Mr. Garden's sixth letter is dated July 30, 1740, and chiefly relates to Whitefield's printed attack on the slave-owners of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Mr. Garden declares "the generality of owners use their slaves with all due humanity." He thinks the owners, in their respective colonies, may prosecute Whitefield for slander. He then retorts on Whitefield as follows:—
"I have heard the report of your cruelty to the poor orphans under your care, not only in pinching their bellies, but in giving them up to taskmasters or mistresses, who plow upon their backs, and make long furrows there, in a very inhuman manner; but would you think it fair and honest in me, if, on such hearsay or report, I should print and publish a letter directed to you, pretending a necessity of informing you that God had a quarrel with you, for your cruelty to the poor orphans?"
All this priestly vituperation, on both sides, is greatly to be lamented. It degraded ministerial character; it injured the cause of Christian truth; it afforded sport to unconverted men. Whitefield's attack on the clergy in general, and on Tillotson in particular, was, to say the least, unwise; and Commissary Garden's replies were unworthy of his character as a gentleman and Christian minister. Mr. Garden, unfortunately, will turn up again; but, for the present, he must be dismissed, that attention may be given to another of young Whitefield's troubles.
As already stated, on February 4, Whitefield, by appointment, met the magistrates of Savannah for the purpose of hearing the Recorder read the document by which the Trustees of Georgia made Whitefield a grant of five hundred acres of land. One of the magnates present was Mr. Parker, who was maintaining two orphan boys of the name of Tondee, the elder being a well-grown lad of fifteen or sixteen years. Whitefield claimed the boys for his Orphanage. Parker objected to part with the older boy, on the ground that, having maintained him during his childhood, it would be unfair to take him away now, when he was capable of working for his living. No doubt, Mr. Parker had reason on his side; but Whitefield replied, "The boy is much fitter for my purpose than for yours, as he can be employed for the benefit of the other orphans." Parker lost his temper; but Whitefield took away the boys.
Another case, even more daring and high-handed than this, occurred about the same time. A man of the name of Mellidge, one of the first forty freeholders of Savannah, died, and left several young children, towards whom General Oglethorpe shewed particular favour. After a few years, the eldest boy, proving himself to be intelligent and industrious, was employed by the General in planting; and the eldest girl having become capable of taking care of the younger children, the whole nest of orphans, in the spring of 1740, found a home in the house of their elder brother John. On arriving in Georgia, Whitefield very improperly took possession of all the younger Mellidges, and removed them to his Orphanage. John, their natural protector, complained to Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe, who was then at Frederica, knowing that the family was now no public incumbrance, wrote the following sensible letter on the subject:—
"I have inspected the grant relating to the Orphan House. Mr. Seward said that the trustees had granted the orphans to Mr. Whitefield; but I shewed him that it could not be in the sense he at first seemed to understand it. The trustees have granted the care of the helpless orphans to Mr. Whitefield, and have given him five hundred acres of land, and a power of collecting charities, as a consideration for maintaining all the orphans who are in necessity in this province; and thereby the trustees think themselves discharged from the maintaining of any. But, at the same time, the trustees have not given, as I see, any power to Mr. Whitefield to receive the effects of the orphans, much less to take by force any orphans who can maintain themselves, or whom any other substantial person will maintain. The trustees, in this, act according to the law of England:—In case orphans are left destitute, they become the charge of the parish, and the parish may put them out to be taken care of; but if any person will maintain them, so that they are not chargeable to the parish, then the parish doth not meddle with them."
Backed by the General's opinion, John Mellidge waited upon Whitefield, and requested him to permit his brothers and sisters to return to the home he himself had provided for them. Whitefield replied, "Your brothers and sisters are at their proper home already. I know no other home they have to go to. Give my service to the General, and tell him so." Oglethorpe was not a man to be trifled with by a young clergyman; and hence, on hearing young Mellidge's report, he peremptorily ordered Mr. Jones, a functionary of Savannah, to remove the children from Whitefield's Orphanage; and Jones, during Whitefield's absence, obeyed the order. Whitefield was angry, and threatened to appeal to the trustees; but the Mellidges prospered, and, after the expiration of the trustees' charter, John Mellidge, the valiant protector of the little orphans, became the representative of Savannah in the first General Assembly of Georgia.[322]
It is impossible to justify Whitefield in proceedings like these; and, certainly, they brought upon him anxiety and trouble, which, though deserved, he need never have experienced.