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.