1778 June 28, Battle of Monmouth 1779 March 3, Ashe defeated at Brier Creek. 1779 June 2 Battle of Stono, near Charleston. 1780 May 17 Surrender of Charleston. 1780 June 21, Battle of Ramsour's Mill. 1780 August 7, Battle of the Hanging Rock. 1780 August 16, Gates defeated at Camden. 1780 October 7, Battle of King's Mountain. 1781 January 17, Battle of the Cowpens. 1781 March 15, Battle of Guilford Court House. 1781 September 8, Battle of Eutaw. 1781 October 19, Battle of Yorktown. 1783 January 20, Treaty of peace at Versailles. 1783 September 3, England recognizes the Independence of the United States. 1787 May, Constitution of the United States formed. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. ORIGINAL SETTLEMENTS IN NORTH CAROLINA AND CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE. North Carolina, in the days of her colonial existence, was the asylum and the refuge of the poor and the oppressed of all nations. In her borders the emigrant, the fugitive, and the exile found a home and safe retreat. Whatever may have been the impelling cause of their emigration--whether political servitude, religious persecution, or poverty of means, with the hope of improving their condition, the descendants of these enterprising, suffering, yet prospered people, have just reason to bless the kind Providence that guided their fathers, in their wanderings, to such a place of comparative rest. On the sandy banks of North Carolina the flag of England was first displayed in the United States. Roanoke Island, between Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, afforded the landing place to the first expedition sent out under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1584. "The fragrance, as they drew near the land, says Amadas in his report, was as if they had been in the midst of some delicate garden, abounding in all manner of odoriferous flowers." Such, no doubt, it seemed to them during the first summer of their residence in 1584; and, notwithstanding the disastrous termination of that, and several succeeding expeditions, the same maritime section of North Carolina has presented its peculiar features of attractiveness to many generations which have since arisen there, and passed away. In the same report, we have the first notice of the celebrated Scuppernong grape, yielding its most abundant crops under the saline atmospheric influence, and semi-tropical climate of eastern Carolina. From the glowing description of the country, in its primitive abundance, transmitted to Elizabeth and her court, they gave it the name _Virginia_, being discovered in the reign of a _virgin Queen_. But having failed in this and several other attempts of a similar kind, Sir Walter Raleigh surrendered his patent, and nothing more was done in colonizing Virginia during the remainder of that century.