OGLETHORPE IN GEORGIA. 141 pounds. He was hindered from carrying out the bargain by apoplectic strokes, and though he lived six years longer, he was always afflicted with mental weakness, and at times was unable to move. His character has been attacked by Macaulay and others, but it is doubtful if the accusations against him are true. Though Macaulay persisted in them, they seem to have been disproved. As late as 1733, the extensive territory now known as Georgia, was a wilderness. The proprietors of Carolina had in 1729 given up their claims to the Crown, and in 1732, the country between the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, and westward to the Pacific, was granted, "in trust for the poor," to twenty-one "trustees, for founding the colony of Georgia," the most distinguished of them being James Edward Oglethorpe, the philanthropist, who became Governor of the colony that was planted. The motto on the seal chosen by the trustees was Non sibi, sed aliis (not for himself, but for others), and it well betokened the intentions of the benevolent trustees, who wished to found a colony which should be an asylum for the destitute and forlorn. In November, 1732, Oglethorpe accompanied a party of one hundred and twenty persons to the New World. He landed at Charleston, in January, 1733, and selected the site of Savannah for the plantation. Kindly relations were established with the Indians; lands were bought of them, and the city was laid out with regularity, considerable portions being reserved as public squares. The sympathies of the charitable at home were readily given to the enterprise. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts interested itself in Georgia, and aided some persecuted Protestants to go thither from Salzburg (Austria), giving them free passage, lands, provisions for an entire season, and religious freedom. Their settlement was made on Ebenezer River (Effingham County), which was then named. The same year Augusta was laid out, and soon became a place of important trade with the Indians. Georgia was established as a refuge for the distressed, and it was the only colony in which negro slavery was forbidden. Oglethorpe esteemed slavery as against the fundamental law of England. In 1744, Oglethorpe returned to England, where he gained much favor for his colony, and was able to bring back with him, in 1736, a company of three hundred emigrants, among whom were John and Charles Wesley, and some Moravians, and the next year, George Whitefield began his American career by visiting Georgia, where he established an Orphan House Presbyterian Scotchmen came also, and the colony prospered. The prosperity did not continue, however. When war broke out between Spain and England, in 1739, Oglethorpe was made commander of the troops of South Carolina and Georgia, and marched with a thousand men and some Indian allies to invade Florida. The expedition was unsuccessful. In 1742 the Spaniards retaliated, and appeared at the mouth of the Altamaha with a fleet of thirty-six ships and three thousand men. They took several forts, but were, by a ruse of Oglethorpe, alarmed, and returned to Florida. Other sources of disquiet remained. The proprietors were not as capable as they were benevolent. They established feudal entails, and made GEORGIA A ROYAL PROVINCE. 143 laws in London that were odious to those on the soil, and industry lost heart. In 1751 the trustees determined to surrender their charter to the Crown, and in 1754, the first royal governor entered upon office. The colony then had the same privileges as to lands, trade and negro slaves, that were enjoyed by the other colonies. CHAPTER VIII. COLONIAL LIFE AND CUSTOMS. over seas. THE INGLESIDE. think of the lives of our forefathers in the colonial period, to compare them with life at our own time; but we should rather strive to realize the state of society that they left when they came It would be a sacrifice for most persons, at this period, to go back to the style of living of the time of Elizabeth, and it was but four years after her death that the settlement was made at Jamestown. Doubtless the early pioneers enjoyed their immunity. from many of the discomforts of home life. The pauper class and the rogues were very numerous in England at that time, and even in London one's purse was scarcely safe, if life was, so little were the rogues awed by the constant executions for theft. There |