Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 5 (of 8) / The English and French in North America 1689-1763

by Unknown

CHAPTER VI.

THE ENGLISH COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA.

1733-1752.

BY CHARLES C. JONES, JR., LL. D.

ACTING under the orders of Admiral Coligny, Captain Ribault, before selecting a location for his fort and planting his Huguenot colony near the mouth of Port Royal, traversed what is now known as the Georgia coast, observed its harbors, and named several of the principal rivers emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.[837] “It was a fayre coast, stretchyng of a great length, couered with an infinite number of high and fayre trees.” The waters “were boyling and roaring, through the multitude of all kind of fish.” The inhabitants were “all naked and of a goodly stature, mightie, and as well shapen and proportioned of body as any people in ye world; very gentle, courteous, and of a good nature.” Lovingly entertained were these strangers by the natives, and they were, in the delightful spring-time, charmed with all they beheld. As they viewed the country they pronounced it the “fairest, fruitfullest, and pleasantest of all the world, abounding in hony, venison, wilde foule, forests, woods of all sorts, Palm-trees, Cypresse, and Cedars, Bayes ye highest and greatest; with also the fayrest vines in all the world, with grapes according, which, without natural art and without man’s helpe or trimming, will grow to toppes of Okes and other trees that be of a wonderfull greatness and height. And the sight of the faire medowes is a pleasure not able to be expressed with tongue: full of Hernes, Curlues, Bitters, Mallards, Egrepths, Wood-cocks, and all other kinds of small birds; with Harts, Hindes, Buckes, wilde Swine, and all other kindes of wilde beastes, as we perceiued well, both by their footing there, and also afterwardes in other places by their crie and roaring in the night.... Also there be Conies and Hares, Silk Wormes in merueilous number, a great deale fairer and better than be our silk wormes. To be short, it is a thing vnspeakable to consider the thinges that bee scene there and shal be founde more and more in this incomperable lande, which, neuer yet broken with plough yrons, bringeth forth al things according to his first nature wherewith the eternall God indued it.”

Enraptured with the delights of climate, forests, and waters, and transferring to this new domain names consecrated by pleasant associations at home, Captain Ribault called the River St. Mary the Seine, the Satilla the Somme, the Alatamaha the Loire, the Newport the Charante, the Great Ogeechee the Garonne, and the Savannah the Gironde. Two years afterward, when René de Laudonnière visited Ribault’s fort, he found it deserted. The stone pillar inscribed with the arms of France, which he had erected to mark the farthest confines of Charles IX.’s dominion in the Land of Flowers, was garlanded with wreaths. Offerings of maize and fruits lay at its base; and the natives, regarding the structure with awe and veneration, had elevated it into the dignity of a god.

As yet no permanent lodgment had been effected in the territory subsequently known as Georgia. The first Europeans who are known to have traversed it were Hernando de Soto and his companions, whose story has been told elsewhere.[838] The earliest grant of the lower part of the territory claimed by England under the discovery of Cabot, was made by His Majesty King Charles I., in the fifth year of his reign, to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general. In that patent it is called Carolina Florida, and the designated limits extended from the river Matheo in the thirtieth degree, to the river Passa Magna in the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude. There is good reason for the belief that actual possession was taken under this concession, and that, in the effort to colonize, considerable sums were expended by the proprietor and by those claiming under him. Whether this grant was subsequently surrendered, or whether it was vacated and declared null for non user or other cause, we are not definitely informed. Certain it is that King Charles II., in the exercise of his royal pleasure, issued to the Lords Proprietors of Carolina two grants of the same territory with some slight modifications of boundaries. The latter of these grants, bearing date the 30th of June in the seventeenth year of his reign, conveys to the Lords Proprietors that portion of the New World lying between the thirty-sixth and the twenty-ninth degrees of north latitude. While the English were engaged in peopling a part of the coast embraced within these specified limits, the Spaniards contented themselves with confirming their settlements at St. Augustine and a few adjacent points.

Although in 1670 England and Spain entered into stipulations for composing their differences in America,—stipulations which have since been known as the American Treaty,—the precise line of separation between Carolina and Florida was not defined. Between these powers disputes touching this boundary were not infrequent. In view of this unsettled condition of affairs, and in order to assert a positive claim to, and retain possession of, the debatable ground which neither party was willing either to relinquish or clearly to point out, the English established and maintained a small military post on the south end of Cumberland Island, where the river St. Mary empties its waters into the Atlantic.

Apprehending that either the French or Spanish forces would take possession of the Alatamaha River, King George I. ordered General Nicholson, then governor of Carolina, with a company of one hundred men, to secure that river, as being within the bounds of South Carolina; and, at some suitable point, to erect a fort with an eye to the protection of His Majesty’s possessions in that quarter and the control of the navigation of that stream. That fort was placed near the confluence of the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers, and was named Fort George.

Although by the treaty of Seville commissioners were appointed to determine the northern boundary line of Florida, which should form the southern limit of South Carolina, no definite conclusion was reached, and the question remained open and a cause of quarrel until the peace of 1763, when Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain.

In recalling the instances of temporary occupancy, by Europeans, of limited portions of the territory at a later period conveyed to the trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia, we should not omit an allusion to the mining operations conducted by the Spaniards at an early epoch among the auriferous mountains of upper Georgia. Influenced by the representations made by the returned soldiers of De Soto’s expedition of the quantity of gold, silver, and pearls in the province of Cosa, Luis de Velasco dispatched his general, Tristan de Luna, to open communication with Cosa by the way of Pensacola Bay. Three hundred Spanish soldiers, equipped with mining tools, penetrated beyond the valley of the Coosa and passed the summer of 1560 in northern Georgia and the adjacent region. Juan Pardo was subsequently sent by Aviles, the first governor of Florida, to establish a fort at the foot of the mountains northwest of St. Augustine and in the province of the chief Coabá. It would seem, therefore, that the Spaniards at this early period were acquainted with, and endeavored to avail themselves of, the gold deposits in Cherokee Georgia.

By the German traveller Johannes Lederer[839] are we advised that these peoples in 1669 and 1670 were still working gold and silver mines in the Appalachian mountains; and Mr. James Moore assures us that twenty years afterward these mining operations were not wholly discontinued.

Thus, long before the advent of the English colonists, had the Spaniards sojourned, in earnest quest for precious metals, among the valleys and mountains of the Cherokees. Thus are we enabled to account for those traces of ancient mining observed and wondered at by the early settlers of upper Georgia,—operations of no mean significance, conducted by skilled hands and with metallic tools,—which can properly be referred neither to the Red Race nor to the followers of De Soto.

In June, 1717, Sir Robert Mountgomery secured from the Palatine and Lords Proprietors of the Province of Carolina a grant and release of all lands lying between the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah, with permission to form settlements south of the former stream. This territory was to be erected into a distinct province, “with proper jurisdictions, privileges, prerogatives, and franchises, independent of and in no manner subject to the laws of South Carolina.” It was to be holden of the Lords Proprietors by Sir Robert, his heirs and assigns forever, under the name and title of the Margravate of Azilia. A yearly quit rent of a penny per acre for all lands “occupied, taken up, or run out,” was to be paid. Such payment, however, was not to begin until three years after the arrival of the first ships transporting colonists. In addition, Sir Robert covenanted to render to the Lords Proprietors one fourth part of all the gold, silver, and royal minerals which might be found within the limits of the ceded lands. Courts of justice were to be organized, and such laws enacted by the freemen of the Margravate as might conduce to the general good and in no wise conflict with the statutes and customs of England. The navigation of the rivers was to be free to all the inhabitants of the colonies of North and South Carolina. A duty similar to that sanctioned in South Carolina was to be laid on skins, and this revenue was to be appropriated to the maintenance of clergy. In consideration of this cession, Sir Robert engaged to transport at his own cost a considerable number of families, and all necessaries requisite for the support and comfort of settlers within the specified limits. It was understood that if settlements were not formed within three years from the date of the grant, it should become void.

In glowing terms did Sir Robert unfold the attractions of his future Eden “in the most delightful country of the Universe,” and boldly proclaim “that Paradise with all her virgin beauties may be modestly supposed at most but equal to its native excellencies.” After commending in the highest terms the woods and meadows, mines and odoriferous plants, soil and climate, fruits and game, streams and hills, flowers and agricultural capabilities, he exhibited an elaborate plan of the Margravate, in which he did not propose to satisfy himself “with building here and there a fort,—the fatal practice of America,—but so to dispose the habitations and divisions of the land that not alone our houses, but whatever we possess, will be inclosed by military lines impregnable against the savages, and which will make our whole plantation one continued fortress.”

Despite all efforts to induce immigration into this favored region, at the expiration of the three years allowed by the concession Sir Robert found himself without colonists. His grant expired and became void by the terms of its own limitations. His Azilia remained unpeopled save by the red men of the forest. His scheme proved utterly Utopian. It was reserved for Oglethorpe and his companions to wrest from primeval solitude and to vitalize with the energies of civilization the lands lying between the Savannah and the Alatamaha.

Persuaded of their inability to afford suitable protection to the colony of South Carolina, and moved by the wide-spread dissatisfaction existing in that province, the Lords Proprietors, with the exception of Lord Carteret, taking advantage of the provisions of an act of Parliament, on the 25th of July in the third year of the reign of His Majesty King George II., and in consideration of the sum of £22,500, surrendered to the Crown not only their rights and interest in the government of Carolina, but also their ownership of the soil. The outstanding eighth interest owned by Lord Carteret, Baron of Hawnes, was by him, on the 28th of February, 1732, conveyed to the “Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America.”

The scheme which culminated in planting a colony on the right bank of the Savannah River at Yamacraw Bluff originated with James Edward Oglethorpe, a member of the English House of Commons, and “a gentleman of unblemished character, brave, generous, and humane.” He was the third son of Sir Theophilus, and the family of Oglethorpe was ancient and of high repute.[840] Although at an early age a matriculate of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he soon quitted the benches of that venerable institution of learning for an active military life. With him a love of arms was an inheritance, for his father attained the rank of major-general in the British service, and held the office of first equerry to James II., who intrusted him with an important command in the army assembled to oppose the Prince of Orange. Entering the English army as an ensign in 1710, young Oglethorpe continued in service until peace was proclaimed in 1713. The following year he became captain-lieutenant of the first troop of the Queen’s Life-Guards. Preferring active employment abroad to an idle life at home, he soon repaired to the continent that he might perfect himself in the art of war under the famous Prince Eugene of Savoy, who, upon the recommendation of John, Duke of Argyle, gave him an appointment upon his staff, at first as secretary and afterward as aid-de-camp. It was a brave school, and his alertness, fidelity, and fearlessness secured for him the good-will, the confidence, and the commendation of his illustrious commander. Upon the conclusion of the peace of 1718 Oglethorpe returned to England, versed in the principles of military science, accustomed to command, inured to the shock of arms, instructed in the orders of battle, the management of sieges and the conduct of campaigns, and possessing a reputation for manhood, executive ability, and warlike knowledge not often acquired by one of his years. His brother Theophilus dying, he succeeded to the family estate at Westbrook, and in October, 1732, was elected a member for Haslemere in the county of Surrey. This venerable borough and market-town he continued to represent, through various changes of administration, for two-and-thirty years.

OGLETHORPE.
(See a Note on the Portraits of Oglethorpe on a later page.)

While he was chairman of the committee raised by the House of Commons to visit the prisons, examine into the condition of the inmates, and suggest measures of reform, the idea had occurred to Oglethorpe,—whose “strong benevolence of soul” has been eulogized by Pope,—that not a few of these unfortunate individuals confined for debt, of respectable connections, guilty of no crime, and the victims of a legal thraldom most vile and afflictive, might be greatly benefited by compromising the claims for the non-payment of which they were suffering the penalty of hopeless incarceration, upon the condition that when liberated they would become colonists in America. Thus would opportunity be afforded them of retrieving their fortunes; thus would England be relieved of the shame and the expense of their imprisonment, and thus would her dominion in the New World be enlarged and confirmed. Not the depraved, not felons who awaited the approach of darker days when graver sentences were to be endured, not the dishonest who hoped by submitting to temporary imprisonment to exhaust the patience of creditors and emerge with fraudulently acquired gains still concealed, but the honestly unfortunate were to be the beneficiaries of this benevolent and patriotic scheme. Those also in the United Kingdom who through want of occupation and lack of means were most exposed to the penalties of poverty, were to be influenced in behalf of the contemplated colonization. It was believed that others, energetic, ambitious of preferment, and possessing some means, could be enlisted in aid of the enterprise. The anxiety of the Carolinians for the establishment of a plantation to the South which would serve as a shield against the incursions of the Spaniards, the attacks of the Indians, and the depredations of fugitive slaves was great. This scheme of colonization soon embraced within its benevolent designs not only the unfortunate of Great Britain, but also the oppressed and persecuted Protestants of Europe. Charity for, and the relief of, human distress were to be inscribed upon the foundations of the dwellings which Oglethorpe proposed to erect amid the Southern forests. Their walls were to be advanced bulwarks for the protection of the Carolina plantations, and their aspiring roofs were to proclaim the honor and the dominion of the British nation. In the whole affair there lingered no hope of personal gain, no ambition of a sordid character, no secret reservation of private benefit. The entire project was open, disinterested, charitable, loyal, and patriotic. Such was its distinguishing peculiarity. Thus was it recognized by all; and Robert Southey did but echo the general sentiment when he affirmed that no colony was ever projected or established upon principles more honorable to its founders.

As the accomplishment of his purpose demanded a larger expenditure than his means justified, and as the administration of the affairs of the plantation would involve “a broader basis of managing power” than a single individual could well maintain, Oglethorpe sought and secured the co-operation of wealthy and influential personages in the development of his beneficent enterprise.

That proper authority, ample cession, and royal sanction might be obtained, in association with Lord Percival and other noblemen and gentlemen of repute he addressed a memorial to the Privy Council, in which, among other things, it was stated that the cities of London and Westminster, and the adjacent region, abounded with indigent persons so reduced in circumstances as to become burdensome to the public, who would willingly seek a livelihood in any of His Majesty’s plantations in America if they were provided with transportation and the means of settling there. In behalf of themselves and their associates the petitioners engaged, without pecuniary recompense, to take charge of the colonization, and to erect the plantation into a proprietary government, if the Crown would be pleased to grant them lands lying south of the Savannah River, empower them to receive and administer all contributions and benefactions which they might influence in encouragement of so good a design, and clothe them with authority suitable for the enforcement of law and order within the limits of the province. After the customary reference, this petition met with a favorable report, and by His Majesty’s direction a charter was prepared which received the royal sanction on the 9th of June, 1732.

By this charter, Lord John, Viscount Percival, Edward Digby, George Carpenter, James Oglethorpe, George Heathcote, Thomas Tower, Robert Moor, Robert Hucks, Roger Holland, William Sloper, Francis Eyles, John Laroche, James Vernon, William Beletha, John Burton, Richard Bundy, Arthur Beaford, Samuel Smith, Adam Anderson, and Thomas Coram and their successors were constituted a body politic and corporate by the name of “The Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America.” Ample were the powers with which this corporation was vested. Seven eighths “of all those lands lying and being in that part of South Carolina in America which lies from the most northern part of a stream or river there commonly called the Savannah, all along the sea-coast to the southward unto the most southern stream of a certain other great water or river called the Alatamaha, and westerly from the heads of the said rivers respectively in direct lines to the South Seas,” were conveyed to the trustees for the purposes of the plantation. The province was named Georgia, and was declared separate and distinct from South Carolina. To all, save Papists, was accorded a free exercise of religious thought and worship. For a period of twenty-one years were these corporators and their successors authorized to administer the affairs of the province. At the expiration of that time it was provided that such form of government would then be adopted, and such laws promulgated for the regulation of the colony and the observance of its inhabitants, as the Crown should ordain. Thereafter the governor of the province and all its officers, civil and military, were to be nominated and commissioned by the home government.

MAP OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA, 1773.

[Fac-simile of a map in Some Account of the Design of the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America, 1733, in Harvard College Library [Tract vol. 536]. This tract is appended to Smith’s Sermon (1733). This map also appeared the same year in Reasonsf for Establishing the Colony of Georgia, etc. Cf. also the “New Map of Georgia” in the French version of Martyn’s tracts published in the Recueil de Voyages au Nord, Amsterdam, 1737; Harvard College Library, shelf-no. 3621. 9, vol. ix.—Ed.]

In July, 1732, the corporators convened, accepted the charter, and perfected an organization in accordance with its provisions.[841] Commissions were issued to leading citizens and charitable corporations empowering them to solicit contributions in aid of the trust. Generously did the Trustees subscribe. To prevent any misappropriation of funds, an account was opened with the Bank of England. There a register was kept of the names of all benefactors and of the amounts of their several donations. Liberal responses were received in furtherance of the charitable scheme both from individuals and from corporations; and, as an honorable indorsement of the project and its managers, Parliament gave the sum of £10,000. Tracts commending the colonization to the favorable notice of the public were prepared,—notably by Oglethorpe, and by Benjamin Martyn, secretary to the Trustees,—and widely circulated.

In framing regulations for the observance of the colonists, and in maturing plans most conducive to the prosperity and permanence of the contemplated settlement, the trustees regarded each male inhabitant both as a planter and as a soldier. Hence, provision was made for supplying him with arms and with agricultural tools. Towns, in their inception, were reckoned as garrisons. Consequently the lands allotted for tillage were to be in their immediate neighborhood, so that in seasons of alarm the inhabitants might speedily betake themselves thither for safety and mutual protection. Fifty acres were adjudged sufficient for the support of a planter and his family. Grants in tail-male were declared preferable to any other tenure. The introduction and use of spirituous liquors were forbidden. Unless sanctioned by special license, traffic with the natives was prohibited. The trustees saw fit also to forbid the importation, ownership, and use of negro slaves within the limits of the province of Georgia. Provision was made for the cultivation of the mulberry tree and the breeding of silk-worms.

Keeping in view the benevolent objects of the association and the character of the settlement to be formed, it was manifest that only fit persons should be selected for colonization, and that due care should be exercised in the choice of emigrants. Preference was accordingly given to applicants who came well recommended by the ministers, church-wardens, and overseers of their respective parishes. That the Trustees might not be deceived in the characters and antecedents of those who signified a desire to avail themselves of the benefits of the charity, a committee was appointed to visit the prisons and examine the applicants there confined. If they were found to be worthy, compromises were effected with their creditors and consents procured for their discharge. Another committee sat at the office of the corporation to inquire into the circumstances and qualifications of such as there presented themselves. It has been idly charged that in the beginning Georgia colonists were impecunious, lawless, depraved, and abandoned; that the settlement at Savannah was a sort of Botany Bay, and that Yamacraw Bluff was peopled by runagates from justice. The suggestion is without foundation. The truth is that no applicant was admitted to the privilege of enrolment as an emigrant until he had been subjected to a preliminary examination, and had furnished satisfactory evidence that he was fairly entitled to the benefits of the charity. Other American colonies were founded and augmented by individuals coming at will, without question for personal gain, and furnishing no certificate of either past or present good conduct. Georgia, on the contrary, exhibits the spectacle, at once unique and admirable, of permitting no one to enter her borders who was not, by competent authority, adjudged worthy the rights of citizenship. Even those colonists who proposed to come at their own charge, and who brought servants with them, were required, as a condition precedent to their embarkation, to prove that they had obtained permission from the committee selected by the Trustees to pass upon the qualification of applicants. Upon receiving the approbation of the committee, and until the time fixed for sailing, adult male emigrants passing under the bounty of the Trust were drilled each day by the sergeants of the Royal Guards.

By the 3d of October, 1732, one hundred and fourteen individuals—comprising men, women, and children—had been enrolled for the first embarkation. The “Anne,” a galley of some two hundred tons burden, commanded by Captain Thomas, was chartered to convey them to Georgia. She was furnished not only with necessaries for the voyage, but also with arms, agricultural implements, tools, munitions, and stores for the use and support of the colonists after their arrival in America. At his own request, Oglethorpe was selected to conduct the colonists and establish them in Georgia. He volunteered to bear his own expenses, and to devote his entire time and attention to the consummation of the important enterprise. Himself the originator and the most zealous advocate of the scheme,—this offer on his part placed the seal of consecration upon his self-denial, patriotism, and enlarged philanthropy. Most fortunate were the Trustees in securing the services of such a representative. To no one could the power to exercise the functions of a colonial governor have been more appropriately confided.

On the 17th of November, 1732, the “Anne” departed from England, having on board about one hundred and thirty persons. Thirty-five families were represented. Among them were carpenters, brick-layers, farmers, and mechanics, all able-bodied and of good repute. Shaping her course for the island of Madeira, the vessel there touched and took on board five tuns of wine. After a protracted voyage the “Anne” dropped anchor off Charlestown bar on the 13th of January, 1733. Two delicate children had died at sea. With this exception, no sorrow darkened the passage, and the colonists were well and happy.

EARLY SAVANNAH.

This print, published in London, 1741, is called “A View of the Town of Savannah in the Colony of Georgia, in South Carolina, humbly inscribed to his Excellency General Oglethorpe.” References: A. Part of an island called Hutchinson’s Island. B. The stairs and landing-place from the river to the town. C. A crane and bell to draw up any goods from boats and to land them. D. A tent pitched near the landing for General Oglethorpe. E. A guard-house with a battery of cannon lying before it. F. The parsonage house. G. A plot of ground to build a church. H. A fort or lookout to the woodside. I. The House for all stores. K. The court house and chapel. L. The mill-house for the public. M. A house for all strangers to reside in. N. The common bake-house. O. A draw-well for water. P. The wood covering the back and sides of the town with several vistas cut into it.

It is reproduced in Jones’s History of Georgia, i. 121; and a small cut of it is given in Gay’s Popular History of the United States, iii. 140, and in Cassell’s United States, i. 487. There is also a print (15-3/4 × 21-3/4 inches) dedicated to the Trustees by Peter Gordon, which is inscribed “A view of Savanah [sic] as it stood the 29th of March, 1734. P. Gordon, inv., P. Fourdrinier, sculp,” of which there is a copy in the Boston Public Library [B. H. 6270, 52, no. 38]. Impressions may also be found in the British Museum, in the Mayor’s office in Savannah, and in the library of Dr. C. C. Jones, Jr., in Augusta, Ga.

Oglethorpe was warmly welcomed and hospitably entreated by the governor and council of South Carolina. The King’s pilot was detailed to conduct the “Anne” into Port Royal harbor. Thence the colonists were conveyed in small craft to Beaufort-town, where they landed and refreshed themselves; while their leader, accompanied by Colonel William Bull, proceeded to the Savannah River and made choice of a spot for the settlement. Ascending that stream as far as Yamacraw Bluff, and deeming it an eligible situation, he went on shore and marked out the site of a town which, from the river flowing by, he named Savannah. This bluff, rising some forty feet above the level of the river, and presenting a bold frontage on the water of nearly a mile,—quite ample for the riparian uses of a settlement of considerable magnitude,—was the first high ground abutting upon the stream encountered by him in its ascent. To the south a high and dry plain, overshadowed by pines interspersed with live-oaks and magnolias, stretched away for a mile or more. On the east and west were small creeks and swamps affording convenient drainage for the intermediate territory. The river in front was capable of floating ships of ordinary tonnage, and they could lie so near the shore that their cargoes might with facility be discharged. Northwardly, in the direction of Carolina, lay the rich delta of the river, with its islands and lowlands crowned with a dense growth of cypress, sweet-gum, tupelo, and other trees, many of them vine-covered and draped in long gray moss swaying gracefully in the ambient air. The yellow jessamine was already mingling its delicious perfume with the breath of the pine, and the forest was vocal with the voices of singing birds. Everything in this semi-tropical region was quickening into life and beauty under the influences of returning spring. In its primeval repose it seemed a goodly land. The temperate rays of the sun gave no token of the heat of summer. There was no promise of the tornado and the thunder-storm in the gentle winds. In the balmy air lurked no suspicion of malarial fevers. Its proximity to the mouth of the river rendered this spot suitable alike for commercial purposes and for maintaining easy communication with the Carolina settlements.

Near by was an Indian village peopled by the Yamacraws, whose chief, or mico, was the venerable Tomo-chi-chi. Having, through the intervention of Mary Musgrove,—a half-breed, and the wife of a Carolina trader who had there established a post,—persuaded the natives of the friendly intentions of the English and secured from them an informal cession of the desired lands, Oglethorpe returned to Beaufort. Thence, on the 30th of January, 1733, the colonists, conveyed in a sloop of seventy tons and in five periaguas, set sail for Yamacraw Bluff, where, on the afternoon of the second day afterward, they arrived in safety and passed their first night upon the soil of Georgia. The ocean had been crossed, and the germ of a new colony was planted in America. Sharing the privations and the labors of his companions, Oglethorpe was present planning, supervising, and encouraging. In marking out the squares, lots, and streets of Savannah, he was materially assisted by Colonel William Bull. Early and acceptable aid was extended by the authorities of Carolina, and this was generously supplemented by private benefactions. Well knowing that the planting of this colony would essentially promote the security of Carolina, shielding that province from the direct assaults and machinations of the Spaniards in Florida, preventing the ready escape of fugitive slaves, guarding her southern borders from the incursions of Indians, increasing commercial relations, and enhancing the value of lands, the South Carolinians were eager to further the prosperity of Georgia. Sensible of the courtesies and assistance extended, Oglethorpe repaired at an early day to Charlestown to return thanks in behalf of the colony and to interest the public still more in the development of the plantation. In this mission he was eminently successful. He was cheered also by congratulations and proffers of aid from other American colonies.

In nothing were the prudence, wisdom, skill, and ability of the founder of the colony of Georgia more conspicuous than in his conduct toward and treatment of the Indians. The ascendency he acquired over them, the respect they entertained for him, and the manly, generous, and just policy he ever maintained in his intercourse with the native tribes of the region are remarkable. Their favor at the outset was essential to the repose of the settlement; their friendship, necessary to its existence. As claimants of the soil by virtue of prior occupancy, it was important that the title they asserted to these their hunting grounds should at an early moment be peaceably and formally extinguished. Ascertaining from Tomo-chi-chi the names and abodes of the most influential chiefs dwelling within the territory ceded by the charter, Oglethorpe enlisted the good offices of this mico in calling a convention of them at Savannah. In May, 1733, the Indians assembled, and on the 21st of that month a treaty was solemnized, by which the Creeks ceded to the Trustees all lands lying between the Savannah and the Alatamaha rivers, from the ocean to the head of tide-water. In this cession were also embraced the islands on the coast from Tybee to St. Simon inclusive, with the exception of Ossabau, Sapelo, and St. Catharine, which were reserved for the purposes of hunting, fishing, and bathing. A tract of land between Pipe-maker’s Bluffs and Pally-Chuckola Creek was also retained as a place of encampment whenever it should please the natives to visit their white friends at Savannah. Stipulations were entered into regulating the price of goods, the value of peltry, and the privileges of traders. It was further agreed that criminal offences should be tried and punished in accordance with the laws of England. In due course the provisions of this treaty were formally ratified by the Trustees.

Thus happily, in the very infancy of the colony, was the title of the Aborigines to the lands south of the Savannah amicably extinguished. This treaty compassed the pacification of the Lower Creeks, the Uchees, the Yamacraws, and of other tribes constituting the Muskhogee confederacy.

TOMO-CHI-CHI MICO.

[This head is taken from a German print, engraved at Augsburg, purporting to follow an original issued in London. The full print also represents Tooanahowi, his brother’s son, a lad, holding an eagle as he stands beside his uncle. The entire print on a smaller scale is reproduced in Jones’s History of Georgia; in Gay’s Popular History of the United States, iii. 147; and in Dr. Eggleston’s papers on “Life in the English Colonies” in the Century Magazine.—Ed.]

Nor did the influences of this convocation rest with them only. They were recognized by the Upper Creeks; and at a later date similar stipulations were sanctioned by the Cherokees. For years were they preserved inviolate; and the colony of Georgia, thus protected, extended its settlements up the Savannah River and along the coast, experiencing neither opposition nor molestation, but receiving on every hand valuable assurance of the good-will of the children of the forest. Probably the early history of no plantation in America affords so few instances of hostility on the part of the natives, or so many acts of kindness extended by the red men. Potent was the influence of Tomo-chi-chi in consummating this primal treaty of amity and commerce. Had this chief, turning a deaf ear to the advances of Oglethorpe, refused his friendship, denied his request, and, inclining his authority to hostile account, instigated a combined and determined opposition on the part of the Yamacraws, the Uchees, and the Lower Creeks, the perpetuation of this English settlement would have been either most seriously imperilled or abruptly terminated amid smoke and carnage. When therefore we recur to the memories of this period, and as often as the leading events in the early history of the colony of Georgia are narrated, so often should the favors experienced at the hands of this mico be gratefully acknowledged. If Oglethorpe’s proudest claim to the honor and respect of succeeding generations rests upon the fact that he was the founder of the colony of Georgia, let it not be forgotten that in the hour of supreme doubt and danger the right arm of this son of the forest, his active intervention, and his unswerving friendship were among the surest guarantees of the safety and the very existence of that province. Tomo-chi-chi will be remembered as the firm ally of the white man, the guide and protector of the colonist, the constant companion and faithful confederate of Oglethorpe.

Accessions occurred as rapidly as the means of the Trust would allow. Among some of the early comers were Italians from Piedmont, who were engaged to develop the silk industry, from the pursuit of which considerable gain was anticipated. As the immigrants multiplied, and the defences at Savannah were strengthened, Fort Argyle was built on the Great Ogeechee River, the villages of Highgate and Hampstead were laid out, Thunderbolt and Skidoway Island were occupied, Joseph’s Town and Abercorn were peopled, and plantations formed on Augustine Creek, on the Little Ogeechee, and as far south as the Great Ogeechee River. On the 7th of July, 1733, occurred a general allotment of town lots, garden lots, and farms among the inhabitants of Savannah; and this was confirmed by deed executed on the 21st of the following December. The town lot contained sixty feet in front and ninety feet in depth; the garden lot embraced five acres. Forty-four acres and one hundred and forty-one poles constituted the farm; so that the grant aggregated fifty acres,—thus conforming to the instructions of the Trustees, and furnishing land sufficient for the support of the colonist who came at the charge of the Trust and brought no servants. The conveyance was in tail-male. Of the moneys realized from the sale of lands in the island of St. Christopher, the sum of £10,000 was, in pursuance of a resolution of the House of Commons, paid over to the “Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America,” to be by them applied “towards defraying the charges of carrying over and settling foreign and other Protestants in said colony.” This timely relief enabled the Trustees to accomplish a purpose from the execution of which they had been prevented by a want of funds. In the administration of the Trust preference had been accorded to English Protestants seeking homes in the New World. Now, however, they were justified in enlarging the scope of their charity, because the resolution in obedience to which this liberal benefaction was made, contemplated in terms the colonization of foreign Protestants.

COUNTY OF SAVANNAH.

This is a portion of a map in the Urlsperger Tracts, the whole of which is reproduced in Jones’s History of Georgia, i. 148.

As the first fruits of this expanded charity, on Reminiscere Sunday, according to the Lutheran Calendar, in March, 1734, the ship “Purisburg” entered the Savannah River having on board seventy-eight Salzburgers under the conduct of Baron von Reck, and accompanied by their spiritual advisers the Rev. John Martin Bolzius and the Rev. Israel Christian Gronau. They came from the town of Berchtolsgaden and its vicinity, had taken the oath of loyalty to the British Crown, and were conveyed at the charge of the Trust. “Lying in fine and calm weather under the Shore of our beloved Georgia, where we heard the Birds sing melodiously, every Body in the Ship was joyful,”—so wrote the Rev. Mr. Bolzius, the faithful attendant and religious teacher of this Protestant band. He tells us that when the ship arrived at the wharf, “almost all the inhabitants of the Town of Savannah were gather’d together; they fired off some Cannons and cried Huzzah!... Some of us were immediately fetch’d on shore in a Boat, and carried about the City, into the woods, and the new Garden belonging to the Trustees. In the mean time a very good Dinner was prepared for us.” The inhabitants “shewing them a great deal of kindness, and the Country pleasing them,” the new-comers “were full of Joy and praised God for it.”

By the 7th of April all these Salzburgers had been conducted to the spot designated as their future home. Although sterile and unattractive, and situated in the midst of a pine barren, to these peoples, tired of the sea and weary of persecutions, the locality appeared blessed, redolent of sweet hope, teeming with bright promise, and offering charming repose. The little town which they built in what is now Effingham County, they called Ebenezer. Early in the following year this settlement was reinforced by fifty-seven Salzburgers sent over by the Trustees in the ship “Prince of Wales.” Accessions occurred from time to time; and thus was introduced into the colony a population inured to labor, sober, of strong religious convictions, conservative in thought and conduct, obedient to rulers, and characterized by intelligent industry. Disappointed in their anticipations with regard to the fertility of the soil and the convenience of their location, these peoples, with the consent of Oglethorpe, in a few years abandoned their abodes and formed a new settlement on the Savannah River near the confluence of Ebenezer Creek with that stream.

And now the Moravians, accompanied by the Rev. Gottlieb Spangenberg, sought freedom of religious thought and worship in the province of Georgia. To them were assigned lands along the line of the Savannah River between the Salzburgers and the town of Savannah. With the Salzburgers they associated on terms of the closest friendship. In subduing the forests, in erecting comfortable dwellings, and in cultivating the soil, they exhibited a most commendable zeal.

COAST SETTLEMENTS BEFORE 1743.

[This is the map given by Robert Wright in his Memoir of General James Oglethorpe, London, 1867. There is a similar map in Harris’s Oglethorpe. Cf. Gay’s Popular History of the United States, iii. 156.—Ed.]

Encouraged by the development of the plantation, desiring a personal conference with the Trustees, and rightly judging that the advantage and security of the province would be materially promoted by taking with him to England some of the most intelligent of his Indian neighbors, that they might by personal observation acquire a definite conception of the greatness and the resources of the British empire, and, moved by the kindnesses and attentions which he was quite sure would be extended to them on every hand, imbibe memories that would tend to cement the alliances and perpetuate the amicable relations which had been so auspiciously inaugurated,—Oglethorpe, in March, 1734, persuaded Tomo-chi-chi with a selected retinue to accompany him to London. The reception accorded to these Indians in the English capital and its environs was cordial and appropriate. This visit of Tomo-chi-chi and his companions, and the interest awakened by their presence in London, materially assisted Oglethorpe and the Trustees in enlisting the renewed and earnest sympathies of the public, not only in behalf of the colonists, but also in aid of the education and religious instruction of the natives. Widely disseminated among the Indian nations was the knowledge of this sojourn of the mico of the Yamacraws and his companions in the home of the white man. The novel and beautiful presents which the Indians brought back with them afforded ocular proof of the liberality of the English, and produced a profound impression upon the natives, who, grateful for the kindness shown to members of their race, were encouraged in the perpetuation of the amicable relations existing between themselves and the colonists.

Through the influence of Oglethorpe the regulations of the Trustees prohibiting the importation and sale of rum, brandy, and other distilled liquors within the limits of Georgia, and forbidding the introduction and use of negro slaves in the province, received the sanction of Parliament. Commenting upon this legislation, Edmund Burke remarked that while these restrictions were designed to bring about wholesome results, they were promulgated without a sufficient appreciation of the nature of the country and the disposition of the people to be affected by them. Long and earnestly did many of the colonists petition for the removal of these prohibitions, which placed the province at a disadvantage when its privileges were contrasted with those of sister plantations, and beyond doubt, so far at least as the employment of slave-labor was concerned, retarded its material development.

The peopling and fortification of the southern confines of Georgia engaged the earnest thought of the Trustees. The Spaniards regarded with a jealous eye the confirmation of this new English colony upon the borders of Florida. Moved by urgent memorials on the subject, Parliament granted £26,000 for “the settling, fortifying, and defending” Georgia. Their treasury being thus replenished, and anxious to enlist colonists of acknowledged strength and valor, the Trustees, through Lieutenant Hugh Mackay, recruited among the Highlands of Scotland one hundred and thirty men, with fifty women and children. They were all of excellent character, and were carefully selected for their military qualities. Accompanied by a clergyman of their own choice,—the Rev. John McLeod, of the Isle of Skye,—this hardy company was conveyed to Georgia and assigned to the left bank of the Alatamaha, about sixteen miles above the island of St. Simon. Here these Highlanders landed, erected a fort, mounted four pieces of cannon, built a guard-house, a store, and a chapel, and constructed huts for temporary accommodation preparatory to putting up more substantial structures. To their little town they gave the name of New Inverness, and the district which they were to hold and cultivate they called Darien. These Scots were brave and hardy; just the men to occupy this advanced post. In their plaids, and with their broadswords, targets, and fire-arms, they presented a most manly appearance. Previous to their departure from Savannah in periaguas, some Carolinians endeavored to dissuade them from going to the south by telling them that the Spaniards from the houses in their fort would shoot them upon the spot selected by the Trustees for their abode. Nothing daunted, these doughty countrymen of Bruce and Wallace responded, “Why, then, we will beat them out of their fort, and shall have houses ready built to live in.” This valiant spirit found subsequent expression in the efficient military service rendered by these Highlanders during the wars between the colonists and the Spaniards, and by their descendants in the American Revolution. Augmented at intervals by fresh arrivals from Scotland, this settlement, although placed in a malarial region, steadily increased in wealth and influence.

At an early date a road was constructed to connect New Inverness with Savannah.

On the morning of Feb. 5, 1736, the “Symond” and the “London Merchant,” with the first of the flood, passed over the bar and came to anchor within Tybee Roads. On board were two hundred and two persons conveyed on the Trust’s account. Among them were English people, German Lutherans under the conduct of Baron von Reck and Captain Hermsdorf, and twenty-five Moravians with their bishop the Rev. David Nitschman. Oglethorpe was present, accompanied by the brothers John and Charles Wesley, the Rev. Mr. Ingham, and by Charles Delamotte, the son of a London merchant and a friend of the Wesleys. Coming at their own charge were Sir Francis Bathurst, with family and servants, and some relatives of planters already settled in the province. Ample stores of provisions, small arms, cannon, ammunition, and tools were transported in these vessels. The declared object of this large accession of colonists was the population of the southern confines of the province and the building of a military town on the island of St. Simon, to be called Frederica.

It was not until the 2d of March that the fleet of periaguas and boats, with the newly arrived on board, set out from Tybee Roads for the mouth of the Alatamaha. The voyage to the southward was accomplished in five days. So diligently did the colonists labor, and so materially were they assisted by workmen drawn from other parts of the province and from Carolina, that by the 23d of the month Frederica had been laid out, a battery of cannon commanding the river had been mounted, and a fort almost completed. Its ditches had been dug, although not to the required depth or width, and a rampart raised and covered with sod. A storehouse, having a front of sixty feet, and designed to be three stories in height, was finished as to its cellar and first story. The main street which “went from the Front into the Country was 25 yards wide. Each Freeholder had 60 Feet in Front by 90 Feet in depth upon the high Street for their House and Garden; but those which fronted the River had but 30 Feet in Front by 60 Feet in Depth. Each Family had a Bower of Palmetto Leaves finished upon the back Street in their own Lands. The Side towards the front Street was set out for their Houses. These Palmetto Bowers were very convenient shelters, being tight in the hardest Rains; they were about 20 Feet long and 14 Feet wide, and in regular Rows looked very pretty, the Palmetto Leaves lying smooth and handsome, and of a good Colour. The whole appeared something like a Camp; for the Bowers looked like Tents, only being larger and covered with Palmetto Leaves instead of Canvas. There were 3 large Tents, two belonging to Mr. Oglethorpe and one to Mr. Horton, pitched upon the Parade near the River.” Such is the description of Frederica in its infancy as furnished by Mr. Moore, whose Voyage to Georgia is perhaps the most interesting and valuable tract we possess descriptive of the colonization of the southern portion of Georgia. That there might be no confusion in their labors, Oglethorpe divided the colonists into working parties. To some was assigned the duty of cutting forks, poles, and laths for building the bowers; others set them up; others still gathered palmetto leaves; while “a fourth gang,” under the superintendence of a Jew workman, bred in Brazil and skilled in the matter, thatched the roofs “nimbly and in a neat manner.”

Men accustomed to agriculture instructed the colonists in hoeing and preparing the soil. Potatoes, Indian corn, flax, hemp-seed, barley, turnips, lucern-grass, pumpkins, and water-melons were planted. Labor was common, and inured to the general benefit of the community. As it was rather too late in the season to till the ground fully and sow a crop to yield sufficient to subsist the settlement for the current year, many of the men were put upon pay and set to work upon the fortifications and the public buildings.

Frederica, situated on the west side of St. Simon’s Island, on a bold bluff confronting a bay formed by one of the mouths of the Alatamaha River, was planned as a military town, and constructed with a view to breasting the shock of hostile assaults. Its houses were to be substantially built, not of wood as in Savannah, but of tabby. At an early period its streets by their names proclaimed the presence of men-at-arms, while its esplanade and parade-ground characterized it as a permanent camp.[842] Including the camp on the north, the parade on the east, and a small wood on the south which was to serve as a blind in the event of an attack from ships coming up the river, the settlement was about a mile and a half in circumference.

Note.—The map opposite, showing the coast from St. Augustine to Charlestown (S. C.), is copied from one in vol. v. of the Urlsperger Tracts. There is another plan of St. Simon’s Island in W. B. Stevens’s Georgia. i. 186.

The town proper was to be protected by embankment and ditch, and places for two gates, called respectively the Town and Water posts, were indicated. The citadel was to be made of tabby, and formidably armed. In front, a water battery, mounting several eighteen-pounder guns, was designed to command the river. It was contemplated to guard the town on the land side by a formidable intrenchment, the exterior ditch of which could be filled with water. As Savannah was intended as the commercial metropolis of the province, so was Frederica to constitute its southern outpost and strong defence. It soon became the Thermopylæ of the southern Anglo-American Colonies, the headquarters of Oglethorpe’s regiment, the depot of military supplies for the dependent forts built at the south, and the strong rallying point for British colonization in the direction of Florida. In the history of the colony there is no brighter chapter, and in the eventful life of Oglethorpe no more illustrious epoch, than that which commemorates the protracted and successful struggle with the Spaniards for the retention of the charming island of St. Simon. In 1737 Oglethorpe kissed His Majesty’s hand on receiving his commission as colonel. He was also appointed general and commander-in-chief of all His Majesty’s forces in South Carolina and Georgia, that he might the more readily wield the military power of the two provinces in their common defence.

The finances of the Trust were now in a depressed condition, and the General was compelled to draw largely upon his private fortune and to pledge his individual credit in conducting the operations necessary for the security of the southern frontier, and in provisioning the settlers. Matters were further complicated by the defalcation of Thomas Causton, the first Magistrate of Savannah and Keeper of the public stores. Silk culture, from which so much was anticipated, proved a positive expense. There was no profit in the vine. Enfeebled by the hot suns of summer, and afflicted with fevers and fluxes engendered by malarial exhalations from the marish grounds, many of the inhabitants lost heart and cried aloud for the introduction of African slavery. Disappointed in their plans for the religious instruction of the colonists and the conversion of the natives, the brothers John and Charles Wesley had quitted the province. In the consummation of his benevolent and educational scheme, the Rev. George Whitefield was compelled to rely upon foreign aid. With the exception of the Highlanders at Darien, the Salzburgers at Ebenezer, and the Indian traders at Augusta, Georgia could not boast that her inhabitants were either contented or prosperous. There was general clamor for fee-simple title to lands, and permission to buy slaves was constantly urged. The disaffected hesitated not to malign the authorities, to disquiet the settlers, and to exaggerate the unpleasantness of the situation. Fortunately the Indian nations remained peaceful; and in general convention held at Coweta-town in August, 1739, in the presence of Oglethorpe, they renewed their fealty to the King of Great Britain, and in terms most explicit confirmed their previous grants of territory.

[Fac-simile of a plan of St. Augustine in Roberts’s Account of Florida, London, 1763.—Ed.]

And now the Spanish war-cloud which had so long threatened the southern confines of the province, seemed about to descend in wrath and power. Acting under the discretionary powers confided to him, General Oglethorpe resolved to anticipate the event by an invasion of Florida and the reduction of St. Augustine,—the stronghold of Spanish dominion in that province.

COAST OF FLORIDA.

Fac-simile of the plan in An Impartial Account of the late Expedition against St. Augustine under General Oglethorpe. London, 1742.

HARBOR AND TOWN OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

[Fac-simile of part of the map in An Impartial Account of the late Expedition against St. Augustine under General Oglethorpe, occasioned by the suppression of the Report of the General Assembly of South Carolina, with an exact plan of St. Augustine and the adjacent coast of Florida, showing the disposition of our Forces. London, 1742.—Ed.]

Collecting his regiment, summoning to his assistance forces from South Carolina, and calling in his Indian allies, in May, 1740, with a mixed army of rather more than two thousand men, he moved upon the capital of Florida. In this expedition Sir Yelverton Peyton, with the British vessels of war,—the “Flamborough,” the “Phœnix,” the “Squirrel,” the “Tartar,” the “Spence,” and the “Wolf,”—was to participate. The castle of St. Augustine consisted of a fort built of soft stone. Its curtain was sixty yards in length, its parapet nine feet thick, and its rampart twenty feet high, “casemated underneath for lodgings, and arched over and newly made bombproof.” Its armament consisted of fifty cannon, sixteen of brass, and among them some twenty-four pounders. For some time had the garrison been working upon a covered way, but this was still in an unfinished condition. The town was protected by a line of intrenchments, with ten salient angles, in each of which field-pieces were mounted. In January, 1740, the Spanish forces in Florida, exclusive of Indians and one company of militia, were estimated at nine hundred and sixty-five men of all arms. As foreshadowed in his dispatch of the 27th of March, 1740, it was the intention of General Oglethorpe to advance directly upon St. Augustine, and attack by sea and land the town and the island in its front. Both, he believed, could be taken “sword in hand.” Conceiving that the castle would be too small to afford convenient shelter for the two thousand one hundred men, women, and children of the town, he regarded the capitulation of the fortress as not improbable. Should it refuse to surrender, he proposed to shower upon it “Granado-shells from the Coehorns and Mortars,” and other projectiles. If it should not yield under the bombardment, he was resolved to open trenches and reduce it by a regular siege. The result was a disastrous failure. This miscarriage may be fairly attributed,—first, to the delay in inaugurating the movement, caused mainly, if not entirely, by the tardiness on the part of the South Carolina authorities in contributing the troops, munitions, and provisions for which requisition had been made; in the second place, to the reinforcement of men and supplies from Havana introduced into St. Augustine just before the English expedition set out, thereby repairing the inequality previously existing between the opposing forces; again, to the injudicious movements against Forts Francis de Papa and Diego, which put the Spaniards upon the alert, encouraged concentration on their part, and foreshadowed an immediate demonstration in force against their stronghold; and to the inability on the part of the fleet to participate in the assault previously planned, and which was to have been vigorously undertaken so soon as General Oglethorpe with his land forces came into position before the walls of St. Augustine. Finally, the subsequent surprise and destruction of Colonel Palmer’s command, thereby enabling the enemy to communicate with and draw supplies from the interior; the lack of heavy ordnance with which to reduce the castle from the batteries planted on Anastasia island; the impossibility of bringing up the larger war vessels that they might participate in the bombardment; the inefficiency of Colonel Vanderdussen’s command; the impatience and disappointment of the Indian allies, who anticipated early capture and liberal spoils; as well as hot suns, heavy dews, a debilitating climate, sickness among the troops, and the arrival of men, munitions of war, and provisions from Havana through the Matanzas River,—all conspired to render futile whatever hopes at the outset had been entertained for a successful prosecution of the siege.

Although this attempt—so formidable in its character when we consider the limited resources at command, and so full of daring when we contemplate the circumstances under which it was prosecuted—resulted in disappointment, its effects were not without decided advantage to Georgia and her sister colonies. For two years the Spaniards remained on the defensive. During that time General Oglethorpe enjoyed an opportunity for strengthening his fortifications and increasing his army; so that when the counter blow was delivered by his adversary, he was the better prepared not only to parry it, but also to punish the uplifted arm.

During the preceding seven years, which constituted the entire life of the colony, Oglethorpe had enjoyed no respite from his labors. Personally directing all movements; supervising the location and providing for the comfort, safety, and good order of the colonists as they arrived from time to time; reconciling their differences, encouraging and directing their labors; propitiating the aborigines, influencing necessary supplies, inaugurating suitable defences, and enforcing the regulations of the Trustees,—he had passed constantly from point to point, finding no rest. Upon his shoulders, as the Trustees’ representative and as a de facto colonial governor, did the administration of the affairs of the province rest. Now in tent at Savannah; now in open boat reconnoitring the coast, now upon the southern islands, his only shelter the wide-spreading live-oak, designating sites for forts and lookouts, and with his own hands planning military works and laying out villages; again journeying frequently along the Savannah, the Great Ogeechee, the Alatamaha, the St. John, and far off into the heart of the Indian country; often inspecting his advanced posts; undertaking voyages to Charlestown and to England in behalf of the Trust, and engaged in severe contests with the Spaniards,—his life had been one of incessant activity and solicitude. But for his energy, intelligence, watchfulness, valor, and self-sacrifice, the important enterprise must have languished. As we look back upon this period of trial, uncertainty, and poverty, our admiration for his achievements increases the more closely we scan his limited resources and opportunities, the more thoroughly we appreciate the difficulties he was called upon to surmount.

There was a lull in the storm; but the skies were still overcast. In the distance were heard ominous mutterings portending the advent of another and a darker tempest. Anxious but calm, Oglethorpe scanned the adverse skies and prepared to breast their fury. In alluding to the expected invasion from St. Augustine, he thus writes to the Duke of Newcastle: “If our men-of-war will not keep them from coming in by sea, and we have no succor, but decrease daily by different accidents, all we can do will be to die bravely in His Majesty’s service.... I have often desired assistance of the men-of-war, and continue to do so. I go on in fortifying this town [Frederica], making magazines, and doing everything I can to defend the province vigorously; and I hope my endeavors will be approved of by His Majesty, since the whole end of my life is to do the duty of a faithful subject and grateful servant.”

Late in June, 1742, a Spanish fleet of fifty-one sail, with nearly five thousand troops on board, under the command of Don Manuel de Monteano, governor of St. Augustine, bore down upon the Georgia coast with a view to the capture of the island of St. Simon and the destruction of the English plantation south of the Savannah. To resist this formidable descent, General Oglethorpe could oppose only a few small forts, about six hundred and fifty men, a guard schooner, and some armed sloops. With a bravery and dash almost beyond comprehension, by strategy most admirable, Oglethorpe by a masterly disposition of the troops at command, coupled with the timidity of the invaders and the dissensions which arose in their ranks, before the middle of July put the entire Spanish army and navy to flight. This “deliverance of Georgia,” said Whitefield, “is such as cannot be paralleled but by some instances out of the Old Testament.” The defeat of so formidable an expedition by such a handful of men was a matter of astonishment to all. The memory of this defence of St. Simon’s Island and the southern frontier is one of the proudest in the annals of Georgia. Never again did the Spaniards attempt to put in execution their oft-repeated threat to extirpate all the English plantations south of Port-Royal Sound. Sullenly and with jealous eye did they watch the development of Georgia, until twenty-one years afterwards all disputes were ended by the cession of Florida to the Crown of Great Britain. Upon the confirmation of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle most of the English troops were withdrawn from the island of St. Simon, and its fortifications soon began to fall into decay.

Georgia at this time consisted of only two counties, Savannah and Frederica. In April, 1741, Colonel William Stephens, who for several years had been acting in the colony as secretary to the Trustees, was by them appointed president of the county of Savannah. In the administration of public affairs he was aided by four assistants. As General Oglethorpe, who was charged with the direction and management of the entire province, spent most of his time at Frederica, the designation of a presiding officer for that division of Georgia was regarded as superfluous. Bailiffs were constituted, whose duty it was, under the immediate supervision of the General, to attend to the concerns of that county. At Augusta, Captain Richard Kent acted as “conservator to keep the peace in that town and in the precincts thereof.” Upon the return of General Oglethorpe to England, in order to provide for the government of the entire colony the Trustees decided that the president and assistants who had been appointed for the county of Savannah should be proclaimed president and assistants for the whole province, and that the bailiffs at Frederica should be considered simply as local magistrates. They further advised that the salary of the recorder at Frederica be raised, and that he correspond regularly with the president and assistants in Savannah, transmitting to them from time to time the proceedings of the town court, and rendering an account of such transactions and occurrences in the southern part of the province as it might be necessary for them to know. Thus, upon the departure of General Oglethorpe, the honest-minded and venerable Colonel William Stephens succeeded to the office of colonial governor. It was during his administration that the Trustees, influenced by repeated petitions and anxious to promote the prosperity of the province, removed the restrictions hitherto existing with regard to the introduction, use, and ownership of negro slaves, and the importation of rum and other distilled liquors. They also permitted existing tenures of land “to be enlarged and extended to an absolute inheritance.”

In bringing about the abrogation of the regulation which forbade the ownership or employment of negro slaves in Georgia, no two gentlemen were more influential than the Rev. George Whitefield and the Hon. James Habersham. The former boldly asserted that the transportation of the African from his home of barbarism to a Christian land, where he would be humanely treated and required to perform his share of toil common to the lot of humanity, was advantageous; while the latter affirmed that the colony could not prosper without the intervention of slave-labor. Georgia now enjoyed like privileges with those accorded to the sister American provinces. Lands could now be held in fee-simple, and the power of alienation was unrestricted. The ownership and employment of negro slaves were free to all, and the New England manufacturer could here find an open market for his rum.

The Trustees had up to this point seriously misinterpreted the capabilities of the climate and soil of Georgia. Although substantial encouragement had been afforded to Mr. Amatis, to Jacques Camuse, to the Salzburgers at Ebenezer, and to others; although copper basins and reeling-machines had been supplied and a filature erected; although silk-worm eggs were procured and mulberry trees multiplied,—silk-culture in Georgia yielded only a harvest of disappointment. The vine also languished. Olive trees from Venice, barilla seeds from Spain, the kali from Egypt, and other exotics obtained at much expense, after a short season withered and died in the public garden. Hemp and flax, from the cultivation of which such rich yields were anticipated, never warranted the charter of a single vessel for their transportation, and indigo did not then commend itself to public favor. Exportations of lumber were infrequent. Cotton was then little more than a garden plant, and white laborers could not compete successfully with Carolina negroes in the production of rice. Up to this point the battle had been with Nature for life and subsistence. Upon the stores of the Trust did many long rely for food and clothing. Of trade there was little, and that was confined to the procurement of necessaries. With the exception of occasional shipments of copper money for circulation among the inhabitants, sola bills constituted the chief currency of the province. Now, however, all restrictions removed, Georgia entered upon a career of comparative prosperity.

WHITEFIELD.

This cut (see also the Memorial History of Boston, ii. 238) follows a painting in Memorial Hall, Cambridge, Mass. The portraits of Whitefield are numerous. J. C. Smith (British Mezzotint Portraits, i. 442, 443; iii. 601, 692, 939; iv. 1545) enumerates various ones in that style, giving a photo-reproduction of one. The Lives of him usually give likenesses.

On the 8th of April, 1751, Mr. Henry Parker was appointed president of the colony in the room of Colonel Stephens, who retired upon a pension of £80. During his administration the first Provincial Assembly of Georgia convened at Savannah. It was composed of sixteen delegates, and was presided over by Francis Harris. As the privilege of enacting laws was by the terms of the charter vested exclusively in the Trustees, this assembly could not legislate. Its powers were limited to discussing and suggesting such measures as its members might deem conducive to the welfare of particular communities and important for the general good of the province.

The “Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America” resolved to surrender their charter and relieve themselves from the further execution of a trust which had grown quite beyond their management. For twenty years they had supported its provisions with an earnest solicitude, a philanthropic zeal, a disinterested purpose, and a loyal devotion worthy of every commendation. They had seen a feeble plantation upon Yamacraw Bluff expand year by year, until it now assumed the proportions of a permanent colony and disclosed the potentialities of a future nation. The English drum-beat on the banks of the Savannah is answered by the Highland bagpipe on the Alatamaha, and the protecting guns of Frederica are supplemented by the sentinel field-pieces at Augusta. At every stage of progress and in every act, whether trivial or important, these Trustees, capable and worthy, evinced a clear conception of duty, a patience of labor, a singleness of purpose, an unselfish dedication of time and energy, and a rigid adherence to all that was pure, elevated, and humanizing, which become quite conspicuous when their proceedings are minutely and intelligently scanned. That they erred in their judgment in regard to the best method of utilizing many of these marish lands, smitten by sun and storms and pregnant with fevers and fluxes, may not now be doubted; that the theory upon which they administered the trust was in some respects narrow and retarding in its influences, is equally certain; that they were unfortunate in the selection of some of their agents excites no surprise,—but that they were upright, conscientious, observant, and most anxious to promote the best interests of the colony, as they comprehended them, will be freely admitted.

The surrender of the charter was formally concluded on the 23d of June, 1752; and Georgia, no longer the ward of the Trustees, passed into the hands of the Crown. Until clothed with the attributes of State sovereignty by the successful issue of the American Revolution, she was recognized as one of the daughters of England under the special charge of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. By the terms of the surrender, her integrity as an independent province, separate from South Carolina, was fully assured, and all grants of land, hitherto made to the inhabitants, were recognized and respected.

Upon the death of Mr. Parker, Patrick Graham succeeded to the presidency of Georgia. Until a plan for establishing a civil government could be perfected, all officers, both civil and military, holding appointments from the Trustees, were continued in their respective places of trust, with such emoluments, salaries, and fees as were incident thereto. The population of the colony now consisted of two thousand three hundred and eighty-one whites, and one thousand and sixty-six negro slaves. This estimate did not include His Majesty’s troops and boatmen, or a congregation of two hundred and eighty whites, with negro slaves aggregating five hundred and thirty-six, coming from South Carolina and partially settled in the Midway District, or Butler’s Colony with sixty slaves.

The plan suggested by the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations for the establishment of a civil government in Georgia contemplated the appointment of a governor, by commission under the Great Seal, with the title of Captain-General and Governor-in-chief of His Majesty’s Province of Georgia, and Vice-Admiral of the same. He was to be addressed as Your Excellency, and was, within the colony, to be respected as the immediate and highest representative of His Majesty. His functions, as well as those of the two Houses of the Assembly, were well defined.[843]

The plan thus submitted for the government of the Province of Georgia received royal sanction; and His Majesty, upon the nomination of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, was pleased, on the 6th of August, 1754, to appoint Captain John Reynolds governor of the Province of Georgia; William Clifton, Esq., attorney-general; James Habersham, Esq., secretary and register; Alexander Kellet, Esq., provost-marshal; William Russel, Esq., naval officer; Henry Yonge and William De Brahm joint surveyors; Sir Patrick Houstoun, Bart., register of grants and receiver of quit rents; and Patrick Graham, Sir Patrick Houstoun, James Habersham, Alexander Kellet, William Clifton, Noble Jones, Pickering Robinson, Francis Harris, Jonathan Bryan, William Russell, and Clement Martin members of Council.

When during the same year (1754) the other English colonies sent delegates to represent them at the Congress of Albany, in order to draft a plan of union against the French, Georgia filled so narrow a space in the regard of the other colonies that her failure to join in the proposed league was hardly remarked.

Only three Royal Governors did Georgia have. The terms of service of Captain Reynolds and of Henry Ellis were short. Assuming the reins of government in 1760, the third and last Royal Governor, Sir James Wright, encountered the storms of the Revolution, and in a brave adherence to the cause of his royal master suffered arrest, mortification, and loss. It was his lot to preside at an epoch full of doubt and trouble. During his administration the political ties which united Georgia to the mother country were violently sundered, and a union of American colonies was formed, which in after years developed into the great Republic. The rapid development of Georgia under the conduct of these royal governors will be admitted when it is remembered that in 1754 her exports did not amount to £30,000 a year; while, at the opening of the Revolutionary War, they did not fall short of £200,000 sterling.

[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]

GEORGIA was named in honor of the reigning king of England, George II., who graciously sanctioned a charter, liberal in its provisions, and who granted to the Trustees a territory, extensive and valuable, for the plantation.

In a report submitted to Congress by the Hon. Charles Lee, attorney-general of the United States (Philadelphia, 1796), will be found a valuable collection of charters, treaties, and documents explanatory of the original cession to the “Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America,” and of the modifications and enlargements to which the same was later subjected. The territory which, in 1733, became the Province of Georgia at an earlier day formed a part of ancient Florida, which stretched in the Spanish conception from the Gulf of Mexico to the far north and westward to the Mississippi and indefinitely beyond.

It has fallen to the lot of another writer in the present work to mention the authorities on the primitive peoples of this region; and by still another an enumeration is made of the archæological traces of their life.[844]

The project of Sir Robert Mountgomery for planting a colony in the territory subsequently ceded to the Georgia Trustees is fully unfolded in his Discourse concerning the design’d Establishment of a New Colony to the South of Carolina in the most delightful Country of the Universe, London, 1717.[845] Accompanying this Discourse is an engraved “plan representing the Form of Settling the Districts or County Divisions in the Margravate of Azilia.”[846] Although extensively advertised, this scheme failed to attract the favor of the public, and ended in disappointment.

The true story of the mission of Sir Alexander Cuming, of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to establish a trade with the Cherokees, and confirm them in their friendship with and allegiance to the British crown, has been well told by Samuel G. Drake in his Early History of Georgia, embracing the Embassy of Sir Alexander Cuming to the Country of the Cherokees in the year 1730, Boston, 1872. A reproduction of the rare print giving the portraits of the Indians who accompanied Sir Alexander on his return to London might have been advantageously employed in lending additional attraction to this publication.[847]

HANDWRITING OF OGLETHORPE.

Of the memoirs of Oglethorpe,—whose life Dr. Johnson desired to write, and whom Edmund Burke regarded as the most extraordinary person of whom he had read, because he founded a province and lived to see it severed from the empire which created it and erected into an independent State,—those best known are A Sketch of the Life of General James Oglethorpe, presented to the Georgia Historical Society by Thomas Spalding, Esq., resident member of the same, printed in 1840; Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe, Founder of the Colony of Georgia in North America, by Thaddeus Mason Harris, D. D., Boston, 1841;[848] Life of James Oglethorpe, the Founder of Georgia, by William B. O. Peabody, constituting a part of volume ii. of the second series of The Library of American Biography, conducted by Jared Sparks, Boston, 1847, and based mainly upon Dr. Harris’ work; and A Memoir of General James Oglethorpe, one of the earliest Reformers of Prison Discipline in England and the Founder of Georgia in America, by Robert Wright, London, 1867. The advantages enjoyed by Mr. Wright were exceptionally good, and until the appearance of his memoir that by Dr. Harris was justly regarded as the best.[849]

That the public might be advised of the benevolent character and scope of the undertaking, and might be made acquainted with the designs of the Trustees with regard to the proposed colonization of Georgia, two tracts were published with their sanction: one of them, prepared by Oglethorpe, entitled A New and Accurate Account of the Provinces of South Carolina and Georgia, with many curious and useful Observations on the Trade, Navigation, and Plantations of Great Britain compared with her most powerful Maritime Neighbors in ancient and modern Times, printed in London in 1732;[850] and the other, written by Benjamin Martyn, Secretary of the Board, 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 persecuted Protestants, with some account of the Country and the Designs of the Trustees, London, 1733.[851] Well considered and widely circulated, these tracts were productive of results most beneficial to the Trust.[852]

The development of the province down to 1741 is described and the regulations promulgated by the Trustees for the conduct of the plantation and for the observance of its inhabitants are preserved in An Account shewing the Progress of the Colony of Georgia in America from its First Establishment, London, 1741. This publication was by authority, and must be accepted as of the highest importance.[853]

Of like interest and value are An Impartial Enquiry into the State and Utility of the Province of Georgia, London, 1741,—appearing anonymously,[854] but with the sanction of the Trustees, and intended to correct certain mischievous reports circulated with regard to the health of the plantation, the fertility of the soil, the value of the products, and the disabilities under which Georgia labored because of restricted land tenures, and by reason of the regulations prohibiting the introduction and use of spirituous liquors and negro slaves; and A State of the Province of Georgia attested upon Oath in the Court of Savannah, November 10, 1740, London, 1742,—in which the superior advantages of Georgia, her resources and capabilities, are favorably considered and proclaimed.

The history of the Salzburgers in Georgia may be learned from An Extract of the Journals of Mr. Commissary Von Reck, who conducted the First Transport of Salzburgers to Georgia; and of the Reverend Mr. Bolzius, one of their Ministers, giving an Account of their Voyage to and happy Settlement in the Province, published by the Directors of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1734;[855] from Neuste und richtigste Nachricht von der Landschaft Georgia in dem Engelländischen America, etc., von J. M. R., Göttingen, 1746;[856] from De Præstantia Coloniæ Georgico-Anglicanæ præ Coloniis aliis,[857] et seq., by Joannes Augustus Urlspergerus; from the Urlsperger Tracts, which present with wonderful fidelity and minuteness of details all events connected with the Salzburger settlements in America;[858] and from the Salzburgers and their Descendants, being the history of a Colony of German Lutheran Protestants who emigrated to Georgia in 1734, and settled at Ebenezer, twenty-five miles above the City of Savannah, by P. A. Strobel, Baltimore, 1855.[859]

To the Gentleman’s Magazine and to the London Magazine must recourse be had for valuable letters and contemporaneous documents descriptive of the colonization of Georgia and the development of the plantation.

There is in Section xxi. of Chapter iii. of the second volume of Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, or a Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels, etc., by John Harris (London, 1748), a “History of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Colony of Georgia.” It is prefaced by an excellent map of the province, and is fortified by illustrative documents. In its twenty-five quarto pages are embraced all the noted incidents connected with the early life of the colony and the successful efforts of General Oglethorpe in defending the southern frontier of Georgia against the assaults of the Spaniards. The value of this contribution cannot well be overestimated.

Another work of genuine merit, acquainting us specially with the condition of Savannah and the adjacent region, with the settlement of Frederica, and with those preliminary negotiations which resulted in a postponement of impending hostilities between Georgia and Florida, is A Voyage to Georgia begun in the year 1735, etc., by Francis Moore, London, 1744.[860]

A most detailed statement of the affairs and events of the province will be found in the three octavo volumes constituting the diary of Colonel William Stephens, for some time resident Secretary in Georgia of the Trustees, and, upon the departure of General Oglethorpe, advanced to the responsible position of President of the colony,—entitled A Journal of the Proceedings in Georgia beginning October 20th, 1737, which was printed in London in 1742.[861] Of this work but a limited edition was published by the Trustees, and a complete copy is very difficult to find. While its pages are cumbered with many trivial matters, this rare Journal is remarkable for accuracy of statement and minuteness of details. Its author was at the time far advanced in years, and his narrative is not infrequently colored by his peculiar religious and political notions. He was a firm friend of the colony, an honest servant of the Trust, and in all things most obedient and loyal to his king. Retired upon a pension of £80, he spent his last years on his plantation, near the mouth of Vernon River, which he called Bewlie [Beaulieu] because of a fancied resemblance to the manor of the Duke of Montague in the New Forest. There, about the middle of August, 1753, he died.

In the Executive Department of the State of Georgia may be seen the original MS. folio volume containing A general account of all monies and effects received and expended by the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America (June 9, 1732-June 9, 1752), the names of the benefactors, and the sums contributed and the articles given by them in aid of the Trust. This carefully written and unique volume, the entries, charges, and discharges of which are certified by Harman Verelst,—accountant to the Trustees,—exhibits a complete statement of the finances of the Trust from its inception to the time of the surrender of the charter.[862]

The fullest reports of the demonstration of General Oglethorpe against St. Augustine are contained in An Impartial Account of the Expedition against St. Augustine under General Oglethorpe, occasioned by the suppression of the Report made by a Committee of the General Assembly in South Carolina, transmitted under the great seal of that Province to their Agent in England in order to be printed: with an exact Plan of the Town, Castle, and Harbour of St. Augustine and the adjacent Coast of Florida; shewing the Disposition of our Forces on that Enterprize, London, 1741;[863] in The Report of the Committee of both Houses of Assembly of the Province of South Carolina appointed to enquire into the causes of the Disappointment of success in the late Expedition against St. Augustine under command of General Oglethorpe, published by the order of both Houses, Charlestown, S. C., and London, 1743;[864] and in The Spanish Hireling detected, being a Refutation of the Several Calumnies and Falsehoods in a late Pamphlet entitul’d An Impartial Account of the Late Expedition against St. Augustine under General Oglethorpe, by George Cadogan, Lieutenant in General Oglethorpe’s Regiment, etc., London, 1743.[865] Grievous was the disappointment at the failure of the expedition; unjust and harsh were the criticisms upon its leader. “One man there is, my Lords,” said the Duke of Argyle in the British House of Peers, “whose natural generosity, contempt of danger, and regard for the public prompted him to obviate the designs of the Spaniards and to attack them in their own territories: a man whom by long acquaintance I can confidently affirm to have been equal to his undertaking, and to have learned the art of war by a regular education, who yet miscarried in the design only for want of supplies necessary to success.”[866]

Of his successful repulse of the Spanish attack upon the island of St. Simon, the most spirited narratives are furnished in General Oglethorpe’s official report of the 30th of July, 1742, printed in the 3d volume of the Collections of the Georgia Historical Society; in the letter of John Smith (who, on board the war vessel “Success,” participated in the naval engagement), written from Charlestown, South Carolina, on the 14th of July, 1742, and printed in the Daily Advertiser; and in a communication on file in the Public Record Office in London among the Shaftesbury Papers.[867]

That harmony did not always obtain among the Georgia colonists, and that disagreements between the governing and the governed were sometimes most pronounced, must be admitted. While the Trustees endeavored to promote the development of the plantation and to assure the public of the progress of the province, malcontents there were, who thwarted their plans, questioned the expediency of their regulations, and openly declared that their misrule and the partiality of the Trust’s servants were the prolific causes of disquietude and disaster. That General Oglethorpe may, at times, have been dictatorial in his administration of affairs is quite probable; and yet it must be admitted that, amid the dangers which environed and the disturbing influences which beset the development of the province, an iron will and a strong arm were indispensable for its guidance and protection.

The publication, in the interest of the Trust, of the two pamphlets to which we have alluded, one entitled An Impartial Inquiry into the State and Utility of the Province of Georgia, London, 1741,[868] and the other, A State of the Province of Georgia attested upon Oath in the Court of Savannah, November 10, 1740, London, 1742,[869]—both exhibiting favorable views of the condition of the colony and circulated in furtherance of the scheme of colonization,—so irritated these malcontents that they indulged in several rejoinders, among which will be remembered A Brief Account of the Causes that have retarded the Progress of the Colony of Georgia in America, attested upon oath: being a proper Contrast to A State of the Province of Georgia attested upon oath and some other misrepresentations on the same subject, London, 1743.[870] The magistrates, both at Savannah and Frederica, were therein declared to be oppressors of the inhabitants. General Oglethorpe was accused of tyranny and partiality. It will be observed that most of the supporting affidavits were verified outside the limits of Georgia. A desire to sell forbidden articles, and to ply trades for which special licenses had been issued to others; opposition to the regulation which prohibited the owners of cattle and hogs from allowing them to run at large on the common and in the streets of Frederica; alleged misfeasance in the conduct of bailiffs and magistrates in the discharge of their duties; the unprofitableness of labor, overbearing acts committed by those in authority, and similar matters, formed the burthen of these sworn complaints. While they tended to distract the public mind and to annoy those upon whose shoulders rested the provincial government, they fortunately failed in producing any serious impression either within the colony or in the mother country.

Another Jacobinical tract was that prepared and published at the instigation of Dr. Patrick Tailfer,—a thorn in the side of General Oglethorpe, to whom, under the signature of “The Plain Dealer,” he addressed a communication upon colonial affairs full of complaint, condemnation, and sarcasm. He was the chief of a club of malcontents in Savannah, whose conduct became so notorious that they were forced, in September, 1740, to quit the province and seek refuge in South Carolina. When thus beyond the jurisdiction of Georgia, in association with Hugh Anderson, David Douglass, and others, he caused to be printed a scurrilous tract entitled A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia in America from the first Settlement thereof until the present period, etc., Charles-Town, South Carolina, 1741.[871] The epistle dedicatory is addressed to General Oglethorpe, and is full of venom. Craving rum, negro slaves, and fee-simple titles to land, such disaffected colonists hesitated not to malign the authorities, disquiet the settlers, and belie the true condition of affairs. Georgia was then in an embarrassed and impoverished situation. Her population was increasing but slowly. Labor was scarcely remunerative. Onerous were some of the regulations of the Trustees, and the Spanish war cloud was darkening the southern confines of the province. The impression, however, which Dr. Tailfer and his associates sought to convey of the status of the colony was exaggerated, spiteful, and without warrant.[872]

The visit of Tomo-chi-chi and his retinue to England is described in contemporaneous numbers of the Gentleman’s Magazine and of the London Magazine. It was also commemorated in what is now rarely seen, Georgia a Poem; Tomo-cha-chi, an Ode; A copy of verses on Mr. Oglethorpe’s second voyage to Georgia, “Facies non omnibus una, nec diversa tamen,” London, 1736. Twenty-two years afterwards appeared Tombo-chi-qui or The American Savage, a Dramatic Entertainment in Three Acts, London, 1758. Although printed anonymously, it is generally attributed to Cleland. The poet Freneau, at a later date, composed an ode to The Dying Indian Tomo-chequi. In the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. x. p. 129, is an interesting letter describing the last moments and sepulture of this noted Mico. In his Historical Sketch of Tomo-chi-chi, Mico of the Yamacraws, Albany, 1868, the author of these notes endeavored to present all that is known of this distinguished chief, to whose friendship and aid the Colony of Georgia was indebted in a remarkable degree.

It was the custom of the Trustees to assemble annually and listen to a sermon delivered in commendation of the benevolent scheme in which they were engaged. Some of these discourses possess historical value, although most of them are simply moral essays.[873]

In December, 1837, the General Assembly of Georgia empowered the governor of the State to select a competent person to procure from the government offices in London copies of all records and documents respecting the settlement and illustrating the colonial life of Georgia. The Rev. Charles Wallace Howard was entrusted with the execution of this mission. He returned with copies of documents filling twenty-two folio volumes. Fifteen of these were made from the originals on file in the office of the Board of Trade, six from those in the State Paper Office, and the remaining volume consisted of copies of important documents included in the king’s library.[874] These MS. volumes are preserved in the state library at Atlanta. While they embrace many of the communications, regulations, reports, treaties, and documents illustrative of the colonial life of Georgia, they do not exhaust the treasures of the Public Record Office and the British Museum.

In private hands in England are several original MS. volumes, connected with the colonization of Georgia and detailing the acts and resolutions of the Trustees. Prominent among them are two quarto volumes, closely written in the neat, small, round hand of John Percival, the first Earl of Egmont and the first president of the Board of Trustees, containing the original manuscript records of the meetings of the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America from June 14th, 1738, to the 24th of May, 1744.[875] They contain also an index of proceedings, June, 1737, to June, 1738, together with some memoranda relating to the proceedings of 1745-46. It is probable that there were antecedent volumes, but they are not now known.

In the Department of State, and in the Executive Department of Georgia, are some documents of great historical interest connected with the English colonization of Georgia. The Historical Collections of the Georgia Historical Society,[876] in four volumes, contain reprints of many of the early tracts already referred to, and other papers illustrative of Georgia history.[877]

In the library of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, there is a folio MS. in excellent preservation, entitled History of the three Provinces, South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida, by John Gerard William de Brahm, surveyor-general of the southern provinces of North America, then under the dominion of Great Britain, and illustrated by over twenty maps and plans. The portion relating to Georgia was, in 1849, edited and printed with extreme accuracy and typographical elegance by Mr. George Wymberley-Jones, of Savannah. The edition was limited to forty-nine copies. Six of the eight maps appertaining to Georgia were engraved.[878] This publication constitutes the second of Mr. Jones’ “Wormsloe quartos,”[879] and is justly esteemed not only for its typography and rarity, but also for its historical value. To the engineering skill of Captain de Brahm was Georgia indebted for many important surveys and military defenses. Through his instrumentality were large accessions made to the German population between Savannah and New Ebenezer.

Of the legislative acts passed by the general assemblies of Georgia during the continuance of the royal government, many are retained in the digests of Robert and George Watkins (Philadelphia, 1800), and of Marbury and Crawford. Aware of the fact that numerous omissions existed, Mr. George Wymberley-Jones De Renne caused diligent search to be made in the Public Record Office in London for all acts originating in Georgia which, having received royal sanction, were there filed. Exact copies of them were then obtained; but Mr. De Renne’s death occurred before he had compassed his purpose of printing the transcripts. His widow, Mrs. Mary De Renne, carried out his design and committed the editing of them to Charles C. Jones, Jr., LL. D. The result was a superb quarto, entitled Acts passed by the General Assembly of the Colony of Georgia, 1755 to 1774, now first printed. Wormsloe. 1881. The edition was limited to forty-nine copies. In this volume appears no act which had hitherto found its way into type. During the period covered by this legislation, James Johnston was the public printer in Savannah. By him were many of the acts, passed by the various assemblies, first printed,—sometimes simply as broadsides, and again in thin quarto pamphlets. William Ewen, who, at a later date, was president of the Council of Safety, carefully preserved these printed acts, and caused them to be bound in a volume which lies before us. The MS. index is in his handwriting. It is the only complete copy of these colonial laws, printed contemporaneously with their passage, of which we have any knowledge. James Johnston was also the editor and printer of the Georgia Gazette, the only newspaper published in Georgia prior to and during the Revolution. In the office of the Secretary of State in Atlanta are preserved the engrossed original acts passed by the colonial General Assemblies of Georgia. The sanction of the home government was requisite to impart vitality to such acts. As soon, therefore, as they had received the approval of the Governor in Council, the seal of the colony was attached to duplicate originals. One was lodged with the proper officer in Savannah, and the other was forwarded for the consideration of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. When by them approved, this duplicate original, properly indorsed, was filed in London. Detaching the colonial seal seems to have been the final attestation of royal sanction. Of the action of the home government the colonial authorities were notified in due course.

With regard to the sojourn of Rev. John Wesley in Georgia, of his designs and anticipations in visiting the colony, and of the disappointments there experienced, we have perhaps the fullest memoranda in a little undated volume entitled An extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal from his embarking for Georgia to his return to London, Bristol; printed by S. and F. Farley. It gives his own interpretation of the events, trials, and disappointments which induced him so speedily to abandon a field of labor in which he had anticipated much pleasure and success.[880] In a tract published in London in 1741, called An Account of money received and disbursed for the Orphan House in Georgia, the Rev. George Whitefield submits a full exhibit of all expenditures made up to that time in the erection and support of that institution. To it is prefixed a plan of the building.[881] His efforts to convert it into a college are unfolded in A Letter to his Excellency Governor Wright, printed in London, 1768. Appended to this is the correspondence which passed between him and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This tract is illustrated by plans and elevations of the present and intended structures, and by a plat of the Orphan House lands. There are sermons of this eloquent divine in aid of this charity, and journals of journeys and voyages undertaken while employed in soliciting subscriptions. His friend and companion, the Hon. James Habersham, has left valuable letters explanatory of the scope and administration of this eleemosynary project. William Bartram, who visited Bethesda in 1765, wrote a pleasant description of it.[882]

Among the histories of Georgia we may mention:—

An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, London, 1779,[883] in two volumes, octavo. Although published anonymously, these volumes are known to have been written by the Rev. Alexander Hewitt,[884] a Presbyterian clergyman and a resident of Charlestown, South Carolina, who returned to England when he perceived that an open rupture between the Crown and the thirteen American Colonies was imminent. While in this work the colonial history of Georgia is given at some length, the attention of the author was mainly occupied with the establishment and growth of the Province of Carolina. His labors ended with the dawn of the Revolution.

To A View of the Constitution of the British Colonies in North America and the West Indies at the time the Civil War broke out on the Continent of America, by Anthony Stokes, his Majesty’s Chief Justice in Georgia, London, 1783, we must refer for the most intelligent history of the civil and judicial conduct of affairs in Georgia during the continuance of the royal government.

Soon after the formation of the general government Mr. Edward Langworthy—at first a pupil and then a teacher at Whitefield’s Orphan House, afterwards an enthusiastic “Liberty Boy,” Secretary of the Provincial Congress of Georgia, and one of the early representatives from that State in the Confederated Congress—conceived the design of writing a history of Georgia. Of fair attainments, and personally acquainted with the leading men and transactions of the period, he was well qualified for the task, and addressed himself with energy to the collection of materials requisite for the undertaking. From a published prospectus of the work, printed in the Georgia Gazette, we are led to believe that this history was actually written. Suitable encouragement not having been extended, the contemplated publication was never made. Mr. Langworthy died at Elkton, in Maryland, early in the present century, and all efforts to recover both his manuscripts and the supporting documents which he had amassed have thus far failed.

From the press of Seymour and Williams, of Savannah, was issued, in 1811, the first volume of Major Hugh McCall’s History of Georgia,[885] and this was followed, in 1816, by the second volume published by William Thorne Williams. Oppressed by physical infirmities, and a martyr to the effects of exposures and dangers experienced while an officer in the army of the Revolution; now confined to his couch, again a helpless cripple moving only in an easy-chair upon wheels; dependent for a livelihood upon the slender salary paid to him as city jailer of Savannah; often interrupted in his labors, and then, during intervals of pain, writing with his portfolio resting upon his knees; without the preliminary education requisite for the scholarly accomplishment of such a serious undertaking, and yet fired with patriotic zeal, and anxious to wrest from impending oblivion the fading traditions of the State he loved so well, and whose independence he had imperilled everything to secure,—Major McCall, in the end, compassed a narrative which is highly prized, and which, in its recital of events connected with the Revolutionary period and the part borne by Georgians in that memorable struggle, is invaluable. He borrowed largely from Mr. Hewitt in depicting the colonial life of Georgia.[886]

As early as March, 1841, the Georgia Historical Society invited Dr. William Bacon Stevens to undertake, under its auspices, the preparation of a new and complete History of Georgia. Liberal aid was extended to him in his labor, and of its two octavo volumes, one was published in 1847 and the other in 1859.[887] This author brings his history down to the adoption of the constitution of 1798.

In 1849 the Rev. George White published in Savannah his Statistics of the State of Georgia, and this was followed, six years afterwards, by his more comprehensive and valuable work entitled the Historical Collections of Georgia, illustrated with nearly one hundred engravings, and published by Pudney and Russell, of New York. In this volume a vast mass of statistical, documentary, and traditional information is presented; and for his industry the author is entitled to much commendation.

The History of Georgia, by T. S. Arthur and W. H. Carpenter, published in Philadelphia in 1854, and constituting one of Lippincott’s cabinet histories, is a meagre compendium of some of the leading events in the life of the Colony and State, and does not claim special attention.

In his History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi (Charleston, S. C., 1851) Colonel Albert James Pickett furnishes abundant and interesting material illustrative of the aboriginal epoch; and, in a manner both intelligent and attractive, traces the colonization of the territory indicated down to the year 1820.[888]

The present writer has already printed [1883] the first two volumes of History of Georgia; and his preface unfolds his purpose to tell the story from the earliest times down to a period within the memory of the living. The two volumes thus far issued embrace the aboriginal epoch, a narrative of discovery and early exploration, schemes of colonization, the settlement under Oglethorpe, and the life of the province under the guidance of the Trustees, under the control of the President and Assistants, under the supervision of royal governors, and during the Revolutionary War. They conclude with the erection of Georgia into an independent State. All available sources of information have been utilized. The two concluding volumes, which will deal with Georgia as a Commonwealth, are in course of preparation.

We refrain from an enumeration of gazetteers, historical essays, and publications, partial in their character, which relate to events subsequent to what may be properly termed the period of colonization.

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