address, he opposed all religious intolerance, and, although he
recommended provision for the clergy out of the public treasury, yet
he advised the members of the Church of England of the folly of
attempting to establish it by legal enactment. Under such
recommendations, a law was passed legalizing the marriages (which
before were denounced as illegal) performed by Presbyterian ministers,
and authorizing them and other dissenting clergymen to perform that
rite."[E]

On the 22nd of March, 1765, the Stamp Act was passed. This act
produced great excitement throughout the whole country, and no where
was it more violently denounced than in North Carolina. The
Legislature was then in session, and so intense and wide-spread was
the opposition to this odious measure, that Governor Tryon,
apprehending the passage of denunciatory resolutions, prorogued that
body after a session of fifteen days. The speaker of the House, John
Ashe, informed Governor Tryon that this law "would be resisted to
blood and death."

Early in the year 1766, the sloop-of-war, Diligence, arrived in the
Cape Fear River, having on board stamp paper for the use of the
province. The first appearance and approach of the vessel had been
closely watched, and when it anchored before the town of Brunswick, on
the Cape Fear, Col. John Ashe, of the county of New Hanover, and Col.
Hugh Waddell, of the county of Brunswick, marched at the head of the
brave sons of these counties to Brunswick, and notified the captain of
their determination to resist the landing of the stamps. They seized
one of the boats of the sloop, hoisted it on a cart, fixed a mast in
her, mounted a flag, and marched in triumph to Wilmington. The
inhabitants all joined in the procession, and at night the town was