Thaddeus Mason Harris

“ Theft is a thing not known among the Creek Indians; though frequent, and even honorable among the Uchees. Murder they look on as a most abominable crime: but do not esteem the killing of an enemy, or one that has injured them, murder. The passion of revenge, which they call honor, and drunkenness, which they learn from our traders, seem to be the two greatest obstacles to their being truly Christians: but, upon both these points they hear reason; and with respect to drinking rum, I have weaned those near me a good deal from it. ”

“ Governor Belcher, of Massachusetts, in a letter to Lord Egmont, observes, "I have read Mr. Oglethorpe's state of the new colony of Georgia once and again; and by its harbors, rivers, soil and productions, do not doubt that it must in time make a fine addition to the British Empire in America; and I still insist upon it that the prohibitory regulations of the Trustees are essential to its healthy and prosperous condition; and the alteration of the Constitution to the advantage of females must give great encouragement to first undertakers or settlers, as your Lordship observes." ”

“ A writer in the year 1732, and within the month on which the charter for Georgia was issued, made the following remarks: "If the Trustees give liberty of Religion, establish the people free, fix an agrarian law, and go upon the glorious maxims of liberty and virtue, their Province, in the age of a man, by being the asylum of the unfortunate, will become more and more advantageous to Britain than the conquest of a kingdom." ”

“ Stephens remarks that "the most bloody part of all fell to the unhappy share of our good people of Darien, who, almost to a man engaged, under the command of their leader, John Moore McIntosh; a worthy man, careful director among his people at home, and who now showed himself as valiant in the field of battle; where, calling on his countrymen and soldiers to follow his example, they made such havoc with their broadswords, as the Spaniards cannot easily forget." ”

“ In the furtherance of this noble enterprise, that public spirited and magnanimous man has acted like a vigilant and faithful guardian, at the expense of his repose, and to the utmost hazard of his life. And now, the jealousy of the Spanish is excited, and we are told that that court has the modesty to demand from England that he shall not he any longer employed. If this be the fact, as there is no doubt it is, we have a most undeniable proof that the Spaniards dread the abilities of Mr. Oglethorpe. ”

“ The Saltzburgers went further up the river, and selected a place of settlement, which they called Ebenezer, but the Brethren began immediately their settlement near to Savannah; and God so blessed their industry, that they were not only soon in a capacity of maintaining themselves, but, also, of being serviceable to their neighbors. Having had assistance in the erection of a school-house for the children of the Indians, Tomo Tschatschi, their King, came to see it, and was glad that they might have a place where, as he expressed it, they could hear the good word. ”

“ The Governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, addressed letters to Oglethorpe, "congratulating him upon the important services rendered to the Colonies; and assuring him of the interest which they felt in the honor he had acquired by his indefatigable exertions, constant exposure, extraordinary courage, and unequalled military conduct; and offering their humble thanks to the Supreme Governor of nations for placing the fate of the Southern Colonies under the direction of a General so well qualified for the important trust." ”

“ Augustine, it was, nevertheless, of no little consequence, inasmuch as it kept the Spaniards for a long time on the defensive, and the war at a distance; so that the inhabitants of Carolina felt none of its effects as a Colony, excepting the loss suffered by their privateers, till the Spaniards executed their long projected invasion in 1742, in which they employed their whole strength, and from which they expected to have changed the whole face of the Continent of North America; and, even then, the people of Carolina suffered only by their fears. ”

“ A night of peaceful slumber passed; and, about eight o'clock on Friday morning, they went ashore on a small uninhabited island, [1] where Oglethorpe led them to a rising ground, and they all knelt and returned thanks to God for their safe arrival. Leaving the people, as there was a fine spring, and a pond of pure water, to wash their clothes, and refresh themselves, he went himself, attended by his suite, in a boat to Savannah, where he was received, under the discharge of all their cannon, by the freeholders in arms, with the constables and tithing men at their head. ”

“ One man there is, my Lords, whose natural generosity, contempt of danger, and regard for the public, prompted him to obviate the designs of the Spaniards, and to attack them in their own territories; a man, whom by long acquaintance I can confidently affirm to have been equal to his undertaking, and to have learned the art of war by a regular education, who yet miscarried in the design only for want of supplies necessary to a possibility of success. ”

“ Carolina is divided into North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia; the latter is a province which his Majesty has taken out of Carolina, and is the southern and western frontier of that province, lying between it and the French, Spaniards, and Indians.
The part of Carolina that is settled, is for the most part a flat country. All, near the sea, is a range of islands, which breaks the fury of the ocean. Within is generally low land for twenty or twenty-five miles, where the country begins to rise in gentle swellings. ”

“ Hence, his agency, services and expenditures in settling the Province of Georgia, his disinterested devotedness to its establishment and progressive welfare, and his bravery and personal exposure in its defence, enrolled among the important achievements of his long and eventful life, constitute the most splendid trophy to his fame, and will ensure to his name a memory as lasting as that of America itself. ”

“ In the debate on the bill for encouraging the trade of the British sugar colonies, Oglethorpe took an active part, and manifested those liberal and patriotic views, and that regard for the colonial settlements in North America, which, afterwards, became with him a decided principle.
"In all cases," said he, "that come before this House, where there seems a clashing of interests, we ought to have no exclusive regard to the particular interest of any one country or set of people, but to the good of the whole. Our colonies are a part of our dominions. The people in them are our own people ”

“ What various misfortunes may reduce the rich, the industrious, to danger of a prison,—to a moral certainty of starving!—These are the persons that may relieve themselves, and strengthen Georgia by resorting thither, and Great Britain by their departure. ”

“ WESLEY, in his Journal, writes July 1st, 1736: "The Indians had an audience, and another on Saturday, when Chicali, their head man, dined with Mr. Oglethorpe. After dinner I asked the grey-headed old man, 'What he thought he was made for?' He said, 'He that is above knows what he made us for. We know nothing. We are in the dark. But white men know much. And yet white men build great houses, as if they were to live forever. In a little time white men will be dust as well as I.' I told him, 'if red men will learn the good book, they may know as much as white men. ”

“ And here closes the history of the settlement of Georgia; in a great degree the project and the furtherance of one man, who must be allowed to possess the foremost rank among those, who, by well-concerted plans, and judicious and persevering measures for their accomplishment, have high claims on public gratitude, as warm and devoted patriots, and enlightened philanthropists. ”

“ We agree so well with the Indians, that the Creeks and Uchees have referred to me a difference to determine, which otherwise would have occasioned a war.
"Our people still lie in tents, there being only two clapboard houses built, and three sawed houses framed. Our crane, our battery of cannon, and magazine are finished. This is all that we have been able to do, by reason of the smallness of our number, of which many have been sick, and others unused to labor; though, I thank God, they are now pretty well, and we have not lost one since our arrival here." ”

“ To provide for the raising of silk-worms and winding the thread from the cocoons, was an early purpose of the Trustees. Liberal encouragement was given by the Government and the Board of Trade to the importation of all that could be produced. Samples had been sent to England which gave promise of success. In the beginning of May, this year, the Trustees and Sir Thomas Lombe, waited on the Queen with a specimen, who was highly gratified with learning that a British Colony had produced such silk, and desired that the fabric into which it should be wrought might be shewn her. ”

“ He passed his winters in London, where he enjoyed the acquaintance and even intimacy of some of the most honorable and distinguished characters of the day. "A gentleman and a soldier, he united the virtue of chivalrous honor and magnanimity with the acquirements of learning and that love of polite literature which associated him with the first scholars of the age." One who knew him intimately has said, "This extraordinary person was as remarkable for his learning and taste, as for his other eminent qualities; and no man was more prompt, active, and generous in encouraging merit." ”

“ In short, all those who can work yet are supported in idleness by any mistaken charity, or are subsisted by their parishes, which are at this time, through all England overburdened by indolent and lazy poor, who claim and are designed only for impotent poor;—all those who add nothing by their labor to the welfare of the state, are useless, burdensome, or dangerous to it. ”

“ They are a generous, good-natured people; very humane to strangers; patient of want and pain; slow to anger, and not easily provoked, but, when they are thoroughly incensed, they are implacable; very quick of apprehension and gay of temper. Their public conferences show them to be men of genius, and they have a natural eloquence, they never having had the use of letters. ”

“ In cases of murder, the next in blood is obliged to kill the murderer, or else he is looked on as infamous in the nation where he lives; and the weakness of the executive power is such, that there is no other way of punishment but by the revenger of blood, as the Scripture calls it; for there is no coercive power in any of their nations; their kings can do no more than to persuade. All the power they have is no more than to call their old men and captains together, and to propound to them the measures they think proper ”

“ Oglethorpe shows that the gentlemen who are members of the House of Representatives in that Colony, are men of good sense as well as lovers of their country; and there is certainly no greater incitement to generous and public spirited actions than that of public acknowledgment and praise. ”

“ In both these visits to Savannah, Oglethorpe discovered among the inhabitants indications of the prevalence of not only a dissatisfied, but of a factious spirit; more to be lamented than a failing harvest, or a stinted market. ”

“ The principal commander of the Spaniards fell at the first onset.
The Spanish took several prisoners; basely insulted the bodies of the dead; and would have inflicted vengeful cruelties on their captives, one of whom was an Indian named Nicholausa, whom they delivered over to the Yamasees to burn, but General Oglethorpe sent a drum with a message to the Governor from the Indian chief of the Cherokees, acquainting him that if he permitted Nicholausa to be burnt, a Spanish horseman who had been taken prisoner should suffer the same fate. ”

“ But when Tomo Chichi came to welcome the Governor on his arrival, and was introduced to the intended teacher, it appeared that unforeseen obstacles had arisen. "I am glad you are come," said the Mico, addressing him through the female interpreter. "When I was in England I desired that some would speak the great word to me; and our people then desired to hear it; but now we are all in confusion. The French on one side, and the Spanish on the other, and the Traders in the midst, have caused us much perplexity; and made our people unwilling. Their ears are shut. ”