Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe / Founder of the Colony of Georgia, in North America.

by Thaddeus Mason Harris

APPENDIX

No. I

FAMILY OF OGLETHORPE.

The following genealogical memoranda are taken principally, from a note in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. II. p. 17, on his having given the title of a book ascribed to the subject of the foregoing memoir

"This truly respectable gentleman was the descendant of a family very anciently situated at Oglethorpe, in the parish of Bramham, in the West Riding of the County of York; one of whom was actually Reeve of the County (an office nearly the same with that of the present high-sheriff) at the time of the Norman Conquest. The ancient seat of Oglethorpe continued in the family till the Civil Wars, when it was lost for their loyalty; and several of the same name died at once in the bed of honor in the defence of monarchy, in a battle near Oxford.

"William Oglethorpe, (son of William) was born in 1588. He married
Susanna, daughter of Sir William Sutton, Knight and sister to Lord
Lexington. He died in November, 1634 leaving two children, Sulton,
born 1612, and Dorothy (who afterwards married the Marquis of Byron, a
French nobleman,) born 1620.

"Sutton Oglethorpe, being fined £20,000 by the Parliament, his estates at Oglethorpe, and elsewhere, were sequestered, and afterwards given to General Fairfax, who sold them to Robert Benson of Bramham, father of Lord Bingley of that name. Sutton Oglethorpe had two sons, Sutton, and Sir Theophilus. Sutton was Stud-master to King Charles II.; and had three sons, namely, Sutton, Page to King Charles II.; John, Cornet of the Guards; and Joseph, who died in India.

"Sir Theophilus was born in 1652; and was bred to arms. He fought, under the Duke of Monmouth, in the affair at Bothwell bridge, where a tumultary insurrection of the Scots was suppressed, June 22, 1679. He commanded a party of horse at Sedgmoor fight, where the Duke was defeated, July 6, 1685; and was Lieutenant Colonel to the Duke of York's troop of his Majesty's horse-guards, and Commissioner for executing the office of Master of the Horse to King Charles II. He was afterwards first Equerry and Major General of the army of King James II.; and suffered banishment with his Royal Master." After his return to his native country he purchased a seat in the County of Surrey, called "the Westbrook place," near adjoining the town of Godalming; a beautiful situation, in a fine country. It stands on the slope of a hill, at the foot of which are meadows watered by the river Wey. It commands the view of several hills, running in different directions; their sides laid out in corn fields, interspersed with hanging woods. Behind it is a small park, well wooded; and one side is a capacious garden fronting the south-east.

Sir Theophilus was for several years a member of Parliament for Haslemere, a small borough in the south-west angle of the county of Surrey. This place was, afterwards, in the reigns of Anne, George I., and George II., successively represented by his three sons, Lewis, Theophilus, and James. He died April 10,1702, as appears by a pedigree in the collection of the late J.C. Brooke, Esq., though the following inscription in the parish church of St. James, Westminster, where he was buried, has a year earlier.—"Hie jacet THEOPHILUS OGLETHORPE, Eques auratus, ab atavo Vice-comite Eborum, Normanno victore, ducens originem. Cujus armis ad pontem Bothwelliensem, succubuit Scotus: necnon Sedgmoriensi palude fusi Rebellos. Qui, per varies casus et rerum discrimina, magnanimum erga Principem et Patriam fidem, sed non temerè, sustinuit. Obiit Londini anno 1701, aetat. 50."

Sir Theophilus married Eleanora Wall, of a respectable family in
Ireland, by whom he had four sons and five daughters; namely, Lewis,
Theophilus, Sutton, and James; Eleanora, Henrietta, Mary, and
Frances-Charlotte.

I. LEWIS, born February, 1680-1; admitted into Corpus Christi College, in the University of Oxford, March 16,1698-9. He was Equerry to Queen Anne, and afterwards Aid-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough; and, in 1702, member of Parliament for Haslemere. Having been mortally wounded in the battle of Schellenburgh, on the 24th October, 1704, he died on the 30th.

The following inscription to his memory is placed below that of Sir
Theophilus.

"Hujus claudit latus LUDOVICUS OGLETHORPE, tam paternae virtutis, quam fortunae, haeres; qui, proelio Schellenbergensi victoria Hockstatensis preludio tempestivum suis inclinantibus ferens auxilium vulnere honestissima accepit, et praeclarae spe Indolis frustrata.—Ob. XXII aetatis, Anno Dom. 1704.

"Charissimo utriusque marmor hoc, amantissima conjux et mater possuit,
Domina Eleonora Oglethorpe."

II. THEOPHILUS, born 1682. He was Aid-de-camp to the Duke of Ormond; and member of Parliament for Haslemere in 1708 and 1710. The time of his death is not recorded. He must have died young.

III. ELEONORA, born 1684; married the Marquis de Mezieres on the 5th of March, 1707-8, and deceased June 28, 1775, aged 91. The son of this lady was heir to the estate of General Oglethorpe. He is mentioned, in the correspondence of Mr. Jefferson, as highly meritorious and popular in France, (1785.)

IV. ANN [mentioned in Shaftoe's narrative.]

V. SUTTON, born 1686; and died in November, 1693.

VI. HENRIETTA, [of whom we have no account.]

VII. JAMES, [see the next article.]

VIII. FRANCES-CHARLOTTE … Married the Marquis de Bellegarde, a
Savoyard.[1] To a son of this union is a letter of General Washington,
dated January 15, 1790, in the 9th volume of Sparks's Writings of
Washington, p. 70.

[Footnote 1: Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LVII. p. 1123.]

IX. MARY, who died single.

The ARMS of the family are thus described: "Argent, a chevron, between three boar's heads, erased, sable armed, or, lingued proper."

CREST. "A boar's head, as before, holding an oaken branch, vert, fructed or."

II

DISCUSSION RESPECTING THE BIRTH-DAY OF OGLETHORPE.

There are great difficulties in ascertaining the age of Oglethorpe. The newspapers, soon after his decease, in 1785. and the Gentleman's and London Magazine, contain several articles about it.

While these inquiries, investigations, and statements were going the round of all the periodicals of the day, it is unaccountably strange that the family did not produce the desired rectification, and yet more surprising that in the inscription on the monument erected to his memory by his widow, and which was drawn up by her request, she should not have furnished the writer with the date of his birth, and the years of age to which he had arrived.

The London Gazette, first announcing his death, stated it one hundred and four years. The Westminster Magazine for July 1785, (a periodical published in the very neighborhood of the old family mansion,) in the monthly notice of deaths, has "June 30th, General Oglethorpe, aged 102. He was the oldest general in England." And I have a fine engraved portrait of him taken in February preceding his decease, or which is inscribed "he died 30th of June, 1785, aged 102." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1785 p. 701, who was one of the first emigrants to Georgia, and personally and intimately acquainted with the General, declares that "he lived to be near a hundred years old, but was not one hundred and two, as has been asserted."

In the Biographical Memoir of him in the 8th volume of the European Magazine; in NICHOLS's Anecdotes of Literature and in McCALL's History of Georgia, his birth is said to have been in 1698; and yet it is asserted by the best authorities, that he bore the military rank of Ensign in 1710, when, according to their date of his nativity, he could have been but twelve years of age; and this before his entering College at Oxford.

Again, some make him Captain Lieutenant in the first troop of the Queen's Guards in 1714; the same year that others put him to College. According to such statements, he must on both these military advancements, have been of an age quite too juvenile for military service, and more so for military rank. And yet, to account for his obtaining such early, and, indeed, immature promotion, the writers suggest that "he withdrew precipitately from the sphere of his education." But I see no reason for supposing that he left the University before he had completed the usual term of residence for obtaining a degree; though he did not obtain that of Master of Arts till the 31st of July, 1731.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Catalogue of Oxford Graduates.]

PRIOR, in The Life of Goldsmith, page 457, expressly says that
Oglethorpe, "after being educated at Oxford, served under Prince
Eugene against the Turks."[1]

[Footnote 1: About this time he presented a manuscript French paraphrase of the Bible, in two folio volumes, finely illuminated, to the library of Corpus Christi College in Oxford. "The gift of James Oglethorpe, Esq., Member of Parliament." GUTCH's Appendix to Wood's History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford.]

Again, CROKER has a long note upon a passage in Boswell's Life of Johnson, II. p. 173, to invalidate a narative of Oglethorpe's respecting a writing of Colonel Sir Thomas Prendergast, who was killed at the battle of Malplaquet, on the 31st of August, 1709, which thus concludes: "At the battle of Malplaquet, Oglethorpe was only eleven years old. Is it likely that Oglethorpe, at the age of eleven years, was present at Pope's interview with Colonel Cecil? And, even if he were, what credit is to be given to the recollections, after the lapse of sixty-three years, of what a boy of eleven heard?"[1]

[Footnote 1: CROKER means that the time when Oglethorpe told the story to Dr. Johnson was sixty-three years after the battle of Malplaquet, when the event referred to took place.]

In reply to this, I would observe, that it is not even probable, as this statement would imply, that the interview of Pope with Colonel Cecil was directly after the battle. There might have been intervening years. Moreover, Croker goes upon the presumption that the birth of Oglethorpe was in 1698. Now, to assign his birth to that year would make him only eighty-seven years old when he died; but Dr. Lettsom, in "a letter on prisons," in the Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LXXI. p. 21, has this remark: "I spent an evening, which agreeably continued till two o'clock in the morning, with the late General Oglethorpe, when this veteran was in the ninety-sixth year of his age; who told me, that he planted Georgia chiefly from prisons." And Hannah More writes of being in company with him when he was much above ninety years of age. He was, therefore, born before 1698. And, finally, the record of his admission into Corpus Christi College, at Oxford, decides the matter beyond all controversy; and, by certifying his age to be sixteen, proves that he was born in sixteen hundred and eighty-eight. For the month and day, I receive the testimony of William Stephens, Esq., Secretary for the affairs of the Trustees in Georgia, in the first volume of his Journal. On Thursday, December, 21st, [1738,] he makes this record.

"Another heavy rain of all last night, and this whole day's continuance; which, whatever impediments it might occasion to our other affairs, was no hindrance to our celebration of the General's birth-day, as had been always the custom hitherto; and in the very same manner as we did last year, under the discharge of cannon, &c." And McCall, who has named December 21st, says, "I am indebted to the Encyclopedia Perthensis, and to the Journal of a private gentleman in Georgia, where his birth-day was celebrated, for the date which I have inserted."[1]

[Footnote 1: History of Georgia, Vol. I. p. 321.]

This assignment will tally with the other dates and their attendant circumstances; allow time, with becoming propriety, for finishing his education at the University; and show that he was not so precocious a soldier as has been represented, but that, instead of the juvenile age of eleven, he entered the army at the manly age of twenty-one.

Memorandum. This attempt to ascertain the exact age of Oglethorpe, was written in 1837. I have, since then, received the following letter, dated London, October 2d, 1840.

My Dear Sir.
In compliance with your request, I. have been, this morning,
to the vestry of St. James, Westminster, where I examined
the record of Oglethorpe's baptism, of which the following is
an exact copy in substance and form.

Bapt. | June 1689
2. | James Oglethorpe of Sir Theophilus and
| his lady Elinor, b. 1.

I certify that the above is a true extract from the Register
Book of Baptisms belonging to the Parish of St. James,
Westminster.
J.G. GIFFORD, Preacher and Assistant.

Hence it appears that Oglethorpe was born on the first of
June, 1669, and baptized on the second. I was assured by
Mr. Gifford that this is the true meaning of the record; and
I observed in the Register Book that other names were recorded
in like manner. There were several other baptisms the
same day, with different days of birth.
Most truly your friend and obedient servant,
JARED SPARKS.

This will be deemed decisive; though to me not entirely satisfactory. I think I see cause for questioning the "b.1." not their import, but their correctness: occasioned either for family reasons, or that the date given at the font either was not distinctly heard by the officiating clergyman, or misremembered at the time when the entry was made in the Book. Besides, there would seem no occasion for the presentation so immediately after the birth; for, according to custom, it is very unusual before the eighth day. On the other hand, from the statement of Nichols, Vol. II. p. 19, that of the children of Sir Theophilus, "the five eldest were born at St. James London," we may infer that JAMES, who was the sixth in the order of births in the family, was born at Godalming. This is proved, also, by Shaftoe's narrative, which mentions the going down of the mother to London, in consequence of the sickness and death of one of the nurslings. Now, though the main statement of that document may not be true, such an incidental circumstance as this, which has no direct bearing on "the vexed question," may be admitted. If, therefore, born at Godalming, he could not be taken to London, for baptism, on the day after his birth. And, admitting that his nativity was on the 21st of December, the season of the year alone would be sufficient reason for deferring the public ceremony till after the inclement weather, and the opportunity favored for having it in the Parish Church, where all the other children had been baptized.

After all, the fact that on the ninth of July, seventeen hundred and four, he was sixteen years old, as is testified on the Record of his admission into College, is incompatible with the date of June 1st, 1689, for the day of his birth, but consistent with that of December 21st, 1688.

To adjust all these discrepancies respecting the time of his birth, and others of the time of his death, one needs the ingenuity of the Benedictins of St. Maur, who published a 4to volume with this title: "L'art de verifier les dates des faits historiques."

III.

CHARLES MORDAUNT, Earl of Peterborough. This great man died on his passage to Lisbon, 25th of October, 1735, aged 77. To bravery and heroism, he added a penetrating genius and a mind highly polished and well instructed in ancient and modern literature, as his Familiar Epistles, preserved among those of his friend Pope, fully evince.

Of REV. GEORGE BERKELEY, D.D., the celebrated Dean of Derry, and afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, I give the following particulars.

His learning and virtues, his lively and agreeable conversation, introduced him to the acquaintance, and procured him the esteem and friendship of many great and learned men, and among others the Earl of Peterborough, who made him his Chaplain, and took him as a companion on a tour of Europe in 1714-15. Soon after his return, the Dean published a proposal for the better supplying of the churches in the American Plantations with Clergymen, and for instructing and converting the savages to Christianity, by erecting a College in Bermuda. The first branch of this design appeared to him in the light of importance; but his principal view was to train up a competent number of young Indians, in succession, to be employed as missionaries among the various tribes of Indians. It appeared to be a matter of very material consequence, that persons should be employed in this service who were acquainted with the language necessary to be used; and he had also a strong persuasion that such missionaries as he proposed would be much better received by the savages than those of European extraction. These Indian lads were to be obtained from the different tribes in the fairest manner, and to be fed, clothed and instructed at the expense of the Institution.

The scheme, for some time, met with all the encouragement that was due to so benevolent a proposal. The King granted a charter; and the Parliament voted a very considerable sum to be obtained from the sale of lands in St. Christophers. Such a prospect of success in the favorite object of his heart, drew from Berkeley some beautiful verses, "in which," a writer of the day remarks, "another age, perhaps, will acknowledge the old conjunction of the prophetic character with that of the poetic, to have again taken place."

In consequence of this encouragement, he resigned his rich Deanry; and in execution of his noble design, embarked in the latter part of Autumn, 1728; his lady and her sister accompanying him; and arrived at Newport, in Rhode Island, in February following. This situation he pitched upon with a view of settling a correspondence there for supplying his College. He purchased a country-seat and farm in the neighborhood, where he resided about two years and a half. His residence in this country had some influence on the progress of literature, particularly in Rhode Island and Connecticut. The presence and conversation of a man so illustrious for talents, learning, virtue, and social attractions, could not fail of giving a spring to the literary diligence and ambition of many who enjoyed his acquaintance.

Finding, at length, that the promised aid of the ministry towards his College would fail him, he embarked at Boston in September 1731, on his return to England. At his departure he distributed the books which he had brought with him, among the Clergy of Rhode Island. He sent, as a gift to Yale College, a deed of his farm; and afterwards made a present to its Library of about a thousand volumes.

Immediately after his arrival in London, he returned all the private subscriptions that had been advanced for the support of his undertaking.

The fund, which had been calculated upon for his College, had been chiefly appropriated as a marriage portion of the Princess Ann, on her nuptials with the Prince of Orange. There remained, however, £10,000, which General Oglethorpe had interest enough in Parliament to obtain for the purpose of carrying over and settling foreign and other Protestants in his new Colony of Georgia in America;[1] "having first paid Dean Berkeley the compliment of asking his consent to the application for the money, before he moved for it in Parliament."

[Footnote 1: See Journal of the House of Commons, May 10, 1733.]

He passed the latter part of his life at Oxford; and deceased January 14th, 1753, aged 74.

The character of this worthy prelate was expressed in few words by Bishop Atterbury, who, having heard much of him, wished to see him. Accordingly, he was one day introduced to him by the Earl of Berkeley. After some time, Mr. Berkeley quitted the room; on which the Earl said to the Bishop, "Does my cousin answer your Lordship's expectations?" The Bishop, lifting up his hands in astonishment, replied, "So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman."

Mr. Pope sums up Bishop Berkeley's character in one line. After mentioning some particular virtues that distinguished other Prelates, he ascribes

"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven."

I close these memoirs of the early companion, and congenial and lasting friend of Oglethorpe, with the verses referred to, written by him.

"ON THE PROSPECT OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IN AMERICA."

The muse, disgusted at an age and time,
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better clime,
Producing subjects worthy fame.

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true:

In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules;
Where men shall not impose, for truth and sense,
The pedantry of courts and schools:

There shall be seen another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts;
The good and great inspiring epic page,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay,
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future ages shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way,—
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day,—
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

IV.

REFERENCE TO DEBATES IN THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS IN WHICH OGLETHORPE TOOK A PART.

[See History and Proceedings of the House of Commons.]

Against the banishment of Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
April 6, 1723.

On ecclesiastical benefices.

On the preference of a militia to a standing army. Plea in behalf of the persecuted Protestants in Germany January, 1731-2.

On the bill for the better securing and encouraging the trade of the sugar Colonies. January 28, 1732.

On the petition of Sir Thomas Lombe relating to his silk winding machine.

On the petition from the proprietors of the Charitable Corporation, complaining of the mismanagement of their directors &c. February, 1732.

On a second reading of the sugar colony bill.

On the motion for an address of thanks in answer to the King's speech.
January 27, 1734. [His speech fills more than three pages.]

On the motion in the grand committee on the supply for granting thirty thousand men for the sea service for the year 1735. February 7th, 1734-5. [This speech fills six pages and a half.]

Against committing the bill for limiting the number of officers in the
House of Commons.

On Sir J. Barnard's motion for taking off such taxes as are burdensome to the poor and the manufacturers.

Against the act for disabling Alexander Wilson, Esq., from the holding office, &c.

On the petition, in 1747, of the United Brethren to have the Act for naturalizing foreigners in North America, extended to them and other settlers who made a scruple of performing military service.

On another petition of the United Brethren presented 20th of February, 1749.

[All the speeches in both Houses of Parliament on each of these petitions, were printed in the Universal Magazine for the months of April and May, 1749.]

He spoke on other occasions, to have indicated which would have required more research than I could spare.

V.

PRISON-VISITING COMMITTEE.

This committee consisted of the following gentlemen:

James Oglethorpe, Esquire, Chairman,
The Right Honorable the Lord Finch,
The Right Honorable Lord Percival,
Sir Robert Sutton, Knight of the Bath,
Sir Robert Clifton, Knight of the Bath,
Sir Abraham Elton, Baronet,
Sir Gregory Page, Baronet,
Sir Edmund Knatchbull, Baronet,
Vultus Cornwall, Esquire,
General Wade,
Humphry Parsons, Esquire,
Captain Vernon,
Robert Byng, Esquire,
Judge Advocate Hughes.

On Thursday, the 27th of February, they went to the Fleet prison to examine into the state of that gaol, in order for the relief of the insolvent debtors, &c., when the irons were ordered to be taken off Sir William Rich, Baronet. The next day, the same committee went a second time to the Fleet prison, where, upon complaint made to them that Sir William Rich was again put in irons, they made report thereof to the House of Commons, who thereupon ordered Mr. Bambridge, the warden of the Fleet, to be taken into the custody of their sergeant at arms.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE

"On Thursday, the 20th of March, Mr. Oglethorpe from the committee appointed to inquire into the state of the gaols of this kingdom, made a REPORT of some progress they had made, with the RESOLUTIONS of the committee thereupon, and he read the Report in his place, and afterwards delivered the same (with two appendixes) in at the table, where the Report was read, and the resolutions of the committee being severally read a second time, were agreed to by the House, in substance as follows, viz.:

"Resolved, nemine contradicente, that Thomas Bambridge, the acting Warden of the prison at the Fleet, hath wilfully permitted several debtors to the crown in great sums of money, as well as debtors to divers of his Majesty's subjects to escape; hath been guilty of the most notorious breaches of his trust; great extortions, and the highest crimes and misdemeanors in the execution of his said office; and hath arbitrarily and unlawfully loaded with irons, put into dungeons, and destroyed prisoners for debt under his charge, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom:

"Resolved, nemine contradicente, that John Higgins, Esq., late warden of the prison of the Fleet, did during the time of his wardenship, wilfully permit many in his custody to escape, and was notoriously guilty of great breaches of his trust, extortions, cruelties, and many other high crimes and misdemeanors, &c., &c.

"And that James Barnes, William Pindar, John Everett, and Thomas King were agents of, and accomplices with the said Thomas Bambridge in the commission of his said crimes.

"At the same time, upon a motion made by Mr. Oglethorpe, by direction of the committee, it was unanimously resolved to address his Majesty that he would be graciously pleased to direct his Attorney General forthwith to prosecute, in the most effectual manner, the said Thomas Bambridge, John Higgins, James Barnes, William Pindar, John Everett, and Thomas King for their said crimes.

"It was also ordered that the said Bambridge, Higgins, Barnes, Pindar, Everett, and King be committed close prisoners in His Majesty's gaol of Newgate.

"Then, upon Mr. Oglethorpe's motions, two bills were ordered to be brought in, one to disable Thomas Bambridge from holding or executing the office of Warden of the Prison of the Fleet, or to have or exercise any authority relating therein. The other, for better regulating the prison of the Fleet, and for more effectually preventing and punishing arbitrary and illegal practices of the Warden of the said prison.

"In the last place the Commons ordered the Report from the Committee relating to the Fleet prison to be printed." [N.B. The substance of this report is given in BOYER's Political State of Europe, Vol. XXXVII. p. 359-377.]

The labors of Oglethorpe and his associates to correct prison abuses, were warmly acknowledged by their country, and were the grateful theme of the poet. They were alluded to by THOMSON in the following strain:

"And here can I forget the generous hand
Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched
Into the horrors of the gloomy jail?
Where misery moans unpitied and unheard,
Where sickness pines, where thirst and hunger burn,
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice?

* * * * *

"Ye sons of mercy! yet resume the search,
Drag forth the legal monsters into light;
Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give!"

[Winter, l. 359-388.]

"The wretched condition of confined debtors, and the extortions and oppressions to which they were subjected by gaolers, thus came to be known to persons in high stations, and this excited the compassion of several gentlemen to think of some method of relieving the poor from that distress in which they were often involved without any fault of their own, but by some conduct which deserved pity rather than punishment."

VI.

RELEASE TO INSOLVENT DEBTORS, FROM PRISON.

In a very excellent publication entitled "Reasons for establishing the Colony of GEORGIA, with regard to the trade of Great Britain, the increase of our people, and the employment and support it will afford to great numbers of our own poor, as well as foreign Protestants," by BENJAMIN MARTIN, Esq. Lond. 1733; are some remarks in reference to the release of insolvent debtors from gaol, which I deem it proper to extract and annex here; and the rather, because the work is exceedingly rare.

After describing the deplorable condition of those who are in reduced circumstances, and need assistance and would be glad of employment, the writer refers to the situation of those who are thrown into prison for debt, and judges that the number may be estimated at four thousand every year; and that above one third part of the debts is never recovered hereby; and then adds, "If half of these, or only five hundred of them, were to be sent to Georgia every year to be incorporated with those foreign Protestants who are expelled their own country for religion, what great improvements might not be expected in our trade, when those, as well as the foreigners, would be so many new subjects gained by England? For, while they are in prison, they are absolutely lost,—the public loses their labor, and their knowledge. If they take the benefit of the Act of Parliament that allows them liberty on the delivery of their all to their creditors, they come destitute into the world again. As they have no money and little credit, they find it almost impossible to, get into business, especially when our trades are overstocked. They, therefore, by contracting new debts, must return again into prison, or, how honest soever their dispositions may be, by idleness and necessity will be forced into bad courses, such as begging, cheating, or robbing. These, then, likewise, are useless to the state; not only so, but dangerous. But these (it will be said) may be serviceable by their labor in the country. To force them to it, I am afraid, is impracticable; to suppose they will voluntarily do it, I am sure is unlikely. The Colony of Georgia will be a proper asylum for these. This will make the act of parliament of more effect. Here they will have the best motive for industry; a possession of their own, and no possibility of subsisting without it.

"I have heard it said that our prisons are the properest places for those that are thrown into them, by keeping them from being hurtful to others. Surely this way of thinking is something too severe. Are these people, with their liberty to lose our compassion? Are they to be shut up from our eyes, and excluded also from our hearts? Many of very honest dispositions fall into decay, nay, perhaps, because they are so, because they cannot allow themselves that latitude which others take to be successful. The ways that lead to a man's ruin are various. Some are undone by overtrading, others by want of trade; many by being responsible for others. Do all these deserve such hardship? If a man sees a friend, a brother, a father going to a prison, where felons are to be his society, want and sickness his sure attendants, and death, in all likelihood his only, but quick relief; if he stretches out his hand to save him from immediate slavery and ruin, he runs the risk of his own liberty, and at last loses it; is there any one who will say, this man is not an object of compassion? Not so, but of esteem, and worth preserving for his virtue. But supposing that idleness and intemperance are the usual cause of his ruin. Are these crimes adequate to such a punishment as confinement for life? But even yet granting that these unhappy people deserve no indulgence, it is certainly imprudent in any state to lose the benefit of the labor of so many thousands.

"But the public loss, by throwing men into prison, is not confined to them only. They have many of them wives and children. These are, also, involved in their ruin. Being destitute of a support, they must perish, or else become a burden on their parishes by an inability to work, or a nuisance by their thefts. These, too, are useless to society.

"In short, all those who can work yet are supported in idleness by any mistaken charity, or are subsisted by their parishes, which are at this time, through all England overburdened by indolent and lazy poor, who claim and are designed only for impotent poor;—all those who add nothing by their labor to the welfare of the state, are useless, burdensome, or dangerous to it. What is to be done with these necessitous? Nobody, I suppose, thinks that they should continue useless. It will be then an act of charity to these, and of merit to the public, for any one to propose, forward, and perfect a better expedient for making them useful. If he cannot, it is surely just to acquiesce, till a better be found, in the present design of settling them in Georgia." p. 16-21.

VII.

SIR THOMAS LOMBE'S MILL FOR WINDING SILK

"In 1719, a silk-throwing mill was erected at Derby, and from that time to the beginning of the present century, various improvements were introduced.

"The following account of the first silk mill erected in England will be interesting. At the commencement of the last century, a person of the name of Crochet erected a small mill near the present works, with the intention of introducing the Italian method of spinning into this country. About 1715, a similar plan was in the contemplation of a mechanic and draughtsman named John Lombe, who travelled into Italy to procure drawings and models of the machines necessary for the undertaking. After remaining some time in that country, and gaining as much information as the jealousy and precautions of the merchants of Italy would allow, he returned with two natives, accustomed to the manufacture, into this country, and fixed upon Derby as a proper place to establish his works. He agreed with the corporation for an island, or rather swamp, in the river, 500 feet long and 52 feet wide, at the rent of about £8 yearly. Here he established his silk mills, and in 1718 procured a patent to enable him to secure the profits for fourteen years. But Lombe did not live much longer; for the Italians, exasperated at the injury done to their trade by its introduction into England, sent an artful woman over, who associated with the parties in the character of a friend, and, having gained over one of the natives who had originally accompanied Mr. Lombe, administered a poison to him, of which, it is said, he ultimately died. His death, however, did not prove fatal to his scheme; for his brother, and afterwards his cousin, carried on the business with energy, and employed more than three hundred persons. A little before the expiration of the Patent, Sir Thomas Lombe petitioned for a renewal of it; but this was refused, and instead of it, £14,000 was granted him, on condition that he should allow a complete model of the works to be taken; this was accordingly done, and afterwards deposited in the town for public inspection.

"This extensive mill stands upon a huge pile of oak, double planked and covered with stone-work, on which are turned thirteen stone arches, which sustain the walls.

"The spinning mills are eight in number, and give motion to upwards of 25,000 reel bobbins, and nearly 3000 star wheels belonging to the reels. Each of the four twist mills contains four rounds of spindles, about 389 of which are connected with each mill, as well as the numerous reels, bobbins, star wheels, &c. The whole of this elaborate machine, though distributed through so many apartments, is put in motion by a single water-wheel twenty-three feet in diameter, situated on the west side of the building."

[Treatise on the Manufactures and Machinery of Great Britain, by P. BARLOW, Esq., F.R.S., &c., in the Encyclopedia Metropol. Part VI. "Mixed Sciences.">[

"Sir Thomas Lombe, Alderman of Bassishaw Ward, died, at his house in Old Jury, London, on the third of January 1739, aged 81. A gentleman of great integrity and honor. He was the senior Alderman, next the chair. Worth £120,000 sterling."

VIII.

CASE OF CAPTAIN PORTEOUS.

There is an account of the riot, and of all the particulars attending the murder of Captain Porteous, at the close of the 9th volume of the History of the Proceedings of the House of Commons, from page 506 to 545; and a concise narrative in the History of England, by Lord MAHON, Vol. II. p. 285-298. He introduces it by the following remarks: "Some years back, the real events might have excited interest; but the wand of an enchanter is now waved over us. We feel the spell of the greatest writer that the world has seen in one department, or Scotland produced in any. How dull and lifeless will not the true facts appear when no longer embellished by the touching sorrows of Effie, or the heroic virtue of Jeanie Deans!" He refers, in a note, to chapter VI. of The Heart of Mid Lothian, by Sir WALTER SCOTT, and to "his excellent narrative" in the 2d series of the Tales of a Grandfather, from p. 231 to 242, the end of the volume. See also the able speech of Mr. LINDSAY, in the Parliamentary History, p. 254.

It is worthy of remark that the Bill was carried in Committee by the least possible majority. One hundred and thirty-one members voted for reporting the Bill as amended; the same number voted against it. And, though it is customary for the Chairman to give his vote on the side of mercy, he voted in favor of the Bill. It is further remarkable, that two Scots members, the Solicitor General, and Mr. Erskine of Grange, were then attending an appeal in the House of Lords, and were refused leave of absence in order to be at this discussion, otherwise the Bill would have been entirely lost.

IX.

About the end of the month of August, 1732, Sir Gilbert Heathcote acquainted the court of directors of the Bank of England, that his Majesty had granted a charter for establishing a regular colony in Georgia; that the fund was to arise from charitable contributions which he recommended to them, shewing the great charity of the undertaking and the future benefit arising to England, by strengthening all the American Colonies, by increasing the trade and navigation of the kingdom, and by raising of raw silk, for which upwards of £500,000 a year was paid to Piedmont, and thereby giving employment to thousands of tradesmen and working people. Then Sir Gilbert gave a handsome benefaction to the design, and his example was followed by the directors then present, and a great many others belonging to that opulent society; and James Vernon, Robert Hucks, and George Heathcote, Esquires, paid into the Bank (the treasury for this use) £200 each for the charity, which was conducted by the following gentlemen as trustees:

Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Eyles, Esq.
John Lord Viscount Purceval, John Laroche, Esq.
John Lord Viscount Tyrconnel, James Vernon, Esq.
James Lord Viscount Limerick, Stephen Hales, A.M.
George Lord Carpenter, Richard Chandler, Esq.
Edward Digby, Esq. Thomas Frederick, Esq.
James Oglethorpe, Esq. Henry L'Apostre, Esq.
George Heathcote, Esq. William Heathcote, Esq.
Thomas Towers, Esq. John White, Esq.
Robert Moore, Esq. Robert Kendal, Esq.
Robert Hucks, Esq. Richard Bundy, D.D.
William Sloper, Esq.

Collections were made all over England, and large sums raised, and the Parliament gave £10,000, which enabled the trustees to entertain many poor people that offered, and to make provision for their transportation and maintenance till they could provide for themselves.

[OLDMIXON, I. p.526.

"Those who direct this charity have, by their own choice, in the most open and disinterested manner, made it impossible for any one among them to receive any advantage from it, besides the consciousness of making others happy. Voluntary and unpaid directors carry on their designs with honor and success. Such an association of men of leisure and fortune to do good, is the glory and praise of our country.">[

[Sermon before the trustees for establishing the colony of Georgia, by THOMAS RUNDLE, D.D., Bishop of Londonderry, Ireland. Lond. 1734, page 16.]

X.

OGLETHORPE'S DISINTERESTEDNESS IN THE UNDERTAKING.

As Oglethorpe's going along with this new Colony proceeded merely from his public spirit, and from a disinterested and generous view of contributing all that was in his power, towards the benefit of his country, and the relief of his distressed countrymen, it met with just and deserved applause. In one of the public prints of the day the following encomium was inserted.

"Whether it is owing to an affectation of being thought conversant with the ancients, or the narrowness of our minds, I know not, but we often pass over those actions in our contemporaries which would strike us with admiration in a Greek or a Roman. Their histories perhaps cannot produce a greater instance of public spirit than what appeared in an evening paper of Saturday, the 18th instant, that 'James Oglethorpe, Esq., one of the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia, is gone over with the first embarkation at his own expense.' To see a gentleman of his rank and fortune visiting a distant and uncultivated land, with no other society but the miserable whom he goes to assist; exposing himself freely to the same hardships to which they are subjected, in the prime of life, instead of pursuing his pleasures or ambition; on an improved and well concerted plan, from which his country must reap the profits; at his own expense, and without a view, or even a possibility of receiving any private advantage from it; this too, after having done and expended for it what many generous men would think sufficient to have done;—to see this, I say, must give every one who has approved and contributed to the undertaking, the highest satisfaction; must convince the world of the disinterested zeal with which the settlement is to be made, and entitle him to the truest honor he can gain, the perpetual love and applause of mankind.

"With how just an esteem do we look back on Sir Walter Raleigh for the expeditions which he made so beneficial to his country! And shall we refuse the same justice to the living which we pay to the dead, when by it we can raise a proper emulation in men of capacity, and divert them from those idle or selfish pursuits in which they are too generally engaged? How amiable is humanity when accompanied with so much industry! What an honor is such a man! How happy must he be! The benevolent man, says Epicurus, is like a river, which, if it had a rational soul, must have the highest delight to see so many corn fields and pastures flourish and smile, as it were, with plenty and verdure, and all by the overflowing of its bounty and diffusion of its streams upon them.

"I should not have written so much of this Gentleman, had he been present to read it. I hope to see every man as warm in praising him as I am, and as hearty to encourage the design he is promoting as I really think it deserves; a design that sets charity on a right foot, by relieving the indigent and unfortunate, and making them useful at the same time."[1]

[Footnote 1: Transcribed into the Political State of Great Britain, for February, 1733, Vol. XLV. p.181.]

XI.

On the 13th of January, 1732-3, the Governor of South Carolina published in their Gazette the following advertisement.

Whereas I have lately received a power from the Trustees for establishing a Colony in that part of Carolina between the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah, now granted by his Majesty's Charter to the said Trustees, by the name of the Province of Georgia, authorizing me to take and receive all such voluntary contributions as any of his Majesty's good subjects of this Province shall voluntarily contribute towards so good and charitable a work, as the relieving poor and insolvent debtors, and settling, establishing, and assisting any poor Protestants of what nation soever, as shall be willing to settle in the said Colony; and whereas the said intended settlement will, in all human appearance, be a great strengthening and security to this Province, as well as a charitable and pious work, and worthy to be encouraged and promoted by all pious and good Christians; I have, therefore, thought fit to publish and make known to all such pious and well disposed persons as are willing to promote so good a work, that I have ordered and directed Mr. Jesse Badenhop to receive all such subscriptions or sums of money as shall be by them subscribed or paid in for the uses and purposes aforesaid; which sums of money (be they great or small,) I promise them shall be faithfully remitted to the Trustees by the aforesaid charter appointed, together with the names of the subscribers, which will by them be published every year; or, (if they desire their names to be kept secret) the names of the persons by whom they make the said subscriptions.

The piety and charity of so good an undertaking, I hope will be a sufficient inducement to every person to contribute something to a work so acceptable to God, as well as so advantageous to this Province.

R. JOHNSON.

A Copy of the Letter of the Governor and Council of South Carolina, to Mr. Oglethorpe.

Sir—We cannot omit the first opportunity of congratulating you on your safe arrival in this province, wishing you all imaginable success in your charitable and generous undertaking; in which we beg leave to assure you that any assistance we can give shall not be wanting in the promotion of the same.

The General Assembly having come to the Resolutions inclosed, we hope you will accept it as an instance of our sincere intentions to forward so good a work; and of our attachment to a person who has at all times so generously used his endeavors to relieve the poor, and deliver them out of their distress; in which you have hitherto been so successful, that we are persuaded this undertaking cannot fail under your prudent conduct, which we most heartily wish for.

The rangers and scout-boats are ordered to attend you as soon as possible.

Colonel Bull, a gentleman of this Board, and who we esteem most capable to assist you in the settling of your new Colony, is desired to deliver you this, and to accompany you, and render you the best services he is capable of; and is one whose integrity you may very much depend on.

We are, with the greatest respect and esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble servants.

ROBERT JOHNSON, THOMAS BROUGHTON, AL. MIDDLETON, A. SKEENE, FRA. YOUNGE, JAMES KINLOCK, JOHN FENWICKE, THOMAS WARING, J. HAMMERTON.

Council Chamber, 26 January, 1733.

Copy of the Assembly's Resolutions.

The Committee of his Majesty's Honorable Council appointed to confer with a Committee of the lower House on his Excellency's message relating to the arrival of the Honorable James Oglethorpe, Esq., report—

That agreeable to his Majesty's instructions to his Excellency, sent down together with the said message, we are unanimously of opinion that all due countenance and encouragement ought to be given to the settling of the Colony of Georgia.

And for that end your Committee apprehend it necessary that his Excellency be desired to give orders and directions that Captain McPherson, together with fifteen of the rangers, do forthwith repair to the new settlement of Georgia, to cover and protect Mr. Oglethorpe, and those under his care, from any insult that may be offered them by the Indians, and that they continue and abide there till the new settlers have enforted themselves, and for such further time as his Excellency may think necessary.

That the Lieutenant and four men of the Apalachicola Garrison be ordered to march to the fort on Cambahee, to join those of the rangers that remain; and that the Commissary be ordered to find them with provision as usual.

That his Excellency will please to give directions that the scout-boat at Port Royal do attend the new settlers as often as his Excellency shall see occasion.

That a present be given Mr. Oglethorpe for the new settlers of Georgia forthwith, of an hundred head of breeding cattle and five bulls, as also twenty breeding sows and four boars, with twenty barrels of good and merchantable rice; the whole to be delivered at the charge of the public, at such place in Georgia as Mr. Oglethorpe shall appoint.

That periauguas be provided at the charge of the public to attend Mr. Oglethorpe at Port Royal, in order to carry the new settlers, arrived in the ship Anne, to Georgia, with their effects, and the artillery and ammunition now on board.

That Colonel Bull be desired to go to Georgia with the Honorable James Oglethorpe, Esq., to aid him with his best advice and assistance in settling the place.

Extract of a Letter from His Excellency Robert Johnson, Esq., Governor of South Carolina, to Benjamin Martyn, Esq., Secretary to the Trustees, &c.

CHARLESTOWN, Feb. 12, 1733.

Sir—I have received the favor of yours, dated the 20th of October, and the duplicate of the 24th. I beg you will assure the Honorable Trustees of my humble respects, and that I will attach myself to render them and their laudable undertaking all the service in my power.

Mr. Oglethorpe arrived here with his people in good health the 13th of January. I ordered him a pilot, and in ten hours he proceeded to Port Royal, where he arrived safe the 19th, and I understand from thence, that, after refreshing his people a little in our barracks, he, with all expedition, proceeded to Yamacraw, upon Savannah River, about twelve miles from the sea, where he designs to fix those he has brought with him.

I do assure you, that upon the first news I had of this embarkation, I was not wanting in giving the necessary orders for their reception; and, being assisted at Port Royal, (although they were here almost as soon as we heard of their design of coming,) not knowing whether Mr. Oglethorpe designed directly there, or would touch here.

I am informed he is mighty well satisfied with his reception there, and likes the country; and that he says things succeed beyond his expectation; but I have not yet received a letter from him since his being at Port Royal.

Our General Assembly meeting three days after his departure, I moved to them their assisting this generous undertaking. Both Houses immediately came to the following resolution; that Mr. Oglethorpe should be furnished at the public expense, with one hundred and four breeding cattle, twenty-five hogs, and twenty barrels of good rice; that boats should also be provided at the public charge to transport the people, provisions and goods, from Port Royal to the place where he designed to settle; that the scout-boats, and fifteen of our rangers, (who are horsemen, and always kept in pay to discover the motions of the Indians,) should attend to Mr. Oglethorpe, and obey his commands, in order to protect the new settlers from any insults, which I think there is no danger of; and I have given the necessary advice and instructions to our out garrisons, and the Indians in friendship with us, that they may befriend and assist them.

I have likewise prevailed on Colonel Bull, a member of the Council, and a gentleman of great probity and experience in the affairs of this Province, the nature of land, and the method of settling, and who is well acquainted with the manner of the Indians, to attend Mr. Oglethorpe to Georgia with our compliments, and to offer him advice and assistance; and, had not our Assembly been sitting, I would have gone myself.

I received the Trustees commission; for the honor of which I beg you will thank them. I heartily wish all imaginable success to this good work; and am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

ROBERT JOHNSON.

P.S. Since writing the above, I have had the pleasure of hearing from Mr. Oglethorpe, who gives me an account that his undertaking goes on very successfully.

XII.

Creeks, so called by the English, because their country lies chiefly among rivers, which the American English call "creeks;" but the real name is Musogees. Their language is the softest and most copious of all the Indians, and is looked upon to be the radical language; for they can make themselves understood by almost all the other Indians on the Continent. They are divided into three people, Upper, Lower, and Middle Creeks. The two former governed by their respective chiefs, whom they honor with a royal denomination; yet they are, in the most material part of their government, subordinate to the Chief of the latter, who bears an imperial title. Their country lies between Spanish Florida and the Cherokee mountains, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. They are a tall, well-limbed people, very brave in war, and as much respected in the South, as the Iroquois are in the North part of America.

[History of the British Settlements in North America, Lond. 1773, 4to, p. 156. ADAIR, 257. BARTON's Views, &c., Introduction XLIV. and Appendix 9.]

XIII.

ACCOUNT OF THE INDIANS IN GEORGIA, BEING PART OF A LETTER FROM OGLETHORPE, DATED 9TH JUNE, 1733.

There seems to be a door opened to our Colony towards the conversion of the Indians. I have had many conversations with their chief men, the whole tenor of which shews that there is nothing wanting to their conversion but one who understands their language well, to explain to them the mysteries of religion; for, as to the moral part of Christianity, they understand it, and do assent to it. They abhor adultery, and do not approve of a plurality of wives. Theft is a thing not known among the Creek Indians; though frequent, and even honorable among the Uchees. Murder they look on as a most abominable crime: but do not esteem the killing of an enemy, or one that has injured them, murder. The passion of revenge, which they call honor, and drunkenness, which they learn from our traders, seem to be the two greatest obstacles to their being truly Christians: but, upon both these points they hear reason; and with respect to drinking rum, I have weaned those near me a good deal from it. As for revenge, they say, as they have no executive power of justice amongst them, they are forced to kill the man who has injured them, in order to prevent others doing the like; but they do not think any injury, except adultery, or murder, deserves revenge. They hold that if a man commits adultery, the injured husband is obliged to have revenge, by cutting off the ears of the adulterer, which, if he is too strong or sturdy to submit to, then the injured husband kills him the first opportunity he has to do it with safety. In cases of murder, the next in blood is obliged to kill the murderer, or else he is looked on as infamous in the nation where he lives; and the weakness of the executive power is such, that there is no other way of punishment but by the revenger of blood, as the Scripture calls it; for there is no coercive power in any of their nations; their kings can do no more than to persuade. All the power they have is no more than to call their old men and captains together, and to propound to them the measures they think proper; and, after they have done speaking, all the others have liberty to give their opinions also; and they reason together with great temper and modesty, till they have brought each other into some unanimous resolution. Then they call in the young men, and recommend to them the putting in execution the resolution, with their strongest and most lively eloquence. And, indeed, they seem to me, both in action and expression, to be thorough masters of true eloquence. In speaking to their young men, they generally address the passions. In speaking to the old men, they apply to reason only. [He then states the interview with the Creeks, and gives the first set speech of Tomo Chichi, which has been quoted.] One of the Indians of the Cherokee nation, being come down, the Governor told him that "he need fear nothing, but might speak freely," answered smartly, "I always speak freely, what should I fear? I am now among friends, and I never feared even among my enemies." Another instance of their short manner of speaking was when I ordered one of the Carolina boatmen, who was drunk and had beaten an Indian, to be tied to a gun till he was sober, in order to be whipped. Tomo Chichi came to me to beg me to pardon him, which I refused to do unless the Indian who had been beaten should also desire the pardon for him. Tomo Chichi desired him to do so, but he insisted upon satisfaction. Tomo Chichi said, "O Fonseka," (for that was his name,) "this Englishman, being drunk, has beat you; if he is whipped for so doing, the Englishmen will expect that, if an Indian should insult them when drunk, the Indian should be whipped for it. When you are drunk, you are quarrelsome, and you know you love to be drunk, but you don't love to be whipped." Fonseka was convinced, and begged me to pardon the man; which, as soon as I granted, Tomo Chichi and Fonseka ran and untied him, which I perceived was done to show that he owed his safety to their intercession.

XIV.

DUKE OF ARGYLE A PATRON OF OGLETHORPE.

"From his boyhood Oglethorpe uniformly enjoyed the friendship and confidence of his gallant and eloquent countryman, John Duke of Argyle; who, in an animated speech in Parliament, bore splendid testimony to his military talents, his natural generosity, his contempt of danger, and his devotion to the public weal."[1]

[Footnote 1: VERPLANK's Discourse before the New York Historical
Society, p. 33.]

This favorable opinion, acquired in military campaigns, where his soldierly accomplishments and personal bravery had attracted the notice and won the admiration of the commanding officers, was preserved in after scenes, and confirmed by the principles which they both maintained, and the measures they alike pursued in Parliament.

The Duke also early devoted himself to a military life, and served under the great Marlborough. He distinguished himself at the battles of Ramilies, of Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, and assisted at the siege of Lisle and of Ghent. Such services were honorably rewarded by the King, who made him Knight of the Garter in 1710, and the following year sent him ambassador to Charles III. of Spain, with the command of the English forces in that kingdom. His support of the union with Scotland, rendered him for awhile unpopular with his countrymen, but his merits were acknowledged by all parties. George I. on his accession, restored him to the command of Scotland, of which he had before been capriciously deprived; and, in 1715, he bravely attacked Lord Mar's army at Dumblane, and obliged the Pretender to retire from the kingdom. In 1718 he was made Duke of Greenwich. He died in 1743, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a handsome monument records his virtues.

The following couplet by pope immortalizes his fame.

"Argyle, the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field."

He had the honor, also, to be celebrated in very high terms by
THOMSON;

—"full on thee, ARGYLE,
Her hope, her stay, her darling and her boast,
From her first patriots and her heroes sprung,
Thy fond imploring country turns her eye;
In thee, with all a mother's triumph, sees
Her every virtue, every grace, combined,
Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn,
Her pride of honor, and her courage tried,
Calm and intrepid, in the very throat
Of sulphurous war, on Tenier's dreadful field.
Nor less the palm of peace inwreathes thy brow;
For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tongue
Persuasion flows, and wins the high debate;
While, mix'd in thee, combine the charm of youth,
The force of manhood, and the depth of age."

[Autumn, 1. 926-941.]

XV.

HISTORICAL REFERENCES TO THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SALTZBURGERS IN GEORGIA.

Nachricht von dem establishment derer Salzburgischen emigranten zu Ebenezer, en der Provinz Georgien in Nord-America, &c. Von P.G.F. VON RECK. Halle 1774. From this, and a subsequent Journal of the same author, was published a very interesting little work, by the direction of the Society for promoting Christian knowledge, entitled "An extract of the Journals of Mr. Commissary VON RECK, who conducted the first transport of Saltzburgers to Georgia; and of the Reverend Mr. BOLZIUS, one of their Ministers." London, 1734. 12mo.

A circumstantial account of the settlement and of the affairs of these emigrants is given in a work which bears this title, "Ausfürliche Nacrichten von den Salzburgischen Emigranten, die sich in America niedergelassen haben, worinnen die Riesediaria des konige. Grossbritannischen Commissarii und der beyden Salzburgischen Prediger, wie auch eine Beschreibung von Georgien enthalten. Heraus gegeben von SAMUEL URLSPERGER." Halle, 1735-52. This journal of the proceedings of the Saltzburg emigrants, who formed the settlement of Ebenezer in Georgia, was continued from year to year, from 1734 to 1760; in several parts, which, bound up, make five thick quarto volumes. In Professor Ebeling's copy, now in the library of Harvard College, is the continuation, in manuscript, [perhaps the original,] and which was never printed, by JOHN MARTIN BOLZIUS, dated January, 1765. There is, also, a separate work, entitled Americanisches Ackerwerck Gottes, von SAMUEL URLSPERGER. Augs. 1745-1760. 4to. 4 vol.

A most interesting account of the persecution is to be found in
two thin quarto volumes by J.M. TEUBENER, entitled Historie derer
Emigranten oder Vertriebenen Lutheraner aus dem Ertz-Bissthum
Saltzburg. 2 vols. 4to. Leipz. 1732.

"About twenty-five thousand persons, a tenth part of the population, migrated on this occasion. Their property was sold for them, under the King of Prussia's protection; some injustice, and considerable loss must needs have been suffered by such a sale, and the chancellor, by whom this strong measure was carried into effect, is accused of having enriched himself by the transaction. Seventeen thousand of the emigrants settled in the Prussian states. Their march will long be remembered in Germany. The Catholic magistrates at Augsburgh shut the gates against them, but the Protestants in the city prevailed, and lodged them in their houses. The Count of Stolberg Warnegerode gave a dinner to about nine hundred in his palace; they were also liberally entertained and relieved by the Duke of Brunswick. At Leipsic the clergy met them at the gates, and entered with them in procession, singing one of Luther's hymns; the magistrates quartered them upon the inhabitants, and a collection was made for them in the church, several merchants subscribing liberally. The university of Wittenberg went out to meet them, with the Rector at their head, and collections were made from house to house. 'We thought it an honor,' says one of the Professors, 'to receive our poor guests in that city where Luther first preached the doctrines for which they were obliged to abandon their native homes.' These demonstrations of the popular feeling render it more than probable that if a religious war had then been allowed to begin in Saltzburg, it would have spread throughout all Germany.

"Thirty-three thousand pounds were raised in London for the relief of the Saltzburgers. Many of them settled in Georgia,—colonists of the best description. They called their settlement Ebenezer. Whitfield, in 1738, was wonderfully pleased with their order and industry. 'Their lands,' he says, 'are improved surprisingly for the time they have been there, and I believe they have far the best crop of any in the colony. They are blest with two such pious ministers as I have not often seen. They have no courts of judicature, but all little differences are immediately and implicitly decided by their ministers, whom they look upon and love as their fathers. They have likewise an orphan house, in which are seventeen children and one widow, and I was much delighted to see the regularity wherewith it is managed.'"

SOUTHEY'S Life of Wesley, Vol. I. p. 98, note.

XVI.

With reference to these persecuted exiles, are the following lines of
Thomson.

"Lo! swarming southward on rejoicing suns
New colonies extend'. the calm retreat
Of undeserved distress, the better home
Of those whom bigots chase from foreign lands;
Such as of late an Oglethorpe has formed,
And crowding round, the pleased Savannah sees."
[Liberty, Part V.]

I give, also, an extract from the London Journal of the day.

"As the Trustees for settling Georgia are giving all proper encouragement for the Saltzburg emigrants to go over and settle there, some of the managers for those poor people have sent over to the Trustees from Holland, a curious medal or device, enchased on silver, representing the emigration of the poor Saltzburgers from their native country, which opens like a box, and in the inside contains a map of their country, divided into seventeen districts, with seventeen little pieces of historical painting, representing the seventeen persecutions of the primitive Christians; the whole being folded up in a very small compass, and is a most ingenious piece of workmanship."

XVII.

SETTLEMENT OF THE MORAVIANS IN GEORGIA.

"In consequence of the oppression which they suffered in Bohemia, the United Brethren, or, as they are more commonly called, the Moravians, resolved to emigrate to the new Colony of Georgia in America, whither the Saltzburgers had recently gone. With this purpose they applied to Count Zinzendorf, their spiritual guide, for his concurrence and assistance. Accordingly, he made interest with the Trustees on their behalf, which, being favorably received, and a free passage offered, a small company of them set out from Herrnfurt in November, 1734. They proceeded to London, where they found Mr. Spangenberg, who had nearly concluded every thing relative to their embarkation, with the Trustees, and to their accommodation and settlement, with General Oglethorpe. A number of Saltzburgers were also about to emigrate; and three zealous ministers of the Church of England, Mr. John Wesley, together with his brother Charles, and Mr. Benjamin Ingham, went with them in the same ship.

"They arrived at Savannah in the spring of 1735; and, in the following summer received a considerable increase of brethren, conducted by David Nitchmann, senior.

"The Saltzburgers went further up the river, and selected a place of settlement, which they called Ebenezer, but the Brethren began immediately their settlement near to Savannah; and God so blessed their industry, that they were not only soon in a capacity of maintaining themselves, but, also, of being serviceable to their neighbors. Having had assistance in the erection of a school-house for the children of the Indians, Tomo Tschatschi, their King, came to see it, and was glad that they might have a place where, as he expressed it, they could hear the good word. Consequently the Colony of the Brethren presented a fair prospect, both with respect to the settlement itself, and the instruction and conversion of the Heathen. But, being among the rest summoned to take up arms in defence of the country, and to march against the Spaniards, they refused it, as being no freeholders, and, of consequence, not obliged to it according to the laws of the Colony; nay, before coming over, they had expressly stated that they were not willing to perform any military service. Count Zinzendorf, on his visit to London, in January, 1737, took occasion to become acquainted with General Oglethorpe and the Trustees of Georgia, with whom he entered into a conference relative to the situation of the Moravian Brethren there. He remonstrated against their being called on to enlist as soldiers; and the Trustees readily exempted them from such a liability. But as this exemption embittered the minds of the people against them, some of the Brethren in 1738 left all their flourishing plantations, having repaid all the money which had been advanced towards their passage and settlement, and went to Pennsylvania. The rest were left undisturbed for awhile; but in 1739, when the troubles of war broke out afresh, being again molested on account of military service, they followed their brethren in the spring of 1740, and afterwards began the colonies of Bethlehem and Nazareth." CRANZ'S History of the United Brethren, p. 193, 213 and 229.

XVIII.

SCOUT-BOAT.

1. This was a strong built ten-oared boat, bearing three swivel guns, kept for exploring the river passages, visiting the islands, and for preventing the incursions of enemies, and repelling the predatory attempts of runaway slaves who sometimes lurked round and infested the coast. The crew was composed of bold and hardy South Carolinians, who lie out in the woods or in the open boat, for months together. Most of them are good hunters and fishers; and by killing deer and other game, subsist themselves, when the packed stores fail.

2. "Channels," as they are called, are water courses between the main-land and the islands; in some places above a mile wide, in others, not above two hundred yards. These sometimes open into what are called "sounds," which are gulfs of the sea, that extend into the land and entrances of rivers.

XIX.

The Uchee Indians had a village not far from Ebenezer, at the time of the settlement of Georgia; but their principal town was at Chota, on the western branch of the Chattahoochee, or, as it was more properly spelt, Chota-Uchee river. How long they had resided there we do not know. As their language is a dialect of the Shawanees, it has been supposed that they were descendants from that tribe. A jealousy existed between them and the Muscogees; but they were in amity with the Creeks, though they would not mix with them. How numerous they were at the time of their treaty with Oglethorpe, cannot now be ascertained.

In 1773 they lived on a beautiful plain of great extent, in a compact village. They had houses made of timbers framed together, lathed and plastered over with a kind of red clay, which gave them the appearance of having been built of brick. At that time they numbered 1500, of whom 300 were warriors. For many years they have not joined the Creeks in any of their games or dances; and have only been kept from open hostility with other tribes, by the influence of the white people.

[For this note I am indebted to my friend SAMUEL G. DRAKE; whose Biography and History of the Indians of North America comprises much that can be known of the aborigines.]

XX.

OF THE MUTINY IN THE CAMP, AND ATTEMPT AT ASSASSINATION.

From the journal of William Stephens, Esq. (Vol. II. pp. 76, 90, 473, 480, 499, and 505; and Vol. III. 4, 5, 27, and 32,) I collect the following particulars. One of the persons implicated in the insidious plot, was William Shannon, a Roman Catholic. "He was one of the new listed men in England, which the General brought over with him. By his seditious behavior he merited to be shot or hanged at Spithead before they left it, and afterwards, for the like practices at St. Simons. Upon searching him there, he was found to have belonged to Berwick's regiment, and had a furlough from it in his pocket." Instead of suffering death for his treasonable conduct, in the last instance, he was whipped and drummed out of the regiment. "Hence he rambled up among the Indian nations, with an intent to make his way to some of the French settlements; but being discovered by the General when he made his progress to those parts, in the year 1739, and it being ascertained that he had been endeavoring to persuade the Indians into the interest of the French, he fled, but was afterwards taken and sent down to Savannah, and committed to prison there as a dangerous fellow." On the 14th of August, 1740, he and a Spaniard, named Joseph Anthony Mazzique, who professed to be a travelling doctor, but had been imprisoned upon strong presumption of being a spy, broke out of prison and fled. On the 18th of September, they murdered two persons at Fort Argyle, and rifled the fort. They were taken on the beginning of October at the Uchee town, and brought back to Savannah, tried and found guilty, condemned and executed on the 11th of November, having previously confessed their crime.

Since my account of the traitorous plot was written, as also of the attempt at assassination, I have received from my friend Dr. W.B. STEVENS, of Savannah, the following extracts from letters of General Oglethorpe. As they state some particulars explanatory and supplementary of the narrative which I had given, I place them here. And this I do the rather because DR. HEWATT, (Vol. II. p. 70,) as also Major McCALL, (Vol. I. p. 124,) in the same words, and some others, incorporate the treachery at St. Simons, and the assault at St. Andrews into a connected narrative, as one occurrence; whereas it is very evident that the circumstances detailed were distinct; one originating among the troops which sailed in the Hector and Blandford, in July 1738, from England, and the other in the two companies drawn from the garrison at Gibraltar, which came in the Whittaker in the preceding month of May.

In reference to the first, General Oglethorpe thus wrote in a letter to the trustees, dated, "on board the Blandford at Plymouth, July 3d, 1738."

"We have discovered that one of our soldiers has been in the Spanish service, and that he hath stroved to seduce several men to desert with him to them, on their arrival in Georgia. He designed also to murder the officers, or such persons as could have money, and carry off the plunder. Two of the gang have confessed, and accused him; but we cannot discover the rest. The fellow has plenty of money, and he said he was to have sixty or a hundred crowns, according to the number of men he carried. He is yet very obstinate, refusing to give any account of his correspondents. We shall not try him till we come to Georgia, because we hope we shall make more discoveries."

"They left Plymouth on the 5th of July, and arrived about the 16th of
September, at Frederica."

On the 8th of October, 1738, occurs the following passage in a letter from Frederica, to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle.

"We have discovered some men who listed themselves as spies. We took upon one of them his furlough from Berwick's regiment in the Irish troops. They strove to persuade some of our men to betray a post to the Spaniards; who, instead of complying, discovered their intentions. I have ordered a general Court Martial, for the trying of them, who have not yet made their report. One of them owns himself a Roman Catholic, and denies the King having any authority over him."

"I conceive," says Dr. Stevens, "that these two letters refer to one and the same thing, viz.: that there were spies, which came over with the troops who arrived in September; that they designed to betray the English posts; that they were to murder the officers; and defeat the object for which the regiment was sent to Georgia. But this plot was crushed by the fact of its being discovered, the ring-leaders seized, and a Court Martial ordered."

Writing again to the Duke of Newcastle from Frederica, November 20, 1738, Oglethorpe says,—"Those soldiers who came from Gibraltar, have mutinied. The King gave them provisions and pay at Gibraltar. He gave them but six months provision here; after which they were to live upon their pay. On the expiration of their provisions, they demanded a continuance of them, and not being able to comply with their demands, they took to arms. One of them fired upon me. After a short skirmish we got the better of them. One of the officers was slightly, and one of the mutineers dangerously wounded, and five are secured prisoners, to be tried by a Court Martial. We have strong reason to suspect that our neighbors have tampered with these men. Many of them speak Spanish, and some of their boats,[1] under various pretences, came up hither before my arrival."

[Footnote 1: He refers here to boats from St. Augustine.]

Upon this Dr. Stevens remarks—"In this case the cause of mutiny had no reference to the Spaniards. While in Gibraltar the troops had received provisions in addition to their pay. These were continued six months after their arrival in America; but when these were withdrawn, and nothing but their bare pay left, they became dissatisfied; demanded additional supplies; and, on refusal by General Oglethorpe, took to their arms. Here was a simple cause originating among themselves; in the other affair, the soldiers who created the difficulty were acting as agents of a foreign power; the bribed and acknowledged traitors to their own country. In the one case it was the sudden outbreaking of discontent, owing to the retrenchment of their wages; in the other, it was a premeditated and well-concerted plan, framed by Spanish emissaries on the other side of the water, to be executed on this."

Referring to the remark of General Oglethorpe at the close of the last letter, as also to some suggestions in the letter of mine, to which the foregoing was the reply, Dr. Stevens adds—"That the Spaniards tampered with the English, and endeavored to seduce them from their allegiance, is not to be doubted; because it was of the utmost importance to them to create divisions in the regiment; but the one to whom Hewatt refers, as having been 'in the Spanish service, and had so much of a Roman Catholic spirit,' is doubtless the same spoken of by Oglethorpe in July, upon whom a Court Martial sat in September; and who could not, therefore, have been connected with the mutiny at Fort St. Andrews, in November."

XXI.

FURTHER PARTICULARS OF TOMO CHICHI.

In the preceding pages are several references to Tomo Chichi, which show how strongly he became attached to Oglethorpe; how liberal he was in the grant of territory; how considerate in furnishing to the new settlers venison, wild turkeys, and other articles, as opportunity offered, and the occasion made particularly acceptable; how serviceable he was in procuring such interviews with the Chiefs of the Upper and Lower Creeks as led to amicable treaties; and how ready to assist, not only with his own little tribe, but by his influence with others, in the contests with the Spaniards. Some other notices of him, which bring out his excellent character more prominently, but could not be inserted in the body of this work, I have deemed to be sufficiently interesting to be inserted here.

"There were no Indians near the Georgians, before the arrival of Oglethorpe, except Tomo Chichi, and a small tribe of about thirty or forty men who accompanied him. They were partly Lower Creeks, and partly Yamasees, who had disobliged their countrymen, and, for fear of falling sacrifices to their resentment, had wandered in the woods till about the year 1731, when they begged leave of the Government of Carolina to sit down at Yamacraw, on the south side of Savannah river."[1]

[Footnote 1: Report of the Committee of the South Carolina Assembly, on the Indian trade, 4to, 1736, p. 11.]

"Tomo Chichi had in his youth been a great warrior. He had an excellent judgment, and a very ready wit, which showed itself in his answers upon all occasions. He was very generous in giving away all the rich presents he received, remaining himself in a willing poverty, being more pleased in giving to others, than possessing himself; and he was very mild and good natured."[1]

[Footnote 1: Gentleman's Magazine, 1740, Vol. X. p. 129.]

"While Oglethorpe was at Charlestown, in June 1733, an Indian shot himself in the vicinity. His uncle, (who was a war-king,) and his friends, finding him dead, and fancying that he had been murdered by the English, declared that they would be revenged on them. Tomo Chichi, being informed of the uproar, came to the place and strove to quiet the Indians, saying that he was persuaded it could not be the English who had killed him; and therefore desired that they would inquire better into the matter. But the uncle, continuing in a great rage, Tomo Chichi bared his breast and said to him, 'If you will kill any body, kill me; for I am an Englishman.' So he pacified them; and, upon the thorough examination of the matter, it was found that for some days he had been in despair, and desired several different Indians to shoot him; and an Indian boy saw him kill himself in the following manner; he put the muzzle of his gun under his chin, and with his great toe pushed the trigger."[1]

[Footnote 1: New England Weekly Journal for August 23, 1733.]

The visit of Tomo Chichi to England was greeted in some beautiful poetry, of which the following stanza is an extract:

"What stranger this? and from what region far?
This wonderous form, majestic to behold?
Unclothed, yet armed offensive for the war,
In hoary age, and wise experience old?
His limbs inured to hardiness and toil,
His strong large limbs, what mighty sinews brace!
Whilst truth sincere and artless virtue smile
In the expressive features of his face.
His bold, free aspect speaks the inward mind,
Awed by no slavish fear, by no vile passion blind."

Major McCALL, after giving an account of the visit of the Indians to England, makes this declaration: "Tomo Chichi acknowledged that the Governor of the world, or Great Spirit, had given the English great wisdom, power, and riches, so that they wanted nothing. He had given the Indians great extent of territories, yet they wanted every thing. Therefore he exerted his influence in prevailing on the Creeks to resign such lands to the English as were of no use to themselves, and to allow them to settle amongst them; that they might be supplied with useful articles for cultivation, and necessaries of life. He told them that the English were a generous nation, and would trade with them on the most honorable and advantageous terms; that they were brethren and friends, and would protect them against danger, and go with them to war against their enemies." Vol. I. p. 46.

Mr. WESLEY, in his Journal, writes July 1st, 1736: "The Indians had an audience, and another on Saturday, when Chicali, their head man, dined with Mr. Oglethorpe. After dinner I asked the grey-headed old man, 'What he thought he was made for?' He said, 'He that is above knows what he made us for. We know nothing. We are in the dark. But white men know much. And yet white men build great houses, as if they were to live forever. In a little time white men will be dust as well as I.' I told him, 'if red men will learn the good book, they may know as much as white men. But neither we nor you can know that book, unless we are taught by Him that is above; and he will not teach you unless you avoid what you already know is not good.' He answered, 'I believe that; He will not teach us while our hearts are not white [pure]; and our men do what they know is not good. Therefore he that is above does not send us the good book.'"

About TOMO CHICHI, the following is given in SPENCE'S Anecdotes, p. 318. (Ed. Lond. 1820.)

"When General Oglethorpe was conversing with a sensible old native of Georgia about prayer, the latter said that 'they never prayed to God, but left it to him to do what he thought to be best for them; that the asking for any particular blessing, looked to him like directing God; and if so, must be a very wicked thing. That, for his part, he thought every thing that happened in the world was as it should be; that God, of himself, would do for every one what was consistent with the good of the whole; and that our duty to him was to be content with whatever happened in general, and thankful for all the good that happened to us in particular.'"

The speech of Tomo Chichi, on presenting the feather of an Eagle to Oglethorpe, is very expressive in his own laconic explication. By a little paraphrase it may be understood to import: "The Eagle has a sharp beak for his enemies, but down on his breast for his friend. He has strong wings, for he is aspiring; but they give shelter to feeble ones, for he is naturally propitious."

"TOMO CHICHI died on the 5th of October, 1739, at his own town, four miles from Savannah, of a lingering illness, being aged about 97. He was sensible to the last minutes; and when he was persuaded his death was near, he showed the greatest magnanimity and sedateness, and exhorted his people never to forget the favors he had received from the King when in England, but to persevere in their friendship with the English. He expressed the greatest tenderness for General Oglethorpe, and seemed to have no concern at dying, but its being at a time when his life might be useful against the Spaniards. He desired that his body might be buried among the English, in the town of Savannah, since it was he that had prevailed with the Creek Indians to give the land, and had assisted in the founding of the town. The corpse was brought down by water. The General, attended by the Magistrates and people of the town, met it upon the water's edge. The corpse was carried into the Percival square. The pall was supported by the General, Colonel Stephens, Colonel Montaigute, Mr. Carteret, Mr. Lemon, and Mr. Maxwell. It was followed by the Indians, and Magistrates, and people of the town. There was the respect paid of firing minute guns from the battery all the time of the procession; and funeral firing by the militia, who were under arms. The General has ordered a pyramid of stone which is dug in this neighborhood, to be erected over the grave, which being in the centre of the town, will be a great ornament to it, as well as testimony of gratitude."[1]

[Footnote 1: Gentleman's Magazine, 1740, Vol. X. p. 129, and London Magazine, 1758, Vol. LVII. p. 24. The account of the death and funeral of Tomo Chichi, much like the above, is given in the Journal of W. STEPHENS, who was present. Vol. II. p. 153.]

As a frontispiece to one of the volumes of URLSPERGER'S Journal of the Saltzburg Emigrants, is an engraving of Tomo Chichi and Toonahowi, which bears the inscription, "TOMO CHICHI, Mico, and TOONAHOWI, the son of his brother, the Mice, or king of Etichitas; engraved in Augsburg after the London original, by John Jacob Kleinshmidt."

In 1738, a dramatic entertainment in three acts, entitled Timbo
Chiqui, was published by John Cleland. [NICHOLS'S Literary
Anecdotes, Vol. II. p. 459.]

TOONAHOWI was killed, valiantly fighting for the English against the
Yamasee Indians, at Lake di Pupa, in 1743.

XXII.

MANIFESTO BY GENERAL OGLETHORPE.

Charlestown, April 1, 1740.

Whereas upon mature deliberation it is resolved to defend these Provinces by invading the Province of Florida, and attacking St. Augustine, in order to remove the enemy that from thence may molest his Majesty's subjects in America, which enemy both have and do continue to foment and countenance the slaves to rebellion, burning houses, murders, and other cruelties, of which the circumstances of the late massacre in this Province is too sad a proof; and whereas the General Assembly of this Province hath ordered forces to be raised, so that an army composed of various troops and Indians are to assist in invading the Spanish dominions of Florida; I, therefore, to prevent any disorders that may arise in the said army by virtue of powers received from his Majesty authorizing and empowering me, (for the better government of the forces during their continuance under my command,) to prepare and publish such rules and ordinances as are fit to be observed by all officers and soldiers: in regard, therefore, to the regiment of foot raised in South Carolina, I do constitute and appoint that Alexander Vanderdussen, Esq., Colonel of the said regiment, paid by the government of South Carolina, shall hold regimental courts martial for the trials of such offences as shall be committed by the officers and soldiers of that regiment; and that the said court martial shall consist of the officers of that regiment only; and that the Colonel of the said regiment shall sit as President of the said regimental courts martial, and make a report to me, and that according to the judgment of the said Courts I shall cause sentence to be pronounced, in case I approve of the same, or otherwise suspend the same as I shall see cause. And I do further declare that this authority shall continue for the space of four months from the commencement of the said expedition, and no longer; and that after the expiration of the said four months, or other sooner determination of the said expedition, every officer and soldier, whether volunteers from, or in the pay of the government of Carolina, shall have free liberty to depart and return to their habitations, and that a free pass (if by them required,) shall be respectively granted unto them, against being impressed, impeded, enlisted, or detained, by any authority, civil or military, whatsoever, that may be exercised by or derived from me.

And I do further declare that if the officers of his Majesty's ships of war shall land men to assist the land forces, one full moiety of all the plunder that shall be taken in such service, shall go to the officers and men in his Majesty's said sea-service, whose ships are assisting in the said expedition; and that all plunder taken and accruing to the officers and men in the land service shall be divided among the officers and men of the land service, in the same manner and proportion as prizes are distributed among the officers and men in his Majesty's sea-service, according to the laws and rules of his Majesty's navy.

And I do further declare that whatever share of plunder shall come to me as General and commander of the said forces, I will apply the same totally towards the relief of such men as may happen to be maimed or wounded in the said expedition, and towards assisting the widows and children of any of the said forces that may happen to be killed in the said service; and for the rewarding of such as shall perform any distinguished brave action.

No Indian enemy is to be taken as a slave, for all Spanish and Indian prisoners do belong to his Majesty, and are to be treated as prisoners, and not as slaves.

JAMES OGLETHORPE.

XXIII.

COLONEL PALMER.

"As no final agreement with respect to the limits of the two provinces had been concluded, the Indians in alliance with Spain continued to harass the British settlements. Scalping parties of the Yamasees frequently penetrated into Carolina; killed white men, and carried off every negro they could find. Though the owners of slaves had been allowed from the Spanish government a compensation in money for their losses, yet few of them ever received it. At length Colonel Palmer resolved to make reprisals upon the plunderers. For this purpose he gathered together a party of militia and friendly Indians, consisting of about three hundred men, and entered Florida with a resolution of spreading desolation throughout the province. He carried his arms as far as the gates of St. Augustine, and compelled the inhabitants to take refuge in their castle. Scarce a house or hut in the Colony escaped the flames. He destroyed their provisions in the fields; drove off their hogs, cattle, and horses; and left the Floridians little property, except what was protected by the guns of their fort. By this expedition he demonstrated to the Spaniards their weakness; and that the Carolinians, whenever they pleased, could prevent the cultivation and settlement of their Province so as to render the improvement of it impracticable on any other than peaceable terms with their neighbors."[1]

[Footnote 1: HEWATT'S History of South Carolina, Vol. I. p. 314, and Dr. RAMSAY'S History of South Carolina, Vol. I. p. 137; where it is quoted, word for word, without acknowledgment.]

XXIV.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE SIEGE OF ST. AUGUSTINE, IN A LETTER FROM ON BOARD THE HECTOR.

"May 30th, [1740] we arrived near St. Augustine. June 1st we were joined by the Flamborough, Captain Pearse; the Phoenix, Captain Fanshaw; the Tartar, Captain Townshend; and the Squirrel, Capt. Warren, of twenty guns each; besides the Spence Sloop, Captain Laws, and the Wolf, Captain Dandridge. On the 2d Colonel Vanderdussen, with three hundred Carolina soldiers, appeared to the north of the town. On the 9th General Oglethorpe came by sea with three hundred soldiers and three hundred Indians from Georgia: on the which they were carried on shore in the men-of-war's boats, under the cover of the small ships' guns. They landed on the Island Eustatia, without opposition, and took the look-out. The 13th Captain Warren, in a schooner and other armed sloops and pettiauguas anchored in their harbor, just out of cannon shot, until the 26th, when the sailors were employed in landing ordnance and other stores, within reach of the enemy's cannon. On which occasion they discovered a surprising spirit and intrepidity. The same night two batteries were raised; but too far off. The 27th the General summoned the Governor to surrender; who sent word he should be glad to shake hands with him in his castle. This haughty answer was occasioned by a dear-bought victory which five hundred Spaniards had obtained over eighty Highlanders, fifty of whom were slain; but died like heroes, killing thrice their number. The 29th, bad weather, obliged the men-of-war to put to sea, out of which but one man had been killed. Hereupon the siege was raised."

Letter from General Oglethorpe to Rev. J.M. Bolzius.

REVEREND SIR,

Though God has not been pleased to prosper us with the success of taking St. Augustine, yet we are to thank him for the safe return of the greatest part of our men, and that the pride of our enemy has been curbed.

Those men who came from Ebenezer, and that were in the Carolina regiment, I have ordered to be sent up to you again.

I recommend myself to your prayers,

and am, Reverend Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant,

JAMES OGLETHORPE.

Frederica, 5 August, 1740.

From the Gentleman's Magazine, for November, 1740.

A letter in the Daily Post of the 26th, dated from Charlestown, South Carolina, having laid the ill success at Fort St. Augustine on the ill conduct of ——, some particulars of which are: 1st, that the cattle taken at a cow-pen of one Diego, twenty-five miles from the town, May 12, were not distributed to the soldiery; 2d, that the people might have entered the town without opposition, but were not suffered; 3d, that the men were needlessly harassed; 4th, that Colonel Palmer, who was sent to Negro Fort, two miles from the town, with one hundred and thirty-three men to alarm the Spaniards was not supported by ——, who staid six or seven miles off; 5th, that Colonel Palmer being attacked by five hundred Spaniards, shot three of them after they had entered the fort; 6th, that Captain Warren was the life and spirit of the cause; 7th, that the Volunteers, seeing no prospect of succeeding under such mad conduct, as they called it, daily went off,—the following answer was published.

"Upon seeing a letter misrepresenting, in the most false and malicious manner, the late expedition against St. Augustine; aiming thereby to defame the character of a gentleman, whose unwearied endeavors for the public service, have greatly impaired his health; and as I, who am a Captain in General Oglethorpe's regiment, was present, and acted upon that occasion as Brigadier Major, and must know the whole transactions, I think it my duty to take notice of it.

"As to the cow-pen it speaks of, it is a square Fort, with four carriage guns and four swivel guns, and had a garrison in it of forty-seven soldiers of the regular troops, and seven negroes, who were all made prisoners of war. The cattle found there, and in parts adjacent, were distributed to the King's troops and the Carolina regiment.

"In respect to the Carolina people being ready to enter the town of Augustine without opposition; it is entirely false, and without the least foundation.

"In regard to Colonel Palmer's misfortune, who was killed in the first fire from the Spaniards; he brought it upon himself by disobeying the orders he received, which positively enjoined his keeping in the woods, and avoiding action, and by acting contrary to the advice of the officers under his command, some of whom were present when he received his orders, and lodging himself in the Negro Fort Moosa, where they were surrounded and defeated; the gates of which fort, and the house within it, the General had before burnt.

"With respect to the Carolina Volunteers; that they did go away is certain, without leave given, or asked, and their Captain with them. A Captain of the Carolina regiment also left his command in the guard of the trenches, without being relieved, or asking any leave, and went with them. After such behavior, what credit can be given to such men, though termed persons of note?

"As to Captain Warren, whose name is mentioned to endeavor to throw an odium elsewhere; I am convinced by the personal acquaintance I have with him, that he will upon all occasions, do his duty in the service of his King and country; as also Captain Law and Captain Townshend, that were ashore with him.

"The morning after we landed upon the Island of Anastatia, I stood by while Captain Warren read to General Oglethorpe a letter to Captain Pearse, then Commodore, acquainting him of our landing without any loss, and the Spaniards withdrawing from that Island, on which Captain Warren said, all that was now necessary to secure the reduction of the place, was the taking of the Spanish galleys, which undertaking he would himself head with the King's boats under the cannon of the fort, if he would give him leave. Several councils of war were held on board his Majesty's ships by the sea captains, but Captain Warren's proposition was not undertaken.

"Lest malicious people should suggest that I might be sent to England by General Oglethorpe on this occasion, I solemnly declare, that I came at my own desire by his leave, and had no instructions from him, directly or indirectly, concerning this affair; but my regard to truth, and abhorrence of all false and malicious reports whatsoever, have induced me to publish this, to which I set my name. HUGH MACKLEY."

Johnson's Court, Charing Cross, Nov. 29, 1740.

XXV.

SPANISH INVASION.

For details of the Spanish invasion in 1742, I refer to the Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. XII. pages 494, 496, 550, and 661; and would here remark that Patrick Sutherland, Lieutenant of General Oglethorpe's regiment, was sent express to England to give an account of the war, and was furnished with a minute Journal of the occurrences; but, being taken by a Spanish privateer, he threw his papers into the sea. A circumstantial relation, however, having been sent by another conveyance to the Trustees, was attested and confirmed by Lieutenant Sutherland on his arrival in London; and was published in the London Gazette of December 25th, and thence transferred into the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1742, p. 693, and was afterwards repeated in the London Magazine for 1758, p. 79. There is also in HARRIS'S Collection of Voyages, Vol. II. p. 324-347, a very particular account of the Spanish invasion, which is introduced by the following remarks: "As to the manner in which they executed it at last; and the amazing disappointment they met with, notwithstanding the vast force they employed, and the smallness of that by which they were assisted, we had so full, so clear, and so authentic an account published by authority, that I know of no method more fit to convey an idea of it, or less liable to any exceptions than transcribing it." Of this I have freely availed myself, and have distinguished the direct quotations by inverted commas, but without repeating the references in marginal notes.

This account is concluded with the following remarks: "I must observe, before I conclude this chapter, that if there be any thing in it which ought in a particular manner to claim the attention of the public, it is, in a great measure, due to the lights afforded by the Honorable James Oglethorpe, from whom, if the author has caught any part of that generous spirit which inclines a man to bend all his thoughts and turn all his labors to the service of his country, it is but just that he should acknowledge it; and this he is the more ready to do, because, if there be any merit in his performance, capable of making it known to and esteemed by posterity, he would willingly consecrate it as a mark of his esteem and gratitude for the many informations he has received, and the right turn that has been given to his inquiries, by that knowing and worthy person, who is equally happy in rendering the greatest personal services himself to the community, and in infusing the like disposition in others, both by his example and conversation."

Some extracts are also inserted in my narrative from an account of the Invasion of Georgia, taken from the Diary of the Preachers at Ebenezer. [URLSPERGER, Vol. IV. p. 1252.] This is principally derived from intelligence by despatches to Savannah, and contains three letters from Oglethorpe. Just as my manuscript was going to the press, I was favored by my obliging friend, Dr. Stevens, of Savannah, with a copy of General Oglethorpe's despatch to the Duke of Newcastle; in season, however, to profit by it.

XXVI.

COPY OF AN ORDER FOR A THANKSGIVING TO BE HELD TO THE PRAISE OF GOD, THAT HE HAS PUT AN END TO THE SPANISH INVASION.[1]

[Footnote 1: From the German translation of the Reverend Mr. Bolzius.]

Almighty god has at all times displayed his power and mercy in the wonderful and gracious delivery of his Church; and in the protection of pious and godly rulers and people, who have acknowledged and served him, against the ungodly conspiracies and violent practices of all their enemies. He has by the interposition of his Providence rescued us from the assaults of the Spaniards. They came out against us with fourteen sail of light galleys, into Cumberland sound, but fear came upon them, and they fled at his rebuke. Again they came with a mighty fleet of thirty-six ships and vessels, into Jekyl sound, and after a sharp contest became masters of the fort, since we had but four vessels to oppose their whole force; but He was there the shield of our people; for, in the unequal conflict in which we held out bravely for four hours, not one of our men was killed, although many of theirs were, and five by a single shot. They landed with four thousand five hundred men upon this island, according to the account of the prisoners we took, yea even of the Englishmen who escaped from them. The first party marched through the woods towards this town, (Frederica) when, before a small number of our people, they were dispersed, and fled. Another party which supported that, fought also, but was discomfited. We may say surely the hand of God was raised for our defence, for in the two skirmishes more than five hundred fled before fifty; though the enemy fought vigorously a long time, and, especially, fired their grenades with great spirit; but their shooting did little hurt, so that not one of us was killed; but they were thrown into great confusion, and pursued with so great loss, that according to the account of the Spaniards since made prisoners, more than two hundred returned not to their camp again. They advanced with their galleys against our fortress, but were disappointed and withdrew without discharging a shot. After this, fear came upon them, and they fled, leaving behind them some cannon, and many other things which they had taken on shore. Next, with twenty-eight sail they attacked Fort William, in which there were only fifty men, and after a contest of three hours, they desisted, and left the Province.

And so wonderfully were we protected and preserved, that in this great and formidable conflict but few of our men were taken, and but three killed. Truly the Lord hath done great things for us, by rescuing us from the power of a numerous foe, who boasted that they would conquer and dispossess us. Not our strength or might hath saved us; our salvation is of the Lord. Therefore it is highly becoming us to render thanks to God our deliverer. For this purpose, and in regard to these considerations, I hereby appoint that the twenty-fifth day of this month should be held as a day of public THANKSGIVING to Almighty God for his great deliverance, and the end that is put to this Spanish invasion. And I enjoin that every one observe this festival in a christian and godly manner; abstaining from intemperance and excess, and from all extravagant signs of rejoicing.

Given under my own hand and seal this twenty-first day of July, at Frederica in Georgia, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-two.

JAMES OGLETHORPE.

[Under the date of September, the Rev. Mr. Bolzius makes this entry in his diary—"Mr. Jones told me lately, that the people and soldiers at Frederica, on the day when the Thanksgiving was held, observed such a stillness and good order as he had never seen there. There was also a very pertinent and devout ascription of praise read, which he (and Mr. Jones is a good judge of edifying things,) pronounce to be very excellent; and, moreover, he maintained that it must have been prepared and composed by General Oglethorpe himself, for there was neither preacher nor school-master at Frederica at that time."[1]

[Footnote 1: URLSPERGER, IV. p. 1261.]

XXVII.

A LIST OF THE SPANISH FORCES EMPLOYED IN THE INVASION OF GEORGIA, UNDER THE COMMAND OF DON MANUEL DE MONTEANO.

One Regiment of dismounted Dragoons, 400
Havana Regiment, 500
Havana Militia, 1000
Regiment of Artillery, 400
Florida Militia, 400
Batalion of Mulattoes, 300
Black Regiment, 400
Indians, 90
Marines, 600
Seamen, 1000
——
Total 5090

General Oglethorpe's command consisted of,

His Regiment, 472
Company of Rangers, 30
Highlanders, 50
Armed Militia, 40
Indians, 60
——
Total 652

Ensign Stewart's command at Fort William, on the south end of Cumberland Island, consisted of sixty men. Fort William was about fifty miles south-west from Frederica.

XXVIII.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SILK CULTURE IN GEORGIA,

BY WILLIAM B. STEVENS, M.D.

One of the principal designs which influenced the settlement of Georgia, was the hope of thereby creating a silk-growing province, where that material for which England had so long been indebted to France, Italy and China, could be produced in this colonial dependency.

As early as 1609, the subject engaged the attention of the adventurers to Virginia, and in a pamphlet, called "Nova Brittannia offering most excellent fruites by planting in Virginia," published that year, the writer says "there are silkeworms, and plenty of mulberie-trees, whereby ladies, gentlewomen and little children (being set in the way to do it) may bee all imploied with pleasure, making silke comparable to that of Persia, Turkey, or any other." In 1650, Mr. Samuel Hartlib published a work entitled "Virginia Discovery of Silk Wormes, with their Benefits," in which he endeavored to show that the raising of silk was a thing very practicable in Virginia, and even asserted that as a staple, it might be made superior to tobacco, in which opinion he was confirmed by the judgment of several others. That they made some advances in this culture, is evident from the fact that the Coronation robe of Charles II., in 1660, was made of silk reeled in that colony, and even so late as 1730, three hundred pounds of the raw material were exported from Virginia. Tobacco, however, soon assumed and maintained the ascendancy, to the exclusion of this more useful and beautiful produce.

In 1703, Sir Nathaniel Johnson introduced the silk culture into South Carolina, but the astonishing success which rewarded the casual introduction of rice into the plantation about eight years before, precluded a just interest in the undertaking, and as a public and recognized commodity it soon came to naught, though several persons, more for amusement than profit, still gave their attention to it; and as late as 1755, Mrs. Pinckney, the same lady to whom the province was indebted for the first cultivation of indigo ten years before, reeled sufficient silk in the vicinity of Charleston to make three dresses, one of which was presented to the Princess Dowager of Wales, another to Lord Chesterfield, and the third, says Ramsay, who narrates the circumstance, "is now (1809) in Charleston in the possession of her daughter, Mrs. Horrey, and is remarkable for its beauty, firmness and strength."

But notwithstanding these failures and the known difficulty of introducing a new branch of agriculture into a country, as was evidenced by the compulsion which was necessary by Henry IV. to introduce it into France, against the united voices of the merchants-traders, and even in opposition to the Duke of Sully, and also the indifference manifested in England, notwithstanding the able proclamation of King James on the subject, commanding its cultivation; the Trustees for the settlement of Georgia determined to make one more effort, which, if successful, would enrich both the province and the mother country. The views which they entertained, however, of making Georgia supplant every silk-growing country, were extravagant and erroneous; they expected, in fact, to supply all Europe, and to produce an article of equal strength, beauty and value, with any made on the Continent. The Piedmontese, thought they, who pay half of their silk for the rent of the mulberry trees and the eggs of the worm, or the peasants of France, burdened with political difficulty and stinted for conveniences, could not cope with the settlers of Georgia, where the mulberry (morus alba) trees would grow in the greatest luxuriance, where timber for their fabrics was no expense, where room was abundant and the reward sure. By this transfer, in addition to a direct saving to England of over 500,000_l_. which she paid for this article to foreign countries, twenty thousand people were to find employment in rearing it in Georgia, and as many more at home in preparing it for market.

Among the first emigrants who sailed with Oglethorpe from England in November 1732, was Mr. Amatis, from Piedmont, who was engaged by the Trustees to introduce the art of silk-winding into the colony, and who for that purpose brought with him several Italians and some adequate machinery. White mulberry trees were planted in a portion of land on the eastern border of the city, called the Trustees' garden; eggs were hatched, and silk spun "as fine as any from France or Italy." They soon, however, came to a mutual rupture, and the whole process was for a time suspended by the treachery of those employed, who broke the machinery, spoiled the seed, destroyed the trees, and then escaped to Carolina. Sufficient, however, had been wrought to test its value, and they were not discouraged by this inauspicious commencement. The Trustees still adhered to their design, and the more effectually to advance it, required of every settler that there should be on his grant, ten mulberry trees to each acre.

Mr. Camuse and his wife, both Italians, were now entrusted with this business, in which they were continued six years; the two first at a salary of 60_l_. per annum, and the four last at 100_l_. besides the rent of a dwelling house and garden.

In June 1734, General Oglethorpe carried eight pounds of raw silk, the first produced in Georgia, to England, which was followed by a small trunk full of the same article, on the 2d of April, 1735, and after being made into orgazine, by the engine of Sir Thomas Lombe, at Derby, who said that it "proved exceedingly good through all the operations," was sent up to London on the 13th of August, 1735, when the Trustees, together with Sir Thomas Lombe, waited on her majesty Queen Caroline and exhibited to her the elegant specimen of Georgia silk. The queen selected a portion of this parcel to be wove into a pattern, and being again waited on by these gentlemen and Mr. Booth, the silk weaver, on the 21st of September, she expressed "a great satisfaction for the beauty and fineness of the silk, the richness of the pattern, and at seeing so early a product from that colony;" and to express her pleasure at such a favorable result, a complete court-dress was made from it, and on His Majesty's next birth-day, she appeared at the levee in a full robe of Georgia silk.

On the return of Oglethorpe, in 1735, he renewed his endeavors to bring it into active operation. For the purpose of obtaining a sufficient quantity of seed, he allowed no silk to be reeled that year, but let the worms deposit their eggs. He required, also, that the Italian women should teach a number of the colonists, and thus render general the knowledge they could impart. The Saltzburgers at Ebenezer were the most forward to adopt his views, and in March 28, 1736, Rev. Mr. Bolzius gave one tree to each inhabitant as a present from Oglethorpe, and two of his congregation were instructed in the art of reeling, by Mrs. Camuse. But though Oglethorpe gave Mr. Bolzius trees, silk worms, and a book of instructions, yet he confesses that he felt no interest in the business, nor inclination to pursue it.

In July, 1739, Mr. Samuel Augspourger carried over a parcel of raw
silk which he received from Mr. Jones, the Trustees' store-keeper in
Savannah, and which was declared by eminent judges to be "equal to any
Italian silk, and worth full twenty shillings per pound."

On May 11, 1741, Mr. Bolzius in his journal states that twenty girls, during the last two months, succeeded in making seventeen pounds of cocoons which were sold on Friday last at Savannah for 3_l_. 8_s_. During this year, General Oglethorpe advanced to Bolzius 5_l_. for procuring trees, for which sum he obtained twelve hundred, and distributed twenty-two to each family in his parish.

On May 1, 1742, fourteen pounds and fourteen ounces were sold, which brought 2_l_. 19_s_. 6_d_. Nearly half of the silkworms died at Savannah, owing, as was then supposed, either to poisoned dew or warm weather.

December 4, 1742, General Oglethorpe sent five hundred trees to Ebenezer, with the promise of more if required. The indifference of the good Mr. Bolzius had by this time passed away, and he was now a zealous advocate for its extension. A machine was erected near his house, and two women succeeded very well, by which the people were stimulated to renewed exertions, and a public Filature was contemplated. The enterprise of these Germans, seemed to excite the envious disposition of Mrs. Camuse, with whom had been placed two women from Ebenezer; but the conduct of Mrs. C. in withholding information, rendered their acquirement inadequate, and Mr. Bolzius withdrew them from her charge. The first parcel of silk made, was sent to the Trustees, who expressed themselves pleased with its quality. In 1745, the weight of cocoons was two hundred and fifty-three pounds, and of spun silk sixteen and three-quarters. In 1746, the weight of cocoons was three hundred and forty-four pounds, and of spun silk eighteen pounds. Early in this year a machine for winding, and coppers for baking, together with appropriate treatises on the art, were sent over by the Trustees, but the people were indifferent and apathetic.

The Germans, however, were as active as formerly, and Mr. Bolzius, in a letter to Von Munch, dated May 6, 1747, says, that "the people last winter planted more mulberry trees than for thirteen years before," for which he promised them a bounty of one shilling for every tree which yielded one hundred pounds of leaves. The silk balls raised at this place this year, were over four hundred pounds, three hundred and sixty-six pounds of which sold for 36_l_. 12_s_. 10-1/2_d_. The amount raised in the whole colony, was eight hundred and forty-seven pounds of cocoons, and sixty-two pounds of spun silk. In 1748, the Saltzburgers reared four hundred and sixty-four pounds, but their small trees were destroyed, and some of the larger ones injured, by the late frost. They this year succeeded admirably in spinning twenty-four pounds of raw silk, the want of a chimney and proper basins, which had impeded them before, in their rude building, having been remedied. The President, writing to Secretary Martyn, December 11, 1746, says, "The fundamental cause of its stagnation, is the unaccountable backwardness of some of our dames and damsels to employ themselves in attending to the worms during the time of feeding, which I have frequently taken notice of, and it cannot be imputed to the want of leaves."

During the same period only thirty-four pounds of spun silk were raised by the Trustees' agent in Savannah. Mr. Bolzius, under date of February 15th, 1749, thus writes: "the weather being now warm and pleasant, the mulberry trees have put forth their young leaves, and our people are now turning their minds towards making of silk," and then, after expressing his surprise, that so few were disposed to this culture, adds, "one reason for this reluctance, is ascribed to the circumstance that, by ordinary labor, about two shillings might be obtained per day, whereas scarcely a shilling could be earned in the same time, by the silk concern." Seven hundred and sixty-two pounds of cocoons were raised, and fifty pounds thirteen ounces spun silk, and there were two machines erected in Mr. Bolzius's yard which drew off twenty-four ounces per day. On the 29th September, 1749, the Trustees promised 2_l_. to every woman, who shall make herself mistress of the art of winding, in one year. And they also gave Rev. Mr. Bolzius permission to erect ten sheds, with clay furnaces, at an expense of not more than 2_l_. each, and ten machines for reeling, at thirty shillings each, which he says could be made better than those at Savannah for 3_l_.; they also sent them ten basins, and the good Germans felt the impulse of this substantial encouragement. In 1750, though the people in other parts of the colony mostly relinquished the silk culture, the inhabitants of Ebenezer continued vigorously employed and interested in it. On the 2d of June they received ten kettles from the Trustees, one of which, and a reeling machine, were given to each mistress in the art of spinning, and two of the best artisans received 5_l_. for giving instruction to fourteen young women, to each of whom was bestowed 1_l_. for attention and industry.

Over a thousand pounds of cocoons were raised at Ebenezer, and seventy-four pounds two ounces raw silk made, producing (the price being then thirty shillings) over 110_l_. sterling. As illustrative of the luxuriant growth of the mulberry, it may be interesting to state, that two trees in front of the Parsonage, ten years old, measured three feet eight inches in circumference. In December of this year, eight more copper basins were received, and public confidence in the success of the undertaking seemed revived, notwithstanding Mr. Camuse and family had left the Province, and settled at Purysburgh, in South Carolina.

On the 25th December, 1750, Mr. Pickering Robinson, who, together with Mr. James Habersham, had been appointed the preceding August a commissioner to promote more effectually the culture of silk, arrived in Savannah.

Mr. Robinson had been sent to France, at the expense of the Trustees, to study the management of filatures and the necessary processes for preparing the article for market, and thus, though no operative, was qualified to take the directorship of so important a branch of industry. His salary was 100_l_. per annum; 25_l_. for a clerk, and a tract of land was also granted him, which, in 1763, sold for 1300_l_.

Mr. Robinson brought with him a large quantity of silkworm seed, but all failed, save about half an ounce; the commissioners determined at once to erect a filature, which should be a normal school to the whole province, and it was their opinion that it would be "a sufficient nursery to supply, in three or four years, as many reelers as will be wanted, when we make no doubt of many private filatures being erected, which can only make their culture a general staple." The dimensions were thirty-six feet by twenty, rough boarded, with a loft or upper story, for the spreading out of the green cocoons. It was commenced on the 4th of March, 1751. On the 1st of April, the basins were put up, and on the 8th of May the reeling began. To encourage the colonists, the Trustees proposed to purchase all the balls, and wind them at their own expense, and paid from 1_s_. 6_d_. to 2_s_. 4_d_. per pound for green cocoons. The Commissioners separated the cocoons into three sorts: 1st, perfect cones; 2d, the spongy and fuzzy; and 3d, the spotted, stained, and dupions. This arrangement, however, gave great offence to some of the residents in Savannah and Purysburgh, and Messrs. Robinson and Habersham requested the Vice President and assistants to determine the respective prices and publicly announce the same, which they did on the 26th April, by a proclamation, wherein by way of bounty, they promised to pay for cocoons delivered at their store in Savannah, the following sums, namely, for cocoons made by one worm, hard, weighty and good substance, 2_s_. per pound; for the weaker quality, pointed, spotted, or bruised, 1_s_. 3_d_.; for dupions (those made by two worms), 6_d_.; for raw silk, from 1st quality cocoons 14_s_. per pound; for that made from 2d quality, 12_s_.; the product of the double cones, 6_s_. per pound; and they also offered, if delivered at the filature, for best cocoons, 3_s_. 6_d_.; for middling 1_s_. 8_d_.; and for inferior 1_s_. 1_d_., a series of prices truly astonishing, when we reflect that the real merchantable worth of a pound of cocoons is scarcely ever 6_d_.

Experiments were made at the filature to ascertain the relative quantity of each of these qualities, in a given weight of cocoons, and the results were, that in fifty pounds of green cocoons, there were twenty-seven pounds of the first sort, ten pounds four ounces of the second, and twelve pounds twelve ounces of the third. After curing or baking, these fifty pounds weighed only forty-six pounds five ounces, showing a loss in ponderosity of nearly eight per cent. Beside the arrangement above specified, the cocoons were still further divided for the purpose of reeling into white and yellow, and these again, subdivided into five each, namely, 1st, hard and weighty; 2d, little woolly and weaker; 3d, very woolly and soft; 4th, spotted and much bruised; 5th, double worms.

Mr. Camuse, son, and daughter, who, it appears, gave the commissioners no little trouble by their perverse conduct, returned to Savannah and were engaged to labor at the filature, at three shillings per day, at which Mr. Habersham exclaims, "monstrous wages!" The reelers now advanced with much proficiency, and five of them, on the 10th of May, wound off eleven pounds of cocoons each. The proportion of raw silk to the cocoons, appeared, on a variety of trials, to be nearly in this ratio:—

oz. 10th May, 1751, 55 lbs. cocoons, 1st quality, produced 117-7/8. 11th " " 8 " " " " 6-9 per thread 18-1/2. 13th " " 11 " " " " produced 21-1/2. 15th " " 55 " " 2d " " 109. 18th " " 20 " " " " " 24. 22d " " 15 " " 1st " " 20-3/4. " " " 10 " " 2d " " 13-1/2.

The whole amount of cocoons raised in the province, was six thousand three hundred and one pounds, of which two thousand pounds came from Ebenezer, and four thousand pounds were made at Whitefield's Orphan-house. Two hundred and sixty-nine pounds and one ounce of raw silk, and one hundred and sixty-one pounds of filogee, were prepared, notwithstanding over three hundred and eighty pounds were lost by vermin, fire and mould. The expense of the culture was large this year, owing to the erection of the filature, &c., which swelled the sum to 609_l_. 9_s_. 8-1/2_d_. sterling. The private journals of that day kept at Savannah and Ebenezer, acquaint us, in some measure, with the arduous nature of the commissioners' labors, and the difficulties they encountered from the want of funds, the intractableness of laborers, the novelty of the attempt, the imperfections of machinery, and the bitter opposition of those who should have sustained and encouraged them. The public duties of Mr. Habersham prevented his constant attention to this business; but the whole time of Mr. Robinson was devoted to the filature, directing the sorters, aiding the novices, advising the reelers, and in every way exerting himself to obtain success. His engagement with the Trustees expired on the 30th of August, 1751, but finding that his intended departure depressed the friends of the culture, he was solicited by the local government to remain another year, and, generously sacrificing private to public interests, he complied with their request. Mr. Habersham thus speaks of Mr. Robinson. "I think him the most prudent as well as the most capable person I ever knew, to undertake such a work, and if he could be continued here, I doubt not but that he would turn out a number of well instructed reelers, who would be able to conduct filatures at Ebenezer, Augusta, and other parts of the province." So great was the confidence which the Trustees had in him, that he was appointed an assistant in the government at Savannah; an honor which he declined, and in the same letter stated, "If due encouragement be not given to the culture of raw silk, for the term of at least fourteen years, I positively cannot think of settling in America." These gentlemen recommended the building of a house, sixty feet by twenty-six, as a cocoonry, great loss having been experienced for the want of such a structure.

In 1752, Mr. Robinson returned to England, and his place was partially supplied by Joseph Ottolenghe, a native of Piedmont, and a proficient in his art, who came to Georgia on the 18th of July, 1751, and took charge of the filature in April, 1753. In a letter to Lee Martyn, dated September 11, 1753, Mr. Ottolenghe says, that "there were fewer cocoons raised this year, as the worms mostly hatched before the trees leaved," and that "the people were willing to continue the business." One hundred and ninety-seven pounds of raw silk were made this year, and three hundred and seventy-six pounds in 1754, besides twenty-four pounds of filosele. The people of Augusta became interested in this manufacture, and entered with considerable spirit into the undertaking, promising to send hands to Savannah, yearly, to learn the art of reeling: their enthusiasm, however, soon evaporated.

On the 29th of March, 1755, a certificate, signed by thirty-nine eminent silk-throwsters and weavers, was given to the "Commissioners for Trade and Plantations," stating that after examining three hundred pounds of raw silk, imported from Georgia, "we do sincerely declare that the nature and texture is truly good, the color beautiful, the thread as even and as clear as the best Piedmont (called wire silk) of the size, and much clearer and even than the usual Italian silks;" and furthermore, "it could be worked with less waste than China silk, and has all the properties of good silk well adapted to the weaver's art in most branches."

In 1755, five thousand four hundred and eighty-eight pounds of cocoons were raised, and four hundred and thirty-eight pounds of raw silk spun. The good effects of the filature were now happily evident in the increased interest of the planters in the subject, who sent both their daughters and young negroes to acquire the art of reeling. In 1756, three thousand seven hundred and eighty-three pounds and one ounce of cocoons were received at the filature, and two hundred and sixty-eight pounds of raw silk reeled.

The liberal policy of the commissioners, who had no private ends to answer, caused them to recommend the establishment of additional filatures, and in their letter to the Trustees, June 12th, 1751, they advise the erection of one at Ebenezer, and another contiguous to Savannah, but Mr. Ottolenghe opposed this course and arrogated to the one in Savannah the entire monopoly of the culture. Jealousy appears to have been very conspicuous in Mr. Ottolenghe's character, and his opposition to the Saltzburgers and depreciation of their efforts, arose from this suspicious trait. He aimed to render himself solely necessary, and aspersed everything which seemed to militate with his fancied superiority. This appears not only from letters of Governors Reynold and Ellis, but from his own correspondence, where this caution and fear of rivalry is plainly discernible. His course gave offence to the Ebenezer people, who had already erected a filature in their village; who had been at great sacrifice to send their wives and daughters to learn the art of reeling in Savannah, and who had hoped to carry on the manufacture under their own supervision and for their own benefit. Mr. Ottolenghe, however, overruled their views and required all cocoons to be delivered at Savannah and to be reeled there. Each basin at the filature had two apprentices, besides others who were employed in sorting the balls, &c., and the various operations connected with the trade, employed nearly forty persons.

In 1757, over five thousand pounds of cocoons were received at Savannah, and three hundred and sixty pounds of raw silk spun, which, says Governor Ellis, would have been more, if the eggs had not failed; and in a letter, dated 11th of March, 1757, he says "the raising of silk seems to be no longer a matter of curiosity, it employs many poor people, and is approaching towards a staple."

Seven thousand and forty pounds of cocoons were deposited in the filature in 1758, but while the friends of this business were rejoicing in the assured success of their experiment they were saddened by the destruction of the filature, which took fire on the 4th of July, and was totally consumed. The wound silk, which had not yet been shipped, amounting to three hundred and fifty pounds, was saved, but several thousand weight of silk balls, together with much of the reeling apparatus, were destroyed. Another and more capacious building was immediately erected and was ready for use the ensuing season.

In 1759, ten thousand one hundred and thirty-six pounds of cocoons were raised in Georgia, four thousand pounds of which were from Ebenezer, and the proceeds of their culture alone, for the season, reached 700_l_. sterling. The opinion of those engaged in the culture, as expressed to Dr. Jared Elliot, was, "that it was more profitable than any other ordinary business."

The cocoons delivered at the filature in 1760, weighed seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-three pounds, and there were spun eight hundred and thirty-nine pounds. Mr. Ottolenghe was now honored with the full appointment of "superintendant of the silk culture in Georgia," with a salary appropriate to his station.

Five thousand three hundred and seven pounds of cocoons, and three hundred and thirty-two pounds of raw silk were produced in 1761. Governor Wright, under date 13th of July, says, "The greatest appearance that ever they had here was destroyed in two nights' time, by excessive hard and unseasonable frosts, and there is likewise a degeneracy in the seed, as Mr. Ottolenghe tells me." These frosts occurred on the 5th and 6th of April. Parliament, this year, made a grant of 1000_l_. towards defraying the expenditure for the silk culture, and it was annually renewed until about 1766. By means of this gratuity, Mr. Ottolenghe was enabled to give a high price to the rearers of cocoons, and thus sustain the encouragement so judiciously commenced.

In 1762, fifteen thousand one hundred and one pounds of cocoons were delivered at the filature, and one thousand and forty-eight pounds of raw silk reeled, which Mr. O. declared to be the finest and best silk ever produced in Georgia.

The year 1763 showed an increase of cocoons but a decrease of silk, there being fifteen thousand four hundred and eighty-six pounds of the former, and only nine hundred and fifty-three pounds of the latter. The occasion of this disparity was a season of cold, rainy weather, towards the close of April, by which the later cocoons were injured and rendered almost useless.

There were delivered at the filature, in 1764, fifteen thousand two hundred and twelve pounds of cocoons, notwithstanding the season was so unfavorable, that Governor Wright mentions the case of one man who expected to make from five to seven hundred pounds, who only succeeded in raising one hundred pounds of cocoons. Eight thousand six hundred and ninety-five pounds were sent by the Saltzburgers, and the whole amount yielded eight hundred and ninety-eight pounds of raw silk.

In addition to the grant of Parliament, a Society, instituted in London, for the encouragement of arts, manufactures and commerce, offered certain premiums for the advantage of the British American dominions, among which were:

"For every pound of cocoons produced in the province of Georgia and South Carolina, in the year 1764, of a hardy, weighty and good substance, wherein only one worm has spun, 3_d_.; for every pound of cocoons produced in the same year, of a weaker, lighter, spotted or bruised quality, 2_d_.; for dupions, 1_d_." These premiums were to be paid under the direction of Mr. O., with proper vouchers that the same were raised in either of the provinces specified.

It was agitated in 1765, to reduce the price of cocoons from 3_s_. to 1_s_. 6_d_. per pound, a measure which produced much dissatisfaction and as a consequence there was a considerable falling off in the amount of balls and silk, only twelve thousand five hundred and fourteen pounds of the former, and seven hundred and twelve pounds of the latter, together with seven hundred and twenty pounds of filosele being produced. To prevent the depression consequent on this reduction, Governor Wright suggested, that instead of so much per pound, as formerly, that the ten largest quantities should receive the highest, 50_l_., the next greatest parcel 45_l_., and so on, gradually decreasing with the decrease in weight, until you reached the lowest quantity, to which 10_l_. would be awarded; thus, while the expense would be greatly lessened to the Trustees, the stimulus of reward would be sufficiently sustained. This advice was not adopted, though owing to the urgent remonstrances of those best acquainted with the business, the reduction in the bounty was only 9_d_. instead of 1_s_. 6_d_. On the 25th April, 1765, the following order was published in the "Georgia Gazette:"

"Notice is hereby given to all whom it may concern, that, by direction of the Right Honorable the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, the price usually paid for cocoons is now reduced, and that no more than 2_s_. 3_d_. per pound will be paid for cocoons raised in this province, and delivered at the public filature this season.

"By order of His Excellency the Governor.

"GEO. BAILLIE, Commissary"

This bounty was still further reduced in 1766, when by order of the Board of Trade, only 1_s_. 1_d_. was paid per pound. The dependence of this culture on the weather, was signally instanced this year, from the fact that though many who had hitherto raised cocoons, abandoned it at the reduction of the bounty, yet such a large crop had never been produced before; over twenty thousand three hundred and eighty pounds of cocoons being delivered at the filature, which, however, only produced one thousand eighty-nine pounds of raw silk, and eight hundred and fifty pounds of filosele. This amount of reeled silk was not at all proportionate to the weight of the cones, resulting, as Mr. Ottolenghe said in a letter to Governor Wright, October 2, 1766, "to the badness of the seed, and consequent inferiority of the worms." In 1760, the cocoons weighed only seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-three pounds, and yet eight hundred and thirty-nine pounds of raw silk were spun; at which rate, the product this year should have been about two thousand pounds.

On the 26th of June, Henry Kennan made proposals to the Board of Trade, for carrying on the filature; but they were of a nature not at all advantageous to the culture, and Governor Wright, in his reply, on the 21st of October, disapproved of the plan, and exposed the fallacy of his scheme, which was in consequence abandoned.

In 1767, ten thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight pounds of balls were raised, and six hundred and seventy-one pounds nine ounces of raw silk spun; the decrease of cocoons being caused, first, by withdrawing of the Purysburgh cocoons, which last year amounted to five thousand five hundred and fifty-one pounds; and second, by the reduction of bounty, so that while last year the cocoons were delivered in by two hundred and sixty-four different persons, only one hundred and sixty individuals were this year devoted to the culture. The silk, however, was of a better quality, and sustained its high reputation in the London market.

In 1768, another plan was proposed, by Mr. Delamar, "in order the more effectually to establish the growth of raw silk in America." His proposal was, to pay a bounty of 20_s_. per pound on every pound of good, clear raw silk imported from any of his Majesty's dominions in America, to be paid on the price such silk might sell for at public sale in London; at the expiration of ten years, ten per cent. bounty was to be allowed; the ensuing five years at five per cent., after which time the bounty was to cease. This was the general feature of his plan; it was not, however, adopted, though in many respects its provisions were highly judicious and appropriate.

But this branch of industry and commerce was fast waning before the increasing culture of more sure and lucrative products, and only one hundred and thirty-seven different persons brought cocoons to the filature this year. Governor Wright, in his official letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, July 1, 1768, says, "I am persuaded that few, or none but the very poorer sort of people, will continue to go upon that article. Several substantial persons, who did mean to make it an object when the price was higher, have, to my knowledge, given it over. The reason, my Lord, is evident; for people who have their fortune to raise or make, will always turn themselves in such a way, and to the raising and making of such commodities, as they think will answer best; and it is very clear to me, that those who have negroes, may employ themselves and negroes to better advantage, &c., than by raising cocoons at 1_s_. 6_d_. per pound, although that is, as I have said, 7, 8, or 9_d_. more than they are intrinsically worth."

Cluny, in his "American Traveller," printed in London, 1769, says, "The climate of Georgia has been found to agree in every respect with the silk worm." Experience, however, proved that the climate was not sufficiently equable to secure permanent and continued success. Governor Wright, in the letter quoted above, says, "the variable and uncertain weather in spring, makes it precarious," and facts amply confirm this statement. Only five hundred and forty-one pounds of raw silk were made this year, a smaller amount, with one exception, than had been produced for ten years. In 1769, the quantity was still more decreased, both from the reluctance of the people to raise worms, and the unfavorable weather in spring. Governor Wright, on the 20th of June, 1769, says, "We had a most extraordinary prospect, till the middle of April, when I thought every thing safe, yet we had very cold rains on the 17th and 18th, which were succeeded by hard black frost on the 19th and 20th, and destroyed a great part of the worms, and will reduce the silk very much."

The silk business was now on the irretrievable decline, though it still maintained a nominal existence, and received the encouragement of Parliament. The special bounty which had hitherto been paid on cocoons, over and above their merchantable value, was suspended, and by a statute of 9 Geo. III., c. 38, a premium of twenty-five per cent. from the 1st of January, 1770, to the 1st of January, 1777,—of twenty per cent, from the 1st of January, 1777, to the 1st of January, 1784,—and of fifteen per cent. from the 1st of January, 1784, to the 1st of January 1791, on the ad valorem value of all silk produced in America and imported into Great Britain in vessels regularly navigated by law, was substituted in its place.

The inhabitants of Ebenezer resumed the culture, which with them had long been dormant, and its revival at that time was principally owing to the influence of a very worthy man and magistrate, Mr. Wertsch, who, sanguine himself of ultimate success, had imparted to the Germans a portion of his own enthusiasm.

In 1770, they shipped two hundred and ninety-one pounds of raw silk, the result of their own industry, and as the filature at Savannah was discontinued in 1771, the Earl of Hillsborough, ever anxious to advance the produce, warmly commended the zeal of the Saltzburgers, and directed President Habersham to distribute "the basins and reels that were left in the public filature, to such persons as Mr. Wertsch shall recommend to be proper objects of that bounty;" and in the same letter he promised that he would endeavor to procure for them, this year, "a small sum from Parliament, to be laid out in purchase of utensils for the assistance of the poor sort of people in your province." This promise he redeemed.

So popular had the silk business become at Ebenezer, that Mr. Habersham, in a letter dated the 30th of March, 1772, says, "some persons in almost every family there, understand its process from the beginning to the end." In 1771, the Germans sent four hundred and thirty-eight pounds of raw silk to England, and in 1772, four hundred and eighty-five pounds, all of their own raising. They made their own reels, which were so much esteemed that one was sent to England as a model, and another taken to the East Indies by Pickering Robinson. The operations at Savannah were now totally discontinued, though Mr. Ottolenghe still styled himself "Superintendent of the Silk Culture in Georgia," and in consideration of his long and faithful service in that office, received an annuity of 100_l_.

In a message of Sir James Wright, to the Commons House of Assembly, 19th of January, 1774, he says, "The filature buildings seem to be going to decay and ruin; may it not, therefore, be expedient to consider what other service or use they may be put to?" and the Assembly answered, "We shall not fail to consider how it may be expedient to apply the filature to some public use;" and henceforth it was used as an assembly or ball-room, a place where societies held their meetings, and where divine service was occasionally conducted: more recently, it was converted into a dwelling-house, and was thus appropriated at the time of its destruction by fire, on the afternoon of March 25, 1839.

Thus ended the grand project for raising silk in the Province of Georgia; for though some few individuals, together with the people of Ebenezer, continued to raise small quantities, yet, as a branch of general culture, it has never been resuscitated. The last parcel brought to Savannah was in 1790, when over two hundred pounds were purchased for exportation, at from 8_s_. to 26_s_. per pound.

On reviewing the causes which led to the suspension of this business, after so many exertions and such vast expense, which, it must be remembered, the profits of the culture never reimbursed, we find, first, the unfriendliness of the climate, which, notwithstanding its boasted excellence, interfered materially with its success. Governor Wright, frequently speaks of its deleterious influence, and the fluctuations in the various seasons, evidenced, to demonstration, that the interior was better adapted to the agricultural part of the business, than the exposed and variable sea-board. Mr. Habersham, in a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, dated "Savannah, 24th of April, 1772," thus expresses himself on this point. "Upwards of twenty years ago, if my memory does not fail me, Samuel Lloyd, Esq., of London, who was one of the late trustees for establishing this colony, and was fourteen years in Italy, and very largely concerned in the silk business, wrote to me, that the best silk was produced at a distance from the sea-coast, owing, I suppose, to the richness of the soil, which made the mulberry leaf more glutinous, nutritive and healthy to the silk-worm; also, to their not being obnoxious to musquetoes and sand-flies, and probably, likewise, to the weather being more equal and less liable to sudden transition from heat to cold: and on a conversation this day with Mr. Barnard, of Augusta, he assures me, that from two years experience in raising cocoons there, he lost none from sickness, which frequently destroys two-thirds of the worms here;" and he further says, that Mr. Ottolenghe told him that the silk reeled from the Augusta cocoons "made the strongest and most wiry thread of any raised in these parts."

Second, the expensiveness of living, and the dearness of labor, which was as high as 1_s_. 8_d_. to 2_s_. per day, whereas 2_d_. or 3_d_. was the usual price paid the peasant in silk-growing countries. Governor Wright, in a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, frankly told him that, "till these provinces become more populous, and labor cheaper, I apprehend, silk will not be a commodity, or an article, of any considerable amount."

Third, the great reduction of the bounty, which, being the stimulus to exertion, ceased to operate as an incentive, when from 3_s_. 3_d_. it fell to 1_s_. 3_d_., and finally to a mere premium on the general quantity imported. The poor could not subsist on these prices, and the rich could employ their lands to much better advantage than in cultivating an article which would not repay the expenses of labor: and lastly, the increasing attention, bestowed on rice and cotton, sealed the fate of the silk culture, and the planters soon learned to consider the latter of no importance in comparison, with the large and lucrative crops yielded by these more staple commodities. Other reasons might be mentioned, but these sufficiently account for its decline there, and its total neglect even to the present day. During the morus multicaulis epidemic, which spread over our country in 1838, Savannah, it is true, did not escape, and for a time the fever raged, with much violence, but the febrile action soon subsided, leaving no permanent benefit and only a few fields of waving foliage, as a deciduous memento of this frenzied excitement.

That silk can be produced in Georgia equal to any in the world, does not admit of a doubt, but whether it will ever be resumed, and when, is among the unknown events of the future.