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.