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SAVANNAH SETTLERS ANNOUNCE THEIR INTENT TO LEAVE
Source: A True and Historical Narrative of the Colony of Georgia in America #173
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From 1741 A True and Historical Narrative edited by Amy To the Honorable the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America, at their Office near Old Palace Yard Westminister. Honorable Gentlemen, You must not have truly considered our previous reports of failure on the Ogeeche WE have received a Letter signed by your Secretary of the 25th March last, acknowledging Receipt of ours to the Trustees dated the 26th May 1739, in which we set forth the Expense we had been at in prosecuting our Settlement on the Ogeeche River, together with the Impossibility of carrying on any Settlement with Success in this Colony according to the present Constitution. As an additional Confirmation of that, we then presented your Honors with a current account, carried on from the Commencement of our Settlement on the Ogeeche and continued till we were drove thence by the strongest Appearances of Destruction arising from having expended our ALL in the strenuous Prosecution of an impracticable Scheme. Here, it appears to us you have neither considered our Letter or Account; otherwise you never would have advised us to return to a Place on which we have already in vain consumed so much Time and Money. Your answer was no answer at all, but a flat refusal to consider our rightful demands We have seen and seriously considered every Paragraph of a printed Paper, entitled, The Answer of the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America, to the Representation from the Inhabitants of Savannah; which, in our humble Opinion, is no Answer at all; but rather an absolute Refusal of Demands to which we are legally entitled under the specious Pretenses of Guardianship and Fatherly Care, without having answered one Sentence or confuted by Strength of argument any part of our Assertions. We should not be judged by other people’s mistakes Because our Neighboring Province (of which you are pleased to take Notice) has by an Introduction of too great Numbers abused the Use of Negroes; or because an undoubted Property in our Land Possessions might prove detrimental or hurtful to idle, profligate or abandoned People, it does not at all follow, that we should be debarred the Use of Negroes for the Field or the more laborious Parts of Culture under prudent Limitations, or that sober and virtuous Men should be deprived of just Titles to their Properties. You should not have trusted the counter-petitions from Darien; they were bribed We are surprised that your Honors mention the Representations of the People of the Darien as a Confirmation of the Unreasonableness of our Demands. If you knew the Motives by which these People were induced to present you with one or more Petitions contradictory to our Representation, the Welfare of the Colony, and their own consciences, we are persuaded you never would have offered them as Reasons for rejecting the Representation from Savannah. They were bought with a Number of Cattle and extensive Promises of future Rewards. A little present Interest made them forget or neglect their future, The petition from Savannah came from true oppression and honest signatures whereas the People of this Place, duly sensible of the Miseries and Calamities they have suffered and still labor under, freely and voluntarily put their Hands to the Representation of this Part of the Province. No artful Means were used to induce them to it. No artful Man or Men, Negro Merchants or others, persuaded them to it. Dismal Poverty and the most absolute Oppression were the true Fountains from whence our Complaints proceeded. Darien’s signers were rewarded with a bloody battle at St. Augustine But how miserably were these inconsiderate, deluded Wretches rewarded? They were soon after carried against St. Augustine, placed on a dangerous Post, where they were all or most of them cut off or taken Prisoners by the Enemy. This has put a Period to the Settlement of Darien, of which so many great Things have been falsely reported. What could possibly have caused Georgia to fail other that what we proposed? With Regard to our Representation, we shall only make one Supposition, which it's almost impossible can have happened. That this and all the other Representations, Letters, Suits, or Petitions made to the Trustees have been entirely false and groundless. What can have seduced the Colony to the Situation in which it now is? What can have reduced its Inhabitants to one-sixth of the Number which we have known to reside here? Or lastly, what is reason for the starving and despicable Condition of the Few that are now left? Is it not, as well as every other Matter which we have before urged, owing to and occasioned by the unanswerable Reasons at different Times given and laid before your Honors by honest Men (independent of you) who were and are the chief Sufferers in this Colony, and who could not be bribed to conceal or terrified from declaring their Sentiments? There won’t be any descendants left in Georgia to call you to account Your Honors may readily and safely join issue with us in our Appeal to Posterity, who were their best * Friends, &c. for it is certain and obvious that if the Trustees are resolved to adhere to their present Constitution, they or their Successors are in no great Danger of being called to any Account by our descendants in Georgia. (*quoting their Answer to the Representation) Your alterations to the constitution are useless snares We have likewise seen and read the Alterations Mr. Martyn mentions to have been made by your Honors regarding the Tenure of Lands, together with a fictitious abridgement of the same affixed to the most public Places at Savannah. Mr. Martyn in his Letter is pleased to tell us that your Honors imagine we are satisfied with your alterations because the rest of the Colony is. The rest of the colony? Some few perhaps may have expressed themselves satisfied, but we will say no worse of such few than that your Honors will soon realize that even they are Deceivers. It's true such Alterations and the Paper entitled “An Answer to our Representation” are artfully penned and undoubtedly for a while amuse even Men of the best Sense in Europe or elsewhere who are Strangers to the Colony of Georgia. But any Man of common Understanding or the least Penetration, who by an unfortunate Experience has been well-acquainted with that Colony, can easily demonstrate that those very Papers are further Snares to increase our Miseries. It is impossible for these Alterations to enable us to subsist ourselves and Families any more than before, much less to put us in a Capacity of recovering our already sunk Fortunes and Loss of Time. Our island request was rejected because we would not contradict ourselves and become permanent vassals Some Time in the Summer 1739, (while we still expected agreeable Alterations to have followed our Representation) we applied more than once to General Oglethorpe, as one of the Trustees, for the same Tract of Land which we have since been refused by your Honors. But our Petitions and Applications were rejected. And for what Reason? Because indeed we refused to contradict our own Representation and become Villains as some others did. We would not accept Settlements, Money, Horses, Cattle, and other valuable Considerations at the Expense of Betraying our Country and Contradicting our Consciences by signing a Paper which was prepared and offered to us, purporting a Repentance of the Measures we had taken for our own relief and the Relief of other distressed British Subjects. Our compliance would have been an approval of a Scheme which appears to have been designed to form a Colony of Vassals whose Properties and Liberties were at all Times to have been disposed of at the Option of their Superiors. You have been duped by Oglethorpe’s puppet appointments for administration here Such and many other Methods of Corruption have been too often practiced in this Colony, but we refused and scorned such Actions, from Principles of which every honest Man ought to be possessed. We are not surprised to find that we have in vain applied to your Honors in several affairs, when we see you have been hitherto prepossessed by a Gentleman of superior Interest, with Informations and Assertions full of Resentment, and which we well know cannot stand the Test of an impartial Examination; but we are amazed and sorry to find that for so many Years he has used the method of Nominating Those who have been appointed from Time to Time, for the Administration of Justice and making an impartial Enquiry into and informing your Honors of the real Situation of the Colony of Georgia as such who have been implicitly obedient in carrying on his arbitrary Schemes of Government and oppressing the Inhabitants, as well fill conniving at the Deceiving your Honors and the Nation! Parliament will soon investigate and grant our wishes for the intended success of this colony Gentlemen, since we have no Favors to ask or Resentments to fear, we may with greater Freedom observe that we are in full Hopes that all we can justly ask will be granted us by a British Parliament, who we doubt not will soon make an Enquiry into the Grievances of oppressed Subjects who have formerly inhabited or do now inhabit the Colony of Georgia—that Colony which has cost so great an Expense to the Nation, and from which so great Benefits were promised and expected! Our reputations have been damaged, and you have been misled We are sensible of the liberties taken with our respective Characters in the Misrepresentation sent your Honors by partial Men. We are no less sensible that the Majority of the Trustees have been kept in the Dark with regard to our just Complaints and Representations, or that such Complaints have been communicated to them in Lights distant from Truth. We have Reason to believe that two-thirds of the Honorable Board are either misinformed of or entire Strangers to the barbarous and destructive Schemes carried on in this miserable Colony. We hope our characters will appear wholesome We hope it will ever long appear to your Honors and the World (whatever has been advanced to the control) that we are honest Men, free from any base Design, free from any mutinous Spirit, who have only stood firm for the Recovery of our lost Privileges which have been secretly and under the most specious Pretenses withdrawn from us by some designing and self-interested Men. We hate to hurt the character of any Trustee, but we are forced to speak the truth We are sorry to write disrespectfully of any one of the Trustees, but when distressed and oppressed People arrive at the last Extremities, it must be supposed they will neither be ashamed to publish their Misfortunes nor afraid of imputing their Calamities to the Fountain from whence they spring. We believe the Board in general is honorable, but duped Far be it from us in any Shape to reflect in general on the Honorable Board, who we still believe are Gentlemen of Honor and Reputation, who would not be accessary to any sinister or base Designs. But we can't help thinking that they are deluded and brought to pursue Measures inconsistent with the Welfare and Prosperity of the Colony by some who of the whole Corporation are only acquainted with the particular Situation of it, and who must therefore willfully and from Design form and prepare destructive Schemes for the perishing Inhabitant of Georgia, and by unfair Representations of Persons and things, draw the Approbation of the greater Part of the Honorable Board to such Measures for the Oppression of Majesty's Subjects, which they would, if they were impartially informed, scorn think of, far less agree to. We are in ruins and the Spaniards are reinforced General Oglethorpe with all his Forces has been obliged to raise the Siege of St. Augustine, and we have Reason to believe the impending Ruin of this Colony will be thereby determined. The Spaniards are now reinforced. The General's Army is harassed and weakened. The Indians are provoked and discontented. Everything looks dismal. But as his Conduct in and the Consequences of these Affairs will be soon published to the World, and as we doubt not we have already incurred your Honor's Displeasure by reciting thus freely the many Hardships which we have here and formerly asserted to have been the Causes of our Ruin, We are finally leaving this place of no hope, and hope our motives will always show pure We shall now forbear and conclude by adding that the extremity of our misfortunes has at last rendered us utterly incapable of staying here any longer. Though all the Money we have expended on Improvements in the Colony is now of no Advantage to us here, nor can be elsewhere, yet poor as we are, we shall think ourselves happy when we are gone from a Place where Nothing but Poverty and Oppression subsists. Therefore, we hope, if ever this or any other Paper or Letter of ours shall appear in Public, your Honors will impute each Publication to have proceeded from no other Motives besides a thorough knowledge of our duty to ourselves, our Fellow Subjects and Sufferers, and to prevent others in the Future from being deluded in the same Manner as we have been, who are, with the greatest Respect, Honorable Gentlemen, Your most humble Servants. Signed, Da. Douglass, Wm. Stirling, Tho. Baillie. Georgia, Savannah, 10 August, 1740.
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