The Moravians in Georgia | Page 5

and the latter party being the stronger the former was subjected to great and unpardonable persecution, many were executed, and all holding that faith were laid under political disabilities which lasted for a hundred and fifty years.
The plans of the Trustees were very broad. They intended "to relieve such unfortunate persons as cannot subsist here, and establish them in an orderly manner, so as to form a well regulated town. As far as their fund goes they will defray the charge of their passage to Georgia -- give them necessaries, cattle, land, and subsistence, till such time as they can build their houses and clear some of their land." In this manner "many families who would otherwise starve will be provided for, and made masters of houses and lands; * * * and by giving refuge to the distressed Salzburgers and other Protestants, the power of Britain, as a reward for its hospitality, will be increased by the addition of so many religious and industrious subjects."
Each of the emigrants was to receive about fifty acres of land, including a town lot, a garden of five acres, and a forty-five acre farm, and the Trustees offered to give a tract of five hundred acres to any well-to-do man who would go over at his own expense, taking with him at least ten servants, and promising his military service in case of need.
But there was a commercial as well as a benevolent side to the designs of the Trustees, for they thought Georgia could be made to furnish silk, wine, oil and drugs in large quantities, the importing of which would keep thousands of pounds sterling in English hands which had hitherto gone to China, Persia and the Madeiras. Special provision was therefore made to secure the planting of mulberry trees as the first step towards silk culture, the other branches to be introduced as speedily as might be.
Filled with enthusiasm for their plan, the Trustees proceeded to spread abroad the most glowing descriptions of the country where the new colony was to be settled.
"The kind spring, which but salutes us here, Inhabits there, and courts them all the year. Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live -- At once they promise, when at once they give. So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, None sickly lives, or dies before his time. Heaven, sure, has kept this spot of earth uncurst, To shew how all things were created first."
So wrote Oglethorpe, quoting the lines as the best pen picture he could give of the new land, and truly, if the colonists found the reality less roseate than they anticipated, it was not the fault of their generous, energetic leader, who spared neither pains nor means in his effort to make all things work out as his imagination had painted them.
The Trustees having, with great care, selected thirty-five families from the number who wished to go, the first emigrant ship sailed for Georgia in November, 1732, bearing about one hundred and twenty-five "sober, industrious and moral persons", and all needful stores for the establishment of the colony. Early in the following year they reached America, and Oglethorpe, having chosen a high bluff on the southern bank of the Savannah River, concluded a satisfactory treaty with Tomochichi, the chief of the nearest Indian tribe, which was later ratified in a full Council of the chiefs of all the Lower Creeks. His fairness and courteous treatment won the hearts of all, especially of Tomochichi and his people, who for many years remained on the best of terms with the town which was now laid out upon the bluff.
The Salzburgers.
The Salzburgers, referred to by name in the proposals of the Georgia Trustees, were, at this time, very much upon the mind and heart of Protestant Europe. They were Germans, belonging to the Archbishopric of Salzburg, then the most eastern district of Bavaria, but now a province of Austria. "Their ancestors, the Vallenges of Piedmont, had been compelled by the barbarities of the Dukes of Savoy to find a shelter from the storms of persecution in the Alpine passes and vales of Salzburg and the Tyrol, before the Reformation; and frequently since, they had been hunted out by the hirelings and soldiery of the Church of Rome, and condemned for their faith to tortures of the most cruel and revolting kind. In 1684-6, they were again threatened with an exterminating persecution; but were saved in part by the intervention of the Protestant States of Saxony and Brandenburg, though more than a thousand emigrated on account of the dangers to which they were exposed.
"But the quietness which they then enjoyed for nearly half a century was rudely broken in upon by Leopold, Count of Firmian and Archbishop of Salzburg, who determined to reduce them to