disputes with the proprietors, who had not offered them any assistance during the Indian depredations, and yet annulled the grants of the lands of the Indians made by the assembly. All complaints against the executive officers, preferred by the people, were disregarded by the proprietors. The discontent at length produced an insurrection. The assembly elected Colonel Moore to administer the government in the name of the king; thus deposing Johnson, whose attempts to compel submission to his authority failed.

T

HE regency of England sanctioned these proceedings, decided that the proprietors had forfeited their charter, and appointed Sir Francis Nicholson governor, under the commission of the king. (1721.) Nicholson rendered himself popular in Carolina, made laudable exertions for diffusing education and religious instruction, and by an alliance with the Creeks and Cherokees, secured the frontier from Indian hostility. In 1729, the transactions of the proprietors were finally closed by a deed surrendering all their rights into the hands of the king. They received in return £17,500, with £5,000 for arrears of rent amounting to £9,000. Lord Carteret retained his share of the lands. From this time, affairs held a regular and peaceable course until the two Carolinas, now declared two separate provinces, ceased to be under the control of Great Britain.

The fertility of the soil and the mildness of the climate attracted emigrants very rapidly to the. two colonies. Large importations of negro slaves were made from time to time, and thus that much-discussed institution-slavery-was firmly rooted. The cultivation of rice, which had been introduced into Carolina in 1694, was carried on to such an extent that that article became the staple production of the country. The Church of England continued to be recognized by law in Carolina, until the revolution; but all other modes of worship were freely permitted, and nothing interfered with the prosperity and happiness of the colonists.

THE youngest of the states which engaged in the War of Independence, was Georgia. At the time of the surrender of the charter of Carolina, the country between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers was still a wilderness, where the red man roamed undisturbed, and whither he could retreat after an incursion into the neighborhood of the whites. The Spaniards claimed the country as part of Florida, and the colonists of Carolina were in constant apprehension of their attacks.

In 1732, Sir James Oglethorpe, a brave soldier, a firm loyalist and a friend to the unfortunate, formed the project of opening an asylum in America, for the poor of his own country, and the persecuted of every nation. The enterprise met the approval of the king, who granted, for twenty-one years, to a corporation, "in trust for the poor," the country between the Savannah and Altamaha, and westward to the Pacific Ocean.

In honor of the king, the province was called Georgia. The project was warmly applauded throughout the kingdom, and the House of Commons voted considerable sums at various times for the support of the new colony.

On the 6th of November, 1732, Oglethorpe sailed from Gravesend with 116 persons. They landed at Charleston first, where they were presented with a large supply of provisions by the government of the province. Setting out for the place of their destination, they reached the high bluff on the Savannah River which had been selected for the settlement, on the 1st of February, 1733. Here Oglethorpe caused a fort to be built, for the defence of the colony, and gave the name of the stream to the settlement.

H

The meeting took The chiefs of the

IS next care was to secure the friendship
of the Indians in the vicinity; and for that
purpose, he invited the sachems to meet
him at Savannah, and enter into a treaty
of amity and alliance.
place in June 1733.
Creek nation cordially welcomed the
English to the country. One of them
presented Oglethorpe with the skin of a
buffalo, painted, on the inside, with the

head and feathers of an eagle; and reminded him that the English were

as strong as the buffalo and as swift as the eagle, and that the skin of the buffalo was warm and signified protection; and the feathers of the eagle, soft, and signified love; both of which they expected from the English.

In 1734, the town of Augusta was founded on the Upper Savannah, with a view to secure the local trade. During the same year, a large number of emigrants arrived. Among them were about 150 Highlanders, and a party of Moravians. John and Charles Wesley, then only known. as zealous clergymen, were prevailed upon to accept an invitation to reside in the colony, and officiate as ministers.

The incorporated trustees, having thus established a colony in Georgia, now proceeded to exercise their legislatorial powers by enacting a code. of fundamental laws and constitutions for the infant society. In this code it was provided that each tract of land granted by the treaty, should be accepted as a military fief, for which the possessor was bound to appear in arms and take the field, when summoned for the public defence; that, to prevent accumulation of property, which was deemed inconsistent with a military spirit, the tract of land assigned to each planter should not exceed twenty-five acres, and no one should be suffered to possess more than five hundred acres; that, to hinder a plurality of allotments from falling in process of time into the possession of any single individual, the lands should be granted in tail male, instead of tail general—that is, that women should be rendered incapable of succeeding to landed property; that, in default of heirs male to any proprietor, his estate was to revert as a lapsed fief to the trustees, in order to be again granted to another colonist on the same terms as before-some compensation, however, being recommended in that case to the daughters (especially if not provided for by marriage) of such deceased proprietors as should have improved their lands; that widows should be entitled, during their lives, to the mansionhouse and one half of the land improved by their husbands; and that, if any portion of land granted should not be cleared, fenced, and cultivated within eighteen years from the date of the relative grant, such portion was to relapse as a forfeiture, to the trustees. No inhabitant was to be permitted to depart from the province without a license; which was declared requisite also to legitimate trade with the Indians. The importation of rum was disallowed; trade with the West Indies was declared unlawful; and negro slavery was absolutely prohibited. Except in the last article, and the purposed regulation of Indian trade, this code exhibits hardly a trace either of common sense, or of that liberality which the trustees had already so signally displayed.*

* Grahame.