Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/145

No. 41] over to over-see the building of forts on our frontiers, pursuant to the king's orders. Affairs here are but in an ill situation, through the discouragements attending the settlement, which have rendered some of the better sort of people very discontented, and if the trustee, who comes over, does not remove them, I believe many will leave the place. The magistrate, to whom the government of the colony was left, proves a most insolent and tyrannical fellow. Several just complaints have been sent home against him, which do not meet with a proper regard, and this has made people very uneasie. Indeed it has a very ill aspect ; for it looks as if they designed to establish arbitrary government, and reduce the people to a condition little better than that of slavery. There are some things likewise in their very constitution, which looks this way ; the tenure by which they hold their land subjects them to a kind of vassalage, not consistent with a free people. In short, Georgia, which was seemingly intended to be the asylum of the distressed, unless things are greatly altered, is likely to be itself a mere scene of distress. Some of the people, to support their extravagance, and others out of real necessity, have run themselves miserably in debt ; the store-keepers having given them credit in hopes of possessing themselves of their houses, and even their persons, by obliging them to be their servants ; and if the trustees do not disconcert these designs, great numbers must be unavoidably ruined ; though to do this must needs ruin the store keepers, for they are most of them deeply indebted to their merchants in Carolina : But I think indeed they deserve no pity, because their designs appear to have been rapacious and dishonest. This is our present condition, and the small improvements that are made on lands, gives us a very indifferent future prospect. Notwithstanding the place has been settled nigh three years, I believe I may venture to say there is not one family, which can subsist without farther assistance, and most would starve if they had not dependence on the trustees ; but the trustees have raised very large assistance to carry it on, and will no doubt do their utmost to support it, and therefore it is to be hoped that it may in time come to something, though on the present footing things are established, it will never be a desirable place, and therefore none will choose to settle in it who can remove elsewhere, unless it be some who are particularly favoured by the trustees. . ..