Every philanthropist must take satisfaction in the founding of the
colony in Georgia; for, perhaps beyond any other, it had its origin
in the spirit of pure benevolence. The unfortunate debtor in England
was by the laws liable to imprisonment; and thousands were, for this
cause alone, languishing in prisons. The miserable condition of debtors
and their desolate families, was at length thrust on the attention of
Parliament. In 1728 a commission was appointed to inquire into the state
of the poor, and report measures of relief. The work was accomplished,
the jails thrown open, and the prisoners returned to their families.
But, though liberated, they and their friends were in no condition
to maintain themselves respectably in the land of their birth. There
was a land beyond the sea where debt was not a crime, and poverty not
necessarily a disgrace. To provide somewhere a refuge for the poor
of England, and the distressed Protestants of other countries, the
commission appealed to George II. for the privilege of planting a colony
of such persons in America. A charter was issued giving the desired
territory to a corporation, for twenty-one years, _to be held in trust
for the poor_. In honor of the king the new province was named Georgia.
The high-souled philanthropist who initiated and went steadily forward
in this enterprise was James Oglethorpe. Born a loyalist, educated at
Oxford, a high churchman, a soldier, a member of Parliament, benevolent,
generous, full of sympathy, and far-sighted in comprehending the results
of his enterprise, he sacrificed much, giving the best position of a life
so full of energy and promise to the noble charity of providing homes
for the poor, under such conditions that the largest benefit could be
received by them without any sense of degradation. Ridpath says: “The
magnanimity of the enterprise was heightened by the fact that he did
not believe in the equality of men, but only in the duty of the strong
to protect the weak, and sympathize with the lowly. Oglethorpe was the
principal member of the corporation, and to him the personal leadership
of the first colony planted on the banks of the Savannah was naturally
intrusted. His associations were with cultured people, and his refined
tastes would be subjected to some crucial tests by the rude scenes in the
wilderness, and his association with unlettered men. But he was not a man
to shirk responsibility, and promptly determined to share the privations,
hardships, and dangers of his colony.
“With one hundred and twenty emigrants, in January, 1735, he safely
reached the coast, proceeded up the river, and selected, for the site
of his first settlement, the high bluff on which Savannah was built.
There, amidst the pines, was soon seen a village of tents and rude
dwellings, the nucleus of the fine city, intended for the capital of a
new commonwealth, in which there would be freedom of conscience and no
imprisonment for debt.”
[End of Required Reading for April.]