Filled with enthusiasm for their plan, the Trustees proceeded to spread abroad the most glowing descriptions of the country where the new colony was to be settled.
"The kind spring, which but salutes us here, Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live --At once they promise, when at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, None sickly lives, or dies before his time.
Heaven, sure, has kept this spot of earth uncurst, To shew how all things were created first."So wrote Oglethorpe, quoting the lines as the best pen picture he could give of the new land, and truly, if the colonists found the reality less roseate than they anticipated, it was not the fault of their generous, energetic leader, who spared neither pains nor means in his effort to make all things work out as his imagination had painted them.
The Trustees having, with great care, selected thirty-five families from the number who wished to go, the first emigrant ship sailed for Georgia in November, 1732, bearing about one hundred and twenty-five "sober, industrious and moral persons", and all needful stores for the establishment of the colony.Early in the following year they reached America, and Oglethorpe, having chosen a high bluff on the southern bank of the Savannah River, concluded a satisfactory treaty with Tomochichi, the chief of the nearest Indian tribe, which was later ratified in a full Council of the chiefs of all the Lower Creeks.
His fairness and courteous treatment won the hearts of all, especially of Tomochichi and his people, who for many years remained on the best of terms with the town which was now laid out upon the bluff.
The Salzburgers.
The Salzburgers, referred to by name in the proposals of the Georgia Trustees, were, at this time, very much upon the mind and heart of Protestant Europe.
They were Germans, belonging to the Archbishopric of Salzburg, then the most eastern district of Bavaria, but now a province of Austria.
"Their ancestors, the Vallenges of Piedmont, had been compelled by the barbarities of the Dukes of Savoy to find a shelter from the storms of persecution in the Alpine passes and vales of Salzburg and the Tyrol, before the Reformation; and frequently since, they had been hunted out by the hirelings and soldiery of the Church of Rome, and condemned for their faith to tortures of the most cruel and revolting kind.
In 1684-6, they were again threatened with an exterminating persecution;but were saved in part by the intervention of the Protestant States of Saxony and Brandenburg, though more than a thousand emigrated on account of the dangers to which they were exposed.
"But the quietness which they then enjoyed for nearly half a century was rudely broken in upon by Leopold, Count of Firmian and Archbishop of Salzburg, who determined to reduce them to the Papal faith and power.
He began in the year 1729, and ere he ended in 1732not far from thirty thousand had been driven from their homes, to seek among the Protestant States of Europe that charity and peace which were denied them in the glens and fastnesses of their native Alps.
"The march of these Salzburgers constitutes an epoch in the history of Germany.* * * Arriving at Augsburg, the magistrates closed the gates against them, refusing them entrance to that city which, two hundred years before, through Luther and Melancthon and in the presence of Charles V and the assembled Princes of Germany, had given birth to the celebrated Augsburg Confession, for clinging to which the Salzburgers were now driven from their homes; but overawed by the Protestants, the officers reluctantly admitted the emigrants, who were kindly entertained by the Lutherans.
"The sympathies of Reformed Christendom were awakened on their behalf, and the most hospitable entertainment and assistance were everywhere given them."Only a few months after the signing of the Georgia Colony Charter, the "Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge"requested the Trustees to include the Salzburgers in their plans.
The Trustees expressed their willingness to grant lands, and to manage any money given toward their expenses, but stated that they then held no funds which were available for that purpose.
In May, 1733, the House of Commons appropriated 10,000 Pounds to the Trustees of Georgia, "to be applied towards defraying the charges of carrying over and settling foreign and other Protestants in said colony,"and over 3,000 Pounds additional having been given privately, the Trustees, at the suggestion of Herr von Pfeil, consul of Wittenberg at Regensberg, wrote to Senior Samuel Urlsperger, pastor of the Lutheran Church of St.Ann in the city of Augsburg, who had been very kind to the Salzburgers on their arrival there, "and ever afterward watched over their welfare with the solicitude of an affectionate father." On receipt of the invitation from the Trustees, seventy-eight persons decided to go to Georgia, and left Augsburg on the 21st of October, reaching Rotterdam the 27th of November, where they were joined by two ministers, Rev.Mr.Bolzius, deputy superintendent of the Latin Orphan School at Halle, and Rev.Mr.Gronau, a tutor in the same, who were to accompany them to their new home.In England they were treated with marked kindness, and when they sailed, January 19, 1734, it was with the promise of free transportation to Georgia, and support there until they could reap their first harvest from the fifty acres which were to be given to each man among them.
