61

HEBREW CONGREGATION.

369

formed, and the great "I AM” was worshipped in the same language in which Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed; which was heard on Sinai, and in the gorgeous Temple of Solomon; and in which the inspired men. of God poured forth their sublime and far-seeing prophecies. The guide and rule of their service. was the "Minhag Sephardim," and the officers of the synagogue consisted of a Parnass, Gabay, and several adjuntas. They were not able to employ a regular Hazan, but the worship was conducted by the voluntary services of the brethren, who, even in the pine forests of Georgia, did not forget the God of their fathers, or to lift up their voices in prayer, with "their faces turned towards Jerusalem."

In 1740, owing to the removal of many of the brethren, there were not left enough to form a congregation, and the services were for a time suspended.

This short sketch of the religious condition of Georgia up to the time of its erection into a royal province, furnishes many points of interest amid many causes of sorrow. It is a matter of interest that religion was planted with the first settlers, and that the English, the Salzburgers, the Moravians, the Presbyterians, and the Israelites, severally brought over with them the ministers or the worship of their respective creeds. The moral element of civilization, that without which the others are powerless to give true and lasting elevation, entered largely into the colonization of Georgia, and did much to nurture and strengthen the infant colony. But it is a matter of sorrow, that though many

61 The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, vol. i. 248, 379, 486. The facts stated in Occident, 379, 486, are derived from a Hebrew MS. kept

by one of the first company of Jews, Mr. Benjamin Sheftall, and there furnished to the public by his grandson, Mordecai Sheftall, Esq., of Savannah.

370

INFLUENCE OF RELIGION UPON A COLONY.

of the clergy acted up to their high responsibilities, there were several who were destitute of that piety and loftiness of character which were necessary to secure respect for their office; while the people themselves, ignorant, corrupt, and split into angry factions, were in no state to listen to the teachings of the pulpit, or profit by the instructions of their various pastors. Yet nothing was so needed to humanize the feelings, call out the affections, and elevate the soul of the people, as religion. It would have quieted all disturbances, evoked industry, introduced peace, and preserved the colony from many of the ills and dangers brought upon it by the machinations of wicked and seditious men. Without "goodness," says Lord Bacon,62 which," of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing;" a truth which the condition of Savannah sadly illustrated; for all its busy idleness, its harmful clubs, its mischievous factions, sprung from the absence of that "goodness” which the Bible only can instil. History, calmly looking upon these indubitable facts, is constrained to declare, that moral principle, founded on practical piety, is the corner-stone and the top-stone of the edifice of a good government, and, without it, no people can become what a commonwealth should be, "one huge Christian personage-one mighty growth and stature of an honest man. 2763

62 Works, i. 270.

63 Milton's Prose Works, Phil. ed., 2 vols., 1845. i. 17.

BOOK THIRD.

GEORGIA UNDER ROYAL GOVERNMENT.

CHAPTER I.

SETTLEMENT OF LIBERTY COUNTY.

On the surrender of the charter to the King in 1752, it passed under the control of the "Board of Trade and Plantations" acting "under His Majesty," composed of the lords commissioners appointed for the superintendence of colonial affairs, of which the Earl of Halifax was then at the head. This nobleman greatly interested himself in the colonies, and when Acadia was ceded to England by the treaty of Aix-laChapelle, (October 7, 1748,) the scheme which had been projected for settling that peninsula, which was now called Nova Scotia, was taken under his paternal care; and the capital of the colony, in honour of his generous assistance, received the name of Halifax. He was eminently qualified for his station, as well by his natural and acquired abilities, as his practical knowledge of the details of colonial settlements; and he presided over the Board of Trade and Plantations with honour to himself, comfort to the provinces, and benefit to the Crown.

2

1 Stokes's "View of the Constitution of the British Colonies," &c., Lond. 1783, 115.

2 Smollett, ii. 311. Haliburton's History of Nova Scotia, i. 136.

372

ORIGIN OF THE DORCHESTER PEOPLE.

In November, 1752, a proclamation issued by the lords justices under advice of His Majesty's Privy Council, was sent over to Georgia, and publicly read in Savannah,3 declaring the royal pleasure that the magistrates and officers in the said colony of Georgia, should continue in the exercise of their respective offices until His Majesty's pleasure shall be known, and other provision be made for the due government and ordering of the province. Nothing could be more indicative of the prospective success of the province under the anticipated change of rulers, than the fact that in 1751 and 1752 the preliminary applications were made by the entire people of Dorchester, South Carolina, to take up lands in Georgia, whither they soon emigrated and settled at Midway river, in what is now Liberty county. The narrative of this pilgrim colony, of pilgrim sires, constitutes an interesting page in the history of Georgia. Colonial retrospect does not always bring renown; but here honour, piety, and worth blend in the origin and progressive existence of this Dorchesterian band which emigrated to Georgia. Early in the year 1630, a little company of Puritans gathered from the counties of Devon, Dorset, and Somersetshire, met in the new hospital at Plymouth, England; and after a day of fasting and prayer, elected the Rev. John Warham of Exeter and Rev. John Mavericks to be their pastors, and resolved to settle in New England. They sailed on the 30th of March, 1630, in the Mary and John, a ship of four hundred tons, commanded by Captain Squeb, and reached

4

3 MS. Doc. from Board of Trade, v. 34.

4 Rev. Dr. Harris's Account of Dorchester, Mass. Hist. Col., 1st series, vol. ix.

6

5 Morton's New England Memorial, p. 162; Davis's edition, Boston, 1826. 6 Winthrop's Hist. of New England,

i. 29.

THEIR EARLY SUFFERINGS.

373

America in two months. But so far from fulfilling his engagement to take them to Charles river, "The captain put us,” says a passenger, " ashore, and our goods on Nantucket point, and left us to shift for ourselves in a forlorn place in this wilderness.”7 s." They soon, however, selected a place called by the Indians Matapan, but to which they gave the name of Dorchester, “because several of the settlers came from a town of that name in England, and also in honour of the Rev. Mr. White of that place." Dorchester, therefore, is the third oldest town in New England.

In common with all early emigrants, they suffered many privations and hardships, but they bore them with a Christian manliness and fortitude. Their hearts quailed not at every lion in the way; dangers nerved them with courage, and trials but increased their energy. "Oh! the hunger," says Captain Clap, himself an eye-witness of what he describes, "that many suffered, and saw no hope, in the eye of reason, to be supplied only by clams, and muscles, and fish. We did quietly build boats, and some went fishing; but bread was with many a scarce thing, and flesh of all kinds as scarce. And in those days when our straits, though I cannot say God sent a raven to feed us as he did the prophet Elijah, yet this I can say to the praise of God's glory, that he sent not only poor ravenous Indians which came with baskets of corn on their backs to trade with us, which was a good supply unto many, but also sent ships from Holland and from Ireland with provisions, and Indian corn from Virginia, to supply the wants of his dear servants in this wilderness, both for food and raiment.

7 Capt. Roger Clap, in Winthrop's New England, i. 28.