a colony of estates and not of cities or towns; Maryland life at first centred in Annapolis, and Baltimore became the commercial metropolis; but in South Carolina Charleston combined the two. This circumstance made life there more cosmopolitan than in any other city in any of the southern colonies of the day, and as South Carolina had a large seaborne trade there was frequent and close communication with Europe. The isolation of North Carolina, a backwoods settlement, was very marked, and the freedom of intercourse of South Carolina appears all the more striking because of the contrast with its nearest neighbor.

From the point of view of English colonial policy of that time, which regarded a colony as simply a producer of raw material and a consumer of English finished product, which was for the advantage of English merchants and manufacturers, South Carolina was an ideal possession. There were no manufactures, her people were satisfied with the cultivation of the soil, and it brought them wealth and contentment.

CHAPTER XVIII

AN EXPERIMENT THAT FAILED

In the history of the United States there is no chapter invested with such romantic interest as that of the founding of Georgia, the last of the English Colonies. Neither Massachusetts and its Puritan theocracy; nor Rhode Island, a monument to the liberality of Roger Williams; nor Maryland, where Catholics practiced tolerance and were persecuted; nor Pennsylvania, where Quakers found a home, is comparable to Georgia, established to afford a refuge for unfortunates, with aims so lofty and purposes so ideal that it is a remarkable and unique episode in the march of civilization; and it was typical of that idealistic spirit in the Americans that made them for so many years, and until self-preservation caused more prudent considerations to prevail, to regard America as a haven for the distressed. It failed to accomplish the hopes of its promoters, but the experiment was worth making. Few people remember this early phase of Georgia; the strife of religions, the ambitions of politicians, the folly of rulers, are all too well remembered; but the efforts made in behalf of humanity, on a scale never before or since equaled, have been forgotten. A lad of good family, James Oglethorpe had been

one of Marlborough's subalterns in his campaigns in the Low Countries; he had fought under Peterborough in Italy and with Prince Eugene against the Turk. Handsome, dashing, with a manner that made him popular with men, and women found captivating; full of courage and high spirits but with excellent control of himself, he was a romantic and fascinating figure. Boswell tells a pretty story showing his spirit and quick wit. When he was only nineteen years old he dined one day with the Prince of Würtemberg, who insolently flipped a few drops of wine in his face. Oglethorpe dare not submit to the insult without protest, for that would have betokened him a coward; and to have hotly resented it might have given him a reputation of turning a pleasantry into a quarrel. Looking the prince squarely in the face, and with the easy manner of a man amused, he said: "That's a good joke, but we do it much better in England,” and he flung a full glass of wine in the astonished prince's face. There was consternation for a moment, but an old general who was one of the guests at the table said, “Il a bien fait, mon prince, vous l'avez commencé”; and "thus all ended in good humor," Boswell comments in relating the incident.

In 1717 Sir Robert Montgomery attempted to establish a colony in what is now known as Georgia, which lay between the English colony of North Carolina and the Spanish possessions of Florida. Sir Robert was a man of luxuriant imagination.

In his advertisement for settlers he described in glowing terms this wonderful country. "Nature has not blessed the world with any tract which can be preferable to it. Paradise with all her virgin beauties may be modestly supposed, at most, but equal to its native excellencies." But even an earthly paradise could not attract immigrants, and three years later the attempt was abandoned.

Oglethorpe was now in England, a familiar figure at court and at Westminster, where he had been elected to Parliament. He became interested in that barbarous system by which imprisonment for debt was sanctioned, and he was made a member of a parliamentary commission to investigate the debtor prisons. Profoundly moved by the horror of imprisonment for debt and a legal system which made misfortune a crime, he petitioned the privy council for a grant of land lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, on which he proposed to establish a colony for the indigent and insolvent who were willing to make a new start in life.

The scheme was hailed with extraordinary enthusiasm. Oglethorpe was inspired by his love of humanity and his desire to extend a helping hand to his fellowmen who had stumbled; but his associates in the enterprise saw an opportunity to capitalize charity and make it yield handsome dividends. The same spirit that had moved the early Spanish discoverers, that had animated the

first English adventurers, was now again to manifest itself, and the copartnership of God and Mammon was once more entered into. The indigent and the insolvent were to be placed on their feet, which was a pious work; but the colonization of Georgia by Englishmen would create a strong military outpost between the English and Spanish possessions, and it was obvious to English statesmen that Spain was a menace to the English colonies in the South and must be kept in check. And in addition, the new colony could be made profitable and swell the commerce of England, which was the ambition of every Englishman. Montgomery's alluring picture of Georgia (so named after George II, who granted the charter) was accepted as truthful by Englishmen, to whom New England was a place of snow and ice and the South a land of perpetual sunshine. Georgia was to be the great storehouse from which England drew her raw supplies. Instead of spending five hundred thousand pounds a year for silk woven in Italy and France, Georgia was to raise raw silk to be woven by English weavers in England, thus giving employment to twenty thousand people in Georgia and forty thousand in England. Wine, oil, dyes, drugs, flax, hemp, and other commodities that England was forced to purchase abroad were to be raised in the English colony of Georgia. Foreign nations were no longer to grow prosperous at the expense of Englishmen, but English money was to remain in England, and