taken and injustices practised by Robert (Robin) Jones, the
famous lawyer. These disturbances were cumulative in their
effect; and the people at last (1765 ) found in George Sims, of
Granville, a fit spokesman of their cause and a doughty champion
of popular rights. In his "Serious Address to the Inhabitants of
Granville County, containing an Account of our deplorable
Situation we suffer . . . and some necessary Hints with Respect
to a Reformation," recently brought to light, he presents a
crushing indictment of the clerk of the county court, Samuel
Benton, the grandfather of Thomas Hart Benton. After describing
in detail the system of semi-peonage created by the merciless
exactions of lawyers and petty court officials, and the
insatiable greed of "these cursed hungry caterpillars," Sims with
rude eloquence calls upon the people to pull them down from their
nests for the salvation of the Commonwealth.

Other abuses were also recorded. So exorbitant was the charge for
a marriage-license, for instance, that an early chronicler
records "The consequence was that some of the inhabitants on the
head-waters of the Yadkin took a short cut. They took each other
for better or for worse; and considered themselves as married
without further ceremony." The extraordinary scarcity of currency
throughout the colony, especially in the back country, was
another great hardship and a perpetual source of vexation. All
these conditions gradually became intolerable to the uncultured
but free spirited men of the back country. Events were slowly
converging toward a crisis in government and society. Independent
in spirit, turbulent in action, the backwoodsmen revolted not
only against excessive taxes, dishonest sheriffs, and
extortionate fees, but also against the rapacious practices of