Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/226

202 "death is nothing.. If separate spirits regard our little concerns, they do it as men regard the follies of their childhood." Having proceeded to England, he raised and disciplined a regiment, and returned to Savannah in 1738, September, 1738, with the appointment of military commandant of Georgia and the Carolinas, and with directions to "repel force by force."

In August of the next year, Oglethorpe travelled some three hundred miles through the forests, and met the Creeks, near the site of the present city of Columbus, who promised to maintain amity and concord with the English, and also to exclude all others. Having raised a large force, Oglethorpe laid siege to St. Augustine; but the expedition was not successful.

Anson's undertakings in despoiling Spanish commerce and colonies, as well as Vernon's efforts in the same line, having proved failures, the Spaniards, in 1742, determined to attack Georgia and Carolina with a force of three thousand men. Nothing but the ignorance of the Spanish commander saved the colonies from impending and fearful disaster; and Oglethorpe was enabled to repel an attack upon Frederica without serious difficulty. Notwithstanding, however, his devotion to the interests of Georgia, Oglethorpe experienced much the same trials as other men placed in the like positions, and was exposed to a large share of petty meanness and ingratitude. The discontented colonists first sent over Thomas Stevens as their agent to England, laden with complaints against the trustees in general, which, having been duly examined by the House of Commons, were pronounced to be "false, scandalous, and malicious." Oglethorpe himself, soon after, went to England, to answer charges brought against his character, which he so effectually succeeded in vindicating, that his accuser, Cook, who was his own lieutenant-colonel, was deprived of his commission. Marrying presently and accepting a home appointment, the founder of Georgia never afterwards revisited America; but he lived long enough to see the establishment of the independence of the United States. Oglethorpe died, July 1st, 1785, at the great age of ninety-seven.

Directly after Wesley's return to England, the equally celebrated George Whitfield embarked for Georgia, and labored very effectively in many ways to set forward the cause of charity and religion. The orphan house near Savannah owed its origin to the labors of Whitfield. Mr. Hildreth devotes a number of pages in his second volume, to an account of the "Great Revival" in New England, consequent upon Whitfield's preaching and influence, aided by such men as Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, and others. On the whole, we deem Mr. Hildreth's account a fair one, though probably not entirely acceptable to any of the parties whose names he freely uses. "Religion, so conspicuous hitherto as the glowing, sometimes lurid, atmosphere of our historical pictures, fades- henceforth, almost vanishes away:" because, thenceforth, men were content to give