USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 12
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 (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36
12 State Paper Office, i. 16.
147
FEAR AND SUBMISSION OF THE SPANIARDS.
the interrogatories of the governor, as to the military strength and resources of the colony, were threatened with the mines. The troops were then put under arms, and the cavalry ordered out on various scouting expeditions along the frontier. So soon as Oglethorpe learned this, he set out at once for the southward, determined to act promptly and vigourously at this breach of international law and courtesy.
On his way he met the garrison of St. George's fort, which had mutinied, returning to Frederica. He led them back, and resettled them in their duties, and by means of what he calls " some small stratagems,"13 im- pressed the Spaniards who were near with an idea of their numbers far beyond their true force. This, with the driving away of a large launch carrying four guns, and laden with soldiers, sailors and Indians, under the command of Don Ignatio Rosso, lieutenant-colonel of the garrison, by the fort near Jekyll sound and at fort St. Andrews, alarmed the Spaniards, as the scouting parties on all sides had exaggerated ideas of the strength and numbers of the English ; and the popu- lar alarm thus spread abroad compelled the governor to call together a council, in which the bishop, the officers, and the people declared unanimously that they were for preserving a good harmony with the King of Great Britain's subjects, and desired the governor to release the messengers and send up an officer with them to apologize for their having viola- ted the law of nations and of hospitality. This was done, and Mr. Charles Dempsey, Don Pedro Lam- berto, captain of horse, and Don Manuel De Arcy, adjutant of the garrison,14 were sent as commissioners to Oglethorpe. They were received with due atten-
13 State Paper Office, i. 30.
14 Georgia Hist. Collections, i. 148.
1
148
FAVOURABLE TREATY WITH SPAIN.
tion, and great care was taken, by artfully disposing of the troops and Indians, to impress them with the military resources of the colony. With these gentlemen Ogle- thorpe concluded a treaty, (Oct. 1736,) which was sub- sequently ratified by a board of war and the Governor- General of St. Augustine, stipulating for cessation of all hostilities ; the dispeopling and dismantling of St. George's island, inhibiting its occupancy by either nation; and the referring of all disputes as to bound- aries to their respective governments. These terms were generous and pacific, and met the favour of the Trustees, and the English government; but they were disliked by the court at Madrid, and the governor was recalled to Spain, and there executed, to satisfy the vengeance of his Catholic Majesty,15 who declared to the court of St. James, through his ambassador Geral- dino, " he would as soon part with Madrid as with his territory in Florida." While these negociations were going on, Sir Thomas Geraldino, the Spanish minister at the court of St. James, addressed a memorial to the British cabinet, complaining of the settlements made by the Trustees of Georgia, demanding the recall of Oglethorpe, and claiming all the territory south of thirty-three degrees fifty minutes, which took in all South Carolina and Georgia, as part of the dominions of the King of Spain.
A second memorial from the same minister, request- ed that no forces should be sent to Georgia, and no fortifications be erected there, though at this very time the Spaniards were augmenting their forces at St. Augustine, with the design of making a secret invasion upon Georgia. When this memorial was read to the king in council, there was a long pause, until
15 Campbell's Spanish America, 101 : London, 1741, 8vo.
149
RENEWAL OF DIFFICULTIES.
the Duke of Argyle broke the silence by saying, "The memorial should be answered, but not in the usual way-the reply should be a fleet of line-of-battle ships upon the coast of Spain ;" upon which the king replied, "Well done, your Grace-your advice is agree- able to mine." It is no wonder, then, that the articles agreed on by Oglethorpe and the Captain-General of Florida, were disapproved by the court of Madrid, and that Don Francisco del Moral should be superseded in his government by Don Manuel Joseph de Justis.
Shortly after the treaty of October, 1736, a commis- sioner reached St. Augustine from the Captain-General of Cuba, for the purpose of proceeding to Frederica and making certain demands on Oglethorpe. This person was Don Antonio Arredondo, a captain of engi- neers. They met at the anchorage in Jekyll sound, and the Spanish commissioner demanded that the English should evacuate all ports and towns south of St. Helena sound, as being located on the dominions of the King of Spain. The commissioner had no power to treat. His only office was to demand. It was in vain that Oglethorpe attempted to reason with one whose orders were peremptory, and the conference ended without changing the purpose of either.
The recall of the governor, the demands of this com- missioner, the increase of the garrison of St. Augustine, and the augmenting of the naval force of that colony, so impressed Oglethorpe with the necessity of imme- diate and active measures for the defence of the colony, that in November he sailed from Georgia, in the ship Two Brothers, for England ; and barely escaping ship- wreck in the Bristol Channel, reached London the 8th of January, 1737. The next day he waited on Her Majesty, the king being then absent on a visit to his
150
OGLETHORPE AT THE BRITISH COURT.
German dominions, and was graciously received by her, as also by Sir Robert Walpole; and when, a few days after, he presented himself before the Trustees, he received a unanimous vote of thanks, for his valuable and generous services. He proceeded at once to urge upon the Trustees and government the importance of defending the colony of Georgia, not only for its intrin- sic value, but as the frontier of all the North American colonies. In this effort he was aided by the singular disclosures of an individual, who, deserting the cause of Spain, which he had ignominiously entered, laid before the Trustees and the Duke of Newcastle the plans and purposes of the cabinet at Madrid. This person was John Savy, an Englishman, born in Lon- don, who emigrated to South Carolina, was made a bailiff of the town of Charleston, and married into a respectable family there, but was compelled by debt to leave, and go over into Georgia.16 Thence, in June, 1735, he embarked for London. In the British Chan- nel he was, at his own request, put on board a French fishing-boat, and carried into Dieppe. Arriving in Paris, penniless and forlorn, he conceived the design of betray- ing the interests of his country. He applied to Don Fernando Trivinio Figuero, the Spanish secretary, there being then no ambassador, who sent his letter to the minister at Madrid, Don Joseph Patinho, containing an account of the state of things in Georgia, and promising to disclose more. By return of post, Patinho directed the secretary to pay Savy one hundred pistoles, fur- nished him a captain's commission, and a salary of one thousand pieces of eight per annum. Now furnished with money and passports, Savy took upon himself the name and title of Colonel Miguel Wall. He set out
16 State Paper Office, i. 69.
151
VALUABLE DISCLOSURES OF JOHN SAVY.
for Madrid, where he arrived on the 24th May, 1736. After ample conferences with the leading authorities, he was sent to Havana, to concert measures there, and aid in the projected reduction of Georgia to the Span- ish crown. He reached Havana in December, 1736; and exhibiting his commission and despatches from the king, was received into favour and official consultation. Here he remained, witnessing, as he writes, “so much villainy against my God, my king, and my country, that my conscience would never let me rest till I could get to England."17 Under pretence of communicating further plans to the new ministry at Madrid, he left Havana on the 29th of August, 1737, and reached old Spain in October. After various unsuccessful applica- tions to the British consuls and minister, he effected his escape in disguise; and sailing in a ship for Lisbon, there delivered himself as a prisoner to Lord Tyrawly, Envoy Extraordinary, who sent him to England, where he laid many disclosures of the proceedings of the Spaniards before the Trustees and the Duke of New- castle.18 According to his representations, (and they were subsequently verified,) several ships of war, large quantities of munitions, numerous soldiers and officers, with some skilful engineers, were despatched to Flor- ida, not only for the defence of the town of St. Augus- tine, but for whatever offensive movement should be determined on by the governments of Havana and St. Augustine.
Such being the disposition of the Spaniards, and such their infraction of the treaty of Frederica, the appeals of Oglethorpe and the memorial of the Trustees were successful with Parliament. In June,
1
17 State Paper Office, i. 67. regiments of foot raised in America for the Spanish war. Gentleman's
18 In 1740 Savy was appointed captain-lieutenant of one of the 3d Magazine, 1740, 204.
152
RETURN OF OGLETHORPE WITH REINFORCEMENTS.
1737, he was appointed general of the forces in South Carolina and Georgia ; and in September, he was made colonel of a regiment to be raised for the defence of Georgia. This regiment he mustered into service in a short time ; officered it with gentlemen of family and character; attached to it twenty cadets, whom he after- wards promoted, as vacancies happened; and in addi- tion, took out with him forty supernumeraries at his own expense. With a view to attach the soldiers to the colony, and give them a local interest in its defence, each man was allowed to take out a wife, for whom rations and extra pay were provided. So soon as his regiment was organized and drilled, he sent over part of it, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Cochran, in the spring of 1738; which, landing in Charleston on the 3d of May, proceeded thence to Frederica, where a fort had previously been built by Oglethorpe. On the first of July, Oglethorpe, having received full in- structions from the king, embarked with the remainder of his regiment on board the Hector and Blandford men- of-war, and five transports. On the 19th of September they reached St. Simons, and disembarked amidst the salvoes of artillery from the newly-erected fort. Thus the general had now at his command a full and well- appointed regiment, with forty supernumeraries; and every officer was at his post, on active duty.
This was a most seasonable relief to the colony; for during Oglethorpe's absence the southern settlements had been frequently menaced with invasion; and au- thentic intelligence was received of the large prepara- tions making at Havana and St. Augustine for the purpose of destroying the colony. But this expedition, which the Governor of Cuba and St. Augustine had planned, under the command of Colonel Don Juan Bap-
153
TRAITORS IN THE COLONY.
tista de Echererria, to dislodge the settlers of Georgia, during the absence of Oglethorpe, was, by order of the king, given up; and its relinquishment was a cause of great sorrow to Montiano, who promised himself happy results from the wisdom, firmness, and adequate means which had marked the arrangements for this expedi- tion.19
But Oglethorpe had foes within as well as without the colony, who, by their treachery and mutiny, well nigh brought the province to the verge of ruin. Wri- ting to the Trustees, on board the Blandford at Plymouth, July 3d, 1738, he says : " We have discov- ered that one of our soldiers has been in the Spanish service, and that he hath strove to seduce several men to desert with him to them, on their arrival in Geor- gia. He designed also to murder the officers, or such persons as could have money, and carry off the plun- der. Two of the gang have confessed and accused him; but we cannot discover the rest. The fellow has plenty of money ; and he said he was to have sixty or a hundred crowns, according to the number of men he carried. He is yet very obstinate ; refusing to give any account of his correspondents. We shall not try him till we come to Georgia, because we hope we shall make more discoveries." And again, on the 8th of October, he writes to the Duke of Newcastle: " We have discovered some men who listed themselves as spies. We took upon one of them his furlough from Berwick's regiment in the Irish troops. They strove to persuade some of our men to betray a post to the Spaniards ; who, instead of complying, discovered their
19 Manuscript Letters of Don Man- Guemes y Horcasitas, Captain-General uel de Montiano, Governor of East
of the island of Cuba ; copied from the Florida, to Don Juan Francisco de original archives in St. Augustine.
154
ARREST AND EXECUTION.
intentions. I have ordered a general court-martial for the trying of them, who have not yet made their report. One of them owns himself a Roman Catholic, and denies the king having any authority over him." One of the persons implicated in this plot was Will- iam Shannon, a Papist, who was whipped and drum- med out of the regiment. The following year he was discovered by General Oglethorpe in the Indian coun- try, endeavouring to persuade the Creeks to join the French. Being apprehended and sent to Savannah, he there, in company with a Spaniard who professed to be a travelling doctor, but was evidently a spy, broke prison in August, 1740. Soon after killing two persons at Fort Argyle, they were again arrested at the Uchee town, taken to Savannah, tried, condemned, and in November executed.20 Nor was this the only danger to which he was exposed. He was placed in a more perilous situation while inspecting the troops at Fort St. Andrews on Cumberland island. The two com- panies who occupied this post came over with Colonel Cochran in May, and were drawn from the garrison at Gibraltar, where, in addition to their pay, they also received their rations. These rations were continued six months after their arrival in America. But when, by order of the government, they were withdrawn, and nothing but their pay left, they became dissatis- fied ; and one, more bold than the rest, went up to the general, who was standing at the door with Captain Mackay, and demanded a continuance of rations. This the general refused. The soldier returned some im- pertinent answer, upon which Captain Mackay drew his sword to cut him; but the villain snatched it from him, broke it in two, and throwing the hilt at his
20 Stephens's Journal, iii. 32.
155
DANGER AND ESCAPE OF OGLETHORPE.
head, ran for the barracks, where, taking his gun and crying out, " One and all !" he marched out with five others, and one of the ringleaders shot at the general at a few yards' distance : the ball whizzed above his shoulder, and the powder burnt his face and scorched his clothes. Another flashed his gun twice, but it did not go off. By this time the faithful soldiers sur- rounded their officers, and apprehended the culprits, who were also tried by court martial, and received sentence of death.
Thus was Oglethorpe and Georgia preserved from the nefarious designs of Spanish emissaries, and the mutinous assault of infuriated soldiers. The discovery and punishment of these attempts did not deter the Spaniards from plotting other and more infamous schemes for the extermination of Georgia and the Carolinas. By their intrigues with the slave popula- tion, they excited an insurrection which threatened for a time appalling consequences. They sent secret emissaries among them, who told of the liberty and protection extended to them in St. Augustine, and of the honours to which some who had fled thither were promoted ; for a regiment of runaway slaves had been organized by the Governor of St. Augustine, officered by negroes with arms, uniform, and pay equal to the regular troops ; and by the artifices of their negro re- cruiting sergeants many were inveigled away from their Carolina homes.
This plan was not however sufficiently expeditious ; and more prompt measures were decided on. Assem- bling at Stono, the negroes killed the keepers of the public stores; seized the guns and ammunition ; elected a captain ; and, augmenting their numbers as they proceeded, marched for Charleston with drums
156
ATROCITIES OF SPANISH EMISSARIES.
beating and colours flying, flushed with success, and desperate with revenge. For twelve miles they con- tinued their bloody course, killing every white person they met, burning every house, stripping, as far as their haste permitted, every plantation, and compel- ling the negroes on their route to join their band.
Fortunately they were discovered by Governor Bull; and he gave the alarm to the planters who had gathered to church at Wiltown. They heard it in the midst of the service, and, grasping their arms, which the law compelled them to carry at all times, they joined the militia hastily summoned by Captain Bee, and pressed forward, leaving the women and children, fainting and trembling with alarm, in the church.
The insurrectionary band having prostrated them- selves by intoxication, encamped in a field, and fearing no evil, began to dance and sing in the wild revels of bloody bacchanals.
Surrounding them in the midst of these orgies, the planters and militia poured upon them a dreadful fire, broke up their camp, and routed the fiendish crew. The ringleaders were taken, and paid the penalty of death for their rapine and murders.21 Such were some of the means used by the machinating Spaniards to effect the ruin of the English plantations. Is it to be wondered at that the people should be incensed, when for years they had been subjected to open or covert attacks of such an enemy-as regardless of mercy, as of justice; as treacherous to promises, as to treaties; under cover of ambassadors, sending spies ; under pre- text of commissions, planning invasion ; and under the shadow of conventional articles, gaining time to plot new artifices and enact new atrocities ? The Indians,
21 Hewitt, ii. 72.
157
THE GREAT COUNCIL OF THE INDIANS.
also, as well as the soldiers and the negroes, were made to do their part in the plan of Georgia's annihilation. They were, during Oglethorpe's absence, decoyed to St. Augustine, under pretence of seeing him there; but not being seen by them, the Spaniards excused them- selves by declaring that he was taken suddenly ill on board of a ship in the harbour. They then strove to buy them off from their allegiance to the King of Great Britain ; and failing in this, they put forth threats; but these were as unavailing as their gifts; and foiled in their efforts, they were compelled to let them depart.22
As soon, therefore, as Oglethorpe returned, he saw the necessity of renewing his treaties with the Indian tribes, and cultivating their friendly alliance. To secure this, he went, in October, 1738, to Savannah, where he met the chiefs of four towns of the Creek Indians, and strengthened their fidelity to the British king. Anxious, however, to secure a still larger co- operation of the Indians in the event of hostilities breaking out, he resolved, though at much personal risk and fatigue, to attend the great council of the tribes, which was to assemble in July and August at Coweta, now Fort Mitchell, on the Chatahoochee. Thither he went, with only a few pack-horses, travelling by day along the narrow war-paths or the blazed roads of the trader; crossing streams by ford or swimming ; press- ing through morasses and thickets; camping at night in some vast forest of pine, or by the river's bank; ex- posed to the Indian and the betrayer, to the heats of a southern summer, and the perils and trials incident to a journey of nearly three hundred miles at such a season, through a wilderness country, bordering on the savage allies of the French, and the territories of the
22 State Paper Office, i. 89.
158
DEATH AND BURIAL OF TOMOCHICHI.
Spaniards. " It is impossible," says Oglethorpe,23 " to describe the joy they expressed at my arrival. They met me forty miles in the woods," and laid supplies of provisions for him along the road. At Coweta, he was received by the assembled chiefs of the Creek confed- eracy with assurances of high regard ;24 and with the usual formalities, and with singular harmony and good- will, he concluded a treaty with them, on the 21st of August, 1739, confirming the right of the English to their lands, and strengthening the ties which bound them to each other in mutual dependence. Their al- liance secured, he returned, by the way of Augusta, to Savannah, which he reached on the 22d of September. While here, he was called upon to assist in the funeral obsequies of his devoted friend and ally, Tomochichi. His last illness was a lingering one ; and he expired at his Indian town, near Savannah, on the 5th of Octo- ber, 1739. His desire to be buried among the Eng- lish was granted. The body was brought down in a canoe, from his late residence, and was met at the foot of the bluff by General Oglethorpe and the civil authori- ties, who formed a procession, and carried it into Per- cival Square; Oglethorpe and Colonel Stephens, the President, being two of the pall-bearers. During the march of the funeral train, minute guns were fired from the battery; and when the corpse was lowered into the grave, the militia fired three vollies over him; and all felt that they had committed to the earth, one whose early countenance and continued support had greatly assisted in settling and protecting the colony. Faithful as an ally, generous as a friend, active and efficient as a warrior, Tomochichi merits the encomiums of the historian, and the respect of Georgians. During his
23 State Paper Office, i. 123.
24 Ib. i. 111, 122.
159
ENGLAND AND SPAIN.
stay at Savannah, Oglethorpe received the orders, rumours of which had reached him among the Indians, to make reprisals on the King of Spain-the prelude to that war which neither professed to desire, but which neither strove to avoid.
In looking at the relations subsisting between Great Britain and Spain, we find other causes of rupture than those arising from the settlement of this province. This was but one count in the national indictment. The prime cause was, on the side of the Spaniards, the ille- gal trade which English colonies and English vessels carried on with the colonial dependencies of Spain, by which means the commerce of the mother country was reduced to one-seventh of its tonnage and value; and on the part of the British, the oppressive restrictions imposed on English bottoms trading in her colonies, the interruptions to her lawful traffic, and the seizure and condemnation of her vessels, to the great destruc- tion of her colonial commerce. Ever since the treaty of Seville, in 1730, these violent and unjustifiable meas- ures towards British trade had been carried on in Span- ish America. The merchants had remonstrated and pe- titioned; and the British minister at Madrid had memo- rialized and threatened the court of Spain; but there was no relaxation to this almost piratical devastation. To this disregard of England, the court of Madrid was doubtless incited by the timourousness of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and his unwillingness to sacrifice his administration, which he felt he must do, if the country was plunged into war.
The Spaniards gathered courage from his timidity, and felt that they could tyrannize while he could hesitate. At last the minister, finding himself com- pelled to act, agreed to a convention by which
160
NEW TREATY. ITS PROVISIONS DISREGARDED.
plenipotentiaries, mutually appointed, should adjust all differences between the two kingdoms. By the articles of this convention, dated Pardo, January 14th, 1739, and signed by Benjamin Keene, His British Majesty's minister plenipotentiary to the court of Madrid, and Don Sebastian de la Quadra, knight and first secretary of state, it was declared with regard to the disputed territories of Great Britain and Spain, in Georgia, that things " shall remain in the situation they are in at present, without increasing the fortifications there, or making any new post;"23 and as for the great interests of com- merce, in which not the Trustees of Georgia alone, but the whole British nation, were absorbed, they were sacrificed by the envoy for the sum of ninety- five thousand pounds; which sum, so insignificant to cover mercantile losses running back to 1718,26 was even withheld by His Catholic Majesty, on the pretext of a debt of the South Sea Company, of sixty-eight thousand pounds, confessedly due as duties per capite on imported negroes. Such a mockery of justice as was exhibited by this convention, could not fail to rouse the British nation ; and though Sir Robert Walpole strove to stem the current, yet the voice of the kingdom was with Pitt, who declared not only that the conven- tion was unsatisfactory and dishonourable, but nothing more than a stipulation for national ignominy. The King of Spain himself did not respect the terms of the convention, but opened hostilities even before war was declared, by ordering seizures of British goods and vessels, and compelling the withdrawal of all British subjects from his dominions. George II. met these orders of the Spanish monarch by directing his sub-
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.