assembly, and immediately passed an act disfranchising all the dissenters in the province. An appeal was carried to the proprietors, only to be rejected with contempt. The dissenting party next laid their cause before Parliament, and that body promptly voted that the act of disfranchisement was contrary to the laws of England, and that the proprietors had forfeited their charter. The queen's ministers were authorized to declare the intolerant law null and void. In November of the same year the colonial legislature revoked its own act so far as the disfranchising clause was concerned; but Episcopalianism continued to be the established faith of the province.

The year 1706 was a stirring epoch in the history of South Carolina. A French and Spanish fleet was sent from Havana to capture Charleston and subdue the country. The orders were more easily given than executed. The brave people of the capital flew to arms. Governor Johnson and Colonel William Rhett inspired the volunteers with courage; and when the hostile squadron anchored in the harbor, the city was ready for a stubborn defence. Several times a landing was attempted, but the invaders were everywhere repulsed. At last a French vessel succeeded in getting to shore with eight hundred troops, but they were attacked with fury and driven off with a loss of three hundred in killed and prisoners. The siege was at once abandoned; unaided by the proprietors, South Carolina had made a glorious defence.

In the spring of 1715 war broke out with the Yamassees. As usual with their race, the Indians began hostilities with treachery. At the very time when Captain Nairne was among them as a friendly ambassador, the wily savages rose upon the frontier settlements and committed an atrocious massacre. The people of Port Royal were alarmed just in time to escape in a ship to Charleston. The desperate savages rushed on to within a short distance of the capital. It seemed that the city would be taken and the whole colony driven to destruction. But the brave Charles Craven, governor of the province, rallied the militia of Colleton district, and the blood-stained barbarians were driven back. A vigorous pursuit began, and the savages were pressed to the banks of the Salkehatchie. Here a decisive battle was fought, and the Indians were completely routed. The Yamassees collected their shattered tribe and retired into Florida, where they were received by the Spaniards as friends and confederates.

In 1719 the government of South Carolina was revolutionized. At the close of the war with the Yamassees the assembly petitioned the proprietors to bear a portion of the expense. But the avaricious noblemen refused, and would take no measures for the future protection of the

colony. The people were greatly burdened with rents and taxes. The lands were monopolized; every act of the assembly which seemed for the public good was vetoed by the proprietors. In the new election every delegate was chosen by the popular party. The 21st of December was training-day in Charleston. On that day James Moore, the new chief magistrate elected by the people, was to be inaugurated. Governor Johnson forbade the military display and tried to prevent the inauguration; but the militia collected in the public square, drums were beaten, flags were flung out on the forts and shipping, and before nightfall the proprietary government of Carolina was overthrown. Governor Moore was duly inaugurated in the name of King George I. A colonial agent was at once sent to England; the cause of the colonists was heard, and the forfeited charter of the proprietors abrogated by act of Parliament.

Francis Nicholson was now commissioned as governor. He had already held the office of chief magistrate in New York, in Virginia, in Maryland and in Nova Scotia. He began a successful administration in South Carolina by concluding treaties of peace and commerce with the Cherokees and the Creeks. But another and final change in colonial affairs was now at hand. In 1729 seven of the eight proprietors of the Carolinas sold their entire claims in the provinces to the king. Lord Carteret, the eighth proprietor, would surrender nothing but his right of jurisdiction, reserving his share in the soil. The sum paid by King George for the two colonies was twenty-two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. Royal governors were appointed, and the affairs of the province were settled on a permanent basis, not to be disturbed for more than forty years.

The people who colonized South Carolina were brave and chivalrous. On the banks of the Santee, the Edisto and the Combahee were gathered some of the best elements of the European nations. The Huguenot, the Scotch Presbyterian, the English dissenter, the loyalist and High Churchman, the Irish adventurer and the Dutch mechanic, composed the powerful material out of which soon grew the beauty and renown of the PALMETTO STATE. Equally with the rugged Puritans of the North, the South Carolinians were lovers of liberty. Without the severe morality and formal manners of the Pilgrims, the people who were once governed by the peaceful Archdale and once led to war by the gallant Craven became the leaders in courtly politeness and high-toned honor between man and man. In the coming struggle for freedom South Carolina will bear a noble and distinguished part; the fame of the patriotic Rhett will be perpetuated by Marion and Sumter.

CHAPTER XXIX.

GEORGIA.

GEORGIA, the thirteenth American colony, was founded in a spirit

of pure benevolence. The laws of England permitted imprisonment for debt. Thousands of English laborers, who through misfortune and thoughtless contracts had become indebted to the rich, were annually arrested and thrown into jail. There were desolate and starving families. The miserable condition of the debtor class at last attracted the attention of Parliament. In 1728 a commissioner was appointed, at his own request, to look into the state of the poor, to visit the prisons of the kingdom, and to report measures of relief. The work was accomplished, the jails were opened, and the poor victims of debt returned to their homes.

The noble commissioner was not yet satisfied. For the liberated prisoners and their friends were disheartened and disgraced in the country of their birth. Was there no land beyond the sea where debt was not a crime, and where poverty was no disgrace? To provide a refuge for the down-trodden poor of England and the distressed Protestants of other countries, the commissioner now appealed to George II. for the privilege of planting a colony in America. The petition was favorably heard, and on the 9th of June, 1732, a royal charter was issued by which the territory between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers, and westward from the upper fountains of those rivers to the Pacific, was organized and granted to a corporation for twenty-one years, to be held in trust for the poor. In honor of the king, the new province received the name of GEORGIA. But what was the name of that high-souled, unselfish commissioner of Parliament?

James Oglethorpe, the philanthropist. Born a loyalist, educated at Oxford, a High Churchman, a cavalier, a soldier, a member of Parliament, benevolent, generous, full of sympathy, far-sighted, brave as John Smith, chivalrous as De Soto, Oglethorpe gave in middle life the full energies of a vigorous body and a lofty mind to the work of building in the sunny South an asylum for the oppressed of his own and other lands. The magnanimity of the enterprise was heightened by the fact that he did not believe in the equality of men, but only in the right and duty of the strong to protect the weak and sympathize with the lowly. To Oglethorpe, as

principal member of the corporation, the leadership of the first colony to be planted on the banks of the Savannah, was naturally entrusted.

By the mid

dle of November a hundred and twenty emigrants were ready to sail for the New World. Oglethorpe,

like

at

the elder Winthrop, determined to share the dangers and hardships of his colony. In January of 1733 the company was welcomed Charleston. Passing down the coast, the vessels were anchored for a short time at Beaufort, while the governor with a few companions ascended the bound

JAMES OGLETHORPE.

ary river of Georgia, and selected as the site of his settlement the high bluff on which now stands the city of Savannah. Here, on the 1st day of February, were laid the foundations of the oldest English town south of the Savannah River. Broad streets were laid out; a public square was reserved in each quarter; a beautiful village of tents and board houses, built among the pine trees, appeared as the capital of a new commonwealth where men were not imprisoned for debt.

Tomo-chichi, chief of the Yamacraws, came from his cabin, half a mile distant, to see his brother Oglethorpe. There was a pleasant conference. "Here is a present for you," said the red man to the white man. The present was a buffalo robe painted on the inside with the head and feathers of an eagle. "The feathers are soft, and signify love; the buffalo skin is the emblem of protection. Therefore love us and protect us," said the old chieftain. Such a plea could not be lost on a man like Oglethorpe. Seeing the advantages of peace, he sent an invitation to the chiefs

of the Muskhogees to meet him in a general council at his capital. The conference was held on the 29th of May. Long King, the sachem of Oconas, spoke for all the tribes of his nation. The English were welcomed to the country. Bundles of buckskins, and such other good gifts as savage civilization could offer, were laid down plentifully at the feet of the whites. The governor and his poor but generous colony responded with valuable presents and words of faithful friendship. The fame of Oglethorpe spread far and wide among the Red men. From the distant mountains of Tennessee came the noted chief of the Cherokees to confer with the humane and sweet-tempered governor of Georgia.

The councilors in England who managed the affairs of the new State encouraged emigration with every liberal offer. Swiss peasants left their mountains to find a home on the Savannah. The plaid cloak of the Scotch Highlander was seen among the wigwams of the Muskhogees. From distant Salzburg, afar on the borders of Austria, came a noble colony of German Protestants, singing their way down the Rhine and across the ocean. Oglethorpe met them at Charleston, bade them welcome, led them to Savannah and thence through the woods to a point twenty miles up the river, told them of English rights and the freedom of conscience, and left them to found the village of Ebenezer.

In April of 1734, Governor Oglethorpe made a visit to England. His friend Tomo-chichi went with him, and made the acquaintance of King George. It was said in London that no colony was ever before founded so wisely and well as Georgia. The councilors prohibited the importation of rum. Traffic with the Indians-always a dangerous matter-was either interdicted or regulated by special license. When it came to the question of labor, slavery was positively forbidden. It was said that the introduction of slaves would be fatal to the interests of the English and German laborers for whom the colony had been founded. While the governor was still abroad, the first company of Moravians, numbering nine, and led by the evangelist Spangenberg, arrived at Savannah.

In February of 1736, Oglethorpe himself came back with a new colony of three hundred. Part of these were Moravians, and nearly all were people of deep piety and fervent spirit. First among them-first in zeal and first in the influence which he was destined to exert in after times was the celebrated John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Overflowing with religious enthusiasm, he came to Georgia, not as a politician, not as a minister merely, but as an apostle. To lead the people to righteousness, to spread the gospel, to convert the Indians, and to introduce a new type of religion characterized by few forms and much emotion, these were the purposes that thronged his lofty fancy. He was