USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 16
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The report of a court-martial held at St. Simons, January 10th, 1739, by thirteen officers, represented to Oglethorpe that Lieutenant-Colonel James Cochran had made malicious and false charges concerning a brother officer; had behaved insultingly to the court ; and had knowledge of and concealed a mutiny.3 At the request of Oglethorpe, Lieutenant-Colonel Coch- ran was withdrawn from Georgia, and transferred to Colonel Douglass's regiment of marines, forming a part of General Wentworth's forces, and of which he was, in 1741, made colonel by the death of Colonel Doug- lass.4 This source of trouble removed, a new one soon after arose with Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, who suc- ceeded to the place vacated by Colonel Cochran, and
2 Stephens's Journal, ii. 403, iii. 104, 204.
3 State Paper Office, i. 95.
4 Gentleman's Magazine, 1741, 442.
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RESULT OF COURT-MARTIAL.
his son-in-law, Lieutenant Eyre, who left his post at Frederica just before the invasion of the Spaniards. The former returned to England, and the latter did not reach Georgia until after the defeat of the enemy. These circulated slanders against Oglethorpe, greatly to his prejudice, and finally the former preferred charges against him at the Horse Guards.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke, who owed all his promo- tion to the favour of Oglethorpe, exhibited nineteen articles against the moral and military character of his patron, but gave in as witnesses on the part of the accusation, the names of several officers and sol- diers in Georgia; so that though the general reached England in September, 1743, the court-martial, in the absence of these witnesses, did not meet until the 4th of June, 1744. A board of general officers then sat for two days, and after examining all the charges, spe- cifications, and witnesses on both sides, the whole accusation, in each and all of its articles, was pro- nounced " false, malicious, and without foundation ;" and the board of general officers having made a report to His Majesty of the same, together with several facts proved against the lieutenant-colonel, the king ordered him to be dismissed and turned out of the service."5
Such were some of the discordant elements which Oglethorpe had around him. When, therefore, we add this to the many other difficulties with which he had to contend, arising from Spanish foes, reckless
5 Gentleman's Magazine, 1744, 336. tal by the court-martial. It paints in In the poetical essays of this Magazine dark colours the character of his slan- derers, and sets out in bright hues the virtues of Oglethorpe. It is too long to quote here. for September, 1744, 501, is a poem " On Envy and Slander," inscribed to Brigadier General Oglethorpe, evi- dently written on occasion of his acquit-
203
INCREASE OF GEORGIA UNDER OGLETHORPE.
Indians, clamourous settlements, discontented troops, meagre supplies, the lukewarmness of Carolina, his bills returned protested, his calls for naval help disre- garded, his officers inimical to each other, and some few of them to himself; when we aggregate these facts, the wonder is that with such opposing influences and such discordant materials, he effected anything. That he achieved so much, under these adverse circum- stances, proves him to have been a firm, bold, sagacious man-to have possessed eminent military qualifications, and those sterling virtues which mock at the petty malice of the envious, and triumph over the machina- tions of malignity. After this triumphant vindication of himself, and the signal punishment of his bold tra- ducer, Oglethorpe never returned to Georgia, though he ever regarded it with a paternal feeling, and watched over its interests with parental care. Under his wise administration the single ship-load of emi- grants, which, eleven years before, he had led to the wilds of Georgia, had increased more than two hun- dred fold. Instead of the little settlement on the bluff of Yamacraw, towns and forts were scattered from the sea-board to the mountains, from the Savannah to the St. John's. It had "stretched forth its boughs unto the sea, and its branches unto the river;" and ere long " the hills were covered with the shadow of it."
On the declaration of war with England by France, (March 4th, 1744,) and the threatened invasion of England by a large force under Count Saxe, for the purpose of enforcing the claims to the throne of the Chevalier de St. George, eldest son of Charles Edward ; Field-Marshal the Earl of Stair was appointed to the chief command of the forces raised in Great Britain ; and it is greatly to the honour of Oglethorpe, that
204
APPOINTED BRIGADIER-GENERAL. MARRIED.
though then uncleared of the charges preferred against him, such was the confidence of George II. in his mil- itary abilities, that he appointed him second brigadier- general under Lord Stair, even over Lord Delaware and the Duke of Marlborough. The English fleet, under Sir John Norris, maintained the ascendency in the Channel, and De Roquefeuille,6 the French admi- ral, returned storm-worsted into Boulogne, by which means the Gallic invasion came to naught, and the forces raised to repel it were disbanded with the pass- ing danger which had called them into being.
On the 15th September, 1744, he married Elizabeth, the only daughter and heiress of Sir Nathan Wright, Baronet, of Cranham Hall, Essex county, and retired to his ancestral home at Godalming, that he might there, or in the delightful manor of Cranham Hall, enjoy that quiet and repose which years of toil had taken from him. Beautiful was the epithalamium which called for " joy " to "attend the nuptial rites," for "each charm that general bliss imparts " "to cement their hearts, and virtue crown their loves ;" adding in graceful stanzas, the deserved praise :
" In senates learned, in armies brave, Thy cares shall threatened Georgia save ; Thou still must be her shield ; Thy temp'rance prov'd, thy wisdom shewn, She ever thy fatigues will own, And conduct in the field.
" When thy rough toils of war shall cease, In the reap'd sweets of plenteous peace, May thy mild age be past : Pleased with the country's grateful praise Unmixed be all thy happy days, And happiest be thy last."7
6 Smollett's History of England, ii.
7 Gentleman's Magazine, 1744, 558. 280, London, 1828.
205
APPOINTED MAJOR-GENERAL.
The father of his lady was a statesman of high political distinction, having been Lord Chancellor of England under William III., and also under Queen Anne. But Oglethorpe did not long enjoy the com- forts of domestic life. On the breaking out of the Rebellion of 1745, in consequence of the efforts of Charles Edward, the Pretender, to recover the throne of his fathers, Marshal Wade was appointed com- mander-in-chief, and Oglethorpe made one of his major-generals. Among the forces under his com- mand, were four companies of cavalry, one of which, in honour of their chief, bore the name of the " Geor- gia Rangers," all of whom " did very signal service to their country."
Joining the army under the Duke of Cumberland, he was ordered by His Royal Highness to continue the pursuit of the now retreating rebels, who had penetrated to Derby, within one hundred miles of London, after their brilliant victory at Preston Pans. Oglethorpe, who had a large body of dragoons under him, had been previously ordered by Marshal Wade to intercept, if possible, the retreating Highlanders, and in the execution of this order he had marched his troops one hundred miles to Preston, in three days, in the midst of severe weather and a most panic-stricken country ; and it was at this juncture that he was ordered by the duke to continue the pursuit. He did so, with worn-out troops and jaded horses, and met the rebels at the village of Shap ; but a council of officers deem- ing it hazardous to attack them with troops exhausted by forced marches over wretched roads, in the severest of winter weather, he deferred the attack till a night of rest could restore and give tone to the spirits of his exhausted soldiers. This delay drew upon Oglethorpe
206
SECOND COURT-MARTIAL.
the disapprobation of the duke, and he was subse- quently arraigned by him before a court-martial, under charge of having lingered on the road. Such an un- founded charge as this would not, doubtless, have been made, had not the duke been stung by the remonstrances which Oglethorpe made to him and to his other generals, Cope and Hawley, against the cruelties perpetrated on the adherents of the Pretender, barbarities not needed to quell invasion, and disgrace- ful to victorious arms. He professed a willingness, nay, anxiety to crush this rebellion, but he refused to be a party to those ignominious practices which seemed to delight in adding to the woes of the conquered and the pains of the dying. The Duke of Cumberland, a victor by fortune, rather than by valour, was a stranger to those humane feelings, as is evident not only by his conduct during his suppression of this rebellion, but by his support of the policy to " desolate America by fire and sword, rather than pacify them by concessions," when the principle of taxing America was denied by the colonies.8 Oglethorpe was again tried by his mili- tary peers, at the Horse Guards, and on the 7th Octo- ber, 1746, " was honourably acquitted." This triumph was the more complete, because at this time his accuser, the Duke of Cumberland, was, by his military successes, the idol of the British nation : his praise was proclaimed from the pulpit ; his name was the inspiration of the poet ; cities conferred on him their freedom ; univer- sities uttered their classic plaudits ; Parliament voted him almost regal honours, and the nation hailed him as its deliverer. Yet not the name, nor the influence, nor the proximity to the throne of the Duke of Cum- berland, could fix a stigma upon the founder of Geor-
8 Grahame, ii. 411, Amer. ed.
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207
DECLINES SERVING AGAINST AMERICA.
gia. The king approved the finding of the court, and the next year, October 10th, appointed him lieutenant- general in the British army.
Relieved from all public duties save his attendance upon Parliament, in which he served until 1754, he devoted his parliamentary vacations to his estate of Godalming, or his possessions at Cranham Hall, resid- ing during the sessions at his house in St. James, Westminster. On the 22d February, 1765, he was made general of all His Majesty's forces, and for many years before he died was at the head of the army list as the oldest general officer in Great Britain.
The assertion has frequently been made, though the authority for it is not conclusive, that being the senior of Sir William Howe, he had offered to him the com- mand of the forces destined to subjugate America in the war of the Revolution, but that he declined the appointment, assuring the ministry that " he knew the Americans well; that they never would be subdued by arms, but that obedience would be secured by doing them justice."
That his political sympathies were with the Ameri- cans, we learn incidentally from the circumstance, that on meeting in London with Governor Bernard, of Massachusetts, who had been most active in planning and executing " deep and studied affronts to that province," then struggling for civil rights and immu- nities, and whom the American-hating court had honoured with a baronetcy for his services to regal tyranny-Oglethorpe personally expressed to him " the utmost disgust and abhorrence of his conduct."9
Many have indicated their surprise that some royal mark of distinction was not conferred upon Ogle-
9 Wm. Wirt, quoted in Grahame, ii. 444, 518, Amer. ed.
1
1
208
OGLETHORPE'S FAMILY.
thorpe ; that like his father and his wife's father, he was not knighted or even elevated to the peerage; for, much inferior services to the British crown have received far greater rewards than were bestowed upon this generous soldier. But he was not suffi- ciently sound in his political creed to suit the tastes of the House of Brunswick, or of that splendid minis- terial paradox, Sir Robert Walpole. The attachment of his ancestors and relatives to the House of Stuart and the interests of France was well known and remembered. It was not forgotten that his father was a courtier of James II., and was proclaimed by the queen a Jacobite traitor10-that his brother was aid-de-camp to the Duke of Ormond, one of the lead- ers of the Pretender's party-that two of his sisters had married French noblemen of high birth, and that of one of them Lord Bolingbroke wrote, speaking of the opposition cabinet, " No sex was excluded from this ministry ; Fanny Oglethorpe kept her corner in it."11 It was not forgotten that Frances Shaftoe had published a narrative,12 declaring that the pretended Prince of Wales was foster-brother of Oglethorpe, and that his mother was at one time the medium of communication between Oxford, Bolingbroke, and even Queen Anne herself, with the exiled Stuarts.
These facts must have greatly operated against him, and it cannot be doubted that they had their influence in preventing the bestowment of those favours which were so freely lavished on others. But he needed not stars, nor ribbons, nor a peerage to give him dis- tinction : he had a nobility superior to them all. His
10 Smollett, ii. 23, 35.
11 Bolingbroke's Letters.
12 "Narrative relating to the Pre-
tended Prince of Wales ;" Lond. 1707; 4to, by Mrs. Frances Shaftoe.
209
VISITED BY JOHN ADAMS.
name had already been given in charge of the epic poet and historic muse; and the untitled name of Oglethorpe will be the familiar household word of fu- ture generations, when the gilded aristocracy which then glittered in the beams of royalty shall be forgot- ten.
" For it is freedom's now and fame's- One of the few, the immortal names That were not born to die."-HALLECK.
He purchased a title to glory by deeds of heroic benevolence.
It is an interesting fact, in his history, that he lived to see his infant colony become a great and free State. Among the earliest to call on John Adams, the first ambassador of the United States to the Court of St. James, was Oglethorpe.13 He who had planted Geor- gia, and nursed it in its feebleness till it grew up to be a royal colony of England, joined hands with him who had come to the British Court the representative of its national independence. Well might Edmund Burke tell him that he looked upon him as a more ex- traordinary person than any he had ever read of; for he had founded the province of Georgia, had absolute- ly called it into existence, and had lived to see it sev- ered from the Empire which created it and become an independent State.14
The evening of his life was mild and pleasant ; his bodily and mental vigour remained to the last ; and in the society of one of the delightful literary circles of England, composed of Johnson, Goldsmith, Wharton, Burke, Burton, Mrs. Garrick, Mrs. More, and others, he passed in London or at Cranham Hall the quiet and
13 Holmes's Annals, ii. 530, Cam- bridge, 1829.
14 Life and Letters of Hannah More, i. 204.
14
210
HANNAH MORE'S DESCRIPTION.
peaceful hours of social life. Hannah More, whose praise is itself renown, thus graphically describes him in a letter to her sister :15 " I have got a new admirer, and we flirt together prodigiously. It is the famous General Oglethorpe, perhaps the most remarkable man of his time. He is the foster brother of the Pre- tender, and much above ninety years old. The finest figure you ever saw. He frequently realizes all my ideas of Nestor. His literature is great ; his knowl- edge of the world is extensive; and his faculties as bright as ever. He is one of the three persons men- tioned by Pope, still living : Lord Mansfield and Lord Marchmont are the other two. He was an intimate friend of Southern, the tragic poet, and all the wits of that time. He is, perhaps, the oldest man of a gentle- man living ; and he could have entertained me by re- peating passages from Sir Eldered. He is quite a preux chevalier-heroic, romantic, and full of the old gallantry."
Defects in his character there certainly were, which his enemies sedulously paraded before the public eye. Naturally impatient, of a hasty temper, fond of praise, and rather boastful of his military acts, he sometimes gave occasion of real or fancied offence, and laid him- self open to imputations of tyranny, irresolution, and egotism, which his conduct as a whole, fully disa- vowed. The conceited Horace Walpole stigmatized Oglethorpe as always a bully ;16 but he who could call Washington " an excellent fanfaron,"17 was not capa- ble of rising to the loftiness of Oglethorpe's sentiments, or of appreciating the great schemes to which he gave birth. The contempt of such men is praise. But Oglethorpe did not go unhonoured and undefended even
15 Ib. 181. 16 Walpole's Letters, i., Phil., 1842. 17 Ib. ii. 219.
211
TRIBUTES TO OGLETHORPE.
in his own age. Poets, such as Pope, and Thomson, and Goldsmith, and Brown, sung his praises; moral- ists, such as Johnson, the Abbé Raynal, Wharton, and Hannah More, testified his virtues ; divines, such as Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man, and Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, and Benson and the Wesleys, did honour to his goodness ; generals, such as Prince Eugene, and the Duke of Marlborough, and Field-Marshal Wade, ac- knowledged his abilities; and statesmen, such as the Duke of Argyle, and Lord Peterborough, and Edmund Burke, lauded his distinguished merits.
From the council-fires of the mountain Indians, from the lowly huts of the enfranchised debtors in Savannah, from the cells of the prisons of England, from the fire- sides made cheerful by his bounty, rose a tribute to his worth, which to the listening ear of his soul sounded as sweetly grateful as that which flowed from the camp, and court, and senate of Great Britain. The song which rises from one widow's heart, made " to leap for joy" at the bounty of retiring benevolence, is a sweeter carol to the noble heart than the chanted anthems of a nation's pæans over the victorious yet bloody fields of war. Detraction, like death, "loves a shining mark." He who passes through life unslandered, is a pointless man. He who, calumniated and abused, outlives the malignity of the envious, and the defamations of the vile, rising in honour with advancing years, is the man of true greatness and of lasting fame. Popular clamour is often wrong; enlightened public opinion is always right; and the verdict of cotemporaries is often reversed by the maturer judgment of posterity.
Like a setting sun, which seems larger as it descends to the west, he sank down into the grave with unclouded disc, leaving the rays of his sunset glory still gilding the
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212
HIS DEATH.
hoary memories of the past. He died, of a sudden ill- ness, at his seat, Cranham Hall, on the 30th of June, 1785, aged ninety-seven.
" The first of chiefs," says Euripides, "is he who laurels gains, and buys them not with life." Such a chief was Oglethorpe. Laurels he did indeed gain on the field of battle ; but it is not for martial prowess only that his name is remembered. It is for the self-sacri- ficing devotion of himself to the cause of human misery ; for his benevolence, which stretched out its hands to both hemispheres, and blessed each by their benefac- tions; for his unremitted patriotism, amidst reproach and oppression ; for his perseverance, under neglect and scorn, to carry out the charitable schemes which he originated-schemes that were the precursors of the philanthropy of Howard, and that gave birth to the noble State which hails him as its founder. These are his credentials of glory-the laurels which make him " the first of chiefs." His sepulchre is indeed in Eng- land, but his monument is Georgia.
Before we take our final leave of Oglethorpe, let us survey the progress of the colony under his civil and military jurisdiction. He departed from Georgia in 1743. What at that time was its condition ? Savan- nah, expanding according to the beautiful plan of its founder, had increased to about three hundred and fifty houses, besides the public edifices. Some of these were elegant dwellings, surrounded by pleasant gardens. The land adjoining the town was mostly well cleared; and there were delightful plantations in the vicinity, particularly Beaulie, belonging to Colonel William Ste- phens, and Oakstead, the country-seat of Mr. Causton. " Pity it is," says a writer who visited Savannah at this
213
CONDITION OF SAVANNAH AND FREDERICA.
time, 18 " that a spirit of opposition to the wholesome rules this colony was first established upon; ingratitude to their great and humane benefactor; an ignorance of their true interest, and a cursed spirit of dissension among themselves, has rendered this sweet place so much less flourishing than it was at the beginning of the settlement." In addition to the hindrances men- tioned by this traveller, the war, in which Georgia was especially involved, drove many from Savannah, and prevented many more from emigrating thither. But Savannah found no foe to her peace and welfare equal to those she nursed from the Trustees' store, and who, supported by their bounty, lived but to thwart and calumniate their plans.
At this period of Georgia's history Frederica pre- sented much the most attractive scene. Entering the town by either of the two gates-the land port or the water port-we behold on the north side the camp of the general's regiment, and the barracks, a large quadrangular building, of tabby-work; on the west, the parade-ground; on the east, the residences of the settlers; and on the south, a small grove, for the con- venience of fuel and pasture. The streets were spa- cious, and planted with orange trees. The soldiers' camp was regularly laid out, and, neatly kept and fortified as the whole was with bastions and ramparts, redoubts and ravelins, with their frowning cannon and their slow- pacing sentinels, their reveilles and guard mounting, their daily markets and their thronged streets, where met the soldier and the citizen, in their varied attire, the place was made gay and business-like, and bore an aspect the most pleasing and inviting of any town south of Charleston. In its neighbourhood were the
18 " Itinerant Observations concerning Georgia, made in 1744," MS. fol. 33.
.
214
DARIEN-EBENEZER-AUGUSTA.
beautiful plantations of Captains Dunbar and Demere, Doctor Hawkins, and the quiet village of the Salz- burgers. "In short," says a visitor at that time,19 " the whole town and country adjacent are quite rurally charming; and the improvements everywhere around are footsteps of the greatest skill and industry, con- sidering its late settlement." Such was Frederica in the days of its glory.
New Inverness, or Darien, had suffered severely by the invasion of Florida. Its numbers were greatly weakened, and the whole settlement went backwards in consequence of its reverses. It still, however, main- tained an independent company of foot, consisting of seventy men; and the almost crushed hopes of the Highlanders were just beginning to revive at the restoration of tranquillity upon their borders.
Ebenezer had been increased by several emigrations, over one hundred being sent over in 1741, and others since; and the " Evangelical Community," quietly pur- suing their simple duties and labours, were much pros- pered in the work of their hands.
Augusta advanced slowly, yet gained something in population, and wealth, and trade, each succeeding year. A small garrison was still maintained there, as also at several other points along the frontier.
The ten years which had elapsed since Oglethorpe landed on the bluff at Yamacraw had changed the entire aspect of the country, there being now twelve or fourteen towns scattered through the territory. The experiment had been tried, and to a great extent had succeeded. That the colony had not progressed more, was owing not so much to the legislation of the Trus- tees-though that did somewhat to hinder it-as to the
19 Ib. fol. 9.
215
THE PROGRESS OF GEORGIA.
wars and rumours of war, which made life and property insecure, harassed trade, did away commerce, and al- most palsied the energies of the few who remained. It had survived the savage menaces which threatened its infancy ; it had outlived the searching scrutiny of par- liamentary investigation ; it had borne the brunt of war, and repelled the invading foes; and yet, amidst these depressing trials from within and from without, God had "lengthened its cords and strengthened its stakes," and gathered many thousands under the curtain of its habitation.
CHAPTER VII.
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF GEORGIA.
THE departure of Oglethorpe from Georgia caused an entire change in the government of the colony. The administration of its affairs, during his residence there, has been briefly alluded to; but its civil his- tory demands other than a passing notice, and shall therefore receive a more ample examination.
According to the royal charter the Trustees had the power of forming and preparing laws, statutes, and ordinances proper for the administration of the colony, not repugnant to the laws and statutes of the English realm. The task of framing a body of laws that should be the civil and judicial constitution of Geor- gia, was one which required of them much legal knowledge, large political experience, profound wis- dom, and a full acquaintance with the wants and ne- cessities of the people for whom they legislated.
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