The plans for the colony, the hopes for its
well-being, wear a tranquil and fair countenance.
Oglethorpe himself would go with the first colonists. His ship was the Anne
of two hundred tons burden -- the last English colonizing ship with which this
narrative has to do -- and to her weathered sails there still clings a
fascination. On board the Anne, beside the crew and master, are Oglethorpe
himself and more than a hundred and twenty Georgia settlers, men, women,
and children. The Anne shook forth her sails in mid-November, 1732, upon
the old West Indies sea road, and after two months of prosperous faring,
came to anchor in Charles Town harbor.
South Carolina, approving this Georgia settlement which was to open the
country southward and be a wall against Spain, received the colonists with
hospitality. Oglethorpe and the weary colonists rested from long travel,
then hoisted sail again and proceeded on their way to Port Royal, and
southward yet to the mouth of the Savannah. Here there was further tarrying
while Oglethorpe and picked men went in a small boat up the river to choose
the site where they should build their town.
Here, upon the lower reaches, there lay a fair plateau, a mile long, rising
forty feet above the stream. Near by stood a village of well-inclined
Indians -- the Yamacraws. Ships might float upon the river, close beneath the
tree-crowned bluff. It was springtime now and beautiful in the southern
land -- the sky azure, the air delicate, the earth garbed in flowers.
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