when in the Provincial or State Congress at Halifax on April 12, 1776, Cornelius Harnett submitted a committee report (which was unanimously adopted), setting forth a resolution: “that the delegates for this colony in the Continental Congress be impowered to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in _declaring independency_.” This was more than a month before the passage of the famous Virginia resolutions; and even those who question the genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence have never attempted to disprove the authenticity of this resolution adopted by the Provincial Congress at Halifax. So North Carolina will ever claim the proud distinction of having been first to move for independence, as she was also first to offer resistance to the Stamp Act. The preamble to the above resolve in favor of independence is a masterly vindication of the course pursued by the colonies, and should be read of all men.[J] As well may be supposed, a man of Colonel Buncombe’s spirit and patriotism was not the person to hold back from participation in a war, however perilous, which he himself had been instrumental in bringing about. On September 9, 1775, he was elected Colonel of the militia forces of Tyrrell County[K] by the Provincial Congress of North Carolina, then in session at Halifax. He fulfilled the duties of this position for about seven months, and, on the 17th of April, 1776, was transferred to the regular service, being made Colonel of the Fifth Regiment of North Carolina troops in the Continental Line.[L] During the period intervening between its organization and the time when ordered to the field, the Fifth Regiment was maintained at his private expense. On May 7, 1776, the appointment of Colonel Buncombe was confirmed by the Continental Congress,[M] and his regiment was assigned to General Francis Nash’s brigade. This brigade was made up at Wilmington, North Carolina, in the Summer of 1776, and remained in that vicinity till November of the same year. Having been ordered to join Washington’s army, then operating in the north, General Nash and his troops set out from Wilmington about the 15th of November, and, on reaching the town of Halifax, were ordered back south, the object being to keep the British from entering Georgia by way of St. Augustine. No sooner, however, had Charleston been reached, than orders were again countermanded. Thereupon the brigade marched to Haddrell’s