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.