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New Georgia settler's aglow with redemption from prison

Source: Collections of the Georgia Historical Society - Vol 7 #89

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From COLLECTIONS OF THE Georgia Historical Society, Vol. VII.

ADDRESS OF HON. WALTER G. CHARLTON.
"As they stood at that historic moment beneath the marvelous blue of the February [1732] sky—free as the winds which sighed through the majestic pines which surrounded them—their memories aglow with the hospitality which had received and sheltered them as their voyage drew to its conclusion on the neighboring shores of Carolina, no happier people ever faced the serious responsibilities of life. About them was grace and song and beauty; before them, the prospect of rest and content; within them, the peace of God. The tempestuous Atlantic, with its wintry wastes, had become a memory; and in the dim vistas of the past, the cruel bitterness of man's brutality was fading away as the phantoms of the night before the warmth and splendor of the rising sun. They were not makers of history, these six score men and women from the debtors' prisons of England. They were the opportunity through which history is made. With all the limitations the condition suggests, they had been the victims of the most merciless system of laws which ever disgraced a civilized country—and were now free; free to take up the broken journey of a life which, burdened as it had been with measureless suffering, had yet been untouched by the vice and dishonesty which surrounded it hour by hour. They were good men who had failed in the practical affairs of life, and from whom had departed the buoyancy of youth. They had marked time as ambition hurried by and was lost. And yet, when the last man stepped ashore on that historic day the echo of his footfall was to sound down the centuries; the historian was to take up a new story in the annals of nations—for the great tide in human affairs had turned definitely to its upward flow.

"There had been nothing like it in the history of mankind. They were of the weak and oppressed of earth. Few in number; untrained in military venture, unskilled in civic construction, their mission was to build for all time an empire in a wilderness and hold it against the warlike savage and the armies and navies of one of the greatest powers of Europe. Even as they set foot upon the shore, facing them were the hordes of Indians whom they were to resist, whilst to the south were gathering like unto the storm-clouds of the coming tempest the hosts of Spain. Yet from the tragic elements of failure came victory, for in the divine purposes of the Almighty it had been ordained at that moment there should stand upon the soil of Georgia the one man in all the world through whom victory might come.

"A great artist, under the inspiration of a great subject, has brought to triumphant conclusion a work of art which, for all time, will hold the attention and interest of those whose vision rises above the sordid and groveling concerns of life and takes within its scope the things which charm and ennoble thought and action. To him who loves art for art's sake, the faithfulness of detail; the grace of outline; the strength of pose; the historic perfection of the portrayal will hold in fascination. What the Georgian will see and what he will carry in his memory from this historic spot will be the recollection of a strong, dominant warrior, with the fighting look upon his face—resolute and unconquerable—in the wisdom of Providence destined to stand on Georgia soil and in one momentous day end forever a conflict which had convulsed the civilization of Europe for centuries; and to see as he sheathed his victorious sword what would be in time the greatest monument it was ever given to man to rear—a free and sovereign State.

"Human force and genius are so often contrasted with the grave crises which threaten to destroy the organized affairs of men, that when emergencies occur we instinctively search the perspective for the inevitable relief. The tension of the situation reacts upon the tendencies of given minds and won or lost no great cause ever swayed the hopes and emotions of mankind but from the stress and conflict sprang some heroic spirit to leave its shining record on the pages of history. Of the greatness of Oglethorpe is the fact that no crisis was at hand when he started upon the illustrious career, in recognition of which a grateful people this day do homage to his memory. In the times in which he began life the direction in which his steps led was along the beaten path of thousands. A military apprenticeship under generals of renown; a parliamentary career of more or less usefulness; a respectable and quiet old age amid the congenial surroundings of a privileged class—it was the common fate of those from whom he came.

"The imagination falters as it attempts to reconstruct the conditions upon which the contemporaries of Oglethorpe looked with the complacency which hourly contact induces. In military prowess; in terrific hardships upon land and sea; in shrewd and cunning diplomacy and politics, the age was supreme. For the simpler and nobler qualities from which are evolved the patriot and the brother, there was neither place nor recognition. The greatest soldier of the age did not hesitate to sell his country for gold; the poet on bended knee served the fruitions of his soul to the taste of the dissolute in power; the statesman pandered to the vices of those who could repay in coin and place the eloquence which belonged to the race and not to the individual.  Jeffries had not long since ridden upon his circuit, with a sneer upon his lips, sending to the gallows, amid the brutal clamor of the accompanying mob, women and children for offenses which now receive the least of punishments. The poor were despised; the sick abandoned; the stricken in mind maltreated and exhibited for money. Deep down in all of this misery, friendless and hopeless, forgotten of friend and kindred, removed even from the exhausted malice of foes, was the insolvent debtor whose only crime was his inability to deliver at the moment of demand the money he had promised to pay.