Some four years after this local, self, independent government had been entered into by the settlers of Watauga, John Sevier, in a memorial to the North Carolina legislature explaining it, says: “Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehensive that, for want of a proper legislature, we might become a shelter for such as endeavor to defraud their creditors; considering also the necessity of recording deeds, wills, and doing other public business, we, by consent of the people, formed a court for the purposes above mentioned, taking, by desire of our constituents, the Virginia laws for our guide, so near as the situation of affairs would permit. This was intended for ourselves, and was done by consent of every individual.” I rather suspect that some inquiry was made by the authorities of North Carolina, as to what kind of a government this was which had been set up within their jurisdiction, and which established courts that took the laws of _Virginia_ as their guide. The “written association and articles for their conduct,” entered into by the settlers on the Watauga, in May, 1772, formed the first “free and independent government” established and put into practical administration on this continent. The five commissioners or committeemen first appointed were John Sevier, James Robertson, Charles Roberson, Zachariah Isbell and John Carter. This was an independent government, because they did not ask permission of any power on earth to enter into it, and they did not recognize any authority as superior to that which they had voluntarily vested in the five commissioners chosen by them. It was not a compact or league with any other power, but, as Sevier says, “was intended for ourselves.” It was a free government, because it was voluntarily entered into by the whole people, “by consent of every individual.” The settlers lived, prospered and were happy, under the government of the five commissioners, for about six years. These commissioners settled all questions of debt, determined all rights of property, took the probate of wills and the acknowledgment of deeds, recorded the same, issued marriage licenses and hanged horse thieves, with much zest and great expedition--the arraignment, trial, conviction, condemnation and execution of a horse thief all occurring within an hour or so after he was arrested, inasmuch as they had no jail in which to imprison him overnight, and believed strongly in the idea that a man who was bad enough to be put in jail deserved to be hanged on the spot.