The rough riflemen resolutely declined to leave their clearings, while the titular owners appealed to the authority of the loose land laws, and wished them to be backed up by the armed force of the State.

[Footnote: See in Durrett MSS.

papers relating to Isaac Shelby; letter of John Taylor to Isaac Shelby, June 8, 1782.] The government of North Carolina was far too weak to turn out the frontiersmen in favor of the speculators to whom the land had been granted,--often by fraudulent means, or at least for a ridiculously small sum of money.

Still less could it prevent its unruly subjects from trespassing on the Indian country, or protect them if they were themselves threatened by the savages.

It could not do justice as between its own citizens, and it was quite incompetent to preserve the peace between them and outsiders.