To begin, Sidney Hubbard is my first cousin, his mother and mine being sisters. We lived, in 1768, on the Alamance, near where, later, was fought what may rightly be termed the first battle in the struggle of the colonies for independence. Our fathers were humble farmers, with a scanty store of this world's goods, and continually ground down by those whom the king had set in authority over us, chief among which may be reckoned the Irishman Tryon, and Fanning, who was born on Long Island, if I remember rightly. I cannot set down in my own words a picture of the Carolinas at the time when Sidney Hubbard and I were come sixteen years of age, therefore, in order that all the conditions of public affairs may be fully understood, I shall copy here what was written many years later by one who may justly style himself a historian:[1] "The passage of the Stamp Act produced great uneasiness in the public mind in North Carolina, as well as in the other provinces. Already the extortions of public officers in the exactions of fees for legal services had greatly irritated the people, and they regarded the requirements of the Stamp Act as a more gigantic scheme for legal plunder.... William Tryon had been acting governor and commander-in-chief of the province from the death of Governor Dobbs, April 1st, 1765, and now began his career of misrule in America. He was appointed governor toward the close of the year. This was the same Tryon, afterward governor of New York, haughty, innately cruel, fond of show, obsequious when wishing favors, and tyrannical when independent; he was entirely incompetent to govern a people like the free, outspoken colonists of the Upper Carolinas. "For several years previous to the Stamp Act excitement, rebellion had been ripening among the people in the western counties. The rapacity of public officers, and the corrupt character of ministers of justice, weighed heavily upon the property and spirits of the people. The most prominent evils complained of were the exorbitant charges of the clerks of the Superior Courts, whereby these courts had become instruments of oppression; and oppressive taxes exacted by the sheriffs, and the outrages committed by those officers when their authority was questioned in the least. These evils everywhere existed, and every petition of the people for redress appeared to be answered by increased extortions."