612 WILKES COUNTY. 



We therefore apprehend a non-compliance on the part of our 

 State will disgrace us as a people, and ultimately tend to de- 

 stroy our credit at home and abroad." 



At the opening of the session of the Superior Court, held 

 at Washington, Wilkes county, 7th day of December, 1784, 

 the following charge was delivered by his Honour George 

 Walton, Chief Justice : 



" I now earnestly recommend it to your observation, in- 

 deed the general principles of taxation form a subject worthy 

 the attention of the several counties, particularly this, in which 

 there is such a prodigious influx of inhabitants, besides the rage 

 which perhaps has taken place in the northern and neighbouring 

 States of removing into this. The superior advantages of the 

 soil and climate and navigation are such, that by population 

 alone, the increase of numbers and agriculture must be con- 

 siderable, and from whence an adequate proportion of the 

 public revenues will be drawn ; in short, every part of govern- 

 ment attracts the notice of thgpatriot and man of sense. 

 Having established it in blood, we are greatly bound to ma- 

 nage it well. It should be a science, and taught in our schools, 

 which are opening in a manner, and upon a foundation the 

 most flattering and most solid. Whenever I approach the 

 middle region of the State, and contemplate around, I feel 

 myself astonished at its immensity. Such is the rapid pro- 

 gress of our settlements at either extremity, that I look for- 

 ward to the time when, under the mild influence of our laws, 

 the whole will be settled and connected, and the roads will be 

 opened from the shores of the Atlantic to the banks of the 

 Mississippi, and inconvenience of distance will one day be re- 

 medied by a line of natural, friendly, and political separation, 

 straight along the summit of the Appalachian hills, with the 

 shores of the waters to the east and west." 



Name. — This county was named in honour of John Wilkes, 

 who, as a member of the British Parliament, strenuously op- 

 posed the measures which produced the war with America. 

 On the motion in parliament, in 1778, to bind the colonies and 

 people of America, in all cases whatsoever, Mr. Wilkes said, 

 " that he considered the designs of the ministry to be the 

 shortest compendium of slavery ever given. It is the broadest 



