Mr. James Habersham, who appears to have been a gentleman of considerable mercantile as well as political talents, at the particular request of Mr. Boltzius, stated to him in a letter of considerable length, his ideas on agriculture and commerce. This letter was closed by a request that it might be considered in the light of a confidential communication; because he had with great freedom,descanted on the views and conduct of many of the leading characters in the province, as well as the chimerical plans of the trustees : Mr. Boltzius solicited his consent to furnish a reverend friend of his in Germany with a copy, and by him the letter was forwarded to the trustees in England. When Mr. Habersham was informed of this circumstance, he supposed that all hopes of future favor and countenance from that honorable body were at an end, and that his residence thereafter in the province, would be made extremely unpleasant to him, if not insupportable, and regretted the latitude with which he had licensed Mr. Boltzius, in giving publicity to the contents of his letter. The strong language and forcible reasonings it contained, attracted the particular notice of the trustees, and became a subject of deliberate discussion; and instead of bringing the thunder of their vengeance upon him, he was appointed a member of the council in Georgia; and Samuel Mercer, who had been charged with fraud and mal-practice in office, was suspended from the functions of membership,

by the board in Georgia, and dismissed from office by the trustees. The appointment of Mr. Habersham, was as unexpected to his associates in the administration, as it was to himself. In the November term of this year, three persons were convicted and sentenced to suffer death; one for murder and two for treason: the former and one of the latter, were executed; the other, a lad of sixteen years of age, was spared in consideration of his youth, at the solicitation of the inhabitants of Savannah. These were the first who suffered death under the sentence of the civil authority in the province.

Slavery had not yet been formally introduced into Georgia, and may be said to have been licensed, rather than authorised. The term for which the European servants were engaged, had generally expired, and there were no means of remedying this difficulty, except by hiring negro servants from their owners in South-Carolina; in which case, if any person attempted to enforce the regulation of the trustees, the owner appeared from Carolina and claimed his property. Finding that this plan of evading the law succeeded, negroes were hired for an hundred years, or during life, and a sum equal to the value of the negro was paid in advance; and the pretended owner bound himself to exhibit his claim, in case circumstances should render it necessary, to secure his services. Finally, purchases were openly made in Savannah from African traders: some seizures were made

by those who opposed the principle, but as a majority of the magistrates were favorable to the introduction of slaves into the province, legal decisions were suspended from time to time, and a strong disposition evidenced by the courts to evade the operation of the law. So great was the majority on that side of the question, that anarchy and confusion were likely to be kindled into civil war. Several negro servants had been purchased for the Orphan-house, and Mr. Habersham declared that the institution could not be supported without them. The servants sent over from England by Mr. Whitefield, after a few months, refused to yield to the menial duties assigned to them; many ran away, and were supported and secreted in Carolina by their countrymen, until an opportunity offered to escape farther north, where they were secured against a compliance with the conditions of their indentures; and the few who remained were too old, too young, or too much afflicted with disease, to render services equal to a compensation for their clothing and subsistence. Those who had fled,

procure land in the

soon found that they could other colonies on easy terms, and engage in employments less degrading and more advantageous. The Highlanders and Germans persisted in their opposition: the Reverend Mr. Boltzius, who had taken a warm interest in the settlement of his country-men at Ebenezer, had been uniform in his opposition to the principles of slavery to his

congregation, and expressed his fears that idle ness and dissipation would grow out of the change, to the destruction of the people's morals; and it was with great difficulty he could be restrained from a repetition of the expression of his feelings, as he had been accustomed to do in the execution of his clerical functions; and indeed his eventual yielding, seems to have resulted from the apprehension of a civil war, rather than from any conviction which had changed his opinion, with regard to the justice or propriety of the measure: This gentleman had uniformly been the particular friend of Mr. Whitefield, but on this occasion he addressed a letter to him, charging him with a whimsical change of sentiments, destructive to industry and morality, denouncing the vengeance of heaven against those who were instrumental in bringing a people under the yoke of slavery? Mr. Whitefield denied his having any participation or knowledge, of the change of circumstances which had lately taken place in Georgia, until a short time before this letter was received; but that he had been taught by the exercise of his reflections, to believe with Pope, that “whatever is, is best:" that God had some wise end in view in the permission of every occurrence, and that though he could not fathom the purposes connected with the slavery of the Africans, yet he had no doubt it would terminate to their advantage. That he had received a number of letters from Georgia upon the subject, which he had

submitted to the trustees, on which he was informed, they were about to decide. When he took into view the wretched, miserable, starved condition of the negroes in their own country, that for the purpose of gaining a scant temporary subsistence, the father had sold his sons, his daughters, nay his wife, to a barbarous cruel foe; how much better must their condition be, when disposed of in a christian country, where they are treated with mildness and humanity, and required to perform no more than that portion of labor which in some way or other, is the common lot of the human race. After duly considering the subject, the trustees directed the president in Georgia, to convene a certain number of the inhabitants, who should be chosen out of the different districts, and who were considered capable of giving the true sentiments of a majority of the people upon the introduction of slavery, treating largely upon the subject, with such conditions and stipulations as would gratify their wishes accordingly the president notified to the different districts the objects contemplated at this meeting, and twenty-three representatives met at Savannah, and after appointing major Horton president, they entered into sundry resolutions, the substance of which was, that the owners of slaves should educate the young and use every possible means of making religious impressions upon the minds of the aged, and that all acts of inhumanity should be punished by the civil authority. It

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