Chapter VII: Part 7

The tide was at the ebb, and there was no likelihood of any of the three fighting-ships getting off the shoals for hours. The _Royal James_ and the _Henry_ had listed the same way, and now lay almost in line with each other, so that the hull of the pirate ship was turned directly toward the Charles Town sloop, while the deck of the latter was in full view of the pirate, and only a pistol-shot away.

"They're more like two forts now than ships," said Nick. "There she goes!"

Antony was yelling. The _Henry_ had opened fire on the pirate ship. But instantly the _Royal James_ returned the fire with a broadside, which, on account of its position, raked the open deck of the _Henry_.

"Those lads have got grit to stick to their guns!" cried Park, keeping his smack bobbing on the waves at a safe distance. "They're using their muskets, too!" Antony cheered every time shots blazed from the _Henry_ and held his breath to see what damage the answering fire of the pirate did to his own townsmen.

The other Charles Town sloop, the _Sea Nymph_, was aground too far down-stream to be of any help to her mate. Her crew, like the crew of three in the fishing-smack, could only watch from a distance, and cheer as the battle was waged back and forth.

And waged back and forth it was for a long time, while men were shot down at the guns, and parts of each ship shot away, and the sea scattered with wreckage, and the air filled with smoke and the heavy, acrid odor of powder. "The pirate's getting the best of it," shouted Simeon Park, after some time of fighting. It looked that way; her crew were yelling exultantly, and her captain had called to the sloop, demanding that the latter's crew haul down their flag in surrender.

At length, however, the tide began to turn, and with it the chance of victory for the pirates. The _Henry_ floated from the shoal first, and her captain prepared to grapple with his enemy and board her. Then the _Sea Nymph_ floated, and headed up to aid her consort. The pirate chief, seeing the chances now two to one against him, yelled to his crew to fight harder than ever; and the _Royal James_ blazed again and again with broadsides, making a desperate stand, like a wild animal brought to bay. The rail of the _Henry_ was carried overboard, and to the three in the fishing-smack it looked as if some of the crew had gone over with it.

Antony forgot the sea-fight; he was calling directions to Park to steer his boat so as to near the wreckage. He saw a man with his arm thrown over a piece of the railing, and he called encouragement to him. The fisherman sent his boat dashing ahead, and the man in the water, hearing Antony's voice, tried to swim in his direction. "Easy now!" cried the boy, and the boat swept up to the wreckage, and lay there, with loosely flapping sail, while Antony and Nick leaned far over her side and drew the man on board. They laid him on the deck, while Park, at the tiller, brought his boat about and scurried away from the line of fire.

The man was not badly hurt; he had a flesh wound in one shoulder, and was dazed from having been flung into the sea with the railing. "Never mind me," he said. "Look for others." The three looked over the water, but though they saw plenty of floating wreckage, they spied no other men.

"She's striking her flag!" cried Park. They all looked at the fighting ships, and saw that the pirate had hauled down his flag, and heard the cheers of victory from the _Henry_ and the _Sea Nymph_. Antony jumped up and down and yelled with the best of them; the men of Charles Town were having their revenge on the sea-rovers who had so openly flouted them a short time before.

"That's the end of Blackbeard!" cried the wounded man, sitting up and watching the crews of the two sloops as they prepared to board the other vessel.

Nick shook his head. "Not Blackbeard," he said. "Whoever that rover may be, he's not old Teach, I know."

The gun-smoke drifted away across the water, and Park, at Nick's suggestion, headed his boat for shore. The dark man had no wish to sail up to the sloops from Charles Town just then, thinking it not unlikely that some of the crew might remember him as Blackbeard's agent at the Charles Town dock. So they skirted the shore till they reached a good landing-place. There they camped, binding the sailor's wounded shoulder as best they could, cooking dinner, for they were all ravenously hungry, and resting on the sand. There the sailor, Peter Duval, told them how angry Governor Johnson and the men of Charles Town had been when Blackbeard had sailed away with his medicines, leaving Samuel Wragg and the others, plundered and almost stripped, to find their way home; and how Colonel Rhett had sworn that with two sloops he would rid the sea of the pirate, and had sailed forth to do it. In return Antony told the sailor who he was and they planned that in a day or two they would return home. "And Nick there is going back with me," added Antony, nodding toward the dark young fellow who sat on the beach with them.

Now Duval had heard how Blackbeard or some of his men had kidnapped the son of Jonas Evans, and he had his own suspicions concerning what manner of man this dark-haired fellow might be. Yet he could not help liking the man, who had certainly helped to do him a good turn; and even if he had been a pirate there was no reason why he shouldn't have changed his mind about that way of living and have decided to become an honest citizen. So he nodded his head approvingly, and said, "That's good. The old town needs some likely-looking men," and shifted about so that the warm sand made a more comfortable pillow for his wounded shoulder.

Next day they sailed back to Simeon Park's cabin, and there Nick discovered a pair of shears and cut his black mustache and cropped his hair close, so that he looked more like one of the English Roundheads than he did like a sea-rover. "Now, mates," said he to Antony and Duval, "I'm a wandering trader you happened to meet in the woods. Tony stole away from Blackbeard's men one night, and found Park's cabin here. Then I came along, and a day or two later the three of us picked Duval out of the sea. What d'ye say to that, mates?"

"I say," said Duval, winking, "that with the lad and me to speak up for you, they'll be glad to have you in Charles Town, whatever you may be." He added sagely, "Folks aren't over particular in the colonies about your granddaddy. Many of 'em came over from the old country without questions asked as to why they came. No, sir; if a man deals square by us, we deal square by him."

The following afternoon Simeon Park's boat tacked across the bay, and zigzagged up to the Charles Town docks. At sundown his three passengers landed, and bade him a hearty farewell. Few people were about, and none, as it chanced, who knew them, so that the three walked straightway up the street along the harbor, Nick in the middle, looking as innocent as if he had never seen the town before.

The Evans family lived in a small frame house on Meeting Street, and husband and wife were just sitting down to supper when there came a knock at the street door. Jonas Evans opened the door, and his son sprang in and caught him around the shoulders. "Here I am, dad!" he cried. "Safe and sound again!" After that bear-like squeeze he rushed to his mother, and gave her the same greeting, while she exclaimed, and kissed him again and again, and called him all her pet names.

"And I've brought a friend home with me, Nicholas Carter," said Antony. "I met him along the coast, and he's been very good to me, so you must be good to him. He's a splendid fellow," he added loyally. "And he and a fisherman and I pulled Peter Duval out of the water after the big sea-fight the other day."

"Any friend of my boy's is my friend," said Mr. Evans, and he caught Nick by the hand and drew him into the house. Then he shook hands with Duval, and so did Mrs. Evans, almost crying in her delight at having her son home again, and they both urged the sailor to stay and have supper with them, but he said that now that he had seen his two mates safely home he must dash away to his own family.

Antony and Nick sat at the supper-table and ate their fill while Jonas Evans told them the news. Colonel Rhett had sailed out from Charles Town with his two sloops and after a great battle had captured the pirate ship. He thought he had captured Blackbeard, but found he was mistaken. The pirate had turned out to be a man named Stede Bonnet, a man who came of a good family and owned some property, a gentleman one might say, a man who had been a major in the army, and a worthy citizen of Bridgetown. Once he had repented of his pirate's life, and taken the King's pardon, but he had gone back to his lawless trade, and been one of the fiercest of his kind. No one in Charles Town could understand why such a man had a liking for such a business. Mr. Evans supposed that it must be because of the wild adventures that went with the career of the sea-rovers. Here Antony caught a smile on Nick's face, and knew that his friend was thinking there were many reasons why respectable fellows turned outlaws. Some drifted into it, as Nick had done as a boy, and found it easier to stay in than to leave.

Colonel Rhett, Jonas Evans added, had returned to Charles Town with the _Royal James_ as a prize, and with Stede Bonnet and thirty of his crew in irons. Eighteen of the men of Carolina had been killed in the sea-fight, and many more badly wounded.

Then, when he could eat no more, Antony told his story. "And I hope, dad," he finished, "that you can find a place for Nick in the warehouse. And on Sundays," he added to his friend, "we'll get out on the water, and go gunning and fishing."

"Any honest work," said Nick, with his familiar smile, "till I can get my bearings, and see what I'm best fitted for." He thought he might endure the warehouse for a week or so, but already he felt the call to the old free life of the rover.

Jonas Evans agreed to try to find a place for his son's friend. They talked till the tallow dips sputtered and went out, and then Nick and Antony climbed to their two bedrooms up under the eaves. "It's the first time I've slept in a house for years, Tony," said Nick. "I don't know how I'll like it."

He found that he liked it very well, and the ex-pirate slept comfortably under the roof of the respectable Charles Town merchant.

III

Jonas Evans was as good as his word, and when Antony went to work in the warehouse Nick was given a place there too. The dark-haired man had some pieces of silver in his pocket, and he bought himself quiet-colored clothes and a broad-brimmed hat, so that he looked very much like other men in the town; but his black eyes would shine and his clean-shaven lips curl in amusement as they had done when Antony first rowed his boat almost into his arms. However, the people of Charles Town were accustomed to having all sorts of men settle among them, as Peter Duval had said, and they made no inquiries as to what a man had done before he arrived there, but only considered how he behaved now, and so they took it for granted that Nicholas Carter was quite respectable enough, and didn't trouble themselves about his past. And who would be likely to think that the man with the long black hair and mustache who had landed from Blackbeard's small-boat and insolently ordered the governor to furnish him with drugs was the same man as this young fellow, who was polite and friendly with every one?

The room in the warehouse where Antony and Nick worked had a window that looked out across the water, and often the boy saw his friend gazing at the dancing waves with longing eyes. But when Nick would catch Antony looking at him he would grin and shake his head, and then try to appear very much absorbed in the job he had on hand. At such times the boy, who had only tasted that free life of sea and shore for a few days, could appreciate the feelings of the man who had known that life for years.

Meantime Charles Town had been very busy dealing with the pirates it had captured. There was no jail in the town, so most of the crew of the _Royal James_ had been locked up in the watch house, while their leader, Stede Bonnet, and two of his men had been given in charge of the marshal to keep under close guard in his own house. After some time the crew were put on trial before Chief Justice Trott, and the attorney-general read to the court and jury a list of thirty-eight ships that Bonnet and Teach had captured in the last six months. The prisoners had no lawyers to defend them, but two very able lawyers to attack them, and the Chief Justice and the other judges, as well as the jury, were convinced that the crew of the _Royal James_ had beyond question been guilty of piracy. Four, however, were freed of the charge, while the rest were sentenced to be hung, the customary punishment for pirates.

Stede Bonnet, their captain, was not put on trial. The guards at the marshal's house had been very careless, and Bonnet had made friends with some men in the town. With the help of these friends he had disguised himself as a woman, and with one of his mates had escaped in a boat with an Indian and a negro. People said that his plan was to reach the ships of another pirate named Moody, who had appeared off the bar of the harbor a few days before, with a ship of fifty guns, and two smaller ships, likewise armed, that he had captured on their way from New England to Charles Town.

From the warehouse window Antony and Nick saw the sails of this insolent new sea-rover, who dared stand so close inshore, waiting to pounce on any boats that might put out from the town.

The governor had already sent word to England, asking for aid in his warfare with the buccaneers, but none came from England. So he told the Council that they must act for themselves, and they ordered the best ships in port impressed into service and armed. Colonel Rhett, the man who had captured Bonnet, was asked to take command of this new fleet, but he declined, owing to some difficulty he had had with Governor Johnson. Thereupon the governor himself declared he would be the admiral, to the great delight of Charles Town. Four ships, one of them being the captured _Royal James_, were armed with cannon, and a call was sent out for volunteers.

Nick and Antony, going home one night, read the governor's call posted on a wall. They went down to the harbor and saw the big ships ready to sail. "This looks like a chance to set myself right again," said Nick, slowly. "I wouldn't fight my old mates or Blackbeard; but I don't see any reason why I shouldn't help to clear the sea of Moody or any other rascal. I'm going to volunteer."

"The governor might want a boy on board," said Antony. "There are lots of things I can do about a ship."

That night he asked his father to let him volunteer, and though Jonas Evans and his wife were very loath to lose their son again, he finally won their permission. Their friends and neighbors were volunteering; there was no good reason why they should refuse to do their share.

Next day three hundred men and boys volunteered for the little navy of Charles Town. Then word came that Stede Bonnet and his companions when they had reached the bar had found that Moody was cruising northward that day, and so had put back and taken refuge on Sullivan's Island. Colonel Rhett, who was very angry at the escape of his captive, volunteered to lead a party to capture Bonnet again. A small party went in search, hunting the fugitives. The sand-hills, covered with a thick growth of stunted live-oaks and myrtles, offered splendid protection, and the hunt was difficult, but at last the men were sighted, shots were fired, Bonnet's comrade was killed, and the pirate chief himself was taken prisoner, and once more brought back to Charles Town by Colonel Rhett.

While this search and capture were going on Antony and Nick were busy on Governor Johnson's flag-ship, making ready to put to sea. Lookouts caught sight of the pirate Moody's vessels returning, sailing closer and closer in, actually coming inside the bar, as though they meant to attack the town itself. But inside the bar they stopped, and casting anchor, quietly rode there, while the sunset colored their sails, and men and women of Charles Town, on the quays and from the roofs and windows of their houses, watched them and wondered what might be the pirate's plans.

That night Governor Johnson, from his flag-ship, gave the order to the other ships of his small fleet to follow him, and they all slipped their moorings and stole down the harbor to the fort, and waited there.

At dawn next day the four ships from Charles Town, with their guns under cover and no signs of war about their decks, crossed the bar, heading toward the sea. The pirate supposed them to be peaceful merchantmen, and let them sail past him, and then had his ships close in on their track, in order to cut off their retreat. What he had often done before with merchantmen he did now; he ran up the black flag and called to the ships to surrender.

But Governor Johnson had planned to get his enemy into just this position. The pirate fleet now lay between his own ships and the town. He hoisted the royal ensign of England, threw open his ports, unmasked his guns, and poured a broadside of shot into the nearest pirate ship. Antony, from the deck of the flag-ship, could see the sudden surprise and alarm on the faces of the pirate crew.

The pirate chief was a clever skipper, however. By wonderful navigating he sailed his ship straight for the open sea, and actually managed to get past Governor Johnson. The latter followed in swift pursuit, and as the ships were now somewhat scattered, the flag-ship signaled the _Sea Nymph_ and the _Royal James_ to look out for the pirate sloop.

Soon these ships and the sloop were close together, yard-arm to yard-arm, and a desperate fight under way. The men of Charles Town fought well; they drove the pirates from their guns, they swarmed aboard the pirate ship, and killed the pirates who resisted them. Most of the pirates fought to the last inch of deck-room, refusing to surrender. A few took refuge in the hold, and threw up their hands when the enemy surrounded them. Then the crews of the _Sea Nymph_ and the _Royal James_ sailed the captured sloop back to the harbor, where the men and women who had been listening to the guns cheered wildly.

In the meantime the governor's flag-ship was chasing the pirate flag-ship. Antony and another boy stood near Johnson, ready to run his errands whenever needed; Nick was of the crew that manned one of the forward cannon. It was a long stern chase, but Johnson slowly drew up on the other. The buccaneers threw their small boats and even their guns overboard in an attempt to lighten their ship, but the ship from Charles Town was the faster, and at length overhauled the rover. A few broadsides of shot, and the black flag came fluttering down from the masthead; the governor and part of his crew went on board and the pirates surrendered.

Antony, dogging the governor's steps, was by him when the hatches were lifted; to his great astonishment he saw that the hold was filled with frightened women. The governor turned to the captured rover captain. "What does this mean?" he demanded, pointing to the women, who were now climbing to the deck with the help of the Charles Town crew.

"When we captured this ship," said the rover, "we found she was the _Eagle_, bound from England to Virginia, carrying convicts and indentured servants. We'd have set them ashore at the first good chance."

It was true. There were thirty-six women on board, sailing from England to find husbands and homes in the new world. The pirates had changed the name of the ship, and taken her for their own use, but had had no chance to land the women safely.

The governor had another surprise that day. He found that the captain of this fleet of pirates was not Moody, as all Charles Town had supposed, but an even more dreaded buccaneer, Richard Worley. This Richard Worley had been on board the sloop, and had been killed in the fierce fighting on her deck that morning.

Antony and Nick were of the crew that brought the captured _Eagle_, with her cargo of women, back to shore. There kind-hearted people of Charles Town took care of the frightened passengers. In the town that night there was great rejoicing over the defeat of two of the rovers who infested that part of the seas, Stede Bonnet and Richard Worley. It was true that Blackbeard and Moody were still at large, but it might well be that the fate of their fellows would prove a warning to them that the people of Charles Town meant business. Governor Johnson and his crews went back to their regular business, and the town grew quiet again.

Neither Moody nor Blackbeard again troubled the good people there. Weeks later it was learned that Moody had heard how Charles Town was prepared for him, and that he had gone to Jamaica, and there taken the "King's pardon," which was granted to all pirates who would give up their lawless trade before the following first of January. Afterward word came that Blackbeard had been captured by a fleet sent out by Governor Spotswood of Virginia, and commanded by officers of the Royal British Navy.

Stede Bonnet's crew had already been tried and found guilty of piracy. The judges had now to consider the case of that buccaneer chief himself. Every one in Charles Town knew that he had sailed the seas time and again with the "Jolly Roger" at his masthead, but he was a man of very attractive appearance and manners, and many of the good people of the town thought that he really meant to repent and lead a better life. The judges and jury, however, with Bonnet's past record before them, saw only the plain duty of dealing with him as they had already dealt with his crew. Then Colonel Rhett, the gallant soldier who had twice captured Bonnet, came forward and offered to take the pirate personally to London, and ask the king to pardon him. The governor felt that he could not consent to this request; he knew how Bonnet had taken the oath of repentance once before, and had immediately run up the "Jolly Roger" on his ship at the first chance he found. Bonnet was a pirate, caught in the very act. The law was very clear. So Bonnet was hanged, as were the forty other prisoners who had been found guilty.

Nick stayed with Antony at Mr. Evans's warehouse until the excitement of the war with the pirates had blown over. He and Antony were almost inseparable, and the people who met the slim, dark fellow liked him for his good-nature and ready smile. Whenever they found the chance Antony and he went sailing or hunting or fishing.

"Tony," he said one day as they sailed back from fishing, "I'm going to leave the warehouse. No, don't look put out; I'm not going back to my old way of living. Besides, there aren't any of the rovers left for me to join. But I was made for the open air, and the work there in the shop can't hold me. The governor wants soldiers for his province of South Carolina, and I've a notion the life of a soldier would suit me. I take naturally to swords and pistols."

Antony smiled. "You'll make a good one, Nick. I shouldn't wonder if you got to be a general. Yes, you'll like it better. But Dad and I'll hate to have you go."

So, a few days later, Nicholas Carter, who had once been one of Blackbeard's crew, offered his services to Governor Johnson and became a soldier in the small army of the province. He did well, and rose to be a colonel, and one of the most popular men of Charles Town. But sometimes, when he and Antony Evans were alone together, Colonel Nicholas Carter would wink and say, "Remember the day when you and I sailed away on Blackbeard's ship? Yeo ho, for the life of a pirate!"

"The day you kidnapped me, you mean," Antony would remind him. "That was a wonderful holiday, to be sure!"

For respectable men turned pirates, and pirates reformed and became worthy citizens and soldiers, in the days before the little settlement of Charles Town became the city of Charleston in one of the thirteen states of the American Union.

IX

THE FOUNDER OF GEORGIA

(_Georgia, 1732_)

I

There was a man in England in the first half of the eighteenth century who became so impressed by the misfortunes of men thrown into prison for debt that he resolved to do what he could to help them. The man was James Oglethorpe, and the result of his resolve was the founding of the colony of Georgia, which in time became one of the original thirteen colonies of the United States.

To owe money was regarded as a most serious crime in England in those days, at least four thousand men were sent to prison every year for inability to pay their debts, and many of these debtors spent their lives in jail, since it was next to impossible for them to secure any money while they were imprisoned. The prisons, moreover, were vile dens of pestilence, where smallpox often raged, jailers treated their prisoners barbarously, and the man who had stolen a few shillings was kept in the same pen with the worst of pirates and murderers. A man named Castell, an architect and writer, was arrested for debt, and thrown into a prison where smallpox was rife. In spite of his protests he was kept there, and caught the disease and died. James Oglethorpe knew Castell, and the story of the architect's imprisonment roused Oglethorpe to action in aid of others who might be similarly treated.

Oglethorpe was a man of influence in England. He had studied at Oxford, served in the army, and was a member of Parliament. He had a committee appointed to investigate the prisons, and, acting as its chairman, he unearthed so many cases of barbarities and showed that so many of the jailers were inhuman wretches that Parliament interfered and righted at least a few of the most crying wrongs. But his plans went farther than that; he wanted to give men who had the misfortune to be in debt a chance to start new lives, not simply to stay in jail with no chance to better their condition, and to this end he looked across the ocean to the great, unsettled continent of America, and planned his new home for debtors there.

Oglethorpe succeeded in interesting some of the most prominent men of England in his plan, and on June 9, 1732, King George II granted them a charter for a province to be called Georgia, which was to consist of the country between the Savannah and the Altamaha Rivers and to extend from the headsprings of these rivers due west to the Pacific Ocean. The seal of the patrons of the new province bore on one side a group of silkworms at work, with the motto, "_Non sibi, sed aliis_,"--"Not for themselves, but for others,"--showing the purpose of the patrons, who had agreed not to accept any grant of lands or profit from them for themselves. On the other side of the seal were two figures representing the boundary rivers, and between them a figure of Georgia, a liberty cap on her head, a spear in one hand, a horn of plenty in the other. Some of the patrons were content with the lofty ideals expressed in the seal and the charter, but James Oglethorpe meant to see the noble project carried out.

With a commission to act as Colonial Governor of Georgia, Oglethorpe sailed with about one hundred and twenty emigrants for America in November, 1732. In fifty-seven days he reached the bar outside Charleston. There the colonists of South Carolina welcomed the new arrivals warmly, for they were glad to have a province to their south to shield them from their Spanish enemies. The governor ordered his pilot to conduct the ship to Port Royal, some eighty miles to the south, from whence the emigrants were to go in small boats to the Savannah River. Oglethorpe meanwhile went to the town of Beaufort and then sailed up the Savannah to choose a promising site for his new town. The high cliff known as Yamacraw Bluff caught his eye, and he chose for his site that high land on which the city of Savannah stands.

Half a mile away dwelt the Indian tribe of the Yamacraws, and their chief, Tomochichi, sought the white leader and made gifts to him. One gift was a buffalo skin, painted on the inside with the head and feathers of an eagle. "Here is a little present," said the chief, offering the skin. "The feathers of the eagle are soft, and signify love; the buffalo skin is warm, and is the emblem of protection. Therefore love and protect our little families." We may be sure that Oglethorpe promised to live in friendship with them.

On February 12th the colonists reached their new home, and camped on the edge of the river, glad to escape from their long stay on shipboard. Four tents were set up, and men cut trees to provide bowers for their immediate needs. Four pines sheltered the tent of Oglethorpe, and here he lived for a year, while men laid out streets and built houses and his city of Savannah began to take shape.

Much good counsel the leader gave his people in those first days, warning them often against the drinking of rum, which would not only harm themselves, but would corrupt their Indian neighbors. "It is my hope," said he, "that, through your good example, the settlement of Georgia may prove a blessing and not a curse to the native inhabitants."

It was a lovely country, and the emigrants, harassed by debts and misfortunes in Europe, were delighted with the groves of live-oak, bay, cypress, sweet-gum, and myrtle, and the many flowers that grew profusely in the wilderness. While they worked gladly in their new fields Oglethorpe, knowing their security depended in part on their neighbors, did his best to make friends of the red men. He invited the chiefs of the Muskohgees to make an alliance with him, and they came down the river and through the woods to his tent. Long King, chief of the Oconas, spoke for the others. "The Great Spirit, who dwells everywhere around, and gives breath to all men," said he, "sends the English to instruct us." He bade the strangers welcome to the land that his tribe did not use, and as token of friendship, laid eight bundles of buckskins at Oglethorpe's feet. "Tomochichi," he said, "though banished from his nation, has yet been a great warrior; and, for his wisdom and courage, the exiles chose him their king." Then Tomochichi expressed his friendship for the white men. The chief of Coweta rose and said, "We are come twenty-five days' journey to see you. I was never willing to go down to Charleston, lest I should die on the way; but when I heard you were come, and that you are good men, I came down, that I might hear good things." A treaty of peace was then signed, by which the English claimed title over the land of the Creeks as far as the St. Johns River, and the chiefs departed with many presents.

Later a Cherokee came to the settlement. "Fear nothing," said Oglethorpe, "but speak freely." The red man from the mountains answered proudly, "I always speak freely. Why should I fear? I am now among friends; I never feared even among my enemies." Friends were then made of the Cherokees.

In July Red Shoes, a Choctaw chief, arrived to make a treaty. "We came a great way," said he, "and we are a great nation. The French are building forts about us, against our liking. We have long traded with them, but they are poor in goods; we desire that a trade may be opened between us and you."

Other people than the poor debtors of England soon came to the province. The Archbishop of Salzburg by his cruel persecutions drove scores of Lutherans from his country, and many of these prepared to cross the ocean to the new settlement on the Savannah River. They traveled from their Salzburg home through part of Germany, past cities that were closed against them, through country districts where they were made welcome. From Rotterdam they sailed to Dover, and from there set forth in January, 1734, for their new home in the land across the Atlantic. The sea was a strange experience to the Lutheran families of Salzburg; when it was calm they delighted in its beauty, when it was swept by storms they prayed and sang the songs of their faith. They reached the port of Charleston on March 18, 1734, and Oglethorpe welcomed them there, not forgetting to have supplies of fresh provisions and vegetables from his Georgia gardens for the people who had been so long without them.

A few days later the colonists from Salzburg sailed up the Savannah River and were met by the earlier colonists. A feast of welcome had been prepared. Then Governor Oglethorpe gave the strangers permission to select their home in any part of the province. The country was most of it still an untraversed wilderness, and so Oglethorpe supplied horses and traveled with his new colonists. With the aid of Indian guides they made their way through morasses, they camped at night around fires in the primeval forest. At last they reached a green valley, watered by several brooks, and this they chose for their settlement and named it Ebenezer in thankfulness to their God for having brought them safely through great dangers into a land of rest. Oglethorpe had his own carpenters help them build their houses and aided them in planning their new town.

That the land about Ebenezer was very fruitful is shown by a letter written by the pastor of the Lutheran colonists. Said he, "Some time ago I wrote to an honored friend in Europe that the land in this country, if well managed and labored, brings forth by the blessing of God not only one hundredfold, but one thousandfold, and I this day was confirmed therein. A woman having two years ago picked out of Indian corn no more than three grains of rye, and planting them at Ebenezer, one of the grains produced an hundred and seventy stalks and ears, and the three grains yielded to her a bag of corn as large as a coat pocket--the grains whereof were good and full grown, and she desired me to send part of them to a kind benefactor in Europe."

His colony now well started, Oglethorpe sailed back to England in April, 1734, taking with him the Indian Tomochichi and several other chiefs, in order that they might see the country from which so many of their new neighbors were coming, and also that his English friends might learn how friendly the Indians were to the settlers. He was received in London with expressions of the highest praise. His experiment in founding a colony for poor debtors and for those persecuted for their religion was declared to be a wonderful success. Missionaries volunteered to go to Georgia to work among the Indians. One of the rules of the province forbade the importing of slaves into its borders, and this was regarded in England with the greatest favor. Yet a little later people in Savannah were petitioning the trustees of the province to allow them to have slaves, and many an influential man in England argued in favor of the slave-trade.

To such an attractive colony many new colonists went. A company of one hundred and thirty Scotchmen with their families sailed for Savannah, and settled on the shore of the Altamaha, founding the town of New Inverness, a name afterward changed to Darien. A small band of Moravians was led across the Atlantic by their pastor to the new province, and this youngest of the English colonies quickly gave promise of becoming one of the most prosperous.

Oglethorpe wanted still more colonists, and at length succeeded in embarking three hundred persons on three ships in December, 1735. On February 4th the cry of land was heard from the lookout, and two days later the fleet anchored near Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savannah River. Landing, Oglethorpe gave thanks for their safe arrival, and showing them how to dig a well and make other arrangements for their comfort he went on by small-boat to Savannah, where the colonists saluted him with twenty-one guns from the fort.

Three years before the land beside the river had been a wilderness. Oglethorpe now found a town of two hundred dwellings, with beautiful public gardens, and every sign of prosperous industry. The gardens especially pleased the governor; on the colder side were planted apples, pears, and plums, while to the south were olives, figs, pomegranates, and many kinds of vines. There were also coffee and cotton, and a large space planted with white mulberry trees, making a nursery from which the people were to be supplied in their culture of silkworms.

The governor went back to see the new colonists at Tybee, and when he found that some disgruntled traders had been making trouble by spreading reports that all settlers who went south would be massacred by Spaniards and Indians, he assured them that such stories were altogether false. The Spaniards were at peace with them, and they had treaties of alliance with the Indians. He wanted, however, to make the outlying settlements as secure as he could, and so sent fifty rangers and one hundred workmen under Captain McPherson to help the Scotch at Darien, had men inspect the country with a view to opening a highroad, and supplied them with Indian guides and plenty of packhorses for their provisions.

While Oglethorpe was at Tybee the Indian chief Tomochichi, with his wife and nephew, came to visit the ships there. The chief brought presents of venison, honey, and milk. When he was introduced to the missionaries who had come with the latest colonists, Tomochichi said, "I am glad you are come. When I was in England I desired that some one would speak the great Word to me. I will go up and speak to the wise men of our nation, and I hope they will hear. But we would not be made Christians as these Spaniards make Christians; we would be taught before we are baptized." The chief's wife then gave the missionaries two large jars, one of honey and one of milk, and invited them to go to Yamacraw to teach the children, saying the milk represented food for the children and the honey their good wishes.

He now wanted to transport the new settlers to their homes as soon as possible; but the mates of the English ships were afraid to risk navigating Jekyll Sound. So Oglethorpe bought one of the sloops, put thirty old colonists, well armed, on board, and told them to sail to St. Simons. He himself, with a white crew and a few Indians, set out for the same place in a scout boat and traveled night and day. The Indians showed the white men their way of rowing, a short stroke and a long stroke alternately, what they called the "Yamasee stroke." Taking turns at the oars the party reached St. Simons after two days' journey. They found the sloop already there, and the governor gave a large reward to the captain for being the first to enter that port.

All hands now set to work to build a booth for the stores. They threw up earth for a bank, and raised poles on it to support a roof. The booth was thickly covered with palmetto leaves. Cabins were then built for the families, and a fort, with ditches and ramparts, was begun.

Next Oglethorpe went to Darien, dressing in Highland costume out of compliment to the Scotchmen there. The Highlanders, clad in kilts, with broadswords, targets, and firearms, gave him a royal welcome. Their captain invited the governor to sleep in his tent on a soft bed with sheets and curtains, a great luxury in the wilderness, but Oglethorpe preferred to sleep in his plaid at the guard fire, sharing everything, according to his custom, with his men.

He found that the Scotch at Darien had already built a fort, defended by four cannon, a chapel, a guard-house, and a store. They were on the friendliest terms with their Indian neighbors, and hunted buffalo through the Georgia woods with them like members of their own tribe.

In the Georgia woods there was plenty of game, rabbits, squirrels, partridges, wild turkeys, pheasants and roebuck. There were also rattlesnakes and alligators, and the alligators so frightened the settlers at first that Oglethorpe had one of them caught and brought to Savannah, so the people might grow familiar with it and lose their fear of it.

He wanted now to mark out his boundaries with the Indians, and also to learn what had become of Mr. Dempsey, a commissioner he had sent to confer with the Spanish governor of Florida, who had not been heard from. In two scout boats, with forty Indians, he rowed across Jekyll Sound, sleeping one night in a grove of pines, and the second day reached an island formerly called Wisso or Sassafras, but which Tomochichi had now christened Cumberland in honor of the young English prince he had met in London. Here Oglethorpe marked out a fort to be called St. Andrews, and left a few white men to carry out its building.

The governor rowed on through the marshes, and came to an island covered with orange-trees in blossom. The Spaniards had called this Santa Maria, but Oglethorpe changed its name to Amelia, in honor of an English princess. They also changed the name of the next island they reached from the Spanish San Juan to Georgia. Here was an old fort supposed to have been built by Sir Francis Drake, and Oglethorpe sent one of his captains to repair it.

They climbed some heights and Tomochichi pointed out the St. Johns River, the boundary line of Spanish territory. A Spanish guard-house stood on the other side. "All on this side the river we hunt," said Tomochichi. "It is our ground. All on the other side they hunt, but they have lately hurt some of our people, and we shall drive them away. We will stay until night behind these rocks, where they cannot see us; then we will fall upon them."

Oglethorpe tried to persuade them not to attack the Spaniards, and got them to stay near Amelia Island while he went in one of the scout boats to the guard-house to find out what had happened to Mr. Dempsey, the agent he had sent to St. Augustine. He found no one in the guard-house and so returned to the camp, where all his party were except Tomochichi, who had gone scouting.

That night the governor's sentry challenged a boat. Four Indians jumped out, all of them in a rage. They said to Oglethorpe, "Tomochichi has seen enemies, and has sent us to tell you and to help you."

"Why didn't Tomochichi come back?" asked the governor.

"Tomochichi is an old warrior," the Indians answered, "and will not come away from his enemies till he has seen them so near as to count them. He saw their fires, and before daylight will be revenged for the men whom they killed while he was away; but we shall have no honor, for we shall not be there."

Oglethorpe asked if there were many of them, and the messengers answered, "Yes, a great many, for they had a large fire on high ground, and Indians never make large fires except when so strong as to defy all resistance."

This didn't suit Oglethorpe at all, and he immediately ordered all his men into their boats, and rowed to the Indian chief's hiding-place, some four miles away. He found the chief and his men and urged them not to attack the Spaniards that night. Tomochichi was for going on, however. "Then," said the governor, "you go to kill your enemies in the night because you are afraid of them by the day. Now I do not fear them at any time. Therefore wait until day, and I will go with you and see who they are."

Tomochichi reluctantly agreed to wait. "We do not fear them by day," said he, "but if we do not kill them to-night they will kill you to-morrow."

At daylight the whole party started toward the foe. Soon they saw a white flag flying on the shore and white men near it. But, to Oglethorpe's delight, the men turned out not to be Spaniards, but one of his own officers, Major Richards, with Mr. Dempsey and his mates, back from Florida.

The agent reported that his party had had many adventures, but had finally reached St. Augustine, where Don Francisco, the governor, had welcomed them and given them letters for Oglethorpe, asking for an answer in three weeks.

The expedition returned to Frederica, where the governor read his men the contents of the Spaniard's letters. These were full of flattering phrases, but there was also complaint that the Creeks had attacked Spaniards, and requests that Oglethorpe should restrain his Indian allies. The governor suspected that these requests were only a blind to hide a future attack by the Spaniards on the English colonists, but he was very anxious to avoid such trouble if it was possible, so he sent a boat of twenty oars, fitted out with swivel-guns, to patrol the St. Johns River and keep any Creek Indians from crossing to attack the Spaniards. He also stationed scout boats at other places, and asked Tomochichi to send word to the Creeks that their ally, the governor of Georgia, requested them not to make raids into Florida, but to keep guard on the mainland in the neighborhood of the settlement at Darien.

Soon after Oglethorpe returned to Savannah he saw that trouble was brewing with the Spaniards. He heard that a large troop of soldiers had lately marched from St. Augustine. He knew that there was a garrison of three hundred foot-soldiers and fifty horse at St. Augustine, with reinforcements coming from Havana, and that he had not a single regular soldier with which to oppose them. Then word came that a fleet of strange ships had been seen at sea. He ordered his colonists to strengthen their fort at once, and set out in a boat for St. Andrews to learn exactly how matters stood.

From Fort St. George he crossed to the Spanish side of the St. Johns River, and climbing a hill, fastened a white flag to a pole, hoping the Spaniards would come to a conference with him. None came, however, but fires were seen on the Florida side that night, and the governor thought the Spaniards were planning an attack. He ordered two gun-carriages and two swivel-guns taken into the woods and placed at different points. The larger guns were to fire seven shots, and the smaller to answer with five. The latter would sound like a distant ship firing a salute, and the larger guns would resemble the noise of a battery returning the salute. In this way Oglethorpe hoped to make the Spaniards think that reinforcements were coming to the aid of the Georgians.

By this trick Oglethorpe escaped great danger. As a matter of fact the Spanish governor had arrested Oglethorpe's messengers, and had sent a strong force to attack the fort on St. Simons Island. The battery there, however, drove the Spaniards out to sea again, and when they tried to approach by another inlet they were driven off the second time by the garrison at St. Andrews. They then decided to attack St. George, but as they were planning this they heard the booming of the distant cannon, thought reinforcements must be arriving, as Oglethorpe had figured on their thinking, and decided not to make the attack at all then.

At the same time Oglethorpe lighted fires in the woods, thereby making his enemy believe that Creek Indians were coming to join the English. The Spanish commander, Don Pedro, gave the order to return to the walls of St. Augustine, and there, by his reports of the numbers of Oglethorpe's troops, induced the Spanish governor to send back Oglethorpe's two agents, and with them one of his own officers to urge the Englishman to keep his Indian allies from invading Florida.

Oglethorpe, however, did not know that Don Pedro had returned to St. Augustine, and so, with twenty-four men, crossed the St. Johns River to the Spanish side, hoping to get word of his agents. He saw a Spanish boat with seventy men on board. The boat headed away at sight of the English colonists. Then two Spanish horsemen appeared and forbade the English landing on the soil of the king of Spain. Oglethorpe said that he would do as they wished, but he invited them to land on English ground if they desired and offered them wine should they come.

The governor now learned that men in Charleston were selling arms and ammunition to the Spaniards, regardless of the fact that the latter meant to use them against the former's own English neighbors. He wrote to men in South Carolina urging them not to allow this, but in spite of his protests the men of Florida continued for some time to draw a large part of their supplies from the colony to the north of Georgia.

Then he returned to Fort St. George, taking with him Tomochichi and his men in their canoes, a large barge, and two ten-oared boats with fifty soldiers, cannon, and stores for two months. On the way he heard that his agents were coming back accompanied by two Spanish officers. He did not want the Spaniards to learn the strength of his garrison, so he gave orders that they should be entertained on board his ship the _Hawk_, on the excuse that the country was full of Indians who might otherwise attack the Spaniards.

Tents were set up on Jekyll Island, the Scotchmen dressed in their plaids, the whole garrison assumed its most martial air, and Oglethorpe, attended by seven officers, embarked for the _Hawk_, his purpose being to impress the Spaniards with the size of his forces. The Spaniards were impressed; they promised on their part to right the wrongs that Oglethorpe's Indian allies complained of, and gained a promise from him in return that he would do his best to keep the Creeks and other tribes from molesting the Spanish settlers. Later, on his return to Savannah, the governor made a treaty with the Spanish governor. More and more bickering arose, however, between the settlers of the two nations, and so Oglethorpe sailed for England in November, 1736, hoping to win aid for his colony from the British government.

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