Wayne followed with the remainder a few days afterward. The metropolis of Georgia had been three years six months and thirteen days, in the entire possession of the enemy; and at several times, the whole state had been under the control of the British government. The number of the disaffected, to the republican government, appears by the act of confiscation and banishment, to have amounted to two hundred and eighty. A considerable number of them were afterward restored to the rights of citizenship, and some of them to the enjoyment of their property, upon paying twelve and a half per cent. upon the amount thus restored; and others upon paying eight per cent. into the public treasury.

No correct estimate can be made of the immense losses sustained by the inhabitants of Georgia, during the revolutionary war. The negroes, and other property, which was carried off; the houses, plantations, and produce, destroyed by fire; the loss of time, by constant military employment; the distressed condition of widows, who were left by the numerous murders committed upon the heads of families, and killed in the field of battle, seem to bid defiance to calculation. If the inhabited part of the state, with all the property it contained, had been valued at the commencement of the war, half of the amount would probably have been a moderate estimate of the loss.

On the 30th of November, provisional articles of a treaty were entered into by the commission

ers of the United-States, and a commissioner on the part of Great-Britain, at Paris; but the articles contained in this treaty were not to be conclusive or binding, until a treaty of peace should be agreed upon between France and England, which was then in progress. The definitive treaties between America, France, and England, were finally ratified at Paris on the 3rd of September, 1783.

The embarkation of the British army in Charleston, was suspended until late in December. The enemy had not a sufficiency of provisions for the voyage, and the sales of it were withheld to compel the restoration of the negroes and other private property, which had been plundered from the inhabitants; which was ultimately agreed to, but only partially complied with.

Immediately after the departure of the British from Georgia, a meeting of the legislature was called, in Savannah, by governor Martin, on the first Monday in August. Their attention was directed to the opening of the courts of justice, and the appointment of commissioners of confiscated sales. This session was short, as it was so soon to be succeeded by the constitutional meeting on the first Monday in January, 1784. Lyman Hall was appointed governor; George Walton, chiefjustice; Samuel Stirk, attorney-general; John Milton, secretary of state; John Martin, treasurer; and Richard Call, surveyor-general. The land offices were opened, and bounty warrants granted to the officers and soldiers for military

services. Public accounts were audited, according to the scale of depreciation, and the unappro priated proceeds of the confiscated property was converted into a sinking fund for the redemption of the public debt.

The valuable prize of freedom and independence was now obtained, and the people of America were left at liberty to live under a form of government of their own choice. The blood which flowed from the suffering patriots of that day, should never be forgotten; and the precious jewel which was purchased by it, should be preserv ed with courage and remembered with gratitude, by succeeding generations.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.