own State, who assured him that the other States
would soon act in the same patriotic manner as Mecklenburg had done."

This important and additional testimony, here slightly condensed, but
facts not changed, is extracted from a communication in the _Southern
Home_, by Dr. J.M. Davidson, of Florida, a gentleman of great moral
worth and christian integrity, and grandson of Adam Brevard, a brother
of Dr. Ephraim Brevard, the reputed author of the Mecklenburg
Declaration of Independence.

A brief extract from Governor Martin's dispatch to the British
Secretary of State, dated 30th of June, 1775, as found in Wheeler's
"Historical Sketches," will now be given, which cannot be viewed in
any other light than that of disinterested evidence. The Governor
proceeds by saying, "the situation in which I find myself at present
is indeed, my Lord, most despicable and mortifying. ... I live, alas!
ingloriously, only to deplore it. ... The resolves of the Committee of
Mecklenburg, which your Lordship will find in the enclosed newspaper,
surpass all the horrid and treasonable publications that the
inflammatory spirits of the continent have yet produced; and your
Lordship may depend, its authors and abettors will not escape, when my
hands are sufficiently strengthened to attempt the recovery of the
lost authority of the Government. A copy of these resolves was sent
off, I am informed, by express, to the Congress at Philadelphia, as
soon as they were passed in the committee."

The reader will mark, in particular, the closing sentence of this
extract, as confirmatory of what actually took place on the 20th of
May, 1775. Captain James Jack, then of Charlotte, a worthy and
patriotic citizen, did set out a few days after the Convention
adjourned, on _horse back_, as the "express" to Congress at
Philadelphia, and faithfully executed the object of his mission. (For
further particulars, see sketch of the Jack Family.)

The resolutions passed by the county committee of safety on the 31st
of May following, and which some have erroneously confounded with
those of the 20th of May, were a necessary consequence, embracing
simply "rules and regulations" for the internal government of the
county, and hence needed no "express" to Congress.

The preceding testimony, conjoined with that of Gen. Joseph Graham,
Rev. Humphrey Hunter, Captain James Jack, the hearer of the
Mecklenburg Declaration to Congress, Rev. Francis Cummins, Major John
Davidson, Isaa