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free schools, though they were never many nor adequate. But the first Assembly after the Restoration had made provision for a college. Land was to have been purchased and the building completed as speedily as might be. The intent had been good, but nothing more had been done.

There was in Virginia, sent as Commissioner of the Established Church, a Scotch ecclesiastic, Dr. James Blair. In virtue of his office he had a seat in, the Council, and his integrity and force soon made him a leader in the colony. A college in Virginia became Blair’s dream. He was supported by Virginia planters with sons to educate — daughters’ education being purely a domestic affair. Before long Blair had raised in promised subscriptions what was for the time a large sum. With this for a nucleus he sailed to England and there collected more. Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, helped him much. The King and Queen inclined a favorable ear, and, though he met with opposition in certain quarters, Blair at last obtained his charter. There was to be built in Virginia and to be sustained by taxation a great school, “a seminary of ministers of the gospel where youths may be piously educated in good letters and manners; a certain place of universal study, or perpetual college of divinity, philosophy, languages and other good arts and sciences.” Blair sailed back to Virginia with the charter of the college, some money, a plan for the main building drawn by Christopher Wren, and for himself the office of President.

The Assembly, for the benefit of the college, taxed raw and tanned hides, dressed buckskin, skins of doe and elk, muskrat and raccoon. The construction of the new seat of learning was begun at Williamsburg. When it was completed and opened to students, it was named William and Mary. Its name and record shine fair in old Virginia. Colonial worthies in goodly number were educated at William and Mary, as were later revolutionary soldiers and statesmen, and men of name and fame in the United States. Three American Presidents — Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler — were trained there, as well as Marshall, the Chief Justice, four signers of the Declaration of Independence, and many another man of mark.

The seventeenth century is about to pass. France and England are at war. The colonial air vibrates with the struggle. There is to be a brief lull after 1697, but the conflict will soon be resumed. The more northerly colonies, the nearer to New France, feel the stronger pulsation, but Virginia, too, is shaken. England and France alike play for the support of the red man. All the western side of America lies open to incursion from that pressed-back Indian sea of unknown extent and volume. Up and down, the people, who have had no part in making that European war, are sensitive to the menace of its dangers. In Virginia they build blockhouses and they keep rangers on guard far up the great rivers.

All the world is changing, and the changes are fraught with significance for America. Feudalism has passed; scholasticism has gone; politics, commerce, philosophy, religion, science, invention, music, art, and literature are rapidly altering. In England William and Mary pass away. Queen Anne begins her reign of twelve years. Then, in 1714, enters the House of Hanover with George the First. It is the day of Newton and Locke and Berkeley, of Hume, of Swift, Addison, Steele, Pope, Prior, and Defoe. The great romantic sixteenth century, Elizabeth’s spacious time, is gone. The deep and narrow, the intense, religious, individualistic seventeenth century is gone. The eighteenth century, immediate parent of the nineteenth, grandparent of the twentieth, occupies the stage.

In the year 1704, just over a decade since Dr. Blair had obtained the charter for his College, the erratic and able Governor of Virginia, Francis Nicholson, was recalled. For all that he was a wild talker, he had on the whole done well for Virginia. He was, as far as is known, the first person actually to propose a federation or union of all those English-speaking political divisions, royal provinces, dominions, palatinates, or what not, that had been hewed away from the vast original Virginia. He did what he could to forward the movement for education and the fortunes of the William and Mary College. But he is quoted as having on one occasion informed the body of the people that “the gentlemen imposed upon them.” Again, he is said to have remarked of the servant population that they had all been kidnapped and had a lawful action against their masters. “Sir,” he stated to President Blair, who would have given him advice from the Bishop of London, “Sir, I know how to govern Virginia and Maryland better than all the bishops in England! If I had not hampered them in Maryland and kept them under, I should never have been able to govern them!” To which Blair had to say, “Sir, if I know anything of Virginia, they are a good-natured, tractable people as any in the world, and you may do anything with them by way of civility, but you will never be able to manage them in that way you speak of, by hampering and keeping them under!”*

* William and Mary College Quarterly, vol. I, p. 66.

About this time arrived Claude de Richebourg with a number of Huguenots who settled above the Falls. First and last, Virginia received many of this good French strain. The Old Dominion had now a population of over eighty thousand persons — whites, Indians in no great number, and negroes. The red men are mere scattered dwellers in the land east of the mountains. There are Indian villages, but they are far apart. Save upon the frontier fringe, the Indian attacks no more. But the African is here to stay.

“The Negroes live in small Cottages called Quarters . . . under the direction of an Overseer or Bailiff; who takes care that they tend such Land as the Owner allots and orders, upon which they raise Hogs and Cattle and plant Indian Corn, and Tobacco for the Use of their Master …. The Negroes are very numerous, some Gentlemen having Hundreds of them of all Sorts, to whom they bring great Profitt; for the Sake of which they are obliged to keep them well, and not over-work, starve or famish them, besides other Inducements to favour them; which is done in a great Degree, to such especially that are laborious, careful and honest; tho’ indeed some Masters, careless of their own Interest or deputation, are too cruel and negligent. The Negroes are not only encreased by fresh supplies from Africa and the West India Islands, but also are very prolific among themselves; and they that are born here talk good English and affect our Language, Habits and Customs . . . . Their work or Chimerical (hard Slavery) is not very laborious; their greatest Hardship consisting in that they and their Posterity are not at their own Liberty or Disposal, but are the Property of their Owners; and when they are free they know not how to provide so well for themselves generally; neither did they live so plentifully nor (many of them) so easily in their own Country where they are made Slaves to one another, or taken Captive by their Ennemies.”*

* It is an English clergyman, the Reverend Hugh Jones, who is writing (“The Present State of Virginia”) in the year 1724. He writes and never sees that, though every amelioration be true, yet there is here old Inequity.

The white Virginians lived both after the fashion of England and after fashions made by their New World environment. They are said to have been in general a handsome folk, tall, well-formed, and with a ready and courteous manner. They were great lovers of riding, and of all country life, and few folk in the world might overpass them in hospitality. They were genial, they liked a good laugh, and they danced to good music. They had by nature an excellent understanding. Yet, thinks at least the Reverend Hugh Jones, they “are generally diverted by Business or Inclination from profound Study, and prying into the Depth of Things . . . .They are more inclinable to read Men by Business and Conversation, than to dive into Books . . . they are apt to learn, yet they are fond of and will follow their own Ways, Humours and Notions, being not easily brought to new Projects and Schemes.”

It was as Governor of these people that, in succession to Nicholson, Edward Nott came to Virginia, the deputy of my Lord Orkney. Nott died soon afterward, and in 1710 Orkney sent to Virginia in his stead Alexander Spotswood. This man stands in Virginia history a manly, honorable, popular figure. Of Scotch parentage, born in Morocco, soldier under Marlborough, wounded at Blenheim, he was yet in his thirties when he sailed across the Atlantic to the river James. Virginia liked him, and he liked Virginia. A man of energy and vision, he first made himself at home with all, and then after his own impulses and upon his own lines went about to develop and to better the colony. He had his projects and his hobbies, mostly useful, and many sounding with a strong modern tone. Now and again he quarreled with the Assembly, and he made it many a cutting speech. But it, too, and all Virginia and the world were growing modern. Issues were disengaging themselves and were becoming distinct. In these early years of the eighteenth century, Whig and Tory in England drew sharply over against each other. In Virginia, too, as in Maryland, the Carolinas, and all the rest of England-in-America, parties were emerging. The Virginian flair for political life was thus early in evidence. To the careless eye the colony might seem overwhelmingly for King and Church. “If New England be called a Receptacle of Dissenters, and an Amsterdam of Religion, Pennsylvania the Nursery of Quakers; Maryland the Retirement of Roman Catholicks, North Carolina the Refuge of Runaways and South Carolina the Delight of Buccaneers and Pyrates, Virginia may be justly esteemed the happy Retreat of true Britons and true Churchmen for the most Part.” This “for the most part” paints the situation, for there existed an opposition, a minority, which might grow to balance, and overbalance. In the meantime the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg provided a School for Discussion.

At the time when Parson Jones with his shrewd eyes was observing society in the Old Dominion, Williamsburg was still a small village, even though it was the capital. Towns indeed, in any true sense, were nowhere to be found in Virginia. Yet Williamsburg had a certain distinction. Within it there arose, beneath and between old forest trees, the college, an admirable church — Bruton Church — the capitol, the Governor’s house or “palace,” and many very tolerable dwelling-houses of frame and brick. There were also taverns, a marketplace, a bowling-green, an arsenal, and presently a playhouse. The capitol at Williamsburg was a commodious one, able to house most of the machinery of state. Here were the Council Chamber, “where the Governor and Council sit in very great state, in imitation of the King and Council, or the Lord Chancellor and House of Lords,” and the great room of the House of Burgesses, “not unlike the House of Commons.” Here, at the capitol, met the General Courts in April and October, the Governor and Council acting as judges. There were also Oyer and Terminer and Admiralty Courts. There were offices and committee rooms, and on the cupola a great clock, and near the capitol was “a strong, sweet Prison for Criminals; and on the other side of an open Court another for Debtors . . . but such Prisoners are very rare, the Creditors being generally very merciful . . . . At the Capitol, at publick Times, may be seen a great Number of handsome,
well-dressed, compleat Gentlemen. And at the Governor’s House upon Birth-Nights, and at Balls and Assemblies, I have seen as fine an Appearance, as good Diversion, and as splendid Entertainments, in Governor Spotswood’s Time, as I have seen anywhere else.”

It is a far cry from the Susan Constant, the Goodspeed, and the Discovery, from those first booths at Jamestown, from the Starving Time, from Christopher Newport and Edward-Maria Wingfield and Captain John Smith to these days of Governor Spotswood. And yet, considering the changes still to come, a century seems but a little time and the far cry not so very far.

Though the Virginians were in the mass country folk, yet villages or hamlets arose, clusters of houses pressing about the Court House of each county. There were now in the colony over a score of settled counties. The westernmost of these, the frontier counties, were so huge that they ran at least to the mountains, and, for all one knew to the contrary, presumably beyond. But “beyond” was a mysterious word of unknown content, for no Virginian of that day had gone beyond. All the way from Canada into South Carolina and the Florida of that time stretched the mighty system of the Appalachians, fifteen hundred miles in length and three hundred in breadth. Here was a barrier long and thick, with ridge after ridge of lifted and forested earth, with knife-blade vales between, and only here and there a break away and an encompassed treasure of broad and fertile valley. The Appalachians made a true Chinese Wall, shutting all England-in-America, in those early days, out from the vast inland plateau of the continent, keeping upon the seaboard all England-in-America, from the north to the south. To Virginia these were the mysterious mountains just beyond which, at first, were held to be the South Sea and Cathay. Now, men’s knowledge being larger by a hundred years, it was known that the South Sea could not be so near. The French from Canada, going by way of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, had penetrated very far beyond and had found not the South Sea but a mighty river flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. What was the real nature of this world which had been found to lie over the mountains? More and more Virginians were inclined to find out, foreseeing that they would need room for their growing population. Continuously came in folk from the Old Country, and continuously Virginians were born. Maryland dwelt to the north, Carolina to the south. Virginia, seeking space, must begin to grow westward.

There were settlements from the sea to the Falls of the James, and upon the York, the Rappahannock, and the Potomac. Beyond these, in the wilderness, might be found a few lonely cabins, a scattered handful of pioneer folk, small blockhouses, and small companies of rangers charged with protecting all from Indian foray. All this country was rolling and hilly, but beyond it stood the mountains, a wall of enchantment, against the west.

Alexander Spotswood, hardy Scot, endowed with a good temperamental blend of the imaginative and the active, was just the man, the time being ripe, to encounter and surmount that wall. Fortunately, too, the Virginians were horsemen, man and horse one piece almost, New World centaurs. They would follow the bridle-tracks that pierced to the hilly country, and beyond that they might yet make way through the primeval forest. They would encounter dangers, but hardly the old perils of seacoast and foothills. Different, indeed, is this adventure of the Governor of Virginia and his chosen band from the old push afoot into frowning hostile woods by the men of a hundred and odd years before!

Spotswood rode westward with a company drawn largely from the colonial gentry, men young in body or in spirit, gay and adventurous. The whole expedition was conceived and executed in a key both humorous and knightly. These “Knights”* set face toward the mountains in August, 1716. They had guides who knew the upcountry, a certain number of rangers used to Indian ways, and servants with food and much wine in their charge. So out of settled Virginia they rode, and up the long, gradual lift of earth above sea-level into a mountainous wilderness, where before them the Aryan had not come. By day they traveled, and bivouacked at night.

* On the sandy roads of settled Virginia horses went unshod, but for the stony hills and the ultimate cliffs they must have iron shoes. After the adventure and when the party had returned to civilization, the Governor, bethinking himself that there should be some token and memento of the exploit, had made in London a number of small golden horseshoes, set as pins to be worn in the lace cravats of the period. Each adventurer to the mountains received one, and the band has kept, in Virginian lore, the title of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.

Higher and more rugged grew the mountains. Some trick of the light made them show blue, so that they presently came to be called the Blue Ridge, in contradistinction to the westward lying, gray Alleghanies. They were like very long ocean combers, with at intervals an abrupt break, a gap, cliff-guarded, boulder-strewn, with a narrow rushing stream making way between hemlocks and pines, sycamore, ash and beech, walnut and linden.

Towards these blue mountains Spotswood and his knights rode day after day and came at last to the foot of the steep slope. The long ridges were high, but not so high but that horse and man might make shift to scramble to the crest. Up they climbed and from the heights they looked across and down into the Valley of Virginia, twenty miles wide, a hundred and twenty long — a fertile garden spot. Across the shimmering distances they saw the gray Alleghanies, fresh barrier to a fresh west. Below them ran a clear river, afterwards to be called the Shenandoah. They gazed — they predicted colonists, future plantations, future towns, for that great valley, large indeed as are some Old World kingdoms. They drank the health of England’s King, and named two outstanding peaks Mount George and Mount Alexander; then, because their senses were ravished by the Eden before them, they dubbed the river Euphrates. They plunged and scrambled down the mountain side to the Euphrates, drank of it, bathed in it, rested, ate, and drank again. The deep green woods were around them; above them they could see the hawk, the eagle, and the buzzard, and at their feet the bright fish of the river.

At last they reclimbed the Blue Ridge, descended its eastern face, and, leaving the great wave of it behind them, rode homeward to Williamsburg in triumph.

We are thus, with Spotswood and his band, on the threshold of expanding American vistas. This Valley of Virginia, first a distant Beulah land for the eye of the imagination only, presently became a land of pioneer cabins, far apart — very far apart — then a settled land, of farms, hamlets, and market towns. Nor did the folk come only from that elder Virginia of tidal waters and much tobacco, of “compleat gentlemen” at the capital, and of many slaves in the fields. But downward from the Potomac, they came south into this valley, from Pennsylvania and Maryland, many of them Ulster Scots who had sailed to the western world. In America they are called the Scotch Irish, and in the main they brought stout hearts, long arms, and level heads. With these they brought in as luggage the dogmas of Calvin. They permeated the Valley of Virginia; many moved on south into Carolina; finally, in large part, they made Kentucky and Tennessee. Germans, too, came into the valley — down from Pennsylvania — quiet, thrifty folk, driven thus far westward from a war-ravished Rhine.

Shrewd practicality trod hard upon the heels of romantic fancy in the mind of Spotswood. His Order of the Knights of the Horseshoe had a fleeting existence, but the Vision of the West lived on. Frontier folk in growing numbers were encouraged to make their way from tidewater to the foot of the Blue Ridge. Spotsylvania and King George were names given to new counties in the Piedmont in honor of the Governor and the sovereign. German craftsmen, who had been sent over by Queen Anne — vine-dressers and ironworkers — were settled on Spotswood’s own estate above the falls of the Rapidan. The little town of Germanna sprang up, famous for its smelting furnaces.

To his country seat in Spotsylvania, Alexander Spotswood retired when he laid down the office of Governor in 1722. But his talents were too valuable to be allowed to rust in inactivity. He was appointed deputy Postmaster-General for the English colonies, and in the course of his administration made one Benjamin Franklin Postmaster for Philadelphia. He was on the point of sailing with Admiral Vernon on the expedition against Cartagena in 1740, when he was suddenly stricken and died. He was buried at Temple Farm by Yorktown. On the expedition to Cartagena went one Lawrence Washington, who named his country seat after the Admiral and whose brother George many years later was to receive the surrender of Cornwallis and his army hard by the resting-place of Alexander Spotswood. Colonial Virginia lies behind us. The era of revolution and statehood beckons us on.

CHAPTER XVI. GEORGIA

Below Charleston in South Carolina, below Cape Fear, below Port Royal, a great river called the Savannah poured into the sea. Below the Savannah, past the Ogeechee, sailing south between the sandy islands and the main, ships came to the mouth of the river Altamaha. Thus far was Carolina. But below Altamaha the coast and the country inland became debatable, probably Florida and Spanish, liable at any rate to be claimed as such, and certainly open to attack from Spanish St. Augustine.

Here lay a stretch of seacoast and country within hailing distance of semi-tropical lands. It was low and sandy, with innumerable slow-flowing watercourses, creeks, and inlets from the sea. The back country, running up to hills and even mountains stuffed with ores, was not known — though indeed Spanish adventurers had wandered there and mined for gold. But the lowlands were warm and dense with trees and wild life. The Huguenot Ribault, making report of this region years and years before, called it “a fayre coast stretching of a great length, covered with an infinite number of high and fayre trees,” and he described the land as the “fairest, fruitfullest, and pleasantest of all the world, abounding in hony, venison, wilde fowle, forests, woods of all sorts, Palm-trees, Cypresse and Cedars, Bayes ye highest and greatest; with also the fayrest vines in all the world . . . . And the sight of the faire medows is a pleasure not able to be expressed with tongue; full of Hernes, Curlues, Bitters, Mallards, Egrepths, Woodcocks, and all other kind of small birds; with Harts, Hindes, Buckes, wilde Swine, and all other kindes of wilde beastes, as we perceived well, both by their footing there and . . . their crie and roaring in the night.”* This is the country of the liveoak and the magnolia, the gray, swinging moss and the yellow jessamine, the chameleon and the mockingbird.

* Winsor’s “Narrative and Critical History of America”, vol. V, p. 357.

The Savannah and Altamaha rivers and the wide and deep lands between fell in that grant of Charles II’s to the eight Lords Proprietors of Carolina — Albemarle, Clarendon, and the rest. But this region remained as yet unpeopled save by copperhued folk. True, after the “American Treaty” of 1670 between England and Spain, the English built a small fort upon Cumberland Island, south of the Altamaha, and presently another Fort George — to the northwest of the first, at the confluence of the rivers Oconee and Oemulgee. There were, however, no true colonists between the Savannah and the Altamaha.

In the year 1717 — the year after Spotswood’s Expedition — the Carolina Proprietaries granted to one Sir Robert Mountgomery all the land between the rivers Savannah and Altamaha, “with proper jurisdictions, privileges, prerogatives, and franchises.” The arrangement was feudal enough. The new province was to be called the Margravate of Azilia. Mountgomery, as Margrave, was to render to the Lords of Carolina an annual quitrent and one-fourth part of all gold and silver found in Azilia. He must govern in accordance with the laws of England, must uphold the established religion of England, and provide by taxation for the maintenance of the clergy. In three years’ time the new Margrave must colonize his Margravate, and if he failed to do so, all his rights would disappear and Azilia would again dissolve into Carolina.

This was what happened. For whatever reason, Mountgomery could not obtain his colonists. Azilia remained a paper land. The years went by. The country, unsettled yet, lapsed into the Carolina from which so tentatively it had been parted. Over its spaces the Indian still roved, the tall forests still lifted their green crowns, and no axe was heard nor any English voice.

In the decade that followed, the Lords Proprietors of Carolina ceased to be Lords Proprietors. Their government had been, save at exceptional moments, confused, oppressive, now absent-minded, and now mistaken and arbitrary. They had meant very well, but their knowledge was not exact, and now virtual revolution in South Carolina assisted their demise. After lengthy negotiations, at last, in 1729, all except Lord Granville surrendered to the Crown, for a considerable sum, their rights and interests. Carolina, South and North, thereupon became royal colonies.

In England there dwelled a man named James Edward Oglethorpe, son of Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe of Godalming in Surrey. Though entered at Oxford, he soon left his books for the army and was present at the siege and taking of Belgrade in 1717. Peace descending, the young man returned to England, and on the death of his elder brother came into the estate, and was presently made Member of Parliament for Haslemere in Surrey.

His character was a firm and generous one; his bent, markedly humane. “Strong benevolence of soul,” Pope says he had. His century, too, was becoming humane, was inquiring into ancient wrongs. There arose, among other things, a belated notion of prison reform. The English Parliament undertook an investigation, and Oglethorpe was of those named to examine conditions and to make a report. He came into contact with the incarcerated — not alone with the law-breaker, hardened or yet to be hardened, but with the wrongfully imprisoned and with the debtor. The misery of the debtor seems to have struck with insistent hand upon his heart’s door. The parliamentary inquiry was doubtless productive of some good, albeit evidently not of great good. But though the inquiry was over, Oglethorpe’s concern was not over. It brooded, and, in the inner clear light where ideas grow, eventually brought forth results.

Numbers of debtors lay in crowded and noisome English prisons, there often from no true fault at all, at times even because of a virtuous action, oftenest from mere misfortune. If they might but start again, in a new land, free from entanglements! Others, too, were in prison, whose crimes were negligible, mere mistaken moves with no evil will behind them — or, if not so negligible, then happening often through that misery and ignorance for which the whole world was at fault. There was also the broad and well-filled prison of poverty, and many of the prisoners there needed only a better start. James Edward Oglethorpe conceived another settlement in America, and for colonists he would have all these down-trodden and oppressed. He would gather, if he might, only those who when helped would help themselves — who when given opportunity would rise out of old slough and briar. He was personally open to the appeal of still another class of unfortunate men. He had seen upon the Continent the distress of the poor and humble Protestants in Catholic countries. Folk of this kind — from France, from Germany — had been going in a thin stream for years to the New World. But by his plan more might be enabled to escape petty tyranny or persecution. He had influence, and his scheme appealed to the humane thought of his day — appealed, too, to the political thought. In America there was that debatable and unoccupied land south of Charles Town in South Carolina. It would be very good to settle it, and none had taken up the idea with seriousness since Azilia had failed. Such a colony as was now contemplated would dispose of Spanish claims, serve as a buffer colony between Florida and South Carolina, and establish another place of trade. The upshot was that the Crown granted to Oglethorpe and twenty associates the unsettled land between the Savannah and the Altamaha, with a westward depth that was left quite indefinite. This territory, which was now severed from Carolina, was named Georgia after his Majesty King George II, and Oglethorpe and a number of prominent men became the trustees of the new colony. They were to act as such for twenty-one years, at the end of which time Georgia should pass under the direct government of the Crown. Parliament gave to the starting of things ten thousand pounds, and wealthy philanthropic individuals followed suit with considerable donations. The trustees assembled, organized, set to work. A philanthropic body, they drew from the like minded far and near. Various agencies worked toward getting together and sifting the colonists for Georgia. Men visited the prisons for debtors and others. They did not choose at random, but when they found the truly unfortunate and undepraved in prison they drew them forth, compounded with their creditors, set the prisoners free, and enrolled them among the emigrants. Likewise they drew together those who, from sheer poverty, welcomed this opportunity. And they began a correspondence with distressed Protestants on the Continent. They also devised and used all manner of safeguards against imposition and the inclusion of any who would be wholly burdens, moral or physical. So it happened that, though misfortune had laid on almost all a heavy hand, the early colonists to Georgia were by no means undesirable flotsam and jetsam. The plans for the colony, the hopes for its well-being, wear a tranquil and fair countenance.

Oglethorpe himself would go with the first colonists. His ship was the Anne of two hundred tons burden — the last English colonizing ship with which this narrative has to do — and to her weathered sails there still clings a fascination. On board the Anne, beside the crew and master, are Oglethorpe himself and more than a hundred and twenty Georgia settlers, men, women, and children. The Anne shook forth her sails in mid-November, 1732, upon the old West Indies sea road, and after two months of prosperous faring, came to anchor in Charles Town harbor.

South Carolina, approving this Georgia settlement which was to open the country southward and be a wall against Spain, received the colonists with hospitality. Oglethorpe and the weary colonists rested from long travel, then hoisted sail again and proceeded on their way to Port Royal, and southward yet to the mouth of the Savannah. Here there was further tarrying while Oglethorpe and picked men went in a small boat up the river to choose the site where they should build their town.

Here, upon the lower reaches, there lay a fair plateau, a mile long, rising forty feet above the stream. Near by stood a village of well-inclined Indians — the Yamacraws. Ships might float upon the river, close beneath the tree-crowned bluff. It was springtime now and beautiful in the southern land — the sky azure, the air delicate, the earth garbed in flowers. Little wonder then that Oglethorpe chose Yamacraw Bluff for his town.

A trader from Carolina was found here, and the trader’s wife, a half-breed, Mary Musgrove by name, did the English good service. She made her Indian kindred friends with the newcomers. From the first Oglethorpe dealt wisely with the red men. In return for many coveted goods, he procured within the year a formal cession of the land between the two rivers and the islands off the coast. He swore friendship and promised to treat the Indians justly, and he kept his oath. The site chosen, he now returned to the Anne and presently brought his colonists up the river to that fair place. As soon as they landed, these first Georgians began immediately to build a town which they named Savannah.

Ere long other emigrants arrived. In 1734 came seventy-eight German Protestants from Salzburg, with Baron von Reck and two pastors for leaders. The next year saw fifty-seven others added to these. Then came Moravians with their pastor. All these strong, industrious, religious folk made settlements upon the river above Savannah. Italians came, Piedmontese sent by the trustees to teach the coveted silk-culture. Oglethorpe, when he sailed to England in 1734, took with him Tomochi-chi, chief of the Yamacraws, and other Indians. English interest in Georgia increased. Parliament gave more money — 26,000 pounds. Oglethorpe and the trustees gathered more colonists. The Spanish cloud seemed to be rolling up in the south, and it was desirable to have in Georgia a number of men who were by inheritance used to war. Scotch Highlanders — there would be the right folk! No sooner said than gathered. Something under two hundred, courageous and hardy, were enrolled from the Highlands. The majority were men, but there were fifty women and children with them. All went to Georgia, where they settled to the south of Savannah, on the Altamaha, near the island of St. Simon. Other Highlanders followed. They had a fort and a town which they named New Inverness, and the region that they peopled they called Darien.

Oglethorpe himself left England late in 1735, with two ships, the Symond and the London Merchant, and several hundred colonists aboard. Of these folk doubtless a number were of the type the whole enterprise had been planned to benefit. Others were Protestants from the Continent. Yet others — notably Sir Francis Bathurst and his family — went at their own charges. After Oglethorpe himself, most remarkable perhaps of those going to Georgia were the brothers John and Charles Wesley. Not precisely colonists are the Wesleys, but prospectors for the souls of the colonists, and the souls of the Indians — Yamacraws, Uchees, and Creeks.

They all landed at Savannah, and now planned to make a settlement south of their capital city, by the mouth of Altamaha. Oglethorpe chose St. Simon’s Island, and here they built, and called their town Frederica.

“Each Freeholder had 60 Feet in Front by 90 Feet in depth upon the high Street for House and Garden; but those which fronted the River had but 30 in Front, by 60 Feet in depth. Each Family had a Bower of Palmetto Leaves finished upon the back Street in their own Lands. The side toward the front Street was set out for their Houses. These Palmetto Bowers were very convenient shelters, being tight in the hardest Rains; they were about 20 Feet long and 14 Feet wide, and in regular Rows looked very pretty, the Palmetto Leaves lying smooth and handsome, and of a good Colour. The whole appeared something like a Camp; for the Bowers looked like Tents, only being larger and covered with Palmetto Leaves.”*

* Moore’s “Voyage to Georgia”. Quoted in Winsor’s “Narrative and Critical History of America”, vol. V, p. 378.

Their life sounds idyllic, but it will not always be so. Thunders will arise; serpents be found in Eden. But here now we leave them — in infant Savannah — in the Salzburgers’ village of Ebenezer and in the Moravian village nearby — in Darien of the Highlanders — and in Frederica, where until houses are built they will live in palmetto bowers.

Virginia, Maryland, the two Carolinas, Georgia — the southern sweep of England-in-America — are colonized. They have communication with one another and with middle and northern England-in-America. They also have communication with the motherland over the sea. The greetings of kindred and the fruits of labor travel to and fro: over the salt, tumbling waves. But also go mutual criticism and complaint. “Each man,” says Goethe, “is led and misled after a fashion peculiar to himself.” So with those mass persons called countries. Tension would come about, tension would relax, tension would return and increase between Mother England and Daughter America. In all these colonies, in the year with which this narrative closes, there were living children and young persons who would see the cord between broken, would hear read the Declaration of Independence. So — but the true bond could never be broken, for mother and daughter after all are one.

THE NAVIGATION LAWS

Three acts of Parliament — the Navigation Act of 1660, the Staple Act of 1663, and the Act of 1673 imposing Plantation Duties — laid the foundation of the old colonial system of Great Britain. Contrary to the somewhat passionate contentions of older historians, they were not designed in any tyrannical spirit, though they embodied a theory of colonization and trade which has long since been discarded. In the seventeenth century colonies were regarded as plantations existing solely for the benefit of the mother country. Therefore their trade and industry must be regulated so as to contribute most to the sea power, the commerce, and the industry of the home country which gave them protection. Sir Josiah Child was only expressing a commonplace observation of the mercantilists when he wrote “That all colonies or plantations do endamage their Mother-Kingdoms, whereof the trades of such Plantations are not confined by severe Laws, and good execution of those Laws, to the Mother-Kingdom.”

The Navigation Act of 1660, following the policy laid down in the statute of 1651 enacted under the Commonwealth, was a direct blow aimed at the Dutch, who were fast monopolizing the carrying trade. It forbade any goods to be imported into or exported from His Majesty’s plantations except in English, Irish, or colonial vessels of which the master and three fourths of the crew must be English; and it forbade the importation into England of any goods produced in the plantations unless carried in English bottoms. Contemporary Englishmen hailed this act as the Magna Charta of the Sea. There was no attempt to disguise its purpose. “The Bent and Design,” wrote Charles Davenant, “was to make those colonies as much dependant as possible upon their Mother-Country,” by preventing them from trading independently and so diverting their wealth. The effect would be to give English, Irish, and colonial shipping a monopoly of the carrying trade within the Empire. The act also aided English merchants by the requirement that goods of foreign origin should be imported directly from the place of production; and that certain enumerated commodities of the plantations should be carried only to English ports. These enumerated commodities were products of the southern and semitropical plantations: “Sugars, Tobacco, Cotton-wool, Indicoes, Ginger, Fustick or other dyeing wood.”

To benefit British merchants still more directly by making England the staple not only of plantation products but also of all commodities of all countries, the Act of 1663 was passed by Parliament. “No Commoditie of the Growth Production or Manufacture of Europe shall be imported into any Land Island Plantation Colony Territory or Place to His Majestie belonging . . . but what shall be bona fide and without fraude laden and shipped in England Wales [and] the Towne of Berwicke upon Tweede and in English built Shipping.” The preamble to this famous act breathed no hostile intent. The design was to maintain “a greater correspondence and kindnesse” between the plantations and the mother country; to encourage shipping; to render navigation cheaper and safer; to make “this Kingdome a Staple not only of the Commodities of those Plantations but also of the Commodities of other Countries and places for the supplying of them — ” it “being the usage of other nations to keepe their [Plantations] Trade to themselves.”

The Act of 1673 was passed to meet certain difficulties which arose in the administration of the Act of 1660. The earlier act permitted colonial vessels to carry enumerated commodities from the place of production to another plantation without paying duties. Under cover of this provision, it was assumed that enumerated commodities, after being taken to a plantation, could then be sent directly to continental ports free of duty. The new act provided that, before vessels left a colonial port, bonds should be given that the enumerated commodities would be carried only to England. If bonds were not given and the commodities were taken to another colonial port, plantation duties were collected according to a prescribed schedule.

These acts were not rigorously enforced until after the passage of the administrative act of 1696 and the establishment of admiralty courts. Even then it does not appear that they bore heavily on the colonies, or occasioned serious protest. The trade acts of 1764 and 1765 are described in “The Eve of the Revolution”. — EDITOR.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The literature of the Colonial South is like the leaves of Vallombrosa for multitude. Here may be indicated some volumes useful in any general survey.

VIRGINIA

Hakluyt’s “Principal Voyages.” 12 vols. (Hakluyt Society. Extra Series, 1905-1907.) “The Prose Epic of the modern English nation.”

“Purchas, His Pilgrims.” 20 vols. (Hakluyt Society, Extra Series, 1905-1907.)

Hening’s “Statutes at Large,” published in 1823, is an eminently valuable collection of the laws of colonial Virginia, beginning with the Assembly of 1619. Hening’s own quotation from Priestley, “The Laws of a country are necessarily connected with everything belonging to the people of it: so that a thorough knowledge of them and of their progress would inform us of everything that was most useful to be known,” indicates the range and weight of his thirteen volumes.

William Stith’s “The History of the Discovery and First Settlement of Virginia” (1747) gives some valuable documents and a picture of the first years at Jamestown.

Alexander Brown’s “Genesis of the United States”, 2 vols. (1890), is a very valuable work, giving historical manuscripts and tracts. Less valuable is his “First Republic in America” (1898), in which the author attempts to weave his material into a historical narrative.

Philip A. Bruce’s “Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century”, 2 vols. (1896), is a highly interesting and exhaustive survey. The same author has written “Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century” (1907) and “Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century”, 2 vols. (1910).

John Fiske’s “Virginia and Her Neighbors,” 2 vols. (1897), and John E. Cooke’s Virginia (American Commonwealth Series, 1883) are written in lighter vein than the foregoing histories and possess much literary distinction.

On Captain John Smith there are writings innumerable. Some writers give credence to Smith’s own narratives, while others do not. John Fiske accepts the narratives as history, and Edward Arber, who has edited them (2 vols., 1884), holds that the “General History” (1624) is more reliable than the “True Relation” (1608). On the other side, as doubters of Smith’s credibility, are ranged such weighty authorities as Charles Deane, Henry Adams, and Alexander Brown.

Thomas J. Wertenbaker’s “Virginia under the Stuarts” (1914) is a painstaking effort to set forth the political history of the colony in the light of recent historical investigation, but the book is devoid of literary attractiveness.

MARYLAND

“The Archives of Maryland”, 37 vols. (1883-) contain the official documents of the province. John L. Bozman’s “History of Maryland”, 2 vols. (1837), contains much valuable material for the years 1634-1658.

J. T. Scharf’s “History of Maryland”, 3 vols. (1879), is a solid piece of work; but the reader will turn by preference to the more readable books by John Fiske, “Virginia and Her Neighbors”, and William H. Browne, “Maryland, The History of a Palatinate ” (“American Commonwealth Series,” 1884). Browne has also written “George and Cecilius Calvert” (1890).

THE CAROLINAS

“The Colonial Records of North Carolina”, 10 vols. (1886-1890), are a mine of information about both North and South Carolina.

Francis L. Hawks’s “History of North Carolina”, 2 vols. (1857-8), remains the most substantial work on the colony to the year 1729.

Samuel A. Ashe’s “History of North Carolina” (1908) carries the political history down to 1783.

Edward McCrady’s “History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government” (1897) and “South Carolina under the Royal Government” (1899) have superseded the older histories by Ramsay and Hewitt.

GEORGIA

The best histories of Georgia are those by William B. Stevens, 2 vols. (1847, 1859), and Charles C. Jones, 2 vols. (1883). Robert Wright’s “Memoir of General James Oglethorpe” (1867) is still the best life of the founder of Georgia.

In the “American Nation Series” and in Winsor’s “Narrative and Critical History of America”, the reader will find accounts of the Southern colonies written by specialists and accompanied by much critical apparatus. Further lists will be found appended to the articles on the several States in “The Encyclopaedia Britannica”, 11th edition.