NORTH CAROLINA: PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT.—It was certainly manifest to England that her claim to vast regions of valuable territory would be substantiated, and her commerce and political power augmented, by the settling of her subjects in North America. Yet the history of her colonies bears, on many pages, evidence of the indifference and inexcusable neglect of the mother country. Instead of a liberal contribution of arms and munitions of war, the means of sustenance, and the protection of her ever-present sovereignty to all who were willing to leave the comforts of home and risk their lives in her service, far away across the Atlantic, enough appeared to have been done if lavish gifts of land were bestowed upon companies, individuals, or proprietors, for their especial emolument, and through them some paltry acres offered to emigrants, with promises of a little more religious freedom and a little larger share of political privileges than they were permitted to enjoy at home. The genesis of a new and potent nationality may be said to have been involved in the acceptance, by the colonists, of these conditions, as inducements to emigration, with all else dependent on their own manly courage. [Illustration: NORTH CAROLINA. [This is a sketch of the map in Hawks’ _North Carolina_, ii. 570, showing the grants and divisions from 1663 to 1729. Quaritch in his _Catal._ for 1885, no. 29,516, prices at £25 a MS. map of the south part of Virginia (North Carolina), showing the coast line from Cape Henry to Cape Fear, and signed “Nicholas Comberford, fecit anno 1657.” It measures 18¾ × 14 inches.—ED.]]