(Georgia, 1732)

I

There was a man in England in the first half of the eighteenth century who became so impressed by the misfortunes of men thrown into prison for debt that he resolved to do what he could to help them. The man was James Oglethorpe, and the result of his resolve was the founding of the colony of Georgia, which in time became one of the original thirteen colonies of the United States.

To owe money was regarded as a most serious crime in England in those days, at least four thousand men were sent to prison every year for inability to pay their debts, and many of these debtors spent their lives in jail, since it was next to impossible for them to secure any money while they were imprisoned. The prisons, moreover, were vile dens of pestilence, where smallpox often raged, jailers treated their prisoners barbarously, and the man who had stolen a few shillings was kept in the same pen with the worst of pirates and murderers. A man named Castell, an architect and writer, was arrested for debt, and thrown into a prison where smallpox was rife. In spite of his protests he was kept there, and caught the disease and died. James Oglethorpe knew Castell, and the story of the architect's imprisonment roused Oglethorpe to action in aid of others who might be similarly treated.

Oglethorpe was a man of influence in England. He had studied at Oxford, served in the army, and was a member of Parliament. He had a committee appointed to investigate the prisons, and, acting as its chairman, he unearthed so many cases of barbarities and showed that so many of the jailers were inhuman wretches that Parliament interfered and righted at least a few of the most crying wrongs. But his plans went farther than that; he wanted to give men who had the misfortune to be in debt a chance to start new lives, not simply to stay in jail with no chance to better their condition, and to this end he looked across the ocean to the great, unsettled continent of America, and planned his new home for debtors there.

Oglethorpe succeeded in interesting some of the most prominent men of England in his plan, and on June 9, 1732, King George II granted them a charter for a province to be called Georgia, which was to consist of the country between the Savannah and the Altamaha Rivers and to extend from the headsprings of these rivers due west to the Pacific Ocean. The seal of the patrons of the new province bore on one side a group of silkworms at work, with the motto, "Non sibi, sed aliis,"—"Not for themselves, but for others,"—showing the purpose of the patrons, who had agreed not to accept any grant of lands or profit from them for themselves. On the other side of the seal were two figures representing the boundary rivers, and between them a figure of Georgia, a liberty cap on her head, a spear in one hand, a horn of plenty in the other. Some of the patrons were content with the lofty ideals expressed in the seal and the charter, but James Oglethorpe meant to see the noble project carried out.

With a commission to act as Colonial Governor of Georgia, Oglethorpe sailed with about one hundred and twenty emigrants for America in November, 1732. In fifty-seven days he reached the bar outside Charleston. There the colonists of South Carolina welcomed the new arrivals warmly, for they were glad to have a province to their south to shield them from their Spanish enemies. The governor ordered his pilot to conduct the ship to Port Royal, some eighty miles to the south, from whence the emigrants were to go in small boats to the Savannah River. Oglethorpe meanwhile went to the town of Beaufort and then sailed up the Savannah to choose a promising site for his new town. The high cliff known as Yamacraw Bluff caught his eye, and he chose for his site that high land on which the city of Savannah stands.

Half a mile away dwelt the Indian tribe of the Yamacraws, and their chief, Tomochichi, sought the white leader and made gifts to him. One gift was a buffalo skin, painted on the inside with the head and feathers of an eagle. "Here is a little present," said the chief, offering the skin. "The feathers of the eagle are soft, and signify love; the buffalo skin is warm, and is the emblem of protection. Therefore love and protect our little families." We may be sure that Oglethorpe promised to live in friendship with them.

On February 12th the colonists reached their new home, and camped on the edge of the river, glad to escape from their long stay on shipboard. Four tents were set up, and men cut trees to provide bowers for their immediate needs. Four pines sheltered the tent of Oglethorpe, and here he lived for a year, while men laid out streets and built houses and his city of Savannah began to take shape.

Much good counsel the leader gave his people in those first days, warning them often against the drinking of rum, which would not only harm themselves, but would corrupt their Indian neighbors. "It is my hope," said he, "that, through your good example, the settlement of Georgia may prove a blessing and not a curse to the native inhabitants."

It was a lovely country, and the emigrants, harassed by debts and misfortunes in Europe, were delighted with the groves of live-oak, bay, cypress, sweet-gum, and myrtle, and the many flowers that grew profusely in the wilderness. While they worked gladly in their new fields Oglethorpe, knowing their security depended in part on their neighbors, did his best to make friends of the red men. He invited the chiefs of the Muskohgees to make an alliance with him, and they came down the river and through the woods to his tent. Long King, chief of the Oconas, spoke for the others. "The Great Spirit, who dwells everywhere around, and gives breath to all men," said he, "sends the English to instruct us." He bade the strangers welcome to the land that his tribe did not use, and as token of friendship, laid eight bundles of buckskins at Oglethorpe's feet. "Tomochichi," he said, "though banished from his nation, has yet been a great warrior; and, for his wisdom and courage, the exiles chose him their king." Then Tomochichi expressed his friendship for the white men. The chief of Coweta rose and said, "We are come twenty-five days' journey to see you. I was never willing to go down to Charleston, lest I should die on the way; but when I heard you were come, and that you are good men, I came down, that I might hear good things." A treaty of peace was then signed, by which the English claimed title over the land of the Creeks as far as the St. Johns River, and the chiefs departed with many presents.

Later a Cherokee came to the settlement. "Fear nothing," said Oglethorpe, "but speak freely." The red man from the mountains answered proudly, "I always speak freely. Why should I fear? I am now among friends; I never feared even among my enemies." Friends were then made of the Cherokees.

In July Red Shoes, a Choctaw chief, arrived to make a treaty. "We came a great way," said he, "and we are a great nation. The French are building forts about us, against our liking. We have long traded with them, but they are poor in goods; we desire that a trade may be opened between us and you."

Other people than the poor debtors of England soon came to the province. The Archbishop of Salzburg by his cruel persecutions drove scores of Lutherans from his country, and many of these prepared to cross the ocean to the new settlement on the Savannah River. They traveled from their Salzburg home through part of Germany, past cities that were closed against them, through country districts where they were made welcome. From Rotterdam they sailed to Dover, and from there set forth in January, 1734, for their new home in the land across the Atlantic. The sea was a strange experience to the Lutheran families of Salzburg; when it was calm they delighted in its beauty, when it was swept by storms they prayed and sang the songs of their faith. They reached the port of Charleston on March 18, 1734, and Oglethorpe welcomed them there, not forgetting to have supplies of fresh provisions and vegetables from his Georgia gardens for the people who had been so long without them.

A few days later the colonists from Salzburg sailed up the Savannah River and were met by the earlier colonists. A feast of welcome had been prepared. Then Governor Oglethorpe gave the strangers permission to select their home in any part of the province. The country was most of it still an untraversed wilderness, and so Oglethorpe supplied horses and traveled with his new colonists. With the aid of Indian guides they made their way through morasses, they camped at night around fires in the primeval forest. At last they reached a green valley, watered by several brooks, and this they chose for their settlement and named it Ebenezer in thankfulness to their God for having brought them safely through great dangers into a land of rest. Oglethorpe had his own carpenters help them build their houses and aided them in planning their new town.

That the land about Ebenezer was very fruitful is shown by a letter written by the pastor of the Lutheran colonists. Said he, "Some time ago I wrote to an honored friend in Europe that the land in this country, if well managed and labored, brings forth by the blessing of God not only one hundredfold, but one thousandfold, and I this day was confirmed therein. A woman having two years ago picked out of Indian corn no more than three grains of rye, and planting them at Ebenezer, one of the grains produced an hundred and seventy stalks and ears, and the three grains yielded to her a bag of corn as large as a coat pocket—the grains whereof were good and full grown, and she desired me to send part of them to a kind benefactor in Europe."

His colony now well started, Oglethorpe sailed back to England in April, 1734, taking with him the Indian Tomochichi and several other chiefs, in order that they might see the country from which so many of their new neighbors were coming, and also that his English friends might learn how friendly the Indians were to the settlers. He was received in London with expressions of the highest praise. His experiment in founding a colony for poor debtors and for those persecuted for their religion was declared to be a wonderful success. Missionaries volunteered to go to Georgia to work among the Indians. One of the rules of the province forbade the importing of slaves into its borders, and this was regarded in England with the greatest favor. Yet a little later people in Savannah were petitioning the trustees of the province to allow them to have slaves, and many an influential man in England argued in favor of the slave-trade.

To such an attractive colony many new colonists went. A company of one hundred and thirty Scotchmen with their families sailed for Savannah, and settled on the shore of the Altamaha, founding the town of New Inverness, a name afterward changed to Darien. A small band of Moravians was led across the Atlantic by their pastor to the new province, and this youngest of the English colonies quickly gave promise of becoming one of the most prosperous.

Oglethorpe wanted still more colonists, and at length succeeded in embarking three hundred persons on three ships in December, 1735. On February 4th the cry of land was heard from the lookout, and two days later the fleet anchored near Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savannah River. Landing, Oglethorpe gave thanks for their safe arrival, and showing them how to dig a well and make other arrangements for their comfort he went on by small-boat to Savannah, where the colonists saluted him with twenty-one guns from the fort.

Three years before the land beside the river had been a wilderness. Oglethorpe now found a town of two hundred dwellings, with beautiful public gardens, and every sign of prosperous industry. The gardens especially pleased the governor; on the colder side were planted apples, pears, and plums, while to the south were olives, figs, pomegranates, and many kinds of vines. There were also coffee and cotton, and a large space planted with white mulberry trees, making a nursery from which the people were to be supplied in their culture of silkworms.

The governor went back to see the new colonists at Tybee, and when he found that some disgruntled traders had been making trouble by spreading reports that all settlers who went south would be massacred by Spaniards and Indians, he assured them that such stories were altogether false. The Spaniards were at peace with them, and they had treaties of alliance with the Indians. He wanted, however, to make the outlying settlements as secure as he could, and so sent fifty rangers and one hundred workmen under Captain McPherson to help the Scotch at Darien, had men inspect the country with a view to opening a highroad, and supplied them with Indian guides and plenty of packhorses for their provisions.

While Oglethorpe was at Tybee the Indian chief Tomochichi, with his wife and nephew, came to visit the ships there. The chief brought presents of venison, honey, and milk. When he was introduced to the missionaries who had come with the latest colonists, Tomochichi said, "I am glad you are come. When I was in England I desired that some one would speak the great Word to me. I will go up and speak to the wise men of our nation, and I hope they will hear. But we would not be made Christians as these Spaniards make Christians; we would be taught before we are baptized." The chief's wife then gave the missionaries two large jars, one of honey and one of milk, and invited them to go to Yamacraw to teach the children, saying the milk represented food for the children and the honey their good wishes.

He now wanted to transport the new settlers to their homes as soon as possible; but the mates of the English ships were afraid to risk navigating Jekyll Sound. So Oglethorpe bought one of the sloops, put thirty old colonists, well armed, on board, and told them to sail to St. Simons. He himself, with a white crew and a few Indians, set out for the same place in a scout boat and traveled night and day. The Indians showed the white men their way of rowing, a short stroke and a long stroke alternately, what they called the "Yamasee stroke." Taking turns at the oars the party reached St. Simons after two days' journey. They found the sloop already there, and the governor gave a large reward to the captain for being the first to enter that port.

All hands now set to work to build a booth for the stores. They threw up earth for a bank, and raised poles on it to support a roof. The booth was thickly covered with palmetto leaves. Cabins were then built for the families, and a fort, with ditches and ramparts, was begun.

Next Oglethorpe went to Darien, dressing in Highland costume out of compliment to the Scotchmen there. The Highlanders, clad in kilts, with broadswords, targets, and firearms, gave him a royal welcome. Their captain invited the governor to sleep in his tent on a soft bed with sheets and curtains, a great luxury in the wilderness, but Oglethorpe preferred to sleep in his plaid at the guard fire, sharing everything, according to his custom, with his men.

He found that the Scotch at Darien had already built a fort, defended by four cannon, a chapel, a guard-house, and a store. They were on the friendliest terms with their Indian neighbors, and hunted buffalo through the Georgia woods with them like members of their own tribe.

In the Georgia woods there was plenty of game, rabbits, squirrels, partridges, wild turkeys, pheasants and roebuck. There were also rattlesnakes and alligators, and the alligators so frightened the settlers at first that Oglethorpe had one of them caught and brought to Savannah, so the people might grow familiar with it and lose their fear of it.

He wanted now to mark out his boundaries with the Indians, and also to learn what had become of Mr. Dempsey, a commissioner he had sent to confer with the Spanish governor of Florida, who had not been heard from. In two scout boats, with forty Indians, he rowed across Jekyll Sound, sleeping one night in a grove of pines, and the second day reached an island formerly called Wisso or Sassafras, but which Tomochichi had now christened Cumberland in honor of the young English prince he had met in London. Here Oglethorpe marked out a fort to be called St. Andrews, and left a few white men to carry out its building.

The governor rowed on through the marshes, and came to an island covered with orange-trees in blossom. The Spaniards had called this Santa Maria, but Oglethorpe changed its name to Amelia, in honor of an English princess. They also changed the name of the next island they reached from the Spanish San Juan to Georgia. Here was an old fort supposed to have been built by Sir Francis Drake, and Oglethorpe sent one of his captains to repair it.

They climbed some heights and Tomochichi pointed out the St. Johns River, the boundary line of Spanish territory. A Spanish guard-house stood on the other side. "All on this side the river we hunt," said Tomochichi. "It is our ground. All on the other side they hunt, but they have lately hurt some of our people, and we shall drive them away. We will stay until night behind these rocks, where they cannot see us; then we will fall upon them."

Oglethorpe tried to persuade them not to attack the Spaniards, and got them to stay near Amelia Island while he went in one of the scout boats to the guard-house to find out what had happened to Mr. Dempsey, the agent he had sent to St. Augustine. He found no one in the guard-house and so returned to the camp, where all his party were except Tomochichi, who had gone scouting.

That night the governor's sentry challenged a boat. Four Indians jumped out, all of them in a rage. They said to Oglethorpe, "Tomochichi has seen enemies, and has sent us to tell you and to help you."

"Why didn't Tomochichi come back?" asked the governor.

"Tomochichi is an old warrior," the Indians answered, "and will not come away from his enemies till he has seen them so near as to count them. He saw their fires, and before daylight will be revenged for the men whom they killed while he was away; but we shall have no honor, for we shall not be there."

Oglethorpe asked if there were many of them, and the messengers answered, "Yes, a great many, for they had a large fire on high ground, and Indians never make large fires except when so strong as to defy all resistance."

This didn't suit Oglethorpe at all, and he immediately ordered all his men into their boats, and rowed to the Indian chief's hiding-place, some four miles away. He found the chief and his men and urged them not to attack the Spaniards that night. Tomochichi was for going on, however. "Then," said the governor, "you go to kill your enemies in the night because you are afraid of them by the day. Now I do not fear them at any time. Therefore wait until day, and I will go with you and see who they are."

Tomochichi reluctantly agreed to wait. "We do not fear them by day," said he, "but if we do not kill them to-night they will kill you to-morrow."

At daylight the whole party started toward the foe. Soon they saw a white flag flying on the shore and white men near it. But, to Oglethorpe's delight, the men turned out not to be Spaniards, but one of his own officers, Major Richards, with Mr. Dempsey and his mates, back from Florida.

The agent reported that his party had had many adventures, but had finally reached St. Augustine, where Don Francisco, the governor, had welcomed them and given them letters for Oglethorpe, asking for an answer in three weeks.

The expedition returned to Frederica, where the governor read his men the contents of the Spaniard's letters. These were full of flattering phrases, but there was also complaint that the Creeks had attacked Spaniards, and requests that Oglethorpe should restrain his Indian allies. The governor suspected that these requests were only a blind to hide a future attack by the Spaniards on the English colonists, but he was very anxious to avoid such trouble if it was possible, so he sent a boat of twenty oars, fitted out with swivel-guns, to patrol the St. Johns River and keep any Creek Indians from crossing to attack the Spaniards. He also stationed scout boats at other places, and asked Tomochichi to send word to the Creeks that their ally, the governor of Georgia, requested them not to make raids into Florida, but to keep guard on the mainland in the neighborhood of the settlement at Darien.

Soon after Oglethorpe returned to Savannah he saw that trouble was brewing with the Spaniards. He heard that a large troop of soldiers had lately marched from St. Augustine. He knew that there was a garrison of three hundred foot-soldiers and fifty horse at St. Augustine, with reinforcements coming from Havana, and that he had not a single regular soldier with which to oppose them. Then word came that a fleet of strange ships had been seen at sea. He ordered his colonists to strengthen their fort at once, and set out in a boat for St. Andrews to learn exactly how matters stood.

From Fort St. George he crossed to the Spanish side of the St. Johns River, and climbing a hill, fastened a white flag to a pole, hoping the Spaniards would come to a conference with him. None came, however, but fires were seen on the Florida side that night, and the governor thought the Spaniards were planning an attack. He ordered two gun-carriages and two swivel-guns taken into the woods and placed at different points. The larger guns were to fire seven shots, and the smaller to answer with five. The latter would sound like a distant ship firing a salute, and the larger guns would resemble the noise of a battery returning the salute. In this way Oglethorpe hoped to make the Spaniards think that reinforcements were coming to the aid of the Georgians.

By this trick Oglethorpe escaped great danger. As a matter of fact the Spanish governor had arrested Oglethorpe's messengers, and had sent a strong force to attack the fort on St. Simons Island. The battery there, however, drove the Spaniards out to sea again, and when they tried to approach by another inlet they were driven off the second time by the garrison at St. Andrews. They then decided to attack St. George, but as they were planning this they heard the booming of the distant cannon, thought reinforcements must be arriving, as Oglethorpe had figured on their thinking, and decided not to make the attack at all then.

At the same time Oglethorpe lighted fires in the woods, thereby making his enemy believe that Creek Indians were coming to join the English. The Spanish commander, Don Pedro, gave the order to return to the walls of St. Augustine, and there, by his reports of the numbers of Oglethorpe's troops, induced the Spanish governor to send back Oglethorpe's two agents, and with them one of his own officers to urge the Englishman to keep his Indian allies from invading Florida.

Oglethorpe, however, did not know that Don Pedro had returned to St. Augustine, and so, with twenty-four men, crossed the St. Johns River to the Spanish side, hoping to get word of his agents. He saw a Spanish boat with seventy men on board. The boat headed away at sight of the English colonists. Then two Spanish horsemen appeared and forbade the English landing on the soil of the king of Spain. Oglethorpe said that he would do as they wished, but he invited them to land on English ground if they desired and offered them wine should they come.

The governor now learned that men in Charleston were selling arms and ammunition to the Spaniards, regardless of the fact that the latter meant to use them against the former's own English neighbors. He wrote to men in South Carolina urging them not to allow this, but in spite of his protests the men of Florida continued for some time to draw a large part of their supplies from the colony to the north of Georgia.

Then he returned to Fort St. George, taking with him Tomochichi and his men in their canoes, a large barge, and two ten-oared boats with fifty soldiers, cannon, and stores for two months. On the way he heard that his agents were coming back accompanied by two Spanish officers. He did not want the Spaniards to learn the strength of his garrison, so he gave orders that they should be entertained on board his ship the Hawk, on the excuse that the country was full of Indians who might otherwise attack the Spaniards.

Tents were set up on Jekyll Island, the Scotchmen dressed in their plaids, the whole garrison assumed its most martial air, and Oglethorpe, attended by seven officers, embarked for the Hawk, his purpose being to impress the Spaniards with the size of his forces. The Spaniards were impressed; they promised on their part to right the wrongs that Oglethorpe's Indian allies complained of, and gained a promise from him in return that he would do his best to keep the Creeks and other tribes from molesting the Spanish settlers. Later, on his return to Savannah, the governor made a treaty with the Spanish governor. More and more bickering arose, however, between the settlers of the two nations, and so Oglethorpe sailed for England in November, 1736, hoping to win aid for his colony from the British government.

II

Oglethorpe had no sooner reached England than word came that the governor of Florida had ordered every English merchant to leave his territory and was planning for warfare. The king of England at once appointed Oglethorpe commander-in-chief of all his troops in Carolina and Georgia, and ordered a regiment to be raised and equipped for service there. Troops were sent from Gibraltar, and meantime the governor busied himself in urging men and women to go out with him to America as colonists. The terms he offered them were so promising that finally he sailed from Portsmouth with five transports, carrying six hundred men, women, and children, besides arms and provisions.

In a little more than two months this new party reached St. Simons Island. The settlers there, who had been fearing an attack by the Spaniards, were delighted to welcome the general and his company. Oglethorpe went to work at once to strengthen the forts, to build roads between the forts and the towns, and to station scout ships to give notice of any hostile fleet. Then he went to Savannah, where cannon roared at his approach and the settlers crowded about to welcome their trusted governor and general. Tomochichi and the chiefs of the Creek nations came to assure him of their loyalty and offered to serve him at any time against their common enemies the Spaniards.

General Oglethorpe well knew how important the help of the Indians might be to him, and so decided to journey through the wilderness to visit the various tribes. This meant a long and perilous trip. It is partly described for us. "Through tangled thickets," runs an account of the journey, "along rough ravines, over dreary swamps in which the horses reared and plunged, the travelers patiently followed their native guides. More than once they had to construct rafts on which to cross the rivers, and many smaller streams were crossed by wading or swimming.... Wrapped in his cloak, with his portmanteau for a pillow, their hardy leader lay down to sleep upon the ground, or if the night were wet he sheltered himself in a covert of cypress boughs spread upon poles. For two hundred miles they neither saw a human habitation, nor met a soul; but as they neared their journey's end they found here and there provisions, which the primitive people they were about to visit had deposited for them in the woods.... When within fifty miles of his destination, the general was met by a deputation of chiefs who escorted him to Coweta; and although the American aborigines are rarely demonstrative, nothing could exceed the joy manifested by them on Oglethorpe's arrival.... By having undertaken so long and difficult a journey for the purpose of visiting them, by coming with only a few attendants in fearless reliance on their good faith, by the readiness with which he accommodated himself to their habits, and by the natural dignity of his deportment, Oglethorpe had won the hearts of his red brothers, whom he was never known to deceive."

A great council was held, a cup of the sacred black-medicine was drunk by the white man and the chiefs, the calumet or pipe of peace was smoked, and a treaty was drawn up, by which the Creeks renewed their allegiance to the king of England while Oglethorpe promised that the English would not encroach upon the Creeks' country and that the traders would deal honestly with them.

On his way home the governor fell ill of fever and had to stay at Fort Augusta for several weeks. Here chiefs of the Cherokees and Chickasaws came to him, complaining that some of their people had been poisoned by rum they had bought from English traders. Inquiry showed that traders had not only brought bad rum, but smallpox also, to the Indians, and the governor promised the chiefs that hereafter he would only permit certain licensed traders to come among them.

Troubles over runaway slaves, who left South Carolina and Georgia for Florida and were protected by the Spanish there, soon brought fresh controversies between the settlers on the two sides of the border. England, moreover, was preparing for war with Spain. On October 2, 1739, the men of Savannah met at the court-house and General Oglethorpe announced to them that England had declared war on Spain. The governor's militia was now well armed and trained, ships guarded the coast, he had a string of forts protecting his borders. Yet he, like the government in England, would very much have preferred to keep the peace with the Spaniards, and was only driven to hostilities because the latter were constantly making trouble for his colonists and seizing English merchant ships and imprisoning their crews.

The southernmost outpost of Georgia was now Amelia Island, where there was a settlement of about forty persons. They were protected by palisades and several cannon. In November some Spaniards landed at night and hid in the woods. Shots were heard in the fort, and the English soldiers, searching the woods, found the bodies of two of the Highlanders. The Spaniards had shot them, and escaped in their boats.

At once Oglethorpe, with some of his Scotchmen and Indians, marched into Florida. He captured Spanish boats at the mouth of the St. Johns River, and went on toward St. Augustine. A troop of the enemy came out to attack him, but fled before the rush of his Indians.

He knew that he needed more troops, however, if he were to make good his war on Florida, so he sent to South Carolina, urging the governor of that colony to contribute as many soldiers as Georgia had supplied. This caused some delay, but at length arrangements were completed, and Oglethorpe was prepared to take the field.

In May the general assembled four hundred of his soldiers, Creek Indians under their chief Malachee, Cherokees under their chief Raven, at St. George Island, at the mouth of the St. Johns River. Oglethorpe's object was to cut off supplies from St. Augustine. His men crossed the river, and a body of Indians and a few white soldiers made an attack on the Spanish fort at San Diego. This place was defended by a number of large guns, and the first attack on it failed. Then Oglethorpe came up with the rest of his men and decided to try a little strategy. He ordered some of his soldiers to beat drums in different parts of the woods and other soldiers to march out at these places and march back again, the same soldiers appearing again and again. The Spanish garrison, seeing so many men at so many different points in the woods, soon concluded that the English had an overwhelming force in the field against them. Then Oglethorpe sent a Spanish prisoner he had captured to tell the garrison how well he had been treated. Thereupon the garrison surrendered to the English general.

The troops from Carolina had not yet arrived, and Oglethorpe learned that, while they delayed, two sloops filled with provisions and ammunition and six Spanish galleys had reached St. Augustine. On the eighteenth of May, however, two English ships anchored in the harbor and two others blocked the southern entrance to the Spanish port, and soon afterward a part of the troops from Carolina joined the general. He then gave the order to advance on the Spanish town.

St. Augustine was defended by 2,000 soldiers, quite as many as the troops Oglethorpe had marshaled against it. The Spanish artillery was vastly superior to that of the English. If the town was to be taken the sea forces must attack at the same time as the land forces, and signals were arranged for such a joint attack.

The general came to Fort Moosa, three miles from St. Augustine, and found the garrison had abandoned it. He gave orders to burn the gate there and make holes in the walls, "lest," as he said, "it might one day or other be a mouse-trap for some of our own people." Marching on, he gave the signal to attack the Spanish capital, but was surprised that the fleet gave him no answering signal. Later he learned that the Spaniards had deployed their ships in such a way that a sea attack would have been very difficult, and that the English commanders had decided that if they made the attack as agreed upon they would probably be defeated. Therefore the general determined that instead of an assault he would attempt a blockade.

He returned to Fort Diego, and ordered Colonel Palmer, with over two hundred Scotchmen and Indians to march to Fort Moosa and scout through the woods to prevent any communication between St. Augustine and the interior of Florida. Colonel Palmer was told to camp each night in a new place, to avoid battle, and to return at once if a larger force than his own appeared. Another officer was sent with the Carolina soldiers to take Point Quartell, which was about a mile distant from the castle of St. Augustine, and build a battery there to command the northern entrance to the harbor.

The general himself set out to capture the Spaniards' battery at Anastasia, and by clever maneuvers there succeeded in driving the enemy to their boats. Oglethorpe set up cannon and sent an envoy to the Spanish governor, calling on him to surrender. The Spaniard replied that he should be glad to shake hands with General Oglethorpe if the latter would come to him in his castle. In answer Oglethorpe opened fire from his new battery, but the distance to the town was too great for his guns and little harm was done the enemy.

Colonel Palmer, meantime, disregarding the general's orders to camp in a new place each night, had kept his men in the partly demolished Fort Moosa. The Spaniards sent six hundred men to attack his small force. Palmer's soldiers resisted desperately, but the Highlanders and the Indians were too much outnumbered by the Spaniards; half of them, including Colonel Palmer, were killed, a few escaped, and the rest were made prisoners.

The commander of the fleet also disregarded the arrangement he had made with Oglethorpe and ordered off the war-ship stationed outside the harbor, with the result that several sloops from Havana with new troops and provisions stole into the channel and reached the Spanish stronghold. The garrison at St. Augustine had begun to feel the pinch of hunger and might soon have surrendered, but these fresh supplies tided them over and enabled them to keep up their defense.

General Oglethorpe, discouraged in his plan of a blockade, decided to make one more attempt at carrying the town by assault. The British commodore, Pearse, was to attack with his fleet while Oglethorpe led his soldiers by land. The colonial troops and Indians were ready to open fire, and only waited the signal from the ships. They waited in vain, however. Instead of keeping his agreement, Commodore Pearse quietly sailed away with all his ships, sending word to General Oglethorpe that it was now the season when hurricanes might be expected off the Florida coast and that he didn't intend to risk His Majesty's fleet there any longer.

Oglethorpe, who alone seemed really in earnest in his desire to fight the Spaniards, deserted by the English fleet, getting very little support from the officers and men of the Carolina regiments, found it impossible to carry on the campaign. Even his own men from Georgia were worn out by fatigue and the heat of Florida. Reluctantly therefore he gave over his expedition, and returned to Savannah. The campaign, however, had shown the Spaniards that the governor of Georgia was a man whose power was to be respected, and they did not renew their raids into his province for some years.

Oglethorpe was a great builder as well as a very skilful military leader, and he used this time of peace to improve the prosperity and beauty of the towns he had settled in his colony. Savannah was already a thriving place, with fine squares, parks, and wide shaded streets. Now he turned his attention to Frederica, a town of a thousand settlers. He meant this to be a strong frontier fort, and designed an esplanade, barracks, parade-ground, fortifications, everything that could be of use to protect Frederica from an enemy.

Not far from Frederica, on the same island of St. Simons, was a small settlement called Little St. Simons. A road connected the two places, running over a beautiful prairie and through a forest, and at the edge of this forest Oglethorpe built himself a small cottage and planted a garden and an orchard of oranges, grapes and figs. Here he made his home, where he could watch the water and keep an eye on Frederica and its forts. A number of his officers built country-seats for themselves near the general's cottage, almost all of them larger and more pretentious than that of the general. Strange as it may seem, the founder of Georgia never claimed or owned any other land in his province but this one small place, and he lived almost as simply as the poorest colonist, a great contrast to the elaborate state kept by the governors of such colonies as Virginia and Maryland or the luxury of William Penn's home at Pennsbury.

Meantime other forts were built in the southern part of Georgia, one on Jekyll Island, another on Cumberland Island, a third at Fort William; and fortunately the governor saw to all this, for his province was to be for some time the buffer between the English and the Spaniards, two peoples who were constantly either on the verge of warfare or actually fighting. The mother-countries of England and Spain were always at swords' points, and those troubles on the other side of the Atlantic were sure to bring the American colonists into the same strife. Each country hectored the other. In the spring of 1740 the British government decided to attack Spain through its American possessions. France also decided to take a hand in the business, and this time joined with Spain. Ships of these two countries set sail for the West Indies and threatened the British colony of Jamaica. The English admiral, Vernon, was despatched with a large squadron to attack the enemy, but instead of sailing to Havana he turned in the direction of Hispaniola to watch the French fleet, and so lost a splendid chance to capture the Spanish stronghold of Havana. General Oglethorpe learned of this, and in May, 1641, he wrote to the Duke of Newcastle in England, explaining how matters stood in that part of America and stating what the colonists would need if they were to carry on a successful war with the Spanish Dons of Florida and the West Indies.

His letter was laid before the proper officers in England, but, as so often happened in such cases, those officers, far though they were from the scene of action, thought they knew more about conditions in Georgia and Florida than Oglethorpe did. The government delayed and delayed, while the general waited for an answer to his requests. Then he had to write again to England. Either the northern colonies or the mother-country was accustomed to supply his province with flour, but now Spanish privateers were capturing the merchant vessels that brought it. Only two English men-of-war were stationed off the coast, and they were insufficient to protect it from privateers. A Spanish rover had just seized a ship off Charleston Harbor with a great quantity of supplies on board. When Oglethorpe heard of this he sent out his guard-sloop and a schooner he had hired, met three Spanish ships, forced them to fly, attacked one of their privateers and drove it ashore. Then he bought a good-sized vessel and prepared it for service on the coast until the English should send him a proper fleet.

A large Spanish ship was sighted off the bar of Jekyll Sound on August 16th. The intrepid governor manned his sloop and two other vessels, the Falcon and the Norfork, and started in pursuit. He ran into a storm, and when the weather had cleared the Spaniard had disappeared. The storm had disabled the Falcon, and she had to put back, but Oglethorpe sailed on with the other two, laying his course for Florida, and a few days later sighted the Spanish ship at anchor.

The Spaniard was a man-of-war, and with her was another ship, by name the Black Sloop, with a record as a daring privateer. But Oglethorpe was equal in daring to any Spanish captain. He ordered his small boats put out to tow his two ships, the weather being now a calm, and as they approached the enemy, gave the command to board. The two Spanish vessels opened fire, but Oglethorpe's guns answered so vigorously that the Spaniards quickly weighed anchor, and, a light breeze coming to their aid, were able to run across the bar of the harbor.

The English followed, and, though they could not board the enemy, fought them for an hour, at the end of which the Spaniards were so disabled that they ran for the town, while half a dozen of their small galleys came out to safeguard their retreat.

Other Spanish vessels were lying in the harbor, but none dared to attack the two ships of Oglethorpe, and the governor spent that night at anchor within sight of the castle of St. Augustine. Next day he sailed for the open sea again, and there cruised up and down outside the bar, as if daring the Spaniards to come out to meet him. When they refused to come he sailed back to Frederica, having spread a proper fear of his small fleet of two ships all along the Florida coast.

Perhaps the greatest service that Oglethorpe rendered to his colony was his retaining the friendship of all the neighboring Indian tribes. This he did by always treating them fairly and impressing them with his sincere interest in their own welfare. Another man might have let the Indians see that he was merely using them to protect his own white settlers, but Oglethorpe convinced them that he was equally concerned in protecting both red men and white from ill-usage by the French and Spanish. Georgia moreover needed the friendship of the native tribes much more than the other English colonies did. It was nearest to the strong Spanish settlements in Florida, and its neighbor to the north, South Carolina, was able to furnish it very little assistance in times of need, and was often barely able to protect itself. Had the Creeks, the Chickasaws and Cherokees been allies of the Spaniards or the French instead of allies of Georgia the English settlers would have found themselves in hot water most of the time.

The general had difficulty in corresponding with England and letting the people there know what he needed. "Seven out of eight letters miscarry," he said. Fortunately no more English merchantmen were captured by Spanish privateers; the Dons had apparently been taught a lesson by the vigorous attack Oglethorpe had made on their own ships.

To keep this lesson in their mind the governor sailed again for St. Augustine, but ran into a storm that almost destroyed his fleet. At nearly the same time a privateer reached the bar outside St. Augustine with large supplies for the garrison. The Spanish governor, as usual in need of fresh supplies, joyfully hailed the privateer, sent out a pilot with two galleys to bring her into the harbor, fired the guns from his castle, and ordered some of his Indians to cut wood and build a welcoming bonfire.

Oglethorpe and his Indian allies were on the alert, however. A party of his Creek friends attacked the Spanish Indians and captured five of them. At the same time one of his ships reached the privateer before the tide was high enough to float her over the bar, seized her, and took her to Frederica. Now the settlers of Georgia, and even of South Carolina, praised the general for his vigilance and dashing courage. A merchant of Charleston wrote, "Our wrongheads now begin to own that the security of our southern settlements and trade is owing to the vigilance and unwearied endeavors of His Excellency in annoying the enemy."

Yet, in spite of this, Carolina continued to fail in providing the men or ships or supplies that Oglethorpe, Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces in Georgia and Carolina, requested of it.

Presently the Spaniards, following the policy of England in trying to annoy enemy colonies in America, took the offensive. A Spanish fleet of more than fifty ships, with more than 5,000 soldiers on board, was despatched to attack the English settlements. Fourteen of the ships tried to reach Fort William, but were driven back by the battery there. They then made for Cumberland Sound. Oglethorpe sent out Captain Horton with white soldiers and Indians and followed with more troops in three boats. The Spanish ships attacked him, but he fought his way through their fleet with two of his boats. The third boat made for a creek, hid there until the next day, and then returned to St. Simons with the report that General Oglethorpe had been overpowered and killed. A day later, however, the people of St. Simons were delighted to see their general return safe and sound. He had escaped damage from the Spaniards, but had hit them so hard with his guns that four of their ships foundered on the way back to St. Augustine for repairs.

At once he prepared ships and men for another conflict. His daring had so inspired his crews that as some of them said, "We were ready for twice our number of Spaniards." They soon had their chance. Thirty-six Spanish ships in line of battle ran into St. Simons harbor. The forts and the vessels there opened fire at once. Three times the enemy tried to board the Success, a ship of twenty guns and one hundred men, but each time the crew proved that they really were ready for twice their number of Spaniards. After fighting for four hours the Spaniards gave up the battle and sailed up the river in the direction of Frederica.

Oglethorpe called a council of war. In view of the great number of Spanish ships it was decided to destroy the batteries at St. Simons and withdraw all the forces to Frederica. This was quickly done, and that evening some of the enemy landed and took possession of the deserted and dismantled fortifications.

Meantime the general learned from some prisoners captured by the Indians that the Spaniards had land forces of 5,000 men and had issued commands to give no quarter to the English. As Mr. Rutledge of Charleston later wrote, "The Spaniards were resolved to put all to the sword, not to spare a life, so as to terrify the English from any future thought of re-settling." Oglethorpe was now in a most dangerous situation. The enemy had numerous ships, a great many soldiers, and were evidently determined to settle matters once for all with their neighbors. The fate of the English colonies of Georgia and South Carolina might depend on the outcome of the next few days.

Spanish outposts tried to reach the fort at Frederica, but were driven back by Indian scouts. The only road to the town was by the narrow highway, where only three men could walk abreast, with a forest on one side and a marsh on the other. Artillery could not be carried over it, and it was guarded by Highlanders and Indians in ambush. Yet, after many attempts, the Spaniards managed to get within two miles of the town.

Oglethorpe now led a charge of his rangers, Highlanders and Indians, so fiercely that all but a few of the enemy's advance-guard were killed or made prisoners. The Spanish commander was captured. The English pursued the retreating Spaniards for a mile, then posted guards, while the general returned to the town for reinforcements.

The Spaniards again marched up the road and camped near where the English lay hid in ambush. A noise startled them and they seized their arms. The men in ambush fired, many Spaniards fell, and the rest fled in confusion. As a Spanish sergeant said, "The woods were so full of Indians that the devil himself could not get through them." For a long time the place was known as the "Bloody Marsh." Oglethorpe marched his troops over the road to within two miles of the main Spanish encampment, and there halted for the night.

The enemy withdrew to the ruined fort at St. Simons, where they were sheltered by the guns of their fleet. Oglethorpe went back to Frederica, leaving outposts to watch the Spaniards. There he found that his provisions were running low, and he knew that no more could be brought in since the enemy blocked the sound. He told the people, however, that if they had to abandon their settlement they could escape through Alligators Creek and the canal that had been cut through Generals Island, and he assured his little army of 800 men that they were more than a match for the whole Spanish expedition.

Presently Spanish galleys came up the river; but Indians, hid in the long grasses, prevented the soldiers from landing. When they approached the town the batteries opened such a hot fire that the galleys fled down-stream much faster than they had come up.

English prisoners, escaping from the Spaniards, began to bring word that the enemy were much discouraged. Many Spaniards had fallen sick, and the soldiers from Cuba were wrangling with the men from Florida. Oglethorpe therefore planned a surprise for the enemy and marched to within a mile of their camp. He was about to attack when one of his soldiers, a Frenchman who had volunteered but was in reality a spy, fired his gun and ran from the general's ranks.

The Frenchman was not caught, and the general knew that he would tell the Spaniards how few English soldiers there were. So Oglethorpe tried a trick of his own, hoping to make the Frenchman appear to be a double spy. He hired a Spanish prisoner to carry a letter to the spy. "The letter was in French," Oglethorpe later said, "as if from a friend, telling him that he had received the money, and would strive to make the Spaniards believe the English were very weak; that he should undertake to pilot their boats and galleys, and then bring them into the woods where the hidden batteries were. That if he could bring about all this, he should have double the reward, and that the French deserters should have all that had been promised them.

"The Spanish prisoner got into their camp," Oglethorpe said, "and was immediately carried before the general. He was asked how he escaped and whether he had any letters; but denying this, was searched and the letter found. And he, upon being pardoned, confessed that he had received money to carry it to the Frenchman, for the letter was not directed. The Frenchman, of course, denied knowing anything of the contents of the letter, or having received any money or had any correspondence with me. Notwithstanding which, a council of war was held and they decided the Frenchman a double spy, but the general would not suffer him to be executed, having been employed by himself."

While the Spaniards were still in doubt as to the strength of Oglethorpe's forces some English ships arrived off the coast. This decided the Spaniards to leave, and they burned the barracks at St. Simons and took to their ships in such haste that they left behind some of their cannon and provisions.

Hearing that ships had been sighted Oglethorpe sent an officer in a boat with a letter to their commander. But when the officer embarked he found no ships were to be seen. Later the general learned that one of the vessels sighted came from South Carolina, and that the officer in command had orders to see if the Spanish fleet had taken possession of the fort at St. Simons, and if it had to sail back to Charleston at once. Here was further proof that the plucky governor of Georgia could expect little assistance from the sister colony on the north.

By now some of the Spanish ships were out at sea, and others had landed their soldiers at St. Andrews in a temporary camp. A couple of days later twenty-eight of their ships sailed up to Fort William and called upon the garrison to surrender. The English officer there answered that he would not surrender the fort and defied the Spaniards to take it. The latter tried; they landed men, who were driven off by the guns of soldiers hidden in the sand-dunes, their ships fired on the fort, but were disabled by the return-fire of the Georgia batteries. After a battle of three hours the Spaniards withdrew from the scene and returned to their base at St. Augustine.

With a few ships and eight hundred men Oglethorpe had defeated a Spanish fleet of fifty-six vessels and an army of more than 5,000 soldiers. Small wonder that the people of his province couldn't find praise enough for their leader! George Whitefield, a famous clergyman of Savannah, wrote of this war against the Spanish Dons, "The deliverance of Georgia from the Spaniards is such as cannot be paralleled but by some instances out of the Old Testament. The Spaniards had intended to attack Carolina, but wanting water, they put into Georgia, and so would take that colony on their way. They were wonderfully repelled, and sent away before our ships were seen."

The governors of the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina sent letters to Oglethorpe thanking him for his valiant defense of the southern seaboard and expressing their gratitude to God that Georgia had a commander so well fitted to protect her borders. The governor of South Carolina and most of his officers had done little or nothing to help their neighbor, but the people of that colony thoroughly disapproved of this failure to be of assistance and a number of them sent a message to Oglethorpe in which they said, "If the Spaniards had succeeded in their attempts they would have destroyed us, laid our province waste and desolate, and filled our habitations with blood and slaughter.... We are very sensible of the great protection and safety we have so long enjoyed by having your Excellency to the southward of us; had you been cut off, we must, of course, have fallen."

Even after this defeat, however, the Spaniards of Florida continued from time to time to molest the Georgia borders. A party of rangers was killed by Spanish soldiers, the settlement at Mount Venture was burned by Yamasee Spanish Indians. Oglethorpe had to be on the watch constantly lest the French or the Spanish should raid his territory. And the English government, though he wrote them time and again, neglected to send him proper reinforcements.

In the spring of 1743 the general was again camped on the St. Johns River. He heard that a Spanish army was marching against him, and he resolved to attack them before they should attack him. His Indian allies stole up on the enemy, and surprising them, drove them back in confusion. The Spaniards took shelter behind one of their forts, and Oglethorpe could not manage to draw them out to battle. He marched his men back to Frederica, and there by Indian scouts, by sentry-boats, kept an eye on the Spaniards, ready to spring out to meet them should they renew their raids at any time.

His soldiers never faltered in their obedience to the general's orders; his Indian allies, though they were often tempted, never forsook their allegiance to him. The Spaniards tried many times to buy the red men over to their side. Similli, a chief of the Creeks, went to St. Augustine to see what was being done there. The Spaniards offered to pay him a large sum of money for every English prisoner he would bring them, and showed him a sword and scarlet clothes they had given a chief of the Yamasees. They said of Oglethorpe, "He is poor, he can give you nothing; it is foolish for you to go back to him." The Creek chief answered, "We love him. It is true he does not give us silver, but he gives us everything we want that he has. He has given me the coat off his back and the blanket from under him." In return for his loyalty to his English friend the Spaniards drove the Indian from St. Augustine at the point of the sword.

The general had spent all his own money in protecting his people in Georgia, and the English government would not send him the sums he said were urgently needed for the province. Therefore he decided that he must go to England and see what could be done there. He put his forts on the border in the best possible shape for defense, appointed a deputy governor in Savannah, and sailed for England in July, 1743.

Was the colonial hero received with the praise his great services deserved from England? Instead of praise he was harshly criticized for this or that trivial matter; though a few of the wiser men came forward to do him honor. Parliament would not vote him the money his colony needed; he had difficulty in finding enough money to pay his personal debts. Yet he kept on appealing for aid for Georgia, while the government took the same attitude it had taken toward so many of the other American colonies, and appeared of the opinion that the province across the Atlantic must look after itself. Fortunately for Georgia, Oglethorpe had so trained its soldiers, had so befriended its Indian neighbors, had so protected it by forts that the colony was now able to go its own way without English help.

In 1744 Oglethorpe married Elizabeth Wright, the heiress of Cranham Hall, a manor in Essex. He was also in that same year chosen as one of the officers to defend England from a threatened invasion by France. His services were not needed for that purpose; but in the next year he was given the rank of major-general and took part in the suppression of the rebellion of the "Young Pretender." This kept him in England, and he left the government of Georgia to the care of the men he had trained there. From time to time, however, he bestirred himself to send new colonists across the sea to Savannah.

When the rebellion was ended General Oglethorpe and his wife settled at Cranham Hall. Here he lived the life of a country gentleman, delighting in the peace and quiet after his many turbulent years in Georgia. He lived to see the American Revolution, though he took no part in it; he said "that he knew the people of America well; that they could never be subdued by arms, but their obedience could ever be secured by treating them justly;" he learned that his colony of Georgia, with twelve of her sisters, had succeeded in winning her independence from that mother-country he had served so long and on whose lists he was now the senior ranking general; and he seems to have harbored no ill-feeling against the colonists for forming a new nation.

Georgia and America owe a great debt of gratitude to General James Edward Oglethorpe. None of the colonies had a more unselfish founder and governor, none were more bravely defended from enemies, and in none was more devotion shown to making a few scattered settlements in the wilderness blossom into the safe homes of a contented people.