"Your letter to Colonel Conner first suggested to me the plan of a work which I will execute if I live. It is a work on the history, soil, climate, legislation, civil institutions, literature, etc., of this State. Soon after reading your letter I turned my attention to the subject in the few hours which I could snatch from business, and was surprised to find what abundant materials could, with care and diligence, be collected--materials which if well disposed would furnish matter for one of the most interesting works that has been published in this country. We want such a work. We neither know ourselves nor are we known to others. Such a work, well executed, would add very much to our standing in the Union, and make our State respectable in our own eyes. Amidst the cares and anxieties which surround me, I cannot cherish a hope that I could do more than merely guide the labors of some man who would take up the work after me and prosecute it to perfection. I love North Carolina, and love her more because so much injustice has been done to her. We want pride. We want independence. We want magnanimity. Knowing nothing of ourselves, we have nothing in our history to which we can turn with conscious pride. We know nothing of our State and care nothing about it. We want some great stimulus to put us all in motion, and induce us to waive little jealousies, and combine in one general march to one great purpose." His habits of labor, his readiness as a writer, and addiction to literary exercise as a pleasure, the philosophical cast of his mind, and above all, his sentiment of devotion to North Carolina, eminently fitted him for this enterprise; and he seems to have entered upon it with his characteristic industry and zeal. He gathered materials for the work from a great variety of sources, public and private, within and without the State. At his instance the Legislature, through the intervention of Mr. Gallatin, then the Minister of the United States in Great Britain, caused the office of the Board of Trade and Plantations and the State Paper Office in London to be explored, and an index of the documents therein, pertaining to our colonial history, to be furnished; literary men in other States, including Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson, readily seconded his efforts by supplying information sought of them; the families of deceased public men in the State, including those of Governor Burke, Governor Samuel Johnston, and Mr. Hooper, opened all their papers to his inspection; and many officers of the Revolution, then living, among whom were Colonel William Polk, General Lenoir, Major Donoho, of Caswell, General Graham, and divers others, undertook to contribute to him their personal reminiscences of the war. The memoranda of the gentleman last named, prepared in accordance with a request of Mr. Murphy, were given to the public in the pages of our _University Magazine_ in the year 1856. Upon application of Mr. Murphy, by memorial, the General Assembly at