CHAP. XIV. PROPRIETARY GOVERNMENT IN THE CAROLINAS. 475 and the Cherokees and their neighbors, who had not yet taken up the hatchet, had retired to their hunting-grounds, deeply impressed by the evidences of the strength and prowess of the white people. So, again, was sunshine brought to South Carolina, in the beautiful month of May, 1715. Proprietary government in South Carolina was now drawing to a close. It had been a heavy burden upon the colonists from the beginning. The governors appointed by the proprietors, being independent of the people, had often been haughty and exacting, and they irritated rather than conciliated the popular mind. While the colonists were laboring to build up a permanent and prosperous State, the proprietors refused to assist them in times of danger or to reimburse their expenses incurred in defending the domain from invasion. The people were not only compelled to bear the whole expense of the late war with the Indians, but the proprietors enforced their claims for quit-rents more remorselessly than ever. The colonists saw no way to cast off their chains but by revolution, and no security for the future but in royal rule and protection. So they resolved to revolt. Their popular Assembly declared that they would have nothing further to do with the proprietors, and asked Governor Johnson to rule in the name of the king. He refused, when a Convention of the people prepared to choose a governor for themselves. Johnson had appointed the first day of December as the time for a general review of the militia of the province. The Convention chose the same day as the time for the election of a popular governor. Johnson then countermanded the order for the review. But the militia assembled in large numbers in the public square at Charleston. They were a part of the people; and when the governor ordered their commander to disperse them, he said: "I obey the Convention." Then the people proceeded to the election of a chief magistrate, when James Moore was chosen. Soon afterward proprietary rule was dismissed from the soil of South Carolina. The royal ear listened favorably to a petition presented by an agent of the colony, in England. The charter of the proprietaries was abrogated, and in 1720, South Carolina became a royal province, with Francis Nicholson as royal governor. North Carolina was relieved of proprietary rule without enduring the throes of actual revolution. From the time when its southern sister passed under royal rule and protection, the people of the northern colony became more and more restive. They seemed to be on the verge of revolution, when, in 1729, the proprietors, seeing the inevitable drift of public sentiment, made a virtue of necessity, and sold that domain to the king for about eighty thousand dollars. It then became a royal province. The two Carolinas were then separated. George Burrington was appointed governor of North Carolina, and Robert Johnson was made chief magistrate of South Carolina. The people of the provinces were soon convinced that they had gained nothing by a change of rulers; and from the time of the separation until the French and Indian war, their history is largely made up of the records of disputes between the people and the royal governors. The latest planted of the English colonies in America was Georgia, the founding of which we have already considered. The settlers there had very little intercourse with or knowledge of the outside world, and thought of but little excepting the material interests of their new homes, until after Oglethorpe's return from England early in 1736. Then foreign politics threatened dangers from their neighbors, and religious teachings stirred the sluggish society into some activity. CHAP. XIV. THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 477 With the great guns and the Highlanders skilled in military art, came with Oglethorpe many Germans to join their Moravian brethren who had settled in Georgia two or three years before. He was also accompanied by John and Charles Wesley, sons of an English poet and divine in the reigns of James, William, and Anne. They were religious enthusiasts, and were clergymen of the Church of England. The great guns and the Highlanders came to make war upon visible invaders of the domain; the Wesleys came to make war upon the invisible foes of righteousness. John was then thirtythree years of age, and came as a missionary of the gospel among the settlers and the surrounding pagans. Charles came as an assistant to his brother in this warfare, and as secretary to Governor Oglethorpe. They had lately begun that course of independent action in England, which caused the pulpits of their church to be closed against them and led to the founding of the Methodist denomination. John Wesley was fervent in spirit and eloquent in speech. A large congregation attended his ministrations at Savannah, at first; but the austerity of his maxims, his fearless denunciations of vice and even foibles, and his rigid exercise of ecclesiastical authority, soon involved him in serious disputes with the settlers, who were a peculiarly mixed people. He became unpopular, and was sorely vexed and irritated by opponents on every side. At length he became involved in a difficulty with a woman whom he had refused to admit to the communion, and he left the province in disgust at the end of two years, and returned to England, "shaking the dust off his feet," as he expressed it. His mission in Georgia was a failure. At that time there was a sturdy young preacher in England who was swaying multitudes by his fervid eloquence. He was a friend of the Wesleys, and obtained permission to join them in Georgia. He was not quite twenty-four years of age when he arrived at Savannah. The Wesleys had departed, but the young missionary, George Whitefield, entered upon his sacred duties with fervor. More practical than Wesley, he became a blessing not only to Georgia, but to other American colonies, where he labored much as an independent itinerant preacher. He established an asylum for orphans at Savannah, which was founded and supported several years by voluntary subscriptions which he procured in England and elsewhere. He worked lovingly with the Moravians in Georgia, who made a most salutary impression upon society there. On his return, Oglethorpe discovered that the Spaniards at St. Augustine were very jealous of the rapid growth of the Georgia colony. He was not fairly prepared to resist an invasion by arms, and he sent a messenger to St. Augustine to invite the commander to a friendly conference. At about the same time he went, with a number of his martial Highlanders, on an exploring expedition among the islands and along the coasts of Georgia. On St. Simons' Island he founded Frederica and built a fort there. Sailing up Alatamaha Sound, he visited New Inverness (now Darien), where a few Scotch people had planted a settlement. He was dressed in Highland costume, and with his Gaelic followers he was warmly welcomed by the settlers, who came to the beach in their plaids, bearing various weapons, and expressing their delight with the sounds of the bagpipe in merry tunes. There, too, he marked out a small fortification. It was now warm spring weather. Oglethorpe's messenger had not returned from St. Augustine, and he proceeded to manifest the intention of Great Britain to sustain its claims to the country as far south as the St. John's River. On Cumberland Island, to which he sailed on leaving Darien, he marked out a fort to be called St. Andrew's, which would command the mouth of the St. Mary's, the stream which finally became the southern boundary of Georgia. At the southern extremity of an island at the entrance of St. John's River, he also planned a small military work, which he called Fort St. George. He also founded Augusta far up the Savannah River, and erected a stockade there as a defence against Indians from the west who might be under the influence of French or Spanish traders. These hostile preparations irritated the Spaniards at St. Augustine. They detained Oglethorpe's messengers as prisoners, and threatened war. The news spread among the friendly Indians. To-mo-chi-chi came with painted warriors to offer his aid. So, too, did other chiefs; and the Chickasaws sent a delegation to bear assurances of friendship and alliance to the CHAP. XIV. PREPARATIONS FOR HOSTILITIES. 479 ears of the governor, and a crown of brilliant feathers, adorned with the polished horns of the buffalo, for the brow of Oglethorpe. With these tribes at his back as allies, Oglethorpe felt strong. The governor of St. Augustine, who had tampered with them, hearing of their alliance with the English, expressed a willingness to treat for a settlement of all disputes. An honorable treaty was made. The messengers were released, and the Georgians abandoned Fort St. George. But the home government of Spain did not approve the treaty, and Oglethorpe was notified that a commission from Cuba would meet him at Frederica. He appeared with his secretary, after leaving three regiments of Spanish infantry at St. Augustine, and peremptorily demanded the evacuation by the British of all Georgia and of South Carolina below the parallel of Port Royal, claiming all of that region as a part of the dominions of Spain. The conference ended without an agreement. Oglethorpe now hastened to England to confer with the trustees and seek military strength for his colony, for he was satisfied that it was in peril from the increased number of soldiers thrown into Florida. He was commissioned a brigadier-general, and invested with authority over the military in Georgia and South Carolina. He was also authorized to raise troops in England to serve in America. He did so, and with these he arrived in Georgia in the autumn of 1738, when he found general discontent prevailing. The colony was not prosperous, owing partly to the unwise regulations of the trustees referred to at the close of Book II, and partly because many of the emigrants who came from England were men unaccustomed to manual labor and habits of industry. The use of slave labor, so productive in other colonies, was forbidden in Georgia, and tillage was neglected. Even the industrious Scotch, Swiss and German settlers in Georgia previous to the year 1740, when the colony contained twenty-five hundred souls, could not give that vitality to industrial pursuits which was necessary for the development of the resources of that virgin soil. The greed of English merchants, who were growing rich by illicit trade on the coasts of Spanish-America at the expense of Spanish commerce, was fostered by the English ministry, who were blindly bent on destroying the Spanish colonial system in the so-called New World. Spain resented this interference with her rights, and for this-the real cause-England declared war against that kingdom late in 1739. Oglethorpe had been apprised of this measure at an early date. He knew that St. Augustine had been strengthened by more troops, and he resolved to strike a blow there before his enemy should be well prepared. He had just put an end to a conspiracy in Georgia to assassinate him, and a |