Wilmington suffered much during the Revolution. For almost the whole of the year 1781 it was occupied by the British under the command of Major Craig, a cruel and implacable enemy, and was the centre of active enterprises, mostly carried on by means of the worst class of Tories, extending as far as Chatham and Orange, and marked by circumstances of rapine and atrocity. The brutal David Fanning, who captured Governor Burke and all his suite at Hillsboro in August of this year, was one of Craig’s favorite instruments. The most distinguished inhabitants, and even women and children, as in the case of Mrs. Hooper, were treated with inexcusable cruelty. Wilmington has few monuments, but the house still stands where Cornwallis had his headquarters when passing through towards Yorktown; and Cornelius Harnett’s house, the Harnett whom Josiah Quincy called the Samuel Adams of North Carolina, was standing near by the north boundary of the city only a few years ago. [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF LORD CORNWALLIS, WILMINGTON.] After those stormy and bitter days Wilmington saw many years of prosperity and peace. There had been a distinctly literary element here in Colonial days. The first American drama, _The Prince of Parthia_, by Thomas Godfrey, was written here in 1759, and was years afterwards produced on the stage by a company of local amateurs. Its author lies buried in St. James’s churchyard. When peace had brought again plenty and prosperity, and when commerce began to change the provincial town into a bustling mart of trade, social refinement and intellectual culture revived, and under changed conditions democratic institutions the Cape Fear section asserted again its old pre-eminence. [Illustration: COMMISSION OF LOUIS DE ROSSET AS CAPTAIN, GIVEN BY WILLIAM AND MARY.]