Delicious nectar, powerful to improve The bad effects which would arise from such a picture so overcharged, are evident. Idlers who saw this description from the pen of a clergyman, and calculated on its truth, removed to Georgia, under the belief that the labor of one or two days in the week, would enable them to dress in silk and riot in wine, the remainder of their days: With such expectations many came to Georgia, where to their astonishment they found nothing but complaints, discontents, poverty, disease and wretchedness. The inhabitants discovered that their constitutions would not bear the cultivation of the swamp lands, and that the pine lands were unproductive: instead of reaping the rich harvest of plenty, raising commodities for exportation, and wallowing in wealth and affluence, as they had been taught to expect; the labor of several years had not enabled them to provide a coarse common subsistence for themselves and families. Under these discouragements, numbers withdrew to the Carolina side of the river, where the prospects of success were more promising, and the magistrates observed the infant colony sinking into ruin.Dispirited by a foresight of the depopulation of the colony, they joined the freeholders in and about Savannah, in drawing up a petition, representing their condition, and transmitted it to the trustees on this subject their own language will give the best impressions : "To the honorable the trustees for establishing the colony of Georgia, May it please your honors, "We, whose names are under-written, being all settlers, freeholders and inhabitants of the province of Georgia, and being sensible of the great pains and care exerted by you, in endeavoring to settle this colony, since it has been under your protection and management, do unanimously join to lay before you, with the utmost regret, the fol lowing particulars. But, in the first place, we must beg leave to observe, that it has afforded us a great deal of concern and uneasiness, that former representations made to you of the same nature, have not been thought worthy of a due consideration, nor even of an answer. We have most of us settled in this colony, in pursuance of a description and representation of it by you, in Britain; and from the experience of residing here several years, do find, that it is impossible the measures hitherto laid down for making it a colony, can succeed. None of all those who have planted their lands, have been able to raise suffi cient produce to maintain their families, in bread kind only, even though as much application and industry have been exerted to bring it about, as could be done by men engaged in an affair, in which they believe the welfare of themselves and posterity so much depended, and which they imagine must require more than ordinary pains to make it succeed; so that by the accumulated expenses every year of provisions, clothing, medicines, &c. for themselves, families and servants, several of them have expended all their money, nay, even run considerably in debt, and so have been obliged to leave off planting, and making further improvements; and those who continue, are daily exhausting more and more of their money, and some daily increasing their debts, with out a possibility of being reimbursed, according to the present constitution. This being now the general state of the colony, it must be obvious, that people cannot subsist by their land according to the present establishment; and this being a truth resulting from trial, patience and experience, cannot be contradicted by any theorical scheme of reasoning. The land then, according to the present constitution, not being able to maintain the settlers here, they must unavoidably have recourse to, and depend upon trade; but to our woful experience likewise, the same causes that prevent the first, obstruct the latter; for though the situation of this place is exceedingly well adapted to trade, and if it were encouraged might be much more improved by the inhabitants, yet the difficulties and restrictions which we hitherto have, and at present do labor under, debar us of that advantage. Timber is the only thing we have here which we can export, and notwithstanding we are obliged to fall it in planting our land, yet we cannot manufacture it fit for foreign market, but at double the expense of other colonies; as for instance, the river of May, which is but twenty miles from us, with the allowance of negroes, load vessels with that commodity at one half of the price that we can do; and what should induce persons to bring ships here, when they can be loaded with one half of the expense so near us? therefore the timber on the land is only a continual charge to the possessors of it, though of very great service in all the northern colonies, where negroes are allowed, and consequently labor cheap. We do not in the least doubt, but that in time, silk and wine may be produced here, particularly the former; but since the cultivation of lands with white servants only, cannot raise provision for our families, as before mentioned, therefore it is likewise impossible to carry on these manufactures according to the present constitution. It is very well known that Carolina can raise every thing that this colony can, and they having their labor so much cheaper, will always ruin our market, unless we are in some measure on a footing with them; and as in both, the lands are worn out in four or five years, and then fit for nothing but pasture, we must always be at a great deal more expense than they in clearing new land for planting. The importation of necessaries for life comes to us at the most extravagant rate; merchants in general, especially of England, not being willing to supply the settlers with goods upon commission, because no person here can make them any security of their lands and improvements, as is very often practised in other places, to promote trade, where some of the employers money is laid out in necessary buildings and improvements, fitted for the trade intended; without which it cannot be carried on. The benefit of the importation, therefore, is to all transient persons, who do not lay out any money among us, but on the contrary carry every penny out of the place; and the chief reason for their enhancing the price, is, because they cannot get any goods here, either on freight or purchase for another merchant. If the advantage accruing from importation centered in the inhabitants, the profit thereof would naturally circulate amongst us, and be laid out in improvements in the colony. "Your honors, we imagine, are not insensible of the numbers that have left this province, not. being able to support themselves any longer, and those still remaining, who have money of their own, and credit with their friends, have laid out most of the former in improvements, and lost the latter by doing it on such precarious titles; and upon account of the present establishment, not above two or three persons, except those brought on charity, and servants sent by you, have come here for the space of two years past, either to settle land or encourage trade, neither do we hear |