Meanwhile Judge Henderson, with strenuous energy, had begun to erect a large stockaded fort according to plans of his own. Captain James Harrod with forty-two men was stationed at the settlement he had made the preceding year, having arrived there before the McAfees started back to Virginia; and there were small groups of settlers at Boiling Spring, six miles southeast of Harrod's settlement, and at St. Asaph's, a mile west of the present Stanford. A representative government for Transylvania was then planned. When the frank and gallant Floyd arrived at the Transylvania Fort on May 3d, he "expressed great satisfaction," says Judge Henderson, "on being informed of the plan we proposed for Legislation & sayd he must most heartily concur in that & every other measure we should adopt for the well Governg or good of the Community in Genl." In reference to a conversation with Captain James Harrod and Colonel Thomas Slaughter of Virginia, Henderson notes in his diary (May 8th): "Our plan of Legislation, the evils pointed out--the remedies to be applyed &c &c &c were Acceeded to without Hesitation. The plann was plain & Simple--'twas nothing novel in its essence a thousand years ago it was in use, and found by every year's experience since to be unexceptionable. We were in four distinct settlemts. Members or delegates from every place by free choice of Individuals they first having entered into writings solemnly binding themselves to obey and carry into Execution Such Laws as representatives should from time to time make, Concurred with, by A Majority of the Proprietors present in the Country." In reply to inquiries of the settlers, Judge Henderson gave as his reason for this assembling of a Transylvania Legislature that "all power was derived from the people." Six days before the prophetic arrival of the news of the Battle of Lexington and eight days before the revolutionary committee of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, promulgated their memorable Resolves establishing laws for an independent government, the pioneers assembled on the green beneath the mighty plane-tree at the Transylvania Fort. In his wise and statesmanlike address to this picturesque convention of free Americans (May 23, 1775), an address which Felix Walker described as being "considered equal to any of like kind ever delivered to any deliberate body in that day and time," Judge Henderson used these memorable words: You, perhaps, are fixing the palladium, or placing the first corner stone of an edifice, the height and magnificence of whose superstructure ... can only become great in proportion to the excellence of its foundation.... If any doubt remain amongst you with respect to the force or efficiency of whatever laws you now, or hereafter make, be pleased to consider that all power is originally in the people; make it their interest, therefore, by impartial and beneficent laws, and you may be sure of their inclination to see them enforced.