In 1799 the General Assembly passed the act directing the Judges of the Superior Courts to meet together to settle questions of law and equity arising upon their circuits, and to provide for the trial of all persons concerned in the commission of frauds in the several land offices. This act was carefully and skillfully drawn, consisted of fifteen sections, and, voluminous as it was, contained more than met the eye of the ordinary observer: the germ of the present Supreme Court, notwithstanding the proviso in the closing section, "that this act shall continue in force from its commencement only for two years, and from thence to the end of the next succeeding General Assembly" was contained in that act. Under the provisions of this act Colonel James Glasgow, the Secretary of State, was indicted for a misdemeanor in the fraudulent issue of land-warrants. The four judges of the Superior Courts were John Haywood, Spruce Macay, John Louis Taylor, Samuel Johnston. Blake Baker was Attorney-General, and Edward Jones, Solicitor-General. The latter seems to have been mainly relied on to conduct the prosecution. The commission under which the court was held was drawn by Judge Haywood. While on his way to Raleigh to meet his brother judges he accepted a fee of one thousand dollars, resigned his seat upon the bench, and undertook the defense of Glasgow. There has rarely convened from that day to this, even after the resignation of Haywood, an abler tribunal, on any occasion, or for any purpose, than that which tried and convicted the distinguished culprit. In relation to the advocate the late Judge Hall remarks in a judicial opinion delivered in 1828: "I shall not treat with disrespect the memory of the dead nor the pretensions of the living, when I say that a greater criminal lawyer than Judge Haywood never sat upon the bench in North Carolina." The General Assembly in anticipation of the judgment of the court, in 1799, changed the name of the county of Glasgow, erected in 1791, to the county of Greene. Duncan Cameron, at the early age of twenty-three, was the clerk, and immediately after the close of the trial reported and published the decisions of the court in an octavo of one hundred and eight pages. As I have the only copy I have ever seen of this brochure, the earliest, with the exception of _Martin_ and _1 Haywood_, in the entire series of North Carolina Reports, I give for the benefit of legal antiquarians an exact copy of the title-page: "Reports of cases determined by the Judges of the Superior Courts of law and Court of Equity of the State of North Carolina, at their meeting on 10th of June, A. D. 1800, held pursuant to an act of the General Assembly for settling questions of law and equity arising on the circuit, by Duncan Cameron, attorney at law, Raleigh. From the press of Hodge & Boylan, printers to the State, 1800."