USA > Georgia > A true and historical narrative of the colony of Georgia, in America, from the first settlement thereof until this present period > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
Gc 975.8 T13t 1727499
M.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GC
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02301 4522
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/truehistoricalna00tail_0
A TRUE AND HISTORICAL
NARRATIVE
OF THE
COLONY OF GEORGIA
IN AMERICA,
From the First Settlement Thereof until this Present Period. Containing the most Authentic Facts, Matters, and Transactions therein ; together with his Majesty's Charter, Representations of the People, Letters, etc., and a
DEDICATION TO HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL OGLETHORPE.
BY PAT. TAILFER, M. D., HUGH ANDERSON, M. A., DA. DOUGLAS, AND OTHERS, Landholders in Georgia, at present in Charles-Town in South Carolina.
Qui Deorum Muneribus sapienter uti, Duramq ; callet Pauperiemq ; pati, Pejusq ; Letho Flagitium timer, Non ille pro caris Amicis Aut Patria timidus Perire. H. 4 O.
.
CHARLES-TOWN, SOUTH CAROLINA : . Printed by P. TIMOTHY, for the Authors, 1741.
1727499
No 4
AUGUST 1897
COLONIAL TRACTS
Published by GEORGE P HUMPHREY
ROCHESTER N Y
.
,
.
DEDICATION.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY JAMES OGLETHORPE, ESQ .; GENERAL AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA: AND ONE OF THE HONORABLE TRUSTEES FOR ESTABLISHING THE COLONY OF GEORGIA IN AMERICA, ETC.
May it please your Excellency :
A S the few surviving remains of the colony of Georgia find it necessary to present the world, and in particular Great Britain, with a true state of that province, from its first rise to its present period, your excellency (of all mankind) is best entitled to the dedication, as the principal author of its present strength and affluence, freedom and prosperity. And though incontestable truths will recommend the following narrative to the patient and attentive reader, yet your name, sir, will be no little ornament to the frontispiece, and may possibly engage some courteous perusers a little beyond it.
That dedication and flattery are synonimous, is the com- plaint of every dedicator, who concludes himself ingenuous and fortunate, if he can discover a less trite and direct method of flattering than is usually practiced ; but we are happily pre- vented from the least intention of this kind by the repeated . offerings of the muses and news-writers to your excellency in the public papers. It were presumptuous even to dream of equaling or increasing them. We therefore flatter ourselves that nothing we can advance will in the least shock your excel- lency's modesty ; not doubting but your goodness will pardon any deficiency of elegance and politeness on account of our sincerity, and the serious truth we have the honor to approach you with.
We have seen the ancient custom of sending forth colonies for the improvement of any distant territory, or new acquisi- tion, continued down to ourselves, but to your excellency alone it is owing that the world is made acquainted with a plan highly refined from those of all former projectors. They fondly imagined it necessary to communicate to such young settle-
iv.
DEDICATION.
ments the fullest rights and properties, all the immunities of their mother countries, and privileges rather more extensive. By such means, indeed, these colonies flourished with early trade and affluence ; but your excellency's concern for our perpetual welfare could never permit you to propose such tran- sitory advantages for us. You considered riches like a divine and philosopher, as the irritamenta malorum, and knew that they were disposed to inflate weak minds with pride, to pam- per the body with luxury, and introduce a long variety of evils. Thus have you protected us from ourselves, as Mr. Waller says, by keeping all earthly comforts from us. You have afforded us the opportunity of arriving at the integrity of the primitive times by intailing a more than primitive poverty on us. The toil that is necessary to our bare subsistence must effectually defend us from the anxieties of any further ambi- tion. As we have no properties to feed vainglory and beget contention, so we are not puzzled with any system of laws to ascertain and establish them. The valuable virtue of humility is secured to us by your care to prevent our procuring, or so much as seeing, any negroes (the only human creatures pro- per to improve our soil), lest our simplicity might mistake the poor Africans for greater slaves than ourselves. And that we might fully receive the spiritual benefit of those wholesome austerities, you have wisely denied us the use of such spirit- uous liquors as might in the least divert our minds from the contemplation of our happy circumstances.
Our subject swells upon us, and did we allow ourselves to indulge our inclination, without considering our weak abilities, we should be tempted to launch out into many of your excel- lency's extraordinary endowments, which, do not so much regard the affair in hand ; but as this would lead us beyond the bounds of a dedication, so would it engross a subject too exten- sive for us, to the prejudice of other authors and panegyrists. We shall therefore confine ourselves to that remarkable scene of your conduct, whereby Great Britain in general, and the settlers of Georgia in particular, are laid under such inexpress- ible obligations.
Be pleased then, great sir, to accompany our heated imag- inations in taking a view of this colony of Georgia ! this child . of your auspicious politics ! arrived at the utmost vigor of its
V.
DEDICATION.
constitution, at a term when most former states have been struggling through the convulsions of their infancy. This early maturity, however, lessens our admiration, that your excel- lency lives to see (what few founders ever aspired after) the great decline and almost final termination of it. So many have finished their course during the progress of the experiment, and such numbers have retreated from the phantoms of poverty and slavery which their cowardly imaginations pictured to them, that you may justly vaunt with the boldest hero of them all.
Like death you reign O'er silent subjects and a desert plain .- Busitis.
. Yet must your enemies, if you have any, be reduced to confess that no ordinary statesman could have digested in the like manner, so capacious a scheme, such a copious jumble of power and politics. We shall content ourselves with observ- ing that all those beauteous models of government which the little states of Germany exercise, and those extensive liberties which the Boors of Poland enjoy, were designed to concenter in your system, and were we to regard the modes of govern- ment, we must have been strangely unlucky to have missed of the best, where there was the appearance of so great a variety, for under the influence of our perpetual dictator, we have seen something like aristocracy, oligarchy, as well as the triumvirate, decemvirate, and consular authority of famous republics, which have expired many ages before us. What wonder, then, we share the same fate ? Do their towns and villages exist but in story and rubbish ? We are all over ruins ; our public works, forts, wells, highways, lighthouse, store, and water-mills, etc., are dignified like theirs, with the same vener- able desolation. The log house indeed, is like to be the last forsaken spot of your empire ; yet even this, through the death or desertion of those who should continue to inhabit it must suddenly decay; the bankrupt jailer himself shall be soon denied the privilege of human conversation, and when this last moment of the spell expires, the whole shall vanish like the illusion of some eastern magician.
But let not this solitary prospect impress your excellency with any fears of having your services to mankind, and to the settlers of Georgia in particular, buried in oblivion ; for if
vi.
DEDICATION.
we diminutive authors are allowed to prophesy (as you know poets in those cases formerly did) we may confidently presage that while the memoirs of America continue to be read. in English, Spanish, or the language of the Scots Highlanders, your excellency's exploits and epocha will be transmitted to prosperity.
Should your excellency apprehend the least tincture of flattery in anything already hinted, we may sincerely assure you we intended nothing that our sentiments did not very strictly attribute to your merit; and in such sentiments we have the satisfaction of being fortified by all persons of imparti- ality and discernment.
But to trespass no longer on those minutes which your excellency may suppose more significantly employed on the sequel, let it suffice at present, to assure you that we are · deeply affected with your favors, and though unable of our- selves properly to acknowledge them, we shall embrace every opportunity of recommending you to higher powers, who, we are hopeful, will reward your excellency according to your merit.
May it please your excellency,
Your excellency's most devoted servants, THE LAND HOLDERS OF GEORGIA, Authors of the following narrative.
Vi
PREFACE.
T "HE colony of Georgia has afforded so much subject of conversation to the world, that it is not to be questioned but a true and impartial account of it, from its first settlement to its present period, will be generally agreeable, and the more so, that the subject has hitherto been so much disguised and misrepresented in pamphlets, poems, gazettes, and journals.
If it is asked why this narrative has not been published to the world sooner, we assign two reasons which, we doubt not, will be satisfactory.
First, a number of honorable gentlemen accepted the charge of trustees for executing the purposes in his majesty's most gracious charter, gentlemen whose honor and integrity we never did, nor yet do, call in question; but, to our great misfortune, none of that honorable body (excepting Mr. Ogle- thorpe) ever had opportunity of viewing the situation and circumstances of the colony, and judging for themselves as to the necessities thereof. How far Mr. Oglethorpe's schemes were consistent with the welfare or prosperity of it, will best appear from the following narrative.
When experience gradually unfolded to us the alterations we found absolutely requisite to our subsisting, we made all dutiful and submissive applications to these our patrons, in whom we placed so much confidence. This course we judged the most proper and direct, and therefore repeated these our dutiful applications, both to the body of the trustees and to Mr. Oglethorpe ; but, alas! our miseries could not alter his views of things, and therefore we could obtain no redress from him; and the honorable board we found were prejudiced against our petitions, no doubt through misinformation and misrepresentations, and this, we are confident, a further enquiry and time will convince them of.
The inviolable regard we paid to the honorable board kept us from applying to any other power for redress, whilst the least hopes could be entertained of any from them; and we
!
viii.
PREFACE.
make no doubt but that our moderation in this respect will recommend us to all persons of humanity.
A second reason is, that, as we had daily occasion of seeing our supreme magistrates, who ruled over us with unlimited power, exercising illegal acts of authority, by threatenings, imprisonments, and other oppressions ; therefore, we had just reason to apprehend that any further steps to obtain relief might subject us to the like effects of arbitrary power ; so, until now, that a handful of us have made our escape to a land of liberty (after having made shipwreck of our time and substance in that unhappy colony), we had it not in our power to represent the state of that settlement to the world, or make our application to higher powers for redress.
We are hopeful that the perusal of the following sheets will rectify two sorts of readers in their surprise in relation to the colony of Georgia, viz .: those of Great Britain, who have never known this part of the world but by description, and those of America. The first are no doubt surprised to think it possible that so pleasant and temperate a clime, so fruitful a soil, such extensive privileges, all which were publicly given out, and such considerable sums of public and private bene- factions, have not satisfied and enriched us. Them we refer to the following narrative for satisfaction. The American reader, on the other hand, must be equally surprised to find that such numbers should have been so fooled and blindfolded as to expect to live in this part of America by cultivation of lands without negroes, and much more without titles to their lands, and laid under a load of grievances and restrictions ; and though these were redressed, how could persons in their senses ever imagine that fifty acres of pine barren, not value fifty-six pence in property (and whereof many thousands may be purchased at half that rate in the neighboring province) could maintain a family of white people, and pay such duties and quit-rents in a few years as the richest grounds in Carolina or other provinces in America will never bear ? To these last we shall only beg leave to observe that such fatal artifice was. used (we shall not say by whom), such specious pretences were made use of, and such real falsities advanced, and the smallest foundations of truth magnified to hyperbole, that we, who had no opportunity of knowing otherways, or means of
-
ix.
PREFACE.
learning the real truth, and being void of all suspicion of artifice or design, easily believed all these, and fell into the decoy.
The mind of man is naturally curious and enterprising ; we easily feed our wishes into realities, and affect and look upon every novelty in the most favorable light. How easy, then, is it for cunuing and artifice to lay hold on the weak sides of our fellow creatures, as we catch fish with a hook baited to their particular gout.
To prove this charge, we shall only transcribe some pas- sages from a piece of prose, and some from a piece of poesy, by which specimens the reader may judge of some considera- ble number which were dispersed and vended of the same stamp.
The first are from a pamphlet printed at London, 1733, entitled, "A new and Accurate Account of the Provinces of South Carolina and Georgia." The author has not thought fit to favor us with his name; but it is easy to conceive that we, who suspected no artifice or design, must conclude that it came from the best authority, from the circumstances of its being dispersed publicly, and not being contradicted, and from the author's intimate acquaintance (at least so pretended) with all the trustees' measures and designs. After a high encomium upon the trustees, page 7, he says : "The air of Georgia is ' healthy, being always serene and pleasant, never subject to ' excessive heat or cold, or sudden changes of weather; the ' winter is regular and short, and the summer cooled with 'refreshing breezes ; it neither feels the cutting northwest ' wind that the Virginians complain of, nor the intense heats of ' Spain, Barbary, Italy, and Egypt. The soil will produce ' anything with very little culture." Page 19: "All sorts of ' corn yield an amazing increase ; one-hundred fold is the com- ' mon estimate ; though their husbandry is so slight that they ' can only be said to scratch the earth and merely to cover the ' seed ; all the best sort of cattle and fowls are multiplied ' without number, and therefore without a price ; vines are ' native here.". Page 21: "The woods near Savannah are. ' not hard to be cleared ; many of them have no underwood, ' and the trees do not stand generally thick on the ground, but ' at considerable distances asunder. When you fell the timber
.
x.
PREFACE.
.' for use, or to make tar, the root will rot in four or five years, 'and in the meantime you may pasture the ground ; but if ' you would only destroy the timber, it's done by half a dozen ' strokes of an ax surrounding each tree a little above the root. ' In a year or two, the water getting into the wound rots the ' timber, and a brisk gust of wind fells many acres for you in 'an hour, of which you may make one bright bonfire. Such ' will be frequently here the fate of the pine, the walnut, 'the cypress, the oak, and the cedar. Such an air and ' soil can only be described by a poetical pen, because there ' is no danger of exceeding the truth ; therefore, take Waller's ' description of an island in the neighborhood of Carolina, to ' give you an idea of this happy climate :
The spring, which but salutes us, here, Inhabits there, and courts them all the year. Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same tree live ; At once they promise what at once they give. So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
· None sickly lives, nor dies before his time ; Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst, To show how all things were created first.
Page 27 : " The Indians bring many a mile the whole deer's ' flesh, which they sell to the people who live in the country, ' for the value of sixpence sterling, and a wild turkey of forty- 'pound weight for the value of two-pence." In page 32, the author, when recommending the Georgia adventure to gentle- men of decayed circumstances, who must labor at home or do worse, states the following objection, viz. : " If such people 'can't get bread here for their labor, how will their condition ' be mended in Georgia ?" which he solves in the following manner : " The answer is easy ; part of it is well attested, ' and part self-evident ; they have land there for nothing, and ' that land so fertile, that, as is said before, they receive an ' hundred-fold increase, for taking a very little pains. Give ' here in England ten acres of good land to one of these help- ' less persons, and. I doubt not his ability to make it sustain. ' him, and by his own culture, without letting it to another ; ' but the difference between no rent and racked rent is the ' difference between eating and starving." Page 32: " These ' trustees not only give land to the unhappy who go thither,
----
xi.
PREFACE.
·
' but are also impowered to receive the voluntary contributions ' of charitable persons, to enable to furnish the poor ad- ' venturers with all necessaries for the expense of their ' voyage, occupying the land, and supporting them till they ' find themselves comfortably settled; so that now the unfor- 'tunate will not be obliged to bind themselves to a long 'servitude to pay for their passage, for they may be carried ' gratis into a land of liberty and plenty, where they imme- ' diately find themselves in the possession of a competent ' estate, in an happier climate than they knew before, and ' they are unfortunate indeed if here they cannot forget their 'sorrows." Nay, as if such assertions as these were not powerful enough to influence poor people, calculations are subjoined to demonstrate that a family consisting of one poor man, his wife, and child of seven years old, may in Georgia earn sixty pounds sterling per annum, and this abstracted from silk, wine, etc. Page 41 : "Now this very family in Georgia, ' by raising rice and corn sufficient for its occasions, and by 'attending the care of their cattle and land (which almost ' every one is able to do in some tolerable degree for himself) ' will easily produce in gross value the sum of sixty pounds ' sterling per annum ; nor is this to be wondered at, because of ' the valuable assistance it has from a fertile soil and a stock 'given gratis, which must always be remembered in this ' calculation.
' The calculation of one hundred such families when 'formally extended, stands thus,'-Page 43,.
l. s. d.
' In London one hundred poor men earn, 500 00 0
' One hundred women and one hundred children, 500 00 0
1000 00 0
' In Georgia an hundred families earn :
' One hundred men for labor, . 1200 00 0
' Ditto for care of their stock at leisure hours, . 1200 00 0
' One hundred women and one hundred children, . · 2400 00 0
' Land and stock in themselves, I200 00 0 .
Total,
. 6000 00 0 Q. E. D.
xii.
PREFACE.
But we must conclude this head lest we tire the reader. We shall now beg leave to quote a few poetical accounts of this paradise of the world, and of the fatherly care and protection we might depend on from Mr. Oglethorpe. An hundred hackney muses might be instanced ; but we shall confine our- selves to the celebrated performance of the Rev. Mr. Samuel Wesly, where we might well expect a sufficient stock of truth and religion to counterbalance a poetical license. Vide a poem entitled " Georgia," and verses upon Mr. Oglethorpe's second voyage to Georgia. Printed London, 1736.
See where beyond the spacious ocean lies A wide waste land beneath the southern skies ; Where kindly suns for ages rolled in vain, Nor e'er the vintage saw, or rip'ning grain ; Where all things into wild luxuriance ran, And burthened nature asked the aid of man. In this sweet climate and prolific soil, He bids the eager swain indulge his toil ; In free possession to the planter's hand, Consigns the rich uncultivated land. Go you,- the monarch cries, go settle there, Whom Britain from her plentitude can spare : Go, your old wonted industry pursue ; Nor envy Spain the treasures of Peru.
But not content in council here to join, A further labor OGLETHORPE, is thine ; In each great deed thou claim'st the foremost part, And toil and danger charm thy gen'rous heart ; But chief for this thy warm affections rise ; For oh ! thou view'st it with a parent's eyes ; For this thou tempt'st the vast tremendous main, And floods and storms oppose their threats in vain.
He comes, whose life, while absent from your view, Was one continued ministry for you : For you were laid out all his pains and art, Won every will and softened every heart. With what paternal jov shall he relate How views it's mother isle your little state ; Think while he strove your distant coast to gain, How ofthe sighed and chid the tedious main ; Impatient to survey, by culture graced, Your dreary woodland and your rugged waste. Fair were the scenes he feigned, the prospects fair ; And sure, ye Georgians, all he feigned was there.
xiii.
PREFACE.
A thousand pleasures crowd into his breast ; But one, one mighty thought absorbs the rest, And gives me heav'n to see, the patriot cries, Another Britain in the desert rise.
Again,
With nobler products see thy Georgia teems, Cheered with the genial sun's director beams ; There the wild vine to culture learns to yield, And purple clusters ripen through the field. Now bid thy merchants bring thy wine no more Or from the Iberian or the Tuscan shore ; No more they need the Hungarian vineyard's drain, And France herself may drink her best Champagne.
Behold ! at last, and in a subject land, Nectar sufficient for thy large demand ; Delicious nectar, powerful to improve Our hospitable mirth and social love ; This for thy jovial sons-nor less the care Of thy young province, to oblige the fair ; Here tend the silk worm in the verdant shade, The frugal matron and the blooming maid.
From the whole, we doubt not, the reader will look upon us as sufficiently punished for our credulity ; and indeed, who would not have been caught with such promises, such pros- pects ? What might not the poor man flatter himself with, from such an alteration in his situation ? And how much more might a gentleman expect from a plentiful stock of his own, and numbers of servants to set up with ? Could a person with the least faith have questioned the committing his interests to such guardians, and such a tender father as Mr. Oglethorpe was believed to be ? Whether he has acted that generous, that humane, that fatherly part, the following narrative must determine.
As for those poetical licenses touching the wine and silk, we do not transcribe them as a reflection upon the author, but as a satire upon the mismanagement of those manufactures, as since no measures were taken that seemed really intended for their advancement.
We no wise question the possibility of advancing such im- provements in Georgia with far less sums of money, properly applied, than the public has bestowed ; but not even the flour- ishing of wine and silk can make a colony of British subjects
xiv.
PREFACE.
happy, if they are deprived of the liberties and properties of their birthright.
We have endeavored to the utmost to be tender of charac- ters, but as we undertake to write an account of facts and truths, there is no help for it when those facts and truths press home.
It is a common satisfaction to sufferers to expose to the public the rocks upon which they split, and the misfortunes by which they suffered, and it may well be allowed us to. publish the causes to which we attribute the ruin of that settlement and ourselves, and more especially as we are prosecutors for justice from higher powers, which we doubt not receiving as the case deserves.
We hope the truth of the following narrative will recom- mend itself to the perusal of the candid reader. The fatal truths of this tragedy hath already been sealed with the death of multitudes of our fellow creatures, but still (thanks to the providence of the Almighty) some survive to attest and con- firm the truth of what is herein contained, against any persons or names, however great, however powerful. Our circum- stances and sincerity will excuse our want of that politeness and accuracy of style which might have represented our case to greater advantage to the courteous reader, whom we shall no longer detain from the subject in hand.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.