USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 23
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The committee of the whole, which was now constituted by the appointment of Mr. Carew to the speaker's chair, had thus before them ample materials for a full and searching investigation. The public feel- ing demanded it; and it was due to the Trustees and to the colony that nothing should be wanting to sift the many charges and rumours levelled against them, and if they must be condemned, give them a public and authoritative condemnation; or if they could be
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304
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE REPORT.
vindicated, establish that defence, after the most severe scrutiny by the highest legislative assembly in the realm, and through its approving voice proclaim to the world, that Parliament vindicates and sustains the Trus- tees in their grand design.
The remainder of the day was spent in hearing coun- sel, and in examining witnesses for the petitioner, when the committee rose, and asked leave to sit again. The committee continued its sessions at intervals until the 29th of June, when the chairman, Mr. Carew, reported to the House the resolutions which the committee had directed him. These resolutions declared it to be the opinion of the committee, " That the province of Geor- gia, in America, by reason of its situation, may be an useful barrier to the British provinces on the continent of America against the French and Spaniards, and In- dian nations in their interests; that the ports and har- bours within the said province may be a good security to the trade and navigation of this kingdom; that the said province, by reason of the fertility of the soil, the healthfulness of the climate, and the convenience of the rivers, is a proper place for establishing a settlement, and may contribute greatly to the increasing the trade of this kingdom; that it is very necessary and advan- tageous to this nation that the colony of Georgia should be preserved and supported ; that it will be an advan- tage to the colony of Georgia to permit the importation of rum into the said colony from any of the British colonies; that the petition of Thomas Stephens con- tains false, scandalous and malicious charges, tending to asperse the characters of the Trustees for Establish- ing the Colony of Georgia, in America."
Upon the passage of the resolution respecting the importation of rum, an attempt was made to amend it,
305
THOMAS STEPHENS REPRIMANDED.
by adding, " As also the use of negroes, who may be employed there with advantage to the colony, under proper regulations and restrictions ;" but it was nega- tived, by a majority of nine votes.
After receiving the report, it was ordered, "that the said Thomas Stephens do attend this House to-morrow morning, in order to be brought to the bar thereof, to be reprimanded on his knees by Mr. Speaker for the said offence." Accordingly, the next day, he was brought to the bar of the House of Commons, and there, upon his knees, before the assembled counsel- lors of Great Britain, was reprimanded for his conduct by the Honourable Speaker, and then discharged, on paying his fees.
Such was the solemn verdict of the Parliament of Great Britain upon the subject of the colony of Geor- gia. The Trustees had passed through the ordeal of public, severe, minute investigation into all their do- ings, from the beginning, and came forth justified and approved, to the confusion and downfall of their untir- ing enemies.
The following year, Thomas Stephens made one more effort to obtain a hearing from Parliament ; but on the presentation of his petition, a call was made for the reading of the minutes of the 29th of June, of last session, and when read, the petition was ordered "to lie on the table."
This conduct of Thomas Stephens was peculiarly displeasing to his aged father, the greatness "whereof none can judge but such only as have the misfortune to deal with an unruly son of his own. * What a shock, therefore, must an old man feel from such a blow given by his own son !"19
1° Stephens's Journal, ii. 378-380 ; iii. 337, 354-6, 367, 373, 389 ..
20
306
ACTION ON THE QUESTION POSTPONED.
Though the Trustees were sustained by the House of Commons, the enquiry then instituted caused them to see the necessity of relaxing some of their laws ; and accordingly, they directed acts to be prepared repealing some of the obnoxious features to which the greatest objection had been made. They went so far as to order, that the President should make enquiry among the people "whether it is their opin- ion in general, that it is proper to admit the use and introduction of negroes," and requiring him to certify their opinion and his own, " how far it may be proper under any, and under what limitations and restric- tions." At the same time a committee was raised, " to consider how far it may be convenient or proper to admit the introduction and use of negroes in the province of Georgia."11
This prompt action on the part of the Trustees, showed how willing they were to yield their own views to what was more generally esteemed the public weal; but the absence of Oglethorpe, the war with the Spaniards, the turmoils of the colony, and the disaffection and fault-finding of many, made . most of their schemes nerveless, and thus decisive action on the negro question was put off from time to time, until the people, unable longer to endure such restrictions, gradually assumed the responsibility of violating their injunctions. The terms of many of the white servants having nearly expired, and those who had further service to perform, mostly refusing to comply with their contracts, several of the bolder sort hired negroes from the Carolina planters, who, in case of trouble, came over and claimed them as their property. This plan being found secure, the periods
11 Journal of Trustees, ii. 210.
307
PLANS TO EVADE THE RESTRICTIONS.
of hire were extended to a lifetime, and a hundred years, the full price of the negro being paid, on con- dition that the former master was to appear in their behalf in case of seizure. In addition to this finesse, many families from the adjoining State moved into the province, particularly into the southern portion, with their negroes, and when molested, threatened to leave the colony, which many of them did. These proceed- ings coming to the knowledge of the Trustees, they severely reprimanded the magistrates for their negli- gence, and commanded them at once to put an end to these illicit encroachments. To this the President and assistants replied, October 2d, 1747 : " We are afraid, sir, from what you have wrote in relation to negroes, that the Honourable Trustees have been misinformed as to our conduct relating thereto ; for we can with great assurance assert, that this Board has always acted an uniform part in discouraging the use of ne- groes in this colony, well knowing it to be disagree- able to the Trustees, as well as contrary to an act existing for the prohibition of them, and always gave it in charge to those whom we had put in possession of lands, not to attempt the introduction or use of negroes. But notwithstanding our great caution, some people from Carolina, soon after settling lands on the Little Ogeechee, found means of bringing and employ- ing a few negroes on the said lands, some time before it was discovered to us ; upon which they thought it high time to withdraw them, for fear of being seized, and soon after withdrew themselves and families out of the colony, which appears to us at present to be the reso- lution of divers others." But these gentlemen exhib- ited a different aspect to the colonists: they stimulated their clamours, and secretly connived at the constant
1
308
TROUBLES IN CONSEQUENCE.
accession of negroes. This is abundantly proved by letters of Mr. Dobell, in June and July, 1746, (who appears, from Messrs. Habersham and Bolzius's re- marks, to be an honest, upright man,) in which he openly accused them of duplicity and dissimulation. These were written more than a year before the above paper was signed; and a note penned by the Honourable Colonel Alexander Heron, May 11th, 1748, indicates that the same artifices were then practised by these officers. After stating that " his opinion is really for negroes, and that the colony will never come to anything without them," he boldly avers, " It is well known to every one in the colony, that negroes have been in and about Savannah for these several years past ; that the magistrates knew and winked at it, and that their constant toast is ' the one thing needful,' by which is meant negroes." Those who still adhered to the Trustees were the objects of peculiar rancour ; and the leading men, both of New Inverness and Ebenezer, were traduced, threatened, and persecuted. The whole province dwelt, as it were, on the brink of a volcano, whose intestine fires daily raged higher and fiercer, threat- ening, at no distant period, a desolating eruption. In- deed, to such height had this turmoil reached, that the opponents of the negro scheme shrank from fur- ther contest with its advocates. Even Mr. Bolzius, one of the most determined supporters of the Trustees' views, thus writes to them on the 3d of May, 1748 : "Things being now in such a melancholy state, I must humbly beseech your honours, not to regard any more our or our friends' petitions against negroes." The Rev. George Whitefield, the celebrated divine, and Mr. Habersham, were mainly instrumental in
309
WHITEFIELD'S VIEWS.
bringing the Trustees to relax this prohibition. Mr. Whitefield, as early as 1741, gave that body a most practical lesson on his views, by planting a portion of land in Carolina-which he called "Providence"- with negro labour, bought and paid for as his own slaves, with the design of thereby supporting his Orphan House at Bethesda, in Georgia. " I last week," he writes12 under date of March 15th, 1747, " bought at a very cheap rate a plantation of six hun- dred and forty acres of excellent land, with a good house, barn, and out-houses, and sixty acres of ground ready cleared, fenced, and fit for rice, corn, and every- thing that will be necessary for provisions. One negro has been given me-some more I propose to purchase this week." And again, in June of the same year, he says : " God is delivering me out of my embarrass- ments by . degrees. With the collections made at Charleston, I have purchased a plantation and some slaves, which I intend to devote to the use of Bethes- da." In addition, however, to this practical illustra- tion of his own views, he came forward the next year as the public advocate of slave labour, and in a letter to the Trustees, December 6th, 1748, says : " Upwards of five thousand pounds have been expended in that undertaking, and yet very little proficiency made in the cultivation of my tract of land, and that entirely owing to the necessity I lay under of making use of white hands. Had a negro been allowed, I should now have had a sufficiency to support a great many orphans, without expending above half the sum which has been laid out. An unwillingness to let so good a design drop, and having a rational conviction that it must necessarily, if some other method was not fixed
22 Whitefield's Works, ii. 90, 105, 208.
310
HABERSHAM'S INFLUENCE.
upon to prevent it-these two considerations, hon- oured gentlemen, prevailed on me about two years ago, through the bounty of my good friends, to pur- chase a plantation in South Carolina, where negroes are allowed. Blessed be God, this plantation has succeeded ; and though at present I have only eight working hands, yet in all probability there will be more raised in one year, and with a quarter the ex- pense, than has been produced at Bethesda for several years last past. This confirms me in the opinion I have entertained for a long time, that Georgia never can or will be a flourishing province without negroes are allowed."
This strong language, based on a thorough knowl- edge of the facts, and an honest conviction of their truth, had a good effect upon the minds of the Trus- tees. The instrumentality of Mr. Habersham, at that time President of this celebrated Orphan House, was also important. For the private use, and at the special request of Rev. Mr. Bolzius, he had, in Sep- tember, 1747, drawn up a long communication, ably setting forth the actual position of affairs, and the means by which to remedy the distresses. A copy of this was sent to the Rev. Mr. Zeigenhagen, German chaplain to His Majesty, who was so pleased with its ability and force, that he forwarded it to the Trustees, by whom it was taken into the most serious and delib- erate consideration ; and the facts, arguments, and appeals of that paper, were among the earliest causes of opening their eyes, and unstopping their ears, to the fearful and crying grievances of their political off- spring.
As a proof of their sincerity, Mr. Habersham was immediately appointed one of the assistants, in the
PRESIDENT AND ASSISTANTS PETITION FOR SLAVES. 311
place of Mr. Mercer; though, when informed that his long letter was before them, he feared lest its bold- ness and freedom should beget him their enmity and rebuke. Hardly one opponent of the negro plan now remained, and this " ill-judged and Utopian scheme," as Anderson terms it, in his British Commerce, was destined to give place to a new and more rational ordering of society. At this time purchases were openly made from African traders, and both the magis- trates and the people were seizing every opportunity to obtain so desirable a boon.
On the 10th of January, 1749, the President and as- sistants, and a large number of the inhabitants of the province, sent to the Trustees a petition to which the town seal was affixed, setting forth several restrictions and regulations, under which they prayed that negroes might be permitted in the colony. This petition was read before the Trustees on the 16th of May, and they resolved, " That it is the opinion of this Board that a petition be presented to His Majesty in council," " that the act for rendering the colony of Georgia more defensible by prohibiting the importation and use of black slaves or negroes into the same, which was made in the year 1735, be repealed." The next day a committee, at the head of which was placed the Earl of Shaftesbury, was appointed to prepare an act repealing the former one. Finding themselves com- pelled to admit slaves into the province, they resolved to do it on the best and most humane conditions ; ac- cordingly, on the 7th of July, 1749, Mr. Martyn, by order of the Trustees, wrote to the President, to con- vene the most able persons, and send him their opin- ions, signed by all, of what regulations are necessary in order to an introduction of slave labour in the
312
CONVENTION OF FREEHOLDERS.
colony. Of this letter Mr. Habersham says, that " it is really a very handsome one, and plainly intimates the necessity of our having negroes." This conven- tion met, and Major Horton of Frederica, the military chief of the colony, presided.
On the 26th of October, 1749, they signed the rep- resentation which had been drawn up, and urged that under the limitations then mentioned, slavery should be immediately allowed. These points were, to reg- ulate the proportion of negroes to whites ; to prevent their learning any trade except coopering, as it would thereby injure the poor white artizan ; to restrain un- limited power over their persons, and to keep a regis- ter of all imported or brought into the province. This paper was signed by twenty-seven men of the highest respectability, and the assembly was so well conducted, and affairs so harmoniously arranged, that Mr. Bolzius, in a letter to Secretary Martyn, the next day, says : "I must freely confess that all is done to my great satisfaction."
This document, duly attested, was sent home to the Trustees, who approved it with two or three trifling exceptions; but showed their regard for the moral con- dition of the slave by enacting that a penalty of £10 sterling should be paid by every master who should oblige or even suffer his negro to work on the Lord's day; and that the omission of " a master's obliging his negro or negroes to attend, at some time on the Lord's day, for instruction in the Christian religion, be deemed a misdemeanour punishable by the courts of Georgia in a pecuniary mulct of no less than £5 for each offence." Thus this perplexing business was brought to a close ; and the Trustees, at the end of their administration, found themselves compelled to give up every one of
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313
INFLUENCE OF THE CHANGE.
their peculiar views. They had failed in their philan- thropic, agricultural, industrial, commercial, and gov- ernmental schemes. The imagination of man could scarcely have framed a system of rules less adapted to the circumstances of the colonists, more detrimental to their prosperity, or more hostile to those results which they designed should flow from their benevolent but unwise schemes; and they did not therefore gather that harvest of lasting praise which they might have reaped had their wisdom been proportioned to their benevolence.13 Well has it been said, that "a corporation, whether commercial or proprietary, is perhaps the worst of sovereigns."14 Yet no body of men began with purer principles, or progressed with more honest designs, or sought for nobler ends, or laboured with more diligent zeal, than the Trustees of Georgia.
The change in the tenure of grants, and the per- mission to hold slaves, had an immediate effect on the prosperity of the colony. In 1750 the number of white persons in Georgia was only about fifteen hun- dred ; but on the intimation of these changes, the President and assistants say in one of their official documents, "people from all parts of His Majesty's dominions in America, as well as from Germany and Great Britain, are almost daily coming hither."
Under the Trustees' government the colony had scarcely any commerce. During the seventeen years immediately succeeding the founding of Georgia, but one vessel was loaded at Savannah with the proper produce of Georgia. In 1744, Messrs. Charles Harris and James Habersham (who had resigned his office of President of the Orphan House) entered into partner-
13 Grahame's Hist. United States, iii. 190.
14 Bancroft, i. 185.
314
COMMERCE OF GEORGIA.
ship and established the first commercial house in Georgia. Prior to this, the only business had been transacted by the Trustees' store-keeper, as the agent for the Trustees ; and they imported only such things as were needed at their store to supply the wants of those who drew their weekly rations from their bounty.
Trade with the West Indies, which, through the abundance of lumber in Georgia, might have formed a lucrative branch of commerce, was disallowed, lest it should bring rum and negroes into the colony ; and, though the act of Parliament, by which, in 1729,15 Carolina merchants and planters were permitted to export rice directly to any part of Europe southward of Cape Finisterre, in vessels fitted out according to the navigation act, was, in 1735,16 extended to Georgia, yet it was almost a commercial mockery, as it would be impossible with the white labour of Georgia to com- pete in the production of rice with the slave-grown staple of Carolina. It was holding out temptation to break the very laws which they had enacted, for rice could not be produced by white labour.
The very monied circulation of the colony was an obstacle in the way of commercial transactions. In place of the British currency, the Trustees issued what they called Sola Bills, or bills of exchange, to be issued in Georgia by their agents, and made payable in England, in form following, viz. :- 17
GEORGIA BILL OF EXCHANGE,
A. No. 1. PAYABLE IN ENGLAND. Westminster, 24th July, 1735.
Thirty days after sight, we, the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America, promise to pay this, our Sola Bill of Exchange, to James Oglethorpe, Esq., or his order, the sum of one pound sterling, at our office at
15 Stat. 2, Geo. II., cap. 28 et 34.
16 Stat. 8, Geo. II., cap. 19. 193. 17 Minutes of Common Council, i.
315
COLONIAL MONEY.
Westminster, to answer the like value received by him in Georgia, on the issue hereof, as testified by indorsement herein signed by himself.
£100.
Sealed by order of the Common Council of the said Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America.
The first issue was of £4000, of which sum £500 was in bills of 20s .; £1000 in bills of 40s .; £500 in bills of £5; £1000 in bills of £10; and £1000 in bills of £20. These and all others issued by them were sealed with the Trustees' seal, and signed by the accountant. While Oglethorpe was in Georgia, they were to be issued only by him ; at his departure, by the President and assistants, or any three of them, they keeping a record of every such bill, with the specific purpose for which issued. More than one hun- dred and thirty-five thousand dollars were thus sent over at different times, in payment of salaries and other corporate expenses. When redeemed, they were cancelled by a punch through the seal in pres- ence of one common council man and two Trustees. At the expiration of their charter, the accountant reported bills to the amount of £1149 not yet delivered in for payment, and the common council immediately placed a similar amount into the hands of Mr. Lloyd, a distinguished silk merchant, to redeem them when presented; and by a public notice in the several gazettes of America, they were required to be pre- sented before the first of January, 1756.
The financial affairs of the Trustees were managed with great caution, prudence, and economy. The va- rious reports of the commissioners on accounts spread upon the records of the common council, evince the scrupulous care and stringent exactness with which they examined each item of expenses, and each draught upon their exchequer.
316
FIRST SHIP CHARTERED IN GEORGIA.
They were most faithful stewards of the money com- mitted to their trust, husbanding their resources, sus- taining their credit, liquidating their dues, and finally closing their accounts with every debt cancelled, and every demand secured. Yet the substitution of this peculiar currency fettered the commercial transactions of Georgia, by almost restricting the colony to a spe- cies of money unknown to the other colonies, and which could not always command a par value in the other provinces or in England. For the first few years the trade of Harris and Habersham was mostly with Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, where their credit was good, and their mercantile reputation high. Success prompted an enlargement of their business, and in 1747 they opened a correspondence in London, and began the system of direct importation. In a let- ter to Secretary Martyn, in May, 1749, they say : " We have ordered our correspondent, Mr. John Nickleson, in Mansfield street, Goodman's Fields, London, to char- ter us a small ship to be loaded here next winter with what may offer." This was the first ship ever char- tered to a mercantile house in Georgia, with a design to be laden with its produce for England, and by this vessel they remitted nearly $10,000 in exported arti- cles.
The principal exports at this time were pitch, tar, rice, and deer-skins; and they hoped by furnishing an easy and accessible medium of intercommunication, to encourage the growth of indigo, and by adding that to the list of staple products, turn towards America a large portion of the £200,000 which England annually paid France for that article.
The difficulties consequent on the establishment of such commercial relations at that time were neither
317
OBJECTS OF HARRIS AND HABERSHAM.
few nor trivial. From the produce of the colony but little could be expected. Agriculture was greatly neglected; rice plantations could not be tilled; and the whole produce of the colony was not sufficient for its own consumption, being entirely supplied with seve- ral articles of food from South Carolina. The Indian trade was unsettled and fluctuating; its principal arti- cle was skins; and those brought to Savannah had to be shipped to Charleston, at an expense of 7s. 6d. ster- ling per hundred weight, where they were obliged to be entered at the custom-house, and pay a duty of ls. per skin, making a total of duty and freight of nearly 30s. sterling per hogshead.
The objects of Harris and Habersham were to open commercial intercourse with other places, in order to induce the inhabitants to give such attention to agricul- ture, as that the several staple products might be raised in sufficient quantities for exportation ; to draw towards Savannah the trade and the produce of the planters in parts of Carolina contiguous to the Savannah river; to prevent the onerous freightage of skins to England, by furnishing a direct outlet from their own port; and by inducing ships to visit the place, to call around it the various artizans requisite for a seaport ; thus drawing from the necessary expenses of the shipping a large revenue to the colony. These enlarged views met, in part, the prosperity they deserved; and the firm had the satisfaction of knowing, that their operations afford- ed sensible relief to the colony, greatly increased its strength, and added to its wealth. That it did so, is evident from a letter of one of these merchants, where- in he writes: " My present thoughts are that the colony never had a better appearance of thriving than now. There have been more vessels loaded here within these
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