Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/269

Rh in Boston a supply of arms and ammunition. One of the letters was intercepted, and in July a plot for arming the slaves was discovered, of which he was supposed to have been the instigator. John Ashe thereupon marched on Fort Johnston at the head of a band of incensed colonists, compelled the governor to flee on board the " Cruiser " on 20 July, and demolished the fort. From the vessel Martin issued on 8 Aug. a proclamation of extraordinary length, which was denounced as a malicious libel by the Whigs, and publicly burned by the common hangman. He remained on the coast to direct a rising of the Loyalists, whom he furnished with arms brought from England. In January, 1776, Sir Henry Clinton came with a body of troops in transports to aid Martin in re-etablishing the royal power, but the presence of Gen. Charles Lee's forces deterred him from landing. The expedition of Lord Corn- wallis and Sir Peter Parker was expected from Cork to co-operate with Sir Henry Clinton, but was retarded by a storm at sea. It had been sent out by the advice of Martin, who had presented a com- plete plan for the subjugation of the Carolinas. The Highlanders now took the field under the two MacDonalds, but were completely routed at Moore's creek bridge. Discomfited by this disaster, Martin embarked on Sir Peter Parker's fleet, and arrived at Charleston in June, 1776. He importuned the British authorities to send arms and money for a loyal corps in North Carolina, and offered to raise and lead a battalion of Scottish Highlanders and rally the people of the western counties around the royal standard if he were restored to his old rank in the army. The means were furnished for the formation of military bodies among the High- landers and Regulators, though the commission that he asked for was refused. He remained with Cornwallis, who gave special heed to his energetic counsels after taking command in the south. When Cornwallis entered North Carolina after his victory at Camden he was accompanied by Martin, who expected to rouse the loyal part of the popu- lation, and soon be able to resume the administra- tion. The two attempted invasions of North Caro- lina were checked at King's Mountain and Cow- pens. Gov. Martin's health was destroyed by the fatigues of the campaign. He left North Carolina in March. 1781, for Long Island, and shortly after- ward embarked for England.

MARTIN, Luther, lawyer, b. in New Bruns- wick, N. J., 9 Feb., 1748 ;' d. in New York city, 10 July, 1826. He was graduated at Princeton in 1766, and at once went to Queenstown, Md., where he studied law and supported himself by teach- ing. In "1771 he was admitted to the bar, and afterward settled in Somerset, Md., where he at- tained a lucrative practice. At one of the early terms of the Williamsburg. Va., court he defended thirty-eight ^ persons, of whom twenty-nine were acquitted. He was appoint- ed in 1774 one of the commissioners of his county to oppose the claims of Great Britain, and also a member of the convention that was called at Annapolis for a similar purpose. In August. 1777, he published a reply to the address that was sent out by the brothers Howe from their ships in Chesapeake bay ; also an address " to the in- habitants of the peninsula between the Delaware and the Chesapeake to the southward of the British lines," which was circulated on printed handbills. In 1778 he was appointed attorney- general of Maryland, and in 1787 he was sent by the ^Maryland legislature as one of the delegates to the convention that framed the U. S. consti- tution, but he opposed the constitution and left the convention rather than sign the instrument. His opposition to this measure led to his being called '• the Federal bull-dog " by his antagonist. Thomas Jefferson. In 1804 he appeared as counsel for the defence in the impeachment of Samuel Chase {q. V.) before the U. S. senate. He is described on this occasion as the rollicking, witty, audacious attorney-general of Maryland ; drunken, generous, slovenly, grand, shouting with a school-boy's fun at the idea of tearing John Randolph's indictment to pieces, and teaching the Virginia Democrats some law. A year later he resigned from the attorney- generalship of Maryland, but continued his law practice, then the largest in that state. He again brought himself into notice as counsel for Aaron Burr in the latter's trial at Richmond in 1807, and at its close entertained both Burr and Harman Blennerhassett at his residence in Baltimore. In 1814-'16 he held the office of chief judge of the court of oyer and terminer in Baltimore, and in 1818 he was again appointed attorney-general of Maryland, but two years later a stroke of paralysis made him entirely dependent upon his friends, as he had never saved money. The Maryland legis- lature passed an act in 1822. that is unparalleled in American history, requiring every lawyer in the state to pay annually a license fee of $5, the entire proceeds to be paid over to trustees " for the use of Luther Martin." His last days were spent in New York city, where Burr, who was his debtor in every sense, gave him a home in his own house. He was the author of a " Defence of Capt. Cresap," whose daughter he married in 1783, "'from the charge of murder made in Jefferson's notes " ; " Genuine Information delivered to the Legislature of the State of Maryland relative to the Proceed- ings of the General Convention lately held at Philadelphia " (Philadelphia, 1788) ; and a series of pamphlets called " Modern Gratitude " (1801-'2). See " Luther Martin, the Federal Bull-Dog," by Henry P. Goddard (Baltimore, 1887).

MARTIN, Margaret Maxwell, author, b. in Dumfries, Scotland, 12 July, 1807. She was brought to the United States in 1815. Her parents ultimately settled in Columbia, S. C, where she re- ceived her education, and married in 1836 the Rev. William Martin. For more than seventeen years she taught a female seminary in Columbia. S"he is the author of " Day-Spring, or Light to them that Sit in Darkness " (Nashville, 1854) ; " Sabbath- School Offering," a collection of poems and tales (1854) ; " Christianity in Earnest " ; '• Heroines of Early Methodism," conjointly with her husband (1858); "Religious Poems" (1858); "Flowers and Fruits, or Poems for Young People " ; and " Scenes and Scenery of South Carolina " (1869).

MARTIN, Robert Nicols, jurist, b. in Cambridge, Dorchester co., Md.. 14 Jan., 1798 ; d. in Saratoga, N. Y., 20 July, 1870. He received a classical education, and studied law with his father. William Bond Martin, a judge of the Maryland court of appeals, and with Judge Roger B. Taney. Soon after his admission to the bar he was elected