appointed [December 21, 1719] Colonel Moore' governor of the colony. The matter was laid before the imperial government, when the colonists were sustained, and South Carolina became a royal province.'

a

The people of North Carolina' also resolved on a change of government; and after a continued controversy for ten years, the proprietors, in 1729, sold to the king, for about eighty thousand dollars, all their claims to the soil and incomes in both provinces. North and South Carolina were then separated. George Burrington was appointed the first royal governor over the former, and Robert Johnson over the latter. From that period until the commencement of the French and Indian war, the general history of the CAROLINAS presents but few features of interest, except the efforts made for defending the colony against the Spaniards and the Indians. The people gained very little by a change of owners; and during forty-five years, until the revolution made the people independent, there was a succession of disputes with the royal governors.

4

CHAPTER X.

GEORGIA. [1732]

THE colony founded by Oglethorpe on the Savannah River rapidly increased in numbers, and within eight years, twenty-five hundred immigrants were sent over, at an expense to the trustees' of four hundred thousand dollars. Yet prosperity did not bless the enterprise. Many of the settlers were unaccustomed to habits of industry, and were mere drones; and as the use of slave labor was prohibited, tillage was neglected. Even the industrious Scotch, German, and Swiss families who came over previous to 1740, could not give that vitality to industrial pursuits, which was necessary to a development of the resources of the country. Anxious for the permanent growth of the colony, Oglethorpe went to England in 1734, and returned in 1736, with about three hundred immigrants. Among them were one hundred and fifty Highlanders, well skilled in military affairs. These constituted the first army of the colony during its early struggles. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist denomination, also came with Oglethorpe, to make Georgia a religious colony, and to spread the gospel among the Indians. He was unsuccessful; for his strict moral doctrines, his fearless denunciations of vice, and his rigid exercise of ecclesiastical authority made him quite unpopular among the great mass of the colonists, who winced at restraint. The eminent George Whitefield also visited Georgia in 1738, when only twenty-three years of age, and succeeded in establishing an orphan asylum near Savannah, which flourished many years, and

1 Note 7, page 168.

The first governor, by royal appointment, was Francis Nicholson, who had been successively governor of New York [page 144], Maryland, Virginia, and Nova Scotia. ' Page 167.

⚫ Page 179.

Page 100.

was a real blessing. The Christian efforts of those men, prosecuted with the most sincere desire for the good of their fellow-mortals, were not appreciated. Their seed fell upon stony ground, and after the death of Whitefield, in 1770, his "House of Mercy" in Georgia, deprived of his sustaining influence, became a desolation.

A cloud of trouble appeared in the Southern horizon. The rapid increase of the new colony excited the jealousy of the Spaniards at St. Augustine, and the vigilant Oglethorpe, expecting such a result, prepared to oppose any hostile movements against his settlement. He established a fort on the site of Augusta, as a defence against the Indians, and he erected fortifications at Darien, on Cumberland Island, at Frederica (St. Simon's Island), and on the north bank of the St. John, the southern boundary of the English claims. Spanish commissioners came from St. Augustine to protest against these preparations, and to demand the immediate evacuation of the whole of Georgia, and of all South Carolina below Port Royal.' Oglethorpe, of course, refused compliance, and the Spaniards threatened him with war. In the winter of 1736-7, Oglethorpe went to England to make preparations to meet the exigency. He returned in October following, bearing the commission of a brigadier, and leading a regiment of six hundred well-disciplined troops, for the defense of the whole southern frontier of the English possessions. But for two years their services were not much needed; then war broke out between England and Spain [November, 1739], and Oglethorpe prepared an expedition against St. Augustine. In May, 1740, he entered Florida with four hundred of his best troops, some volunteers from South Carolina, and a large body of friendly Creek Indians; in all more than two thousand men. His first conquest was Fort Diego, twenty miles from St. Augustine. Then Fort Moosa, within two miles of the city, surrendered; but when he appeared before the town and fortress, and demanded instant submission, he was answered by a defiant refusal. A small fleet under Captain Price blockaded the harbor, and for a time cut off supplies from the Spaniards, but swift-winged galleys' passed through the blockading fleet, and supplied the garrison with several weeks' provisions. Oglethorpe had no artillery with which to attack the fortress, and being warned by the increasing heats of summer, and sickness in his camp, not to wait for their supplies to become exhausted, he raised the siege and returned to Savannah.

The ire of the Spaniards was aroused, and they, in turn, prepared to invade Georgia in the summer of 1742. An armament, fitted out at Havana and St. Augustine, and consisting of thirty-six vessels, with more than three thousand troops, entered the harbor of St. Simon's, and landed a little above the town of the same name, on the 16th of July, 1742, and erected a battery of twenty guns. Oglethorpe had been apprised of the intentions of the Spaniards, and

1 Note 5, page 166.

"His commission gave him the command of the militia of South Carolina also, and he stood as a guard between the English and Spanish possessions of the southern country. Page 30.

A low built vessel propelled by both sails and oars. The war vessels of the ancients were all galleys. See Norman vessel, page 35.

after unsuccessfully applying to the governor of South Carolina for troops and supplies, he marched to St. Simon's, and made his head-quarters at his princifortress at Frederica.' He was at Fort Simon, near the landing place of the invaders, with less than eight hundred men, exclusive of Indians, when the enemy appeared. He immediately spiked the guns of the fort, destroyed his stores, and retreated to Frederica. There he anxiously awaited hoped-for reinforcements and supplies from Carolina, and then he successfully repulsed several detachments of the Spaniards, who attacked him. He finally resolved to make a night assault upon the enemy's battery, at St. Simon's. A deserter (a French soldier) defeated his plan; but the sagacity of Oglethorpe caused the miscreant to be instrumental in driving the invaders from the coast. He bribed a Spanish prisoner to carry a letter to the deserter, which contained information respecting a British fleet that was about to attack St. Augustine. Of course the letter was handed to the Spanish commander, and the Frenchman was arrested as a spy. The intelligence in Oglethorpe's letter alarmed the enemy; and while the officers were holding a council, some Carolina vessels, with supplies for the garrison at Frederica, appeared in the distance. Believing them to be part of the British fleet alluded to, the Spaniards determined to attack the Georgians immediately, and then hasten to St. Augustine. On their march to assail Frederica, they were ambuscaded in a swamp. Great slaughter of the invaders ensued, and the place is still called Bloody Marsh. The survivors retreated in confusion to their vessels, and sailed immediately to St. Augustine." On their way, they attacked the English fort at the southern extremity of Cumberland Island, on the 19th of July, but were repulsed with the loss of two galleys. The whole expedition was so disastrous to the Spaniards, that the commander (Don Manuel de Monteano) was dismissed from the service. Oglethorpe's stratagem saved Georgia, and, perhaps, South Carolina, from utter

ruin.

Having fairly established his colony, Oglethorpe went to England in 1743, and never returned to Georgia, where, for ten years, he had nobly labored to secure an attractive asylum for the oppressed. He left the province in a tranquil state. The mild military rule under which the people had lived, was changed to civil government in 1743, administered by a president and council, under the direction of the trustees, yet the colony continued to languish. Several causes combined to produce this condition. We have already alluded to the inefficiency of most of the earlier settlers, and the prohibition of slave labor. They were also deprived of the privileges of commerce and of traffic

6

The remains of Fort Frederica yet [1856] form a very picturesque ruin on the plantation of W. W. Hazzard, Esq., of St. Simon's Island.

2 Oglethorpe addressed the Frenchman as if he was a spy of the English. He directed the deserter to represent the Georgians as in a weak condition, to advise the Spaniards to attack them immediately, and to persuade the Spaniards to remain three days longer, within which time six British men-of-war, and two thousand men, from Carolina, would probably enter the harbor of St. Augustine.

They first burned Fort Simon, but in their haste they left several of their cannons and a quantity of provisions behind them.

Fort William. There was another small fort on the northern end of the island. called Fort Andrew.

Page 100.

6

Page 100.

7 Page 171.

with the Indians; and were not allowed the ownership, in fee, of the lands which they cultivated.' In consequence of these restrictions, there were no incentives to labor, except to supply daily wants. General discontent prevailed. They saw the Carolinians growing rich by the use of slaves, and by commerce with the West Indies. Gradually the restrictive laws were evaded. Slaves were brought from Carolina, and hired, first for a short period, and then for a hundred years, or for life. The price paid for life-service was the money value of the slave, and the transaction was, practically, a sale and purchase. Then slave-ships came to Savannah directly from Africa; slave labor was generally used in 1750, and Georgia became a planting State. In 1752, at the expiration of the twenty-one years named in the patent,' the trustees gladly resigned the charter into the hands of the king, and from that time until the Revolution, Georgia remained a royal province.

CHAPTER XI.

A RETROSPECT. [1492—1756.]

In the preceding pages we have considered the principal events which occurred within the domain of our Republic from the time of first discoveries, in 1492, to the commencement of the last inter-colonial war between the English and French settlers, a period of about two hundred and sixty years. During that time, fifteen colonies were planted,' thirteen of which were commenced within the space of about fifty-six years-from 1607 to 1673. By the union of Plymouth and Massachusetts, and Connecticut and New Haven, the number of colonies was reduced to thirteen, and these were they which went into the revolutionary contest in 1775. The provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia, conquered by the English, remained loyal, and to this day they continue to be portions of the British empire.

4

In the establishment of the several colonies, which eventually formed the thirteen United States of America, several European nations contributed vigorous materials; and people of opposite habits, tastes, and religious faith, became commingled, after making impressions of their distinctive characters where their influence was first felt. England furnished the largest proportion of colonists, and her children always maintained sway in the government and industry of the whole country; while Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Holland, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the Baltic region, contributed large quotas of people and other colonial instrumentalities. Churchmen and Dissenters, Roman Catholics and

1 Page 116.

2 Page 100. New Haven, Rhode

Virginia, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. Page 89.

4

Page 132.

Note 2, page 76.

Quakers,' came and sat down by the side of each other. For a while, the dissonance of nations and creeds prevented entire harmony; but the freedom enjoyed, the perils and hardships encountered and endured, the conflicts with pagan savages on one hand, and of hierarchical' and governmental oppression on the other, which they maintained for generations, shoulder to shoulder, diffused a brotherhood of feeling throughout the whole social body of the colonists, and resulted in harmony, sympathy, and love. And when, as children of one family, they loyally defended the integrity of Great Britain (then become the “mother country” of nearly all) against the aggressions of the French and Indians' [1756 to 1763], and yet were compelled, by the unkindness of that mother, to sever the filial bond' [1776], their hearts beat as with one pulsation, and they struck the dismembering blow as with one hand.

There was a great diversity of character exhibited by the people of the several colonies, differing according to their origin and the influence of climate and pursuits. The Virginians and their southern neighbors, enjoying a mild climate, productive of tendencies to voluptuousness and ease, were from those classes of English society where a lack of rigid moral discipline allowed free living and its attendant vices. They generally exhibited less moral restraint, more hospitality, and greater frankness, and social refinement, than the people of New England. The latter were from among the middle classes, and included a great many religious enthusiasts, possessing more zeal than knowledge. They were extremely strict in their notions; very rigid in manners, and jealous of strangers. Their early legislation, recognizing, as it did, the most minute regulations of social life, often presented food for merriment." Yet their intentions were pure; their designs were noble; and, in a great degree, their virtuous purposes were accomplished. They aimed to make every member of society a Christian, according to their own pattern; and if they did not fully accomplish their object, they erected strong bulwarks against those

2

1 Note 6, page 122, and note 3, page 123.

Hierarchy is, in a general sense, a priestly or ecclesiastical government. Such was the original form of government of the ancient Jews, when the priesthood held absolute rule.

6

Period IV., chapter xii., page 179.

4 Page 251. They assumed the right to regulate the expenditures of the people, even for wearing-apparel, according to their several incomes. The general court of Massachusetts, on one occasiou, required the proper officers to notice the "apparel" of the people, especially their "ribands and great boots." Drinking of healths, wearing funeral badges, and many other things that seemed improper, were forbidden. At Hartford, the general court kept a constant eye upon the morals of the people. Freemen were compelled to vote under penalty of a fine of sixpence; the use of tobacco was prohibited to persons under twenty years of age, without the certificate of a physician; and no others were allowed to use it more than once a day, and then they must be ten miles from any house. The people of Hartford were all obliged to rise in the morning when the watchman rang his bell. These are but a few of the hundreds of similar enactments found on the records of the New England courts. In 1646, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed a law, which imposed the penalty of a flogging upon any one who should kiss a woman in the streets. More than a hundred years afterward, this law was enforced in Boston. The captain of a British man-of-war happened to return from a cruise, on Sunday. His overjoyed wife met him on the wharf, and he kissed her several times. The magistrates ordered him to be flogged. The punishment incurred no ignominy, and he associated freely with the best citizens. When about to depart, the captain invited the magistrates and others on board his vessel, to dine. When dinner was over, he caused all the magistrates to be flogged, on deck, in sight of the town. Then assuring them that he considered accounts settled between him and them, he dismissed them, and set sail.