two ships should have sailed into Jekyl sound, and have landed the colony, and all the stores, at the place where the town was to be built; and for this purpose, there had been an agreement made to pay demurrage for the loss of time. there. The Captains did not care to venture down, and gave many reasons. Captain Cornish perceiving the great damage that must arise to the Trust by their ships not going down, proposed that if Mr. Oglethorpe would send down Captain Yokely with the James, to discover the channel, they would go down, and in, he piloting of them. Captain Thomas agreed to the same proposal, and Mr. Oglethorpe accordingly agreed with Captain Yokely.

Mr. Oglethorpe seemed very uneasy at their not going to Frederica at once, but did not care to force them; the words of the agreement being not quite clear, and there was no sworn pilot, who could take charge of the ships in; for one Miller, the pilot who had surveyed that entry by Mr. Oglethorpe's order, was gone from Savannah before his arrival; and Kilbury, another pilot, who knew the same, was dead, and the man-of-war was not yet arrived, whom we depended upon to have gone in first.

Mr. Oglethorpe spoke to the people to prevent their being terrified with false reports. There seemed to be little need of it, for they were all zealous to settle a town of their own, and trusting entirely to him, were not at all apprehensive of any danger, but were fearful of staying and losing their time at Savannah.

After three hours stay, he set out for Savannah and took me along with him. About midnight we arrived there, but being then high-water, and the German ministers who were to go with him to Ebenezer, not caring to go by night, he could not go forward as he intended, some of the boatmen being ill, and the freshes strong. He lay that night at a house which he hires at Savannah; it is the same as the common freeholders' houses are, a frame of sawed timber twenty-four by sixteen foot, floored with rough deals, the sides with feather-edged boards unplaned, and the roof shingled.

On the 9th, I heard that the Saltzburghers at Ebenezer were very discontended; that they demanded to leave their old town, and to settle upon the lands which the Indians had reserved for their own use; and this was the occasion of Mr.

Oglethorpe's going up in such haste at a time when he could. be ill spared from the ships. He set out this morning tide, with several gentlemen, and the Saltzburghers' ministers, and went by water to Sir Francis Bathurst's, where part of Captain Mackay's troops of horsemen, lately come out of the Indian country, lay: there he took horse for Ebenezer.

When he was gone, I took a view of the town of Savannah. It is about a mile and a quarter in circumference; it stands upon the flat of a hill, the bank of the river (which they in barbarous English call a bluff) is steep and about forty-five foot perpendicular, so that all heavy goods are brought up by a crane, an inconvenience designed to be remedied by a bridged wharf, and an easy ascent, which in laying out the town, care was taken to allow room for, there being a very wide strand between the first row of houses and the river. From this strand there is a very pleasant prospect; you see the river wash the foot of the hill, which is a hard, clear, sandy beach, a mile in length; the water is fresh, and the river one thousand foot wide. Eastward you see the river increased by the northern branch, which runs round Hutchinson's island, and the Carolina shore beyond it, and the woody islands at the sea, which close the prospect at ten or twelve miles distance. Over against it is Hutchinson's island, great part of which is open ground, where they mow hay for the Trust's horses and cattle. The rest is woods in which there are many bay trees eighty foot high. Westward you see the river winding between the woods, with little islands in it for many miles, and Toma Chi Chi's Indian town standing upon the southern banks, between three and four miles distance.

The town of Savannah is built of wood; all the houses of the first forty freeholders are of the same size with that Mr. Oglethorpe lives in, but there are great numbers built since, I believe one hundred or one hundred and fifty, many of these are much larger; some of two or three stories high, the boards plained and painted. The houses stand on large lots, sixty foot in front by ninety foot in depth; each lot has a fore and back street to it; the lots are fenced in with split pales; some few people have palisades of turned wood before their doors, but the generality have been wise enough not to throw away their money, which in this country laid out in husbandry is capable of great improvements, though

there are several people of good substance in the town, who came at their own expense, and also several of those who came over on the Charity, are in a very thriving way; but this is observed that the most substantial people are the most frugal, and make the least show, and live at the least expense. There are some also who have made but little or bad use of the benefits they received, idling away their times, whilst they had their provisions from the public store, or else working for hire, earning from two shillings, the price of a laborer, to four or five shillings, the price of a carpenter, per diem, and spending that money in rum and good living, thereby neglecting to improve their lands, so that when their time of receiving their provisions from the public ceased, they were in no forwardness to maintain themselves out of their own lands. As they chose to be hirelings when they might have improved for themselves, the consequence of that folly forces them now to work for their daily bread. These are gene

rally discontented with the country; and if they have run themselves in debt, their creditors will not let them go away till they have paid. Considering the number of people, there are but very few of these. The industrious ones have throve beyond expectation; most of them that have been there three years, and many others have houses in the town, which those that let, have for the worst ten pounds per annum, and the best for thirty pounds.

Those who have cleared their five acre lots, have made a very great profit out of them by greens, roots, and corn. Several have improved the cattle they had at first, and have now five or six tame cows; others who, to save the trouble of feeding them, let them go into the woods, can rarely find them, and when they are brought up, one of them will not give half the quantity of milk, which another cow fed near home will give. Their houses are built at a pretty large, distance from one another, for fear of fire; the streets are very wide, and there are great squares left at proper distances, for markets and other conveniences. Near the river side there is a guard house inclosed with palisades a foot thick where there are nineteen or twenty cannons mounted, and a continual guard kept by the freeholders. This town is governed by three bailiffs, and has a recorder, register, and a town-court, which is holden every six weeks, where all matters civil and criminal are decided by grand and petty juries,

as in England; but there are no lawyers allowed to plead for hire, nor no attorneys to take money, but (as in old times in England) every man pleads his own cause. In case it should be an orphan, or one that cannot speak for themselves, there are persons of the best substance in the town, appointed by the Trustees to take care of the orphans, and to defend the helpless, and that without fee or reward, it being a service that each that is capable must perform in his turn. They have some laws and customs peculiar to Georgia; one is, that all brandies and distilled liquors are prohibited under severe penalties; another is, that no slavery is allowed, nor negroes; a third that all persons who go among the Indians must give security for their good behavior; because the Indians, if any injury is done to them, and they cannot kill the man who does it, expect satisfaction from the government, which if not procured, they break out into war, by killing the first white man they conveniently can. No victualler or alehouse keeper can give any credit, so consequently cannot recover any debt. The freeholds are all entailed, which has been very fortunate for the place. If people could have sold, the greatest part, before they knew the value of their lots, would have parted with them for a trifling condition, and there were not wanting rich men who employed agents to monopolize the whole town; and if they had got numbers of lots into their own hands, the other freeholders would have had no benefit by letting their houses, and hardly. of trade, since the rich, by means of a large capital, would underlet and undersell, and the town must have been almost without inhabitants, as Port Poyal in Carolina is, by the best lots being got into a few hands.

The mentioning the laws and customs leads me to take notice that Georgia is founded upon maxims different from those on which other colonies have been begun. The intention of that colony was an asylum to receive the distressed. This was the charitable design, and the governmental view besides that, was, with numbers of free white people, well settled to strengthen the southern part of the English settlements on the continent of America of which this is the frontier. It is necessary, therefore, not to permit slaves in such a country, for slaves starve the poor laborer. For if the gentleman can have this work done by a slave who is a carpenter or a brick-layer, the carpenter or brick-layers of that

country must starve for want of employment, and so of other trades.

In order to maintain many people, it was proper that the land should be divided into small portions, and to prevent the uniting them by marriage or purchase. For every time that two lots are united, the town loses a family, and the inconveniency of this shows itself at Savannah, notwithstanding the care of the Trustees to prevent it. They suffered the moiety of the lots to descend to the widows during their lives: those who remarried to men who had lots of their own, by uniting two lots made one be neglected; for the strength of hands who could take care of one, was not sufficient to look to and improve two. These uncleared lots are a nuisance to their neighbors. The trees which grow upon them shade the lots, the beasts take shelter in them, and for want of clearing the brooks which pass through them, the lands above are often prejudiced by floods. To prevent all these inconveniences, the first regulation of the Trustees was a strict Agrarian law, by which all the lands near towns should be divided, fifty acres to each freeholder. The quantity of land by experience seems rather too much, since it is impossible that one poor family can tend so much land. If this allotment is too much, how much more inconvenient would the uniting of two be? To prevent it, the Trustees grant the lands in tail male, that on the expiring of a male line they may regrant it to such man, having no other lot, as shall be married to the next female heir of the deceased, as is of good character. This manner of dividing prevents also the sale of lands, and the rich thereby monopolizing the country.

Each freeholder has a lot in town sixty foot by ninety foot, besides which he has a lot beyond the common, of five acres for a garden. Every ten houses make a tithing, and to every tithing there is a mile square, which is divided into twelve lots, besides roads: each freeholder of the tithing has a lot or farm of forty-five acres there, and two lots are reserved by the Trustees in order to defray the charge of the public. The town is laid out for two hundred and forty freeholds the quantity of lands necessary for that number iş twentyfour square miles; every forty houses in town make a ward, to which four square miles in the country belong; each ward has a constable, and under him four tithing men. Where

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