of the former, and the amount of the latter, up

to this period, will be satisfactory to the reader.

Fifth do.................. .... 32 32... 13,627 18 7 Sixth do............................ .298

20,909 1910

Seventh do................. 9 9... 8,473 9 9 4 Eighth do..........

Total..........

4

.138 .. 20,181 4 34

The people above mentioned were brought to Georgia and supported at the expense of the trustees those who came at their own expense and supported themselves, are not included, nor is the number of them known.

It appears from this calculation, that the poor people brought to Georgia by the trustees, cost them three hundred and thirty dollars each. Nine hundred and fifteen persons of the number abovementioned, were British subjects, and six hundred and six were foreign protestants; and of the whole, six hundred and eighty-six, were men capable of bearing arms.

Ninety-four thousand pounds of the above amount, was appropriated by the British parliament, and the balance, raised by private contributions.

The answer of the trustees to the representa tion from the inhabitants of Savannah, the 9th of December 1738, for altering the tenure of their lands, and introducing negroes into the colony, was received in September, 1739.

"To the magistrates of the town of Savannah, in the province of Georgia."

"The trustees for establishing the colony of Georgia, in America, have received by the hands of Mr. Benjamin Ball, of London, merchant, an attested copy of a representation, signed by you the magistrates, and many of the inhabitants of Savannah, on the 9th of December last, for altering the tenure of the lands, and introducing negroes into the province, transmitted from thence by Mr. Robert Williams.

"The trustees are not surprised to find unwary people drawn in by crafty men, to join in a design of extorting by clamor from the trustees, an alteration of the fundamental laws, framed for the preservation of the people, from those very designs. But the trustees cannot but express their astonishment, that you the magistrates, appointed by them to be the guardians of the people, by putting those laws in execution, should so far forget your duty, as to put yourselves at the head of this attempt. However, they direct you to give the complainants this answer from the trustees, that they should deem themselves very unfit for the trust reposed in them by his majes

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ty on their behalf, if they could be prevailed up on by such an irrational attempt, to give up a constitution, framed with the greatest caution, for the preservation of liberty and property; and of which the laws against the use of slaves and for the entail of lands, are the surest foundations.

"And the trustees are the more confirmed in their opinion of the unreasonableness of this demand, because they have received petitions, from Darien, and other parts of the province, representing the inconvenience and danger, which must arise to the good people of the province from the introduction of negroes; and as the trustees themselves are fully convinced, that besides the hazard attending that introduction, it would destroy all industry among the white inhabitants; and that by giving them a power to alien their lands, the colony would soon be too much like its neighbors; void of white inhabitants, filled with blacks, and reduced to the precarious property of a few, equally exposed to domestic treachery, and foreign invasion; and therefore the trustees cannot be supposed to be in any disposition of granting this request; and if they have not before this signified their dislike of it, this delay is to be imputed to no other motives, but the hopes they had conceived, that time and experience would bring the complainants to a better mind: and the trustees readily join issue with them in their appeal to posterity, who shall judge between them, who were their best friends;

those who endeavored to preserve for them a property in their lands, by tying up the hands of their unthrifty progenitors? or they who wanted a power to mortgage, or alien them? who were the best friends to the colony; those who with great labor and cost had endeavored to form a colony of his majesty's subjects, and persecuted protestants from other parts of Europe, had placed them on a fruitful soil, and strove to secure them in their possessions, by those acts which naturally tend to keep the colony full of useful and industrious people, capable both of cultivating and defending it? or those who, to gratify the greedy and ambitious views of a few negro mer. chants, would put it in their power to become sole owners of the province, by introducing their baneful commodity; which it is well known by sad experience, has brought the neighboring colony to the brink of ruin, by driving out their white inhabitants, who were their glory and strength, to make room for the blacks, who are now become the terror of their unadvised mas ters."

Signed by order of the trustees, 20th of June, 1739.

BENJ. MARTYN, Secretary."

This letter was accompanied by new commissions for magistrates: Thomas Christie, first; John Fallowfield, second; and Thomas Jones, third bailiffs; and William Williamson, recorder. The inhabitants remarked that if they had not

been sufficiently scourged before, this change in the executive authority would make their punishment complete. That Thomas Jones, surpassed Causton in all his bad qualities, without possessing any of his good ones, and that he might govern without control, Oglethorpe had thought proper to supersede the commissions of Christie and Williamson, and continued Henry Parker, as first magistrate, who would always support the interest of the store-keeper, Jones: therefore Fallowfield would be over-ruled, and all the powers of government would be vested in the other two; the people again complained to the trustees, but without effect.

William Stephens, Thomas Christie, and Thomas Jones, Esqrs. were appointed to exam. ine Causton's accounts, but it is said they were never satisfactorily settled. Causton was remo ved for mal-practice in office.

Notwithstanding the determination of the trustees, entered into on the 20th of June, they again assembled on the 28th of August, 1739, and entered into the following resolutions, relating to the grants and tenure of lands in the colony of Georgia.

"Whereas the common council of the said trustees, assembled for that purpose in the name of the corporation of the said trustees, and under their common seal; have in pursuance of his majesty's most gracious letters patent, and in execution of the trust reposed in them, granted and