"Governor Oglethorpe, write a letter to the deserter and speak of him as if he were a spy sent by yourself. Instruct him to represent that the Georgians are very weak in numbers and arms, and advise the Spaniards to attack us at once, and, if they will not do so, try to persuade them to remain at St. Simons for three days longer, for by that time we will have a British fleet with two thousand soldiers aboard to attack St. Augustine. You know the bearer of this letter will carry it to the Spanish commander, and the deserter will probably be hung as he deserves and the Spaniards. frightened away."

"How shall we send such a letter?"

He did, and the result was all that could be asked. The French deserter was arrested and hung for a spy; a council of war was called, and, while it was in session, some vessels from Carolinia were seen at sea, which were mistaken for the British fleet alluded to, and the Spaniards determined to attack Oglethorpe immediately and then hasten to the defence of St. Augustine.

Noah Stevens, who, with a party of young men and Indian scouts, was in the forest near enough to watch the enemy, became apprised of their design. He hastened to Oglethorpe with the

information, and they prepared to resist the attack.

On the narrow road flanked by the forest and the morass, within a mile of the fort, Oglethorpe placed his Highlanders in ambush. As the first division of Spaniards were advancing along the road to the attack, there suddenly burst forth a sheet of flame and the Spaniards fell like grass before the scythe. Almost the whole party was killed or captured. A second party, pressing forward to their relief, met a like fate, and the other Spaniards, becoming confused and alarmed, fled to their ships, leaving almost two hundred dead on the field. The scene of this battle is to-day pointed

out as "The Bloody Marsh."

The Spaniards returned to St. Augustine, and the commander of the expedition, Don Manuel de Monteano was dismissed from the service on account of his conspicuous failure. The stratagem and courage of Georgia's governor saved Georgia and South Carolinia from utter ruin.

Oglethorpe had settled, colonized and defended Georgia with rare courage, energy and skill, not for personal glory and worldly gain, but for a great and benevolent purpose. Having firmly established the colony, he returned to England, in 1743, where, after performing good military service for his king against the Young Pretender,' he retired to his

age.

seat in Essex. When General Gage returned to England from America in 1775, he was offered the chief command of the British army in this country, though he was then almost eighty years of His benevolent ideas did not suit the temper of the British ministry then, and General William Howe received the appointment. When, at the close of the Revolution, John Adams went to England as American minister at the British court, Oglethorpe was among the first to congratulate him because of the Independence of his country. The brave founder of Georgia died next year, at the age of almost ninety years, with all his mental faculties in full vigor.

The great diversity of character among the inhabitants of the colonies of North America was sufficient to build up a great, free, liberal and glorious nation. This diversity was owing chiefly to the origin, early habits of the people and the climate. The early inhabitants of Virginia were from classes in English society wherein a lack of rigid moral discipline allowed free living and its attendant vices. This circumstance, combined with the influence of a mild climate, produced a tendency to voluptuousness and ease among the Virginians and their southern neighbors. Generally they ex

*Lossing's "Our Country," Vol. III., page 482.

hibited less moral restraint, more hospitality and greater frankness and social refinement, than the people of New England. New England was peopled by the middle classes of society, including a great many religious enthusiasts, very rigid in their manners, shy and jealous of strangers and extremely strict in their notions. They attempted to regulate the habits and tastes of society by formal standards. Their early legislation recognized the right to control the most minute details of social life. The general court of Massachusetts, on one occasion, required the proper officers to notice the "apparel" of the people, especially their "ribbands and great boots." Drinking of healths in public or private; wearing funeral badges; celebrating the church festivals of Christmas and Easter, and many other things, which were really harmless, seemed quite improper to magistrates and legislators, and especially to the Puritan clergy, who controlled in all matters. The Puritans detested the Church of England, the Catholics and the Quakers, and whatever was indorsed by the latter was liable to be rejected by the former.

When oppression and danger to the lives, liberties and rights came, however, the colonies were found standing firmly by each other. Puritan New England, Cavalier Virginia, Dutch New York and Catholic Maryland were all found marching

side by side and clasping hands in a glorious e plu

ribus unum.

Agriculture was the principal pursuit of the American colonists of English antecedents. All along the history of the country, commerce and manufactures struggled against unwise and unjust laws for existence. With forced self-reliance, the people had been compelled from the very beginning to make their own apparel, furniture and implements of labor, which they could not buy from the looms and workshops of old England; and manual labor was regarded as honorable and dig nified, especially in New England and the immediately adjoining provinces.

Commerce of the English American colonies had a feeble infancy, and was dwarfed in its growth by oppressive navigation laws. Trade had hardly reached the dignity of commerce before the Revolution. Massachusetts vessels, as early as 1636, had made voyages to the West Indies with favorable results, and a small trade sprang up all along the American coast, which was regarded with joy as the harbinger of a flourishing American com merce; but England, always jealous of her rights, in 1651 passed the navigation act which warned the American people that they were to depend on tilling the soil alone for sustenance. The ocean was England's. The restoration of this infamous.