USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 30
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17 Board of Trade, v. 167.
406
INDEFINITENESS OF SOUTHERN BOUNDARY.
and repairing public works, entertaining Indians, and other incidental expenses, being insufficient for all those purposes, I am in hopes your lordships will think proper to get a sufficient sum allowed for erecting a court-house, an assembly house, a church, and a prison, at Hardwicke; which will be such an encouragement to private people to build there, as will soon make it fit for the seat of government, to the universal benefit of the province."
Upon the agitation of this project, twenty-seven lots were taken up in the town of Hardwicke, and more than 21,000 acres were granted to different persons in its vicinity.
This visit of the Governor impressed upon him, also, the necessity of having the southern boundaries of the province clearly and positively defined. The limits of his jurisdiction in this quarter were now vaguely marked, his commission defining it from the head of the Altamaha along the northern bank of the most southern branch or stream of it. "But nobody," says Reynolds, to the Board of Trade,18 " in this country knows where the head of the Altamaha river rises; and they are all as ignorant of what may be called its most southern stream, since the southern branches do not bear its name." Thus the settlements and the great body of land lying between the Altamaha and the St. John's, were without government or justice. Settlers by " boats full" were daily passing along the inlets to locate there, most of them of what was called "Edmund Gray's Gang," originally from the back part of Virginia, but last from the neighbourhood of Augusta. Lest this un- governed territory should become a rendezvous of fugi- tives and outlaws, the Governor proposed to the Lords
18 Board of Trade, v. 163.
1
407
HARD CONDITIONS REQUIRED OF GRANTEES.
Justices of Council to extend his authority to 30 deg. 20 min. north latitude, and thence in a straight line west- ward to the Pacific, or at least to the most southern British settlement beyond the Altamaha. The subject was given in charge by His Majesty's Council to a committee of that body, who reported that they had referred it to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations ; but no definite action was then taken. By the sixty-seventh article of his instructions,19 the Governor was directed to require, "that all grantees of land should be obliged to clear and cultivate five acres per year for every hundred contained in their grants ; in failure of which, the grant shall be void." This the Governor represented as burdensome to the colony, by reason of the fact, that much of the land was untillable, above half being generally pine-barren, or swamp; or, even if every acre of it was good, by requiring five acres in a tract of one hundred to be cul- tivated each year, in twenty years "the grantee must either forfeit all his land or have neither firewood nor wood for making or repairing his fences, buildings, and making other things wanting in a plantation." A pro- clamation, however, conformable to his " instructions," was issued on the 1st of January, 1755, requiring the people to take out fresh grants,20 to pay 2s. sterling for every hundred acres, to commence within two years from date of grant, and to cultivate five acres per year for every hundred acres.
The subject came up before the Assembly, and both houses presented an address21 to the Governor, repre- senting that such a measure would " not only hurt the present inhabitants, but also deter others from becoming
19 Board of Trade, v. 156.
2º Ib. vi. 31. 21 Ib. v. 127.
₹08
REMONSTRANCE OF ASSEMBLY. 1
settlers amongst us." They proposed instead, that the lands should be granted " without any other restriction or condition, than that the grantee shall be obliged to reside with his family in the colony for at least three years after obtaining the grant."
By a concurrence of both houses, a remonstrance was made to His Majesty, by the Assembly, in which they illustrated the impracticability of complying with the Governor's proclamation, and the fatal results that would follow the strict enforcement of his instructions. The remonstrance, referred by the King to his Council, and by them to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, was by the latter referred back to the Council as necessary to be listened to ; and they there- fore removed22 the obnoxious conditions, and substitu- ted clauses consonant with the desires of the people.
In these efforts for redress, the Governor, though obliged by his instructions to issue the proclamation, yet cordially united with the Assembly, and urged the justness of their representation.
In endeavouring to secure and protect the colony by proper military defences, the Governor also showed much diligence and zeal.
In obedience to the commands of the Board of Trade, he drew up an elaborate representation, setting forth the points necessary to be fortified, the nature of the defences required, and the men and munitions neces- sary for their equipment. In this he was greatly assisted by the advice of William De Brahm, a cap- tain of engineers in the service of His Imperial Majesty Charles VI., one of the surveyors of the province, but then engaged by the South Carolinians in planning fortifications for Charleston, and whom Governor 22 Board of Trade, v. 170.
409
STATE OF DEFENCES IN GEORGIA.
Reynolds recommended to the Board of Trade as engineer in chief for Georgia. The actual state of the fortifications showed that the colony was almost defenceless. The outline of the territory to be defended was a circuit of nearly six hun- dred miles; yet the population scattered over this territory, black and white, men, women and child- ren, did not amount to six thousand five hundred. Of those few, seven hundred and fifty-six only could bear arms, and were enrolled in eight companies of militia, badly armed, inefficiently trained, and widely separated from each other. To defend themselves there was not a single good fortification in the prov- ince. At Savannah there were eleven old three and four pounders, without carriages, twenty-seven small swivel guns, and sixty-one mostly unusable muskets. At Augusta, the wooden fort erected by the Trustees, of one hundred and twenty feet square, was propped up by heavy timbers to keep the walls from falling; and in its feeble embrasures, mounted on rotten car- riages, were placed eight small iron guns, honey- combed with rust, and more dangerous to friends than foes.
At St. Simons, the fortification of Frederica was entirely dismantled, and not a gun mounted, nor a charge of powder or a ball to load one, in the place.
The little log forts which, in the Trustees' time, were placed here and there on the outskirts of the settlements, were fallen down, and the province was left without forts or ordnance, or munitions of any kind. In answer to the enquiry put to him by the Lords of Trade, as to what points he judged neces- sary to be fortified, and in what manner, he suggested four forts near the sea, and five on the western and
410
REYNOLDS SUGGESTS NEW DEFENCES.
southern frontier. To command the river, a triangular fort was planned for Coxspur, on which were to be mounted fifteen guns, ranging from eight to twenty- four pounders, and garrisoned by thirty men.
The fortress at Savannah was to be of four polygons, each four hundred and forty-eight feet, with four bas- tions, three upon the bluff and one below, besides an open battery on the bluff, requiring twenty-six pieces of artillery, and a force of one hundred and fifty men.
At Frederica the work was to be made in the form of half a hexagon, nine hundred and sixty feet each, with two whole and two demi-bastions towards the land, and two demi-bastions and a citadel towards the sea, on which were to be placed fifty cannon, manned by three hundred regulars.
Hardwicke, the newly projected capital, was to be fortified by three polygons, six hundred feet each, and three detached bastions, requiring twenty-five pieces, and a garrison of one hundred and fifty troops.
These were deemed sufficient defences for the sea-board. Along the Spanish and Indian frontier, fortresses, varying in size, from works mounting twenty-four guns, to mere redoubts carrying only eight guns, of small calibre, and garrisoned by troops ranging from a captain's command to a mere ser- geant's guard, were to be located at Augusta ; at the forks of the Altamaha; between the forks and Augusta northward; the forks and Frederica south- ward ; at the Indian pass on the Ogeechee; and be- tween the pass and Hardwicke. Thus by a regular force of less than one thousand men, and one hundred and seventy-two cannons, haubices, and mortars, dis- tributed among eleven forts, Georgia could be well protected from frontier incursions, and sea-board in-
411
REGULATING FEES AND ELECTORS.
vasions, at an expense, building the forts of earth and facing them with fascines, by negro labour, of only about £29,000.
Had this plan been carried out, it would have put new life and vigour into the colony, increased its pop- ulation, its security, its trade, its importance, the value of its lands, and drawn many inhabitants thither, who were now deterred from settling there by its defence- less and exposed condition. But it was never acted upon, and the colony toiled on, harassed, alarmed, and unprotected.
In addition to the grievances already mentioned, the Assembly presented to the King representations upon two others, having respect to the regulating of fees, and the qualifications of electors. As the law now stood, the fixing and settling all the fees of the public officers, was " solely in the power of the Gov- ernor and Council, without the concurrence and con- sent of the Assembly." The Council, therefore, in January, 1755, made out a schedule23 of fees, taking as their guide that established in South Carolina, only reducing each charge 10 per cent. Accordingly, a most elaborate tariff, embracing fees for four hundred and fifty-four items, distributed among forty-four different officers, was set forth by the Council, who ordered each officer to post up in his department the list of fees ex- igible at his office.
This procedure, based on the 38th article of the King's instructions, the Assembly deemed "a great hardship," and " attended with consequences hurtful to their constituents ;" and therefore prayed " that the fees of the public officers might be settled by act of General Assembly, and no otherwise, as is the custom
23 Doc. from British Museum, 56. Minutes of Council.
412
GOVERNOR VISITS AUGUSTA.
of all your Majesty's other provinces in America." According to the instructions of the King to Governor Reynolds, the qualification of electors for representa- tives in Assembly, was confined to a freehold of fifty acres of land, and the qualification of representatives, a freehold of five hundred acres, which no colonial law could alter. In remonstrating against this, the Assembly declared that according to this rule residents in towns, having buildings and improvements greater in value than five hundred acres, were not permitted to sit in the As- sembly ; and freeholders of town lots liable to pay taxes for the support of government, were not permitted to vote for representatives, though the value of their one or two town acres greatly exceeded the fifty acres by which many others became qualified to vote.
The remonstrance concerning fees was unheeded; the property qualification of voters was agreeably modified.
Desirous of maintaining pacific relations with the Indians, numbers of whom had come down to Savan- nah to welcome the Governor, shortly after his arrival, and knowing the salutary influence which a visit to them would produce, he resolved, on the arrival of the Indian presents, to go himself to Augusta and meet the tribes there in friendly council. The meeting was appointed for the first week in December, and a com- mittee of three of the Council was appointed to attend him thither. The Governor tarried at Augusta ten days, but the Indians failing to meet him, he returned upon pressing business to Savannah, leaving it to Wil- liam Little, whom he had appointed agent and com- missioner for Indian affairs, to deliver his intended speeches, and make the presents.
The Indians to the number of three hundred ar- rived at Augusta a week after the departure of Gov-
413
ACADIANS SENT TO GEORGIA.
ernor Reynolds; and by conciliating addresses, and ample presents, peace and frienship were renewed between the tribes and the province.
The urgent business which recalled Governor Rey- nolds from Augusta to Savannah, was the arrival of two transports from Nova Scotia, containing about four hundred French Papists. These brought letters to Rey- nolds from Lieut. Governor Lawrence of Nova Scotia, acquainting him, " that, for the better security of that province, and in consequence of a resolution of his council, he had sent these people to Georgia, and he did not doubt of his concurrence.""
The history of this people constitutes one of the most thrilling passages in the fortunes of the French Americans. Nova Scotia, called by the French Aca- die, and first settled by them, was, after various wars and changes, yielded by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, to the crown of England. 'The inhabitants, of French descent, speaking that language, and professing the Romish faith, were required at its cession to Great Britain to take the oath of allegiance to their English monarch, or leave the country. This the Acadians con- sented to do, provided they were not required to take up arms against France or their old Indian allies. The Governor acquiescing in this proviso, they took the oath ; but it was disallowed by the court at home, who required an unconditional oath or an immediate depart- ure. Refusing to comply with these peremptory de- mands, the matter remained unsettled until 1755; the Acadians taking, and as a body maintaining, a neutral position. They were an agricultural and pastoral peo- ple-tilled their lands with great art and industry- reared large flocks and herds-dwelt in neat and con-
24 Board of Trade, vi. 39.
-
414
HABITS AND MANNERS.
venient houses-subsisted upon the varied stores gath- ered from sea and land, and, with few wants, and no money, lived in peace and harmony under the mild ju- risdiction of their elders and pastors.25 The Abbé Raynal26 has described them in terms almost too eulo- gistic for human nature, representing a state of social happiness more consonant with the license of poetry than the fidelity of history. It cannot be denied, how- ever, that they presented a rural and social picture, full of charming scenes and lovely portraits, showing simple manners, guileless lives, peaceable habits, scrupulous integrity, and calm devotion. But the eye of English envy was upon them, and English rapacity planned their removal.
The pretexts for this gross violation of human rights were as frivolous as they were unjust; as Edmund Burke truly said, "Pretences that, in the eye of an honest man, are not worth a farthing." But after the reduction of Forts Beau-Séjour and Gaspareau, by Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, it was resolved, at a meeting of Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence, his Coun- cil, and Admirals Boscawen and Moysten, to remove the entire population, and disperse them "among the British colonies, where they could not unite in any of- fensive measures, and where they might be natural- ized to the government and country."
The uprooting of this whole people was entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Winslow, commanding the Massa- chusetts forces, a gentleman of great moral and mili- tary worth, and much commended for his humanity and firmness. Nothing but his strict ideas of military
25 Haliburton's Hist. and Statist. count of this people. Minot's Massa- Account of Nova Scotia, i. 166-198, chusetts, i. 220-227. who gives a full and interesting ac- 26 East and West Indies, v. 352.
415
PROCLAMATION FOR REMOVAL.
obedience brought Colonel Winslow to consent to take so conspicuous a part in this, as he himself termed it, " disagreeable and ungrateful kind of duty, which re- quired an ungenerous cunning, and a subtle kind of severity."
By a proclamation, so artfully framed that its design could not be discovered, and yet requiring compliance by penalties so severe as prevented any absence, the attendance of the male Acadians was required at a specified time, and in a specified place. At Grand Pré, where Colonel Winslow commanded, over four hundred men met on the appointed day, September 5th, 1755, at 3 P.M., in the village church ; when, going into their midst, (they not even suspecting the cause of their convention,) he revealed to their astonished ears the startling resolutions of the Governor and Council, " that your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, with all other your effects, saving your money and household goods, and you yourselves to be re- moved from this province."
The late happy but now wretched inhabitants, eighteen thousand in number, were appalled by the magnitude of the calamity which thus suddenly burst upon them. No language can describe their woes : turned out of their dwellings, bereft of their stock, stripped of all their possessions, their bright hopes of the future blasted in a single hour, their labours of years wrested from them by a single effort, and torn from each and every association which binds the heart to its native fields-they were declared prisoners, for no crimes, and destined to expatriation only because English blood flowed not in their veins, and English words did not dwell upon their lips.
416
FORCED TO EMBARK.
That it might be impossible for them to remain, their houses were burnt down, their fields laid waste, their improvements destroyed-churches, mills, barns, dwellings, and school-houses mingling together in one general conflagration. "For several successive evenings, the cattle assembled around the smoulder- ing ruins, as if in anxious expectation of the return of their masters, while all night long, the faithful watch dogs of the neutrals howled over the scene of desola- tion, and mourned alike the hand that had fed, and the house that had sheltered them."
Forced to embark at the point of the bayonet, crowd- ed into small vessels at the rate of two persons per ton, provided with neither comforts nor even necessaries, broken up as a community into many fragments- wives separated from husbands -- children from pa- rents-brothers from sisters-they were stowed on board like a cargo of slaves, and guarded like the
felons of a convict-ship. Thus were they hurried away from their native land, their fertile fields, their once social hearths, and scattered like leaves by the ruthless winds of autumn, from Massachusetts to Georgia, among those who hated their religion, detested their country, derided their manners, and mocked at their language. Landed on these distant shores, those who had once known wealth and plenty, who had enjoyed peace and prosperity, were scouted at as vagrants, reduced to beggary, bearing within them broken hearts and lacerated affections, where but few Samaritans were found to bind up their wounded spirits and pour in the oil and wine of con- solation into their aching bosoms. This was English policy outraging English humanity. It was an inhu- man act, blending fraud, robbery, arson, slavery and
417
MANNER OF SUPPORTING THEM IN GEORGIA.
death, such as history can scarcely equal. "It was the hardest case," said one of the sufferers, " which had hap- pened since our Saviour was on earth."27 English philan- thropy planted Georgia ; English inhumanity uprooted the Acadians. How shall we reconcile the two ? The one was prompted by the mild spirit of peace ; the other, by stern counsels of war. It was a detachment of this persecuted people whose arrival in Savannah recalled Governor Reynolds to the seat of government.
But what could the Governor do with such a body of strangers ? It was one of the express conditions on which Georgia was settled, that no Papist should be permitted in it; yet here were four hundred in one body, set down in its midst. It was also of the last importance to break up French influence on the fron- tiers, but now nearly half a thousand French were consigned to the weakest and most exposed of all the thirteen colonies. The season of the year not admit- ting of their going north, their provisions being all expended, and themselves "ready to perish," they were distributed in small parties about the province, and maintained at the public expense until spring, when, by leave of the Governor, they built themselves a number of rude boats, and in March most of them left for South Carolina ; two hundred, in ten boats, going off at one time, indulging the hope that they might thus work their way along to their native and beloved Acadie.
South Carolina, to which fifteen hundred had been sent, apportioned them out by an act of the Governor, Council, and Assembly, among the different parishes,28 offered them vessels at the public charge to transport themselves elsewhere, and many went to France;
27 Grahame, iii. 385.
28 Cooper's Statutes South Carolina, iv. 31. 27
418
ASSEMBLY MEETS AND IS DISSOLVED.
others remained in the colonies; some reached Can- ada ; but they became dispersed as a people, and extinct as a community. Reynolds acted towards the poor Acadians as humanely as the indigent cir- cumstances of the colony permitted ; he supplied their wants to the extent of his ability, and suffered them to go without molestation on their earnest, but hope- less pilgrimage.
In his public acts thus far, the Governor and the colonists had moved together with apparent harmony ; but this pleasing aspect was now changed, and angry dissensions and mutual criminations marked the legis- lation of the province.
The Assembly, which, in consequence of the Gov- ernor's visit to Augusta, had been prorogued from the 7th of January to the 2d of February, 1756, met on that day, and was opened with the usual formalities. The Commons House, refusing to admit to their seats three new members elected to supply vacancies, was adjourned from the 5th to the 12th, by the Governor, " to give them time to act in obedience to his instruc- tions," which they peremptorily refused to do; and at last, " they ordered a message of adjournment sent by the Governor, to lie on the table, confined the speaker to his chair, forced him to sign a paper, while some private members seized upon the minutes, made such alterations as they pleased, and refused to deliver them to his written order."
Finding his efforts to rule them ineffectual, he dis- solved the Assembly on the 19th of February, and declared to the Board of Trade that in his opinion " no assembly can be had that will raise any money for the support of government, or even for holding the
419
SKETCH OF WILLIAM LITTLE.
courts of Oyer and Terminer, unless the Governor was to admit of their exorbitant claims."29
He proposed to the Council to call another assembly, but they voted against it.
Indeed, it was not with the House alone that his troubles existed. He found, as he states, " that a great majority of the Council have all along appeared to be extremely greedy of power, and would fain have all things determined by vote, desiring even his official correspondence with the Board of Trade to pass under their approval." Their motives he set down as base and fraudulent, aiming thereby to avoid enquiring as to their expenditure of the public money.
On the other hand it was represented,30 that when he came over he was received with the greatest satis- faction, and had " every prospect of being a happy governor, and of making this a happy colony, as people were then crowding in every day, filled with expecta- tions of being settled in a country which has all the advantages of air and soil, and founded upon liberty." But a sad change soon took place, and the Governor and his secretary were marked out as the causes of this sad decline. This secretary, whose name was William Little, had formerly been a surgeon in the navy, and had served with Captain Reynolds ; but at the solicitation of the Governor, accompanied him to Georgia. By degrees, he gained such an ascendency over the mind of Reynolds, that in a few months the Governor virtually conferred upon him the whole ad- ministration of the colony. He combined the servility of the sycophant with the duplicity of the flatterer ; and like those parasitical plants whose exuberant
29 Board of Trade, vi. 48.
30 Jonathan Bryan's Letter to Lord Halifax. Board of Trade, vi. 50.
420
ARROGATES GREAT POWERS.
growth destroys the tree which sustains and nour- ishes them, he transferred to his own person the power of the chief magistrate, and dictated alike to Governor and people. Though acting under no commis- sion from the king, Little was advanced by Reynolds to some of the most important and influential posts in the province. He was appointed clerk of the Assem- bly, clerk of the general court, clerk of the crown and peace, agent and commissioner for the Indians, justice of the peace, and aid-de-camp to the captain-general and commander-in-chief. These offices gave him almost entire control of Georgia, and he aimed to mould everything according to his own views and interests. As early as September, 1755, all the Gov- ernor's Council except one, presented to Reynolds a memorial31 and remonstrance, complaining of his evil and improper conduct, as having been guilty of extor- tion as clerk of the general court, and " of falsification of a minute of the House of Representatives, whose clerk he was, in order to cover his sinking a bill that had passed both houses; and of forging a minute rela- tive to another bill which had also gone through the two houses." He was also charged with interfering in the departments of the king's officers, making, as justice of the peace, illegal commitments, and several other matters evidencing his hatred to the Council, and his arbitrary and tyrannical designs.
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