Savanna, at
Augusta, and another on an island of the Alatamaha, called Frederica,
for defence against the Indians and the inhabitants of Florida. The
Spaniards remonstrated against them; and a commissioner from the
Havanna insisted on the evacuation of the country to the thirty-third
degree of north latitude, which he claimed in the name of the King of
Spain; but this remonstrance and claim were equally disregarded.

The restrictions imposed by the trustees, on the inhabitants of
Georgia, were too oppressive to be endured in silence. They
remonstrated, particularly, against the tenure by which their lands
were held, and against the prohibition of the introduction of slaves.
These complaints, the result of experience, were addressed to persons
ignorant of the condition of the petitioners, and were neglected. The
colony languished; while South Carolina, not unlike Georgia both in
soil and climate, advanced with considerable rapidity. Although
emigration was encouraged by paying the passage money of the
emigrants, by furnishing them with clothes, arms, ammunition, and
implements of husbandry, by maintaining their families for the first
year, and, in some instances, by furnishing them with stock; yet the
unwise policy, which has been mentioned, more than counterbalanced
these advantages; and for ten years, during which time the exports
from Carolina more than doubled, the settlers in Georgia could, with
difficulty, obtain a scanty subsistence.

{1737}

The differences between Great Britain and Spain not admitting of
adjustment, both nations prepared for war. The Spaniards strengthened
East Florida; and the British government ordered a regiment,
consisting of six hundred effective men, into Georgia. The command of
the troops, both of Georgia and Carolina, was given to major general
Oglethorpe, who fixed his headquarters at Frederica.

[Sidenote: Insurrection of the slaves.]

Before hostilities had commenced, the Spaniards at St. Augustine
engaged in criminal intrigues among the blacks of Carolina. Agents had
been secretly employed in seducing the slaves of that province to
escape to St. Augustine, where liberty was promised them, and where
they were formed into a regiment officered by themselves. Hitherto
these practices had been attended only with the loss of property; but,
about this time, the evil assumed a much more alarming form. A large
number of slaves assembled at Stono, where they forced a warehouse
containi