James Iredcll.

William Hooper, then some thirty-two years of age, was easily one of the ablest and most prominent men in North Carolina as a scholar, a lawyer, a statesman, and a patriot. On the 26th April, 1774, we find him writing to Iredell — "I am happy, my dear sir, that my conduct in public life has met your ap probation. It is a suffrage which makes me vain, as it flows from a man who has wisdom to distinguish and too much virtue to flatter. .... Whilst I was active in contest you forged the weapons which were to give suc cess to the cause I supported. . . . With you I anticipate the important share which the Colonies must soon have in regulating the political balance. They are striding fast to independence, and ere long will build an em pire on the ruins of Great Britain." In this short extract we are forcibly im pressed with three things : Hooper's defer dell, ential his appreciation graceful of recognition the approbation of the ofgreat Ireassistance which Iredell was even then ren dering to the patriotic cause, and his bold and early declaration for the independence of the Colonies. And yet Hooper was the man whom that great apostle of the people, Thomas Jefferson, a few years later, in the bitterness of envy and jealousy, declared to have been the greatest Tory in Congress. The falsity of this accusation is plainly ap parent to any person who has ever followed Hooper's course during these troubled times. Fortunately for him and fortunately for his State, his unwavering devotion and loyalty to the cause of freedom, and his unfaltering determination to achieve independence at any and every cost, has been faithfully recorded by the brilliant and erratic Jones in his cele brated Defence of North Carolina. It is evi dent that Hooper was alluding in this letter to the project of a Provincial Congress, the first of which met in New Bern on August 25, 1774, with John Harvey as Moderator. John Harvey, William Hooper, Samuel Johnston, James Iredell and Willie Jones were the five men who projected and, more

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than all others, accomplished this assembly of the people. The second Provincial Congress in North Carolina assembled at New Bern on the ßd of April, 1775, and, although he was not a member, so fully was he in sympathy with the movement that Iredell went there to as sist with his counsel and advice so welcome to all. The events that followed are matters of common knowledge : Martin's frothy procla mation, the grim defiance of Congress, his flight to Wilmington and final refuge on the sloop of war Cruiser. In November, 1776, Iredell was appointed by the Congress one of the commissioners to revise the laws of the State, and it is said that the celebrated Court law of 1777 was the work of his pen. In November, 1777, the law courts were re established; and, on December 20, Samuel Ashe, Samuel Spencer, and James Iredell were elected the first judges of the free and independent State of North Carolina. Iredell was then barely twenty-six years of age. He had been warmly urged by his friends for the office of Attorney General, which it seems he would have preferred, but was defeated in that by Waightstill Avery, whom he was so soon to succeed. In June, 1778, he tendered his resignation to Governor Caswell, who re ceived it with great reluctance, saying, that he well knew the place could not be supplied "by a gentleman of equal abilities and incli nation to serve the State in the important duties of that office." In January, 1779, when the Assembly was about to appoint Delegates to Congress, it expressed through the Speaker, to Iredell, who happened to be present, its desire to appoint him, but what 'he called his poverty compelled him to decline with reluctance. On the 8th of July, 1779, Iredell was ap pointed, by Governor Caswell, Attorney Gen eral in place of Avery, who had resigned. We have all reflected with sympathetic pity upon the weary and toilsome life of that poor and patient servant of the Lord, whom the