Sevier is Arrested.

The Governor of the State had given orders to seize him because of his violation of the laws and treaties in committing wanton murder on friendly Indians; and a warrant to arrest him for high treason was issued by the courts.

As long as “Nolichucky Jack” remained on the border, among the rough Indian fighters whom he had so often led to victory, he was in no danger.  But in the fall, late in October, he ventured back to the longer settled districts.  A council of officers with Martin presiding and Tipton present as one of the leading members, had been held at Jonesboro, and had just broken up when Sevier and a dozen of his followers rode into the squalid little town. [Footnote:  Haywood, 190.] He drank freely and caroused with his fiends; and he soon quarrelled with one of the other side who denounced him freely and justly for the murder of Corn Tassel and the other peaceful chiefs.  Finally they all rode away, but when some miles out of town Sevier got into a quarrel with another man; and after more drinking and brawling he went to pass the night at a house, the owner of which was his friend.  Meanwhile one of the men with whom he had quarrelled informed Tipton that his foe was in his grasp.  Tipton gathered eight or ten men and early next morning surprised Sevier in his lodgings.

    Sevier Escape.

Sevier could do nothing but surrender, and Tipton put him in irons and sent him across the mountains to Morgantown, in North Carolina, where he was kindly treated and allowed much liberty.  Most of the inhabitants sympathized with him, having no special repugnance to disorder, and no special sympathy even for friendly Indians.  Meanwhile a dozen of his friends, with his two sons at their head, crossed the mountains to rescue their beloved leader.  They came into Morgantown while court was sitting and went unnoticed in the crowds.  In the evening, when the court adjourned and the crowds broke up, Sevier’s friends managed to get near him with a spare horse; he mounted and they all rode off at speed.  By daybreak they were out of danger. [Footnote:  Ramsey first copies Haywood and gives the account correctly.  He then adds a picturesque alternative account—­followed by later writers,—­in which Sevier escapes in open court on a celebrated race mare.  The basis for the last account, so far as it has any basis at all, lies on statements made nearly half a century after the event, and entirely unknown to Haywood.  There is no evidence of any kind as to its truthfulness.  It mast be set down as mere fable.] Nothing further was attempted against him.  A year later he was elected a member of the North Carolina Legislature; after some hesitation he was allowed to take his seat, and the last trace of the old hostility disappeared.

Neither the North Carolinians, nor any one else, knew that there was better ground for the charge of treason against Sevier than had appeared in his overt actions.  He was one of those who had been in correspondence with Gardoqui on the subject of an alliance between the Westerners and Spain.