The upshot was that the Crown granted to Oglethorpe and twenty associates
the unsettled land between the Savannah and the Altamaha, with a westward
depth that was left quite indefinite. This territory, which was now severed
from Carolina, was named Georgia after his Majesty King George II, and
Oglethorpe and a number of prominent men became the trustees of the new
colony. They were to act as such for twenty-one years, at the end of which
time Georgia should pass under the direct government of the Crown.
Parliament gave to the starting of things ten thousand pounds, and wealthy
philanthropic individuals followed suit with considerable donations. The
trustees assembled, organized, set to work. A philanthropic body, they drew
from the like minded far and near. Various agencies worked toward getting
together and sifting the colonists for Georgia. Men visited the prisons for
debtors and others. They did not choose at random, but when they found the
truly unfortunate and undepraved in prison they drew them forth, compounded
with their creditors, set the prisoners free, and enrolled them among the
emigrants. Likewise they drew together those who, from sheer poverty,
welcomed this opportunity. And they began a correspondence with distressed
Protestants on the Continent. They also devised and used all manner of
safeguards against imposition and the inclusion of any who would be wholly
burdens, moral or physical. So it happened that, though misfortune had laid
on almost all a heavy hand, the early colonists to Georgia were by no means
undesirable flotsam and jetsam.
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