Penn's Settlement at Philadelphia was made, as we have seen, in 1681. This was seventy-four years after the settlement of Jamestown. In seventy-four years, which is less than a long lifetime, all the colonies were begun except one. But after the settlement of Pennsylvania there passed fifty-one years more before another colony was begun. As the borders of Carolina were supposed to reach to the Spanish territory in Florida, and as New England touched the French territory in Canada, there appeared to be no room for any more colonies, until it was suggested to General Oglethorpe that a slice might be taken off the south side of South Carolina, and a new colony be wedged in between Carolina and the Spanish colony in Florida.

General Oglethorpe was a very benevolent man, but much given to impossible projects of different sorts. He did not propose that the new colony of Georgia should be a source of profit to anybody. He put on its seal a motto in Latin, which meant "Not for ourselves, but for others," with a device of silkworms spinning. He wanted to provide a home for ruined debtors, and a place of refuge for persecuted Protestants from other countries. He also expected to make Georgia a military barrier against the encroachments of the Spaniards from Florida, who laid claim to all of South Carolina. Besides this, he proposed to raise silk-worms in Georgia, so that the English would not need to pay money to the Italians for their silk. He also resolved to keep out all slaves, and to forbid the bringing in of rum, that the people might not be idle or intemperate. Many thousands of pounds were given by benevolent people to help on this good work. Parliament also voted a donation to Georgia.

In 1732 Oglethorpe took out his first company of a hundred and sixteen people, with whom he began the town of Savannah. Many others were added, among whom were a regiment of Scotch Highlanders, some Hebrews, and some persecuted Germans. Oglethorpe bore hardship with the rest, and by brilliant management defeated the Spaniards when they attacked his colony.

But the people, after a while, became dissatisfied. They were not allowed any hand in making their own laws. No man, unless he brought European servants, was permitted to own more than fifty acres of land, and this land he could not sell or rent or divide among his children. His oldest son took it at his death; if he had no son, it went back to the trustees of the colony. It was thought that by this means the evils of wealth and poverty would be prevented. But, like all such attempts, this proved a failure, because the people felt that such laws interfered with their just liberties, and took away all inducements to the improvement of their property.

The complaints of the settlers became very bitter, and many of them left the colony. In 1752, twenty years after the beginning of the settlement, the trustees surrendered the government to the king. After that, Georgia was not different from the other colonies. One might own as much land as one could get, and sell or lease it at one's pleasure. Rum also came in, which certainly was no advantage. Slaves were bought, and rice and indigo plantations, like those of South Carolina, were established.

The Germans that came to Georgia were not by any means the first of these industrious people in the English colonies in America. There were many little sects in Germany at that time, and these suffered much persecution, from which they were glad to flee. The laws of Pennsylvania promised them freedom. Some of these sects were opposed to war, and their members emigrated to Penn's colony, where military service was not required, because the Society of Friends was also opposed to war. The tide of German emigration became greater and greater after this; thousands of Germans coming to Pennsylvania to escape the miseries brought on them by persecution and the wars which desolated their country.

In three years, during the reign of Queen Anne, there came to England thirteen thousand poor people from that part of Germany called the Palatinate. These people were called Palatines; they were seeking to be sent to America. Some of these were dispatched to Virginia, some to the Carolinas, and some to Maryland. About four thousand were sent to New York to make tar and pitch. So wretchedly were they cared for that seventeen hundred of the four thousand died at sea or soon after landing. The rest were settled on the Hudson River, where the descendants of some of them are today. Some went to the wilderness farther west. They were badly treated in New York, and only allowed ten acres of land apiece. Three hundred of them, hearing that Germans were well received in Pennsylvania, made a bold push through the backwoods of New York, down the rivers that flowed into Pennsylvania. From that time, Germans avoided New York, and thronged more than ever into Pennsylvania.

The Irish that came before the Revolution were mostly Presbyterians in belief. They had been persecuted in order to force them into the Church of England. Some of them came to New England about 1718, introducing there the spinning of flax and planting of potatoes. There was not a colony to which they did not go, but the greatest tide of Irish immigration poured into Pennsylvania. Five thousand Irish immigrants arrived in the city of Philadelphia in the year of 1729. Many of them were bold and enterprising pioneers, opening the way into unknown regions, and showing great courage in fighting with the American Indians.

Pennsylvania filled up with great rapidity, and when the later Indian wars laid waste to its frontiers, many of the German and Irish settlers moved southward into the mountain valleys of Virginia. Then, following the lines of open prairies and American Indian trails, this steam of people went onward into the Carolinas. The Irish, indeed, and their children born in America, pushed southward until they had filled whole countries in North and South Carolina. They also pushed over the Alleghanies into the Western country.

The Huguenots, for French Protestants, rendered unhappy by the civil wars and persecutions of the time, came to the colonies in large numbers. They settled in almost every colony, but more largely in South Carolina than elsewhere.

Notwithstanding the multitudes of Germans, Irish, French, and Scotch that came to the colonies, those who came from England formed much the largest part of every colony.



JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE

James Edward Oglethorpe was born in London in 1688. He was in the war of the Austrians against the Turks in 1716, and held a command under Prince Eugene in the brilliant and desperate campaign of 1717, which ended in the surrender of Belgrade. He resumed to England in 1722, and served in Parliament for thirty-two years afterward. He was opposed to imprisonment for debt, and did much to improve the condition of poor debtors. He was also interested in the efforts then made to convert the black slaves in the colonies. In planting Georgia, his views were most benevolent, but the broken-down debtors that he took over at first were not the kind of men to begin a new state with. Oglethorpe was over ninety-six years old when he died.