Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

collection of the rents. All in all, since salaries of the chief officials were paid
from the quitrents, the proprietors obtained little or no net profit from their
colony.
The end of the Tuscarora war left the coastal area south of Albemarle free
of Indians, and whites began to expand into this region. The proprietors
restricted this growth, however, by closing their land office in the area and
insisting on the sale of land at prices so high as effectively to discourage settlement.
To make matters worse, payment for the land had to be made to the
proprietors in London. To escape this restriction, the governor and the Council
began to grant huge tracts of land to their favorites at rates as low as three
pence per one hundred acres, in exchange for monetary payment—as so often
happens in history, government officials having monopoly privileges at their
disposal proceeded to sell them at the best bargains they could obtain. The
biggest culprit among the governors was Sir Richard Everard, who signed
away 400,000 acres of such so-called blank patent in 1728 alone.
During the 1720s, the proprietors more and more lost control over the
affairs of the colony and over its land policy. In order to encourage immigration
into the colony, the Assembly (the governor and Council approving)
broke through the proprietary restrictions on land. Ignoring the proprietary
order, the new law permitted settlers to enter the southern region, on paying
a tentative quitrent of three shillings per one hundred acres, and guaranteed
confirmation of their land titles.
The popular new governor, George Burrington, friend of the liberal party,
had agreed to this measure but was removed by the proprietors shortly thereafter.
He was removed at the instigation of Christopher Gale, chief justice
and collector of the royal customs, who loosely charged Burrington with plotting
revolution against the proprietary. Burrington had, in fact, threatened to
commit mayhem on Gale, had broken up sessions of Gale's court, and had
also prevented the royal customs officers from enforcing their exactions. But
the proprietors had good cause to regret Burrington's successor, Richard Everard.
Everard set up a tyranny so petty and so venal that even the Gale faction
and the Council were forced to split with him. Abusing Council and Assembly
alike, Everard exacted exorbitant and illegal fees and used the law courts
as instruments to settle family quarrels and punish his enemies. The government
of North Carolina was reduced to a violent three-way split. Thus, in
1725, the governor and the Council tried to dissolve the Assembly, which,
however, denied such power and complained to the proprietors of the persecutions
of the Gale clique. The faction seeking dissolution of the Assembly
was headed by Gale, now chief justice and judge of the admiralty court, and
his son-in-law William Little, the attorney general. At this point, Burrington,
now a leader in the Assembly, denounced Everard and assaulted a constable.
Riots by the various factions ensued at the capital, Edenton.
Finally, in 1729, the proprietors, disgruntled with the turbulent colony and
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