No other subject of naval interest engaged the attention of North Carolina so much as the defence of Ocracoke Inlet. It is recalled that the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds are separated from the Atlantic by a long sandbar, which is only at a few points broken by inlets. These connect the waters of the Atlantic with the waters of the Sound. The most important inlet at the time of the Revolution was that of Ocracoke. The protecting and the keeping open of this entrance was a matter of importance not only to North Carolina, but to Virginia and the Continental Congress, as well. Most of the foreign trade of Newbern and Edenton, the two main ports of the state, passed through this inlet. In a similar way, the trade of Southern Virginia, outward or inward bound, found it convenient to use this channel. In the first years of the Revolution, especially in 1778, not a few goods coming from foreign marts, and destined for the Continental Army, rather than risk capture off the entrance to the Chesapeake or the Delaware Bay, entered Ocracoke, passed on through Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds into Chowan River, and thence by the branches of this river to the town of South Quay, in southern Virginia, near the confluence of the Nottaway and Blackwater rivers. From South Quay the goods were carried by wagons to Suffolk on the Nansemond, and thence by boat up the Nansemond into the James. This route constituted the southern division of the so-called “Inland Navigation.” It was along this road that North Carolina salt pork and beef, and shoes made by North Carolina Quakers, passed northward on their way to the “Grand Army.” In 1778 and 1779 South Quay and Suffolk were important _entrepôts_ for Continental goods. Since the keeping open of communication through Ocracoke Inlet was of importance to both North Carolina and Virginia, the two states concerted a joint naval armament for this purpose. On May 9, 1776, the North Carolina Provincial Congress appointed Allen and Thomas Jones to attend the Provincial Congress of Virginia, “for the purpose of recommending to them the expediency of fitting out two Armed Vessels at the expense of that Colony, to act in conjunction with the armed vessels already fitted out by this Colony for the protection of the trade at Ocracoke.”[615] As her part of the joint undertaking, Virginia agreed to construct at South Quay two galleys, to be employed in the defence of the Inlet.