Part 15

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.

II

Oglethorpe had no sooner reached England than word came that the governor of Florida had ordered every English merchant to leave his territory and was planning for warfare. The king of England at once appointed Oglethorpe commander-in-chief of all his troops in Carolina and Georgia, and ordered a regiment to be raised and equipped for service there. Troops were sent from Gibraltar, and meantime the governor busied himself in urging men and women to go out with him to America as colonists. The terms he offered them were so promising that finally he sailed from Portsmouth with five transports, carrying six hundred men, women, and children, besides arms and provisions.

In a little more than two months this new party reached St. Simons Island. The settlers there, who had been fearing an attack by the Spaniards, were delighted to welcome the general and his company. Oglethorpe went to work at once to strengthen the forts, to build roads between the forts and the towns, and to station scout ships to give notice of any hostile fleet. Then he went to Savannah, where cannon roared at his approach and the settlers crowded about to welcome their trusted governor and general. Tomochichi and the chiefs of the Creek nations came to assure him of their loyalty and offered to serve him at any time against their common enemies the Spaniards.

General Oglethorpe well knew how important the help of the Indians might be to him, and so decided to journey through the wilderness to visit the various tribes. This meant a long and perilous trip. It is partly described for us. "Through tangled thickets," runs an account of the journey, "along rough ravines, over dreary swamps in which the horses reared and plunged, the travelers patiently followed their native guides. More than once they had to construct rafts on which to cross the rivers, and many smaller streams were crossed by wading or swimming.... Wrapped in his cloak, with his portmanteau for a pillow, their hardy leader lay down to sleep upon the ground, or if the night were wet he sheltered himself in a covert of cypress boughs spread upon poles. For two hundred miles they neither saw a human habitation, nor met a soul; but as they neared their journey's end they found here and there provisions, which the primitive people they were about to visit had deposited for them in the woods.... When within fifty miles of his destination, the general was met by a deputation of chiefs who escorted him to Coweta; and although the American aborigines are rarely demonstrative, nothing could exceed the joy manifested by them on Oglethorpe's arrival.... By having undertaken so long and difficult a journey for the purpose of visiting them, by coming with only a few attendants in fearless reliance on their good faith, by the readiness with which he accommodated himself to their habits, and by the natural dignity of his deportment, Oglethorpe had won the hearts of his red brothers, whom he was never known to deceive."

A great council was held, a cup of the sacred black-medicine was drunk by the white man and the chiefs, the calumet or pipe of peace was smoked, and a treaty was drawn up, by which the Creeks renewed their allegiance to the king of England while Oglethorpe promised that the English would not encroach upon the Creeks' country and that the traders would deal honestly with them.

On his way home the governor fell ill of fever and had to stay at Fort Augusta for several weeks. Here chiefs of the Cherokees and Chickasaws came to him, complaining that some of their people had been poisoned by rum they had bought from English traders. Inquiry showed that traders had not only brought bad rum, but smallpox also, to the Indians, and the governor promised the chiefs that hereafter he would only permit certain licensed traders to come among them.

Troubles over runaway slaves, who left South Carolina and Georgia for Florida and were protected by the Spanish there, soon brought fresh controversies between the settlers on the two sides of the border. England, moreover, was preparing for war with Spain. On October 2, 1739, the men of Savannah met at the court-house and General Oglethorpe announced to them that England had declared war on Spain. The governor's militia was now well armed and trained, ships guarded the coast, he had a string of forts protecting his borders. Yet he, like the government in England, would very much have preferred to keep the peace with the Spaniards, and was only driven to hostilities because the latter were constantly making trouble for his colonists and seizing English merchant ships and imprisoning their crews.

The southernmost outpost of Georgia was now Amelia Island, where there was a settlement of about forty persons. They were protected by palisades and several cannon. In November some Spaniards landed at night and hid in the woods. Shots were heard in the fort, and the English soldiers, searching the woods, found the bodies of two of the Highlanders. The Spaniards had shot them, and escaped in their boats.

At once Oglethorpe, with some of his Scotchmen and Indians, marched into Florida. He captured Spanish boats at the mouth of the St. Johns River, and went on toward St. Augustine. A troop of the enemy came out to attack him, but fled before the rush of his Indians.

He knew that he needed more troops, however, if he were to make good his war on Florida, so he sent to South Carolina, urging the governor of that colony to contribute as many soldiers as Georgia had supplied. This caused some delay, but at length arrangements were completed, and Oglethorpe was prepared to take the field.

In May the general assembled four hundred of his soldiers, Creek Indians under their chief Malachee, Cherokees under their chief Raven, at St. George Island, at the mouth of the St. Johns River. Oglethorpe's object was to cut off supplies from St. Augustine. His men crossed the river, and a body of Indians and a few white soldiers made an attack on the Spanish fort at San Diego. This place was defended by a number of large guns, and the first attack on it failed. Then Oglethorpe came up with the rest of his men and decided to try a little strategy. He ordered some of his soldiers to beat drums in different parts of the woods and other soldiers to march out at these places and march back again, the same soldiers appearing again and again. The Spanish garrison, seeing so many men at so many different points in the woods, soon concluded that the English had an overwhelming force in the field against them. Then Oglethorpe sent a Spanish prisoner he had captured to tell the garrison how well he had been treated. Thereupon the garrison surrendered to the English general.

The troops from Carolina had not yet arrived, and Oglethorpe learned that, while they delayed, two sloops filled with provisions and ammunition and six Spanish galleys had reached St. Augustine. On the eighteenth of May, however, two English ships anchored in the harbor and two others blocked the southern entrance to the Spanish port, and soon afterward a part of the troops from Carolina joined the general. He then gave the order to advance on the Spanish town.

St. Augustine was defended by 2,000 soldiers, quite as many as the troops Oglethorpe had marshaled against it. The Spanish artillery was vastly superior to that of the English. If the town was to be taken the sea forces must attack at the same time as the land forces, and signals were arranged for such a joint attack.

The general came to Fort Moosa, three miles from St. Augustine, and found the garrison had abandoned it. He gave orders to burn the gate there and make holes in the walls, "lest," as he said, "it might one day or other be a mouse-trap for some of our own people." Marching on, he gave the signal to attack the Spanish capital, but was surprised that the fleet gave him no answering signal. Later he learned that the Spaniards had deployed their ships in such a way that a sea attack would have been very difficult, and that the English commanders had decided that if they made the attack as agreed upon they would probably be defeated. Therefore the general determined that instead of an assault he would attempt a blockade.