exploring parties to the South, bringing back favorable reports of the
fertile lands of the Chowan and the Roanoke could not fail to excite
in the colony of Jamestown a spirit of emigration, many of whose
members were already suffering under the baneful effects of intolerant
legislation. In 1643, during the administration of Sir William
Berkeley, it was specially "ordered that no minister should preach or
teach, publicly or privately, except in conformity to the
constitutions of the church of England, and non-conformists were
banished from the colony."[A] It is natural to suppose that
individuals as well as families, who were fond of a roaming life, or
who disliked the religious persecution to which they were subjected,
would descend the banks of these streams until they found on the soil
of Carolina suitable locations for peaceable settlements.

In 1653, Roger Green led a company across the wilderness from
Nansemond, in Virginia, to the Chowan River, and settled near Edenton.
There they prospered, and others, influenced by similar motives, soon
afterward followed. In 1662, George Durant purchased of the Yeopim
Indians the neck of land, on the North-side of Albemarle Sound, which
still bears his name. It was settled by persons driven off from
Virginia through religious persecutions. In 1663, King Charles II,
granted to the Earl of Clarendon and seven other associates, the whole
of the region from the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude to the
river San Matheo, (now the St. John's) in Florida; and extending
westwardly, like all of that monarch's charters, to the Pacific Ocean.

At the date of this charter, (1663,) Sir William Berkeley, Governor of
Virginia, visited the infant settlement on the Chowan, and being
pleased with its evident signs of prosperity, and increasing
importance, appointed William Drummond the _first Governor_ of the