INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

In the two decades preceding the granting of the Charter of Georgia in 1732 some half a dozen attempts were made at establishing a new English colony in America. Projects such as those of Thomas Coram, David Dunbar, William Keith, Robert Montgomery, and Jean Pierre Purry were no doubt instrumental in directing the attention of James Edward Oglethorpe to colonization. The first recorded mention of Oglethorpe’s scheme of combining a philanthropic enterprise with the planting of a new colony is found in the entry of the Diary of John, Lord Viscount Percival for February 13, 1730.¹ At this early stage the scheme involved the combining of two charity legacies.

A certain haberdasher named King left the sum of £15,000 as a charity legacy “to be disposed of as his executors should please.” One of the three trustees into whose hands this sum passed was the heir of the testator and refused to concur with the two others in any method for disposing of the money, “in hopes, as they were seventy years old each of them, they would die soon, and he should remain only surviving trustee, and then might apply it all to his own use.”² A lawsuit arose out of a proposal to lodge the money in the Mastery of Chancery’s hands until new trustees should be appointed. Oglethorpe represented and won the case for the two elderly trustees who then desired that the King fund be annexed to some trusteeship already existing. For this Oglethorpe suggested the D’Allone charity legacy which was in the hands of four Associates of the late Dr. Thomas Bray, the celebrated philanthropist to whose organizing genius the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts stand as monuments.

Dr. Bray had encountered and gained the esteem of Mr. Abel Tassin D’Allone, “a gentleman not more celebrated for his penetration and address in state affairs than for a pious disposition of mind,” during a visit made to Holland for soliciting the assistance of King William for some of his philanthropic projects. Upon his death D’Allone bequeathed a portion of his English estate to Dr. Bray and his Associates “toward erecting a capital fund or stock for converting Negroes in the British plantations.” Dr. Bray was informed by Lord Viscount Palmerston soon after Mr. D’Allone’s death with his having left this noble bequest which amounted to £900. “And as it happened that soon after, namely, in Christmas, 1723, Dr. Bray had so dangerous a sickness that his recovery was out of hope, Lord Palmerston was pleased to intimate that it would be requisite he should nominate and appoint, by deed, such as he would desire to have associated with him in the disposition of the legacy. This he accordingly did, choosing gentlemen, of whose affection to this and his other pious designs he had ample experience.”³

Among the four Associates chosen by Dr. Bray upon whom the D’Allone Fund devolved at the venerable Doctor’s death was Viscount Percival, later first Earl of Egmont. Lord Percival was a prominent member of the House of Commons and an influential personage at the Royal Court. Oglethorpe and Percival were friends and had been closely associated since their joint work on the Parliamentary Committees for investigating the conditions in the English prisons. From the beginning Percival approved of Oglethorpe’s proposal to join the two charity legacies as a step toward inaugurating a colonizing enterprise, and soon he began an active collaboration. On April nth he made a visit to the Temple in connection with legal action for enlarging the D’Allone trusteeship. This process was completed by July 1st, for on that date Percival went to a meeting “of the new Society for fulfilling Mr. D’Allone’s will in the conversion of Negroes, and disposing of five thousand pounds, a charity that will be put into our hands by Mr. King’s trustees….”⁴

Once this “new Society” had been formed, definite steps were taken toward securing a charter for the enterprise. On July 25, 1730, Oglethorpe dined with Lord Percival and discussed with him questions relative to the charter. Five days later Percival records having attended a meeting where “a petition to the King and Council for obtaining a grant of lands on the southwest of Carolina for settling poor persons of London” was agreed upon. The seven Associates present at this meeting signed the engrossed petition, but it could hardly have been presented to the Privy Council on that date for “the other Associates were to be spoke also to sign it before delivered.”⁵

It is probable that this petition was not presented to a meeting of the Privy Council earlier than September 17th.⁶ Its provisions were general in character, probably written out during the course of the meeting of the Associates on July 30th, and designed more to start the proposal on its journey through the slowly moving administrative procedure of the day than to be a guide for the specific provisions of a charter. The petition began by pointing to the well known fact that the cities of London and Westminster abounded with “great numbers of indigent persons who were reduced to such necessities as to become burdensome to the publick.” These persons, it was declared, would be willing to seek a livelihood in America if only they were provided with passage and the means of settling there. The petitioners, “well assured of considerable contributions,” were desirous of promoting this beneficial undertaking. His Majesty was reminded that the great tract of land was unsettled which lay between the Savannah and Altamaha Rivers within the Province of South Carolina which by recent agreement with the former Proprietors had reverted to the Crown. To establish a settlement there would be a great service to his Majesty’s Province of South Carolina and in some measure to all the Colonies to which this Province was a southern frontier. The petitioners therefore prayed for a grant of this tract of land, together with a charter of incorporation whereby, they should be enabled to enter into contact with such families as were willing to settle thereon, to receive charitable benefaction-from those desirous of promoting the worthy cause, and to make the necessary by-laws for the well-ordering of the intended Colony.⁷

This petition was referred to a Committee of the Privy Council. At this period the Privy Council itself was more of a registering than a deliberating body, its formal meetings being a convenient place for paying compliments to the King, seeing friends, and hearing the latest news. Any business matter of importance was always passed on to a smaller group of four or five members, named interchangeably in the Acts of the Privy Council, as “a” or “the” Committee, indicating that there was really but one committee and that it acted somewhat as a committee of the whole. Following a procedure not unusual, this Committee, on November 23rd, in turn referred the Petition here under consideration to the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, commonly known as the Board of Trade, to “report the properest method to render the same of most service to the public.”⁸

On December 3rd, Oglethorpe and three of his former collaborators on the Parliamentary “Committee on the State of the Gaols,” Messrs. Towers, Hucks and Heathcote, together with Sir John Gonson, appeared for a hearing before the Board of Trade.⁹ As might have been expected in view of the general terms used in the original petition, the Board of Trade was desirous that “these gentlemen would put into writing their particular proposals.”

The fact that the Acts of the Privy Council record the original Petition as coming from Lord Percival, the Hon. Edward Digby “and others” has led to considerable speculation as to whether Oglethorpe was among the petitioners. He was, of course.¹⁰ In fact, it would be nearer the truth of the matter to think of the petition as having come from “Oglethorpe and others,” giving the greater weight to the first term of the addition. This view is supported by the fact that the request of the Board of Trade that the petitioners submit a detailed statement of their proposals was met by an unsigned “Memorial” accompanied by a brief statement in the form of a letter from Oglethorpe to Alfred Popple, Secretary to the Board of Trade.¹¹ It was this Memorial which served as the basis upon which the Charter was drawn up.

The record of the steps intervening between the presentation of this Memorial and the granting of the Charter in its final form is a tedious one of conferences and consultations between the petitioners and the several boards, commissions, and law officers of the British Government. There were hearings and re-hearings before the Board of Trade, meetings of the petitioners with the Committee of the Privy Council, meetings of small groups of those concerned at the Cyder House, Bedford Arms Tavern, the Horn, or, more commonly, at the House of Commons, and many a hint passed to the officers concerned either in private conversation or through their friends. No one officer or board can be blamed for the long delay which elapsed. The fault lay in the loosely organized, and, from the point of view of colonial affairs at least, inefficient administration of the day. More than once there were threats of “flinging up” the affair on the part of disgusted petitioners. As in the early stages, Oglethorpe continued to be the guiding spirit of the group. Lord Percival used his personal influence to advantage on several occasions. But despite the diligent efforts and skillful manoeuvers of Oglethorpe and his coworkers, it took nearly two years to secure the approval of a charter acceptable to all parties concerned. An agreement had to be reached with Lord Carteret, heir of the Carolina Proprietor, who had not relinquished his rights; the Board of Trade had to be convinced that the holdings of the Corporation in “goods and chattels” should not be “stinted;” the clauses inserted by the Attorney General providing for a new election to the Common Council every three years, thus tending to “convert the scheme into a job,” had to be weeded out. Only the most difficult among these problems is here singled out for a brief consideration: i. e., the relation of the new colony to South Carolina.

Upon this point the Petitioners would not compromise: either the new colony should be set up independent of South Carolina, or it should not be established at all so far as they were concerned. Hence it is that the first report of the Board of Trade, that of December 17, 1730, formulated after two hearings with the Petitioners, stated:

In the end the Petitioners succeeded in freeing the new Colony from all control from South Carolina, except in that the chief command of the militia was placed in the Governor of South Carolina, and in that the surveyor of South Carolina was given the right to inspect and survey in Georgia to determine the amounts of quit-rents. It was fear that Georgia would be abandoned as a separate colony and incorporated into South Carolina that led the Trustees in later years to establish the semblance of a legislative body in the Colony.

Even after the Charter was approved by the Privy Council in January 1732,¹³ there was still insistence from some quarters on making the new Colony dependent upon South Carolina and this caused a delay of four months. Some blamed this delay upon the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs; others declared that it was Walpole who was holding up the Charter; both denied the charge. In reply to certain queries presented in February, Walpole declared that it was not proper for him to tell who was holding up the Charter. His conversations with Percival indicate that the delay was caused by the King. On March 10th, for example, he assured Percival that the objections to the Charter were the King’s and not his own. Walpole was astonished to learn that the gentlemen concerned held him responsible for the delay. “There were,” he declared, “times when things could be done, other times when they could not, but he would take the proper time to get the King to sign.”¹⁴

Finally, on April 12, 1732, the King did sign the Charter,¹⁵ and on June 9th it was witnessed at Westminster “by Writ of Privy Seal” and countersigned by Cocks.¹⁶ The date June 9th was taken as the official date of issue, but the Charter did not actually pass all the necessary offices of the Government until the latter part of June. Even then some errors made in transcribing had to be amended and the document passed under the Seal again sometime during the first week in July.¹⁷ On July 21st the Trustees petitioned the Crown to notify officially the Governor of South Carolina of the granting of the Charter, and this request was complied with on September 28th.¹⁸

The Charter of Georgia bore much in common with the charters of the earlier English Colonies in America, particularly the Charters of 1609 and 1612 for the first of these Colonies and the Charter of 1629 for Massachusetts Bay, albeit the Georgia Charter was a provincial charter, not one granted to a commercial company. But though a composite picture shows certain dominant features to stand out in fairly sharp relief as common to the governments of all the Colonies, no two of them were governed exactly alike. On the basis of the forms of their charters it has become customary to classify those colonies as “royal” or “crown” in which control was directly under the King; “charter” or “corporate” in which a charter was granted directly to the colony; and “proprietary” in which the grant was to a landlord or proprietor. If Georgia must be pressed under any one heading of this threefold classification, then the last is the most appropriate; but inasmuch as the term “proprietary” suggests ownership as property rather than the execution of a trust, no more inappropriate label could be chosen for Georgia, as an examination of the Charter will make clear.¹⁹

Regarded objectively, the Charter is a document some twenty pages in length, written in a cumbersome, legalistic style. There are no divisions into articles or sections, nor even into paragraphs, and the sentences are exceedingly long. The preamble stated in clear terms the threefold objective in establishing the Colony. In the first place, philanthropy combined with relief from domestic unemployment and support of the poor: “We are Credibly Informed that many of our Poor Subjects are through misfortunes and want of Employment reduced to great necessities … and if they had means to defray the Charge of Passage and other Expenses incident to new Settlements they would be Glad to be Settled in any of Our Provinces in America where by cultivating the lands at present waste and desolate they might … gain a Comfortable Subsistence for themselves and families… .” In the second place, an economic factor, for those unfortunate people might not only gain a comfortable subsistence for themselves and families “but also Strengthen Our Colonies and Encrease the trade, Navigation and Wealth of these our Realms.” Finally, the factor of imperial defense in the sanction of the new Colony as a buffer state for South Carolina.

The Charter incorporated the Petitioners who were desirous of accomplishing these worthy ends as one body politic and corporate by the name of the Trustees for establishing the Colony of Georgia in America.²⁰ To this corporation was granted the territory lying “in that part of South Carolina in America which lies from the most Northern Stream of a River there commonly called the Savannah all along the Sea Coast to the Southward unto the most Southern Streams of a certain other great water or River called the Alatamaha and westward from the heads of the said Rivers respectively in Direct Lines to the South Seas,” together with the islands within twenty leagues of the eastern coast of the said lands. The territory for an empire! But “what cared King George that the grant cut a wide swath through Florida, Louisiana, and Texas? Or that, incidentally, it included Albuquerque, Socorro, and other New Mexico settlements?”²¹ The Crown could grant but a seven-eighths interest in this land, however, for George Carteret, heir of one of the eight lord proprietors to whom Charles II had granted Carolina, with the 31st degree of north latitude as its southern boundary (thus including the Georgia grant), had not surrendered his rights as the other proprietors had done in 1729. But Lord Carteret had promised the Georgia petitioners as early as March, 1731, that “he would do what the King should do,” and by an indenture bearing date of February 28, 1732, his interest was legally conferred.²² This land was “to be holden of us our heirs and Successors as of our honour of Hampton Court in our County of Middlesex, in free and Comon Soccage and not in Capite,” meaning simply that the Trustees should take an oath of allegiance to the King and pay an annual quit rent fixed at four shillings for every hundred acres of land which the Corporation should grant, but this payment was not to begin until after such land had been occupied for a period of ten years.²³ The “trust” for granting this land was vested in the “Trustees” and their successors forever.

The twenty-one Petitioners were named in the Charter as Trustees, but, following the precedents of the corporation under the Virginia Charters and the Company of Massachusetts Bay rather than that of the Council for New England, the membership of the Georgia Corporation might be increased indefinitely. New members should be chosen by a two-thirds vote of the Trustees present at a yearly meeting to be held on the third Thursday in March. Both to insure the charitable aims of the Corporation and to make them clear to the public, the Trustees were prohibited from receiving any salary; and should any Trustee accept an office of profit, he should lose his membership in the Corporation. In addition, a Trustee could not hold land in Georgia, nor could land be granted to anyone in trust for his benefit. These provisions removing the possibility of gain from the Trustees were sufficient to make, as Professor Osgood has expressed it, “a radical difference between Georgia and all other proprietary provinces… . Whatever service was performed for the Colony by the proprietors must be disinterested and without a view to profit …, a condition precisely the opposite of that which lay at the base of all other proprietorships.”²⁴

It was laid down that the Trustees should prepare such laws as were necessary for the governance of the Colony, provided such laws be not repugnant to the statutes of England, and that they be approved by the King in Council. There were no provisions like those in the Charters of Maryland, Carolina, and Pennsylvania requiring the consent of the colonists to the laws. The only liberty specifically guaranteed to the settlers was freedom of religion, “except (to) Papists,” although a blanket guarantee of the rights of Englishmen might be drawn from the provision that “all and every the persons which shall happen to be born within the said Province and every of their Children and Posterity shall have and Enjoy all Liberties Franchises and Immunities of free Denizens and natural born Subjects within any of our Dominions to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and born within this our Kingdom of Great Britain or any other of our Dominions.”²⁵

In that it would “be too great a burden upon all the members of the said Corporation to be Convened so often as … (might) be requisite to hold meetings for the settling supporting Ordering and maintaining Such Colony,” a smaller body of fifteen members was named in the Charter as a Common Council. After the increase in the membership of the Trustees, the number of Common Councilmen should be increased to twenty-four. Membership was to continue during good behavior, with power vested in the Common Council to fill vacancies by election from among the Trustees. It was evidently intended that this smaller body should manage the routine and ordinary business of the Corporation; yet it was vested also with “full power and authority” in numerous matters of importance: it was to apply all the monies and effects belonging to the Corporation in such manner as it should think best, enter any covenant or contract deemed advisable, appoint and remove such officers, both for the Corporation and for the government in the Colony, as were thought necessary, and fix their salaries, and lastly, to grant land to settlers, provided that no more than five hundred acres be granted to any one person. In view of the importance of these functions, the precaution was set up that no action could be taken at a meeting of less than eight Common Councilmen. As this quorum proved difficult to obtain it was fortunate that the Charter left to the Board of Trustees, with no stated quorum, many general functions, including the passing of by-laws for the Corporation, approving persons to take subscriptions, setting up courts in the Colony, and making laws for its governance.

Although the Charter represented a marked departure from the prevailing policy of concentrating colonial administration in the Crown, seven provisions more rigid than had accompanied any former proprietary grant insured imperial control: First, and most important for the point under consideration, the authority granted to the Trustees for governing the Colony was granted for a period of twenty-one years only, after which time control would pass into the hands of the Crown; second, no laws, as noted above, would have force until approved by the King in Council; third, the governor for the Colony should be approved by the King, and should give security for observing the acts of Parliament relating to trade and navigation, and for obeying all instructions sent to him by the King in pursuance of these acts;²⁶ fourth, the Corporation should file an annual report of all receipts and expenditures with any two of several crown officers named; fifth, reports on the progress of the Colony should be given “from time to time” to one of the principal Secretaries of State and to the Board of Trade; sixth, all land grants should be carefully registered, and the Crown should receive annual reports upon these grants and should reserve the right to make special surveys if deemed necessary to ascertain the quit rents due; seventh, the chief command of the militia was placed in the royal governor of South Carolina. Taken as a whole these clauses provided ample authority for the Crown to see to it that the Georgia experiment did not pass beyond its control; in any case the departure from the favored colonial policy would be only temporary.

In practice the Crown gave the Trustees a free hand in the management of their colonial venture. A total of seventy-one Trustees was selected during the twenty years that the Charter was in force, but of these the great majority never gave any considerable time to the project. Dr. A4cCain estimates that a small group of seven “had more to do with the constructive policy of the Trustees than all the other sixty-four members of the Trust combined.”²⁷ In Egmont’s own fitting words, “It is a melancholy thing to see how zeal for a good thing abates when the novelty is over, and when there is no pecuniary reward attending the service.”²⁸

The failure to secure further financial support from Parliament in 1751 led the Trustees to open negotiations with the Crown toward surrendering their Charter. On April 25th the Common Council appointed a committee “to adjust with the Administration the proper means for supporting and settling the Colony for the future.”²⁹ On May 6th a memorial was presented to the Privy Council praying that sufficient funds might be appropriated to enable the Trustees to discharge the obligations already contracted. For the future, stated the Memorial, proper means should be provided “for putting the Government of the Colony on a more sure Foundation than it is at present thro’ the uncertainty of the Trustees’ being enabled to support it.”³⁰ According to the procedure of the day this Memorial was referred to a Committee of the Privy Council and thence to the Board of Trade. This latter body in turn requested reports on the matter from the Admiralty, opinions from the Attorney-General, and advice from the Lords Justices. The negotiations extended over a little more than a year.³¹

The Trustees represented the Colony as then in a flourishing way, with prospects for rapid advancement, but held the uncertainty of financial support under the present system to hazard the loss of all that had been done. In response to a query from the Board of Trade at one of the hearings as to the possibility of the inhabitants’ bearing the expense of government by taxes upon themselves, “they declared it as their opinion that in their present circumstances they could not bear any burden of that sort,” a view hardly in accord with the picture of the thriving condition of the Colony.³²

Acting upon the advice of two law officers of the Crown, Ryder and Murray, the Trustees executed under their common seal a deed of surrender of all their interest in Georgia. They gave up not only their authority to govern the Colony, which by the Charter’s terms would have expired on June 9, 1753, but also their trusteeship for granting the land which had been placed in the Georgia Corporation forever. The one-eighth interest in the land which the Trustees had secured from Lord Carteret was included with the rest Having closed out their business, on June 23, 1752, the last entry was made in the Trustees’ records and their seal was defaced. June 25th was taken as the official date for the surrender of the Charter.³³

____________

¹ Dairy of John Percival. First Earl of Egmont (Hist. MSS. Reports, 3 vol., London, 1920-23), I, 45-46.

² Egmont’s Diary, I, 90.

³ Samuel Smith (?), Publick Spirit Illustrated in the Life and Designs of the Reverend Thomas Bray. Published anonymously at London in 1746, this work has been taken as the official biography by the Associates of Dr. Bray. A reprint appeared in 1808.

⁴ Egmont’s Diary, I. 98. The two elderly trustees of the King Legacy did not wish for the moment to put more than £5,000 at the disposal of the new trust.

⁵ Egmont’s Diary, I, 99.

⁶ W. L. Grant and James Munro, Editors, Acts of Privy Council, Colonial Series (London, 1910), III, 299. Among the MSS. of the Marquess Townshend at Raynam Hall, Norfolk, is An Account of the several steps taken by the Privy Council upon granting the Georgia Charter. “This account begins with noting the receipt of the Petition of Lord Percival and others on the 17th Sept. 1730, and concludes with stating that the Charter passed the Great Seal on the 9th June. 1732.” Hist. MSS. Commission’s Eleventh Report (1887), Appendix, Part IV, p. 258.

⁷ Arthur Percival Newton, Editor, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series: America and West Indies, 1730 (London, 1930), pp. 357-358.

⁸ Acts of Privy Council, III, 300; O. M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1690-1765 (Cleveland, 1912), pp. 84-100, passim.

⁹ K. H. Ledward, Editor, Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantation, 1728-34, p. 165.

¹⁰ The names of Lord Percival, Edward Digby, and George Carpenter were no doubt placed at the head of the list with the view of securing action upon the petition.

¹¹ America and West Indies, 1730, pp. 383-384.

¹² America and West Indies, 1730, p. 395.

¹³ Acts of Privy Council, III, 305.

¹⁴ Egmont’s Diary, I, 235.

¹⁵ Ibid., I, 260; 262. It is difficult to be certain of these dates. Compare, e. g., The (London) Daily Post, June 10, 1732, p. 1, col. 2.

¹⁶ America and West Indies, 1732, p. 146.

¹⁷ Egmont’s Diary, I, 282-283.

¹⁸ Acts of Privy Council, III, 305; Journal, Board of Trade, 1728-1784, pp. 313-14, 316.

¹⁹ In their memorial to the King in connection with the surrender of the Charter, the Trustees recalled that the grant had been made to them “not as Proprietors thereof (italics in original) but as Trustees for granting the said Lands to such of your Majesty’s indigent Subjects, and to such persecuted Foreign Protestants, as should desire to inhabit, and reside in the said Province.” C. O. 5/671, p. 190.

The Charter of Georgia, says Sidney George Fisher, “differed from all the other colonial charters and constitutions, and was neither the charter of a trading company nor the constitution of a people, but a charitable trust or eleemosynary corporation.” The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States (Philadelphia, 1897), 68. See also the characterization by A. Berridale Keith in his Constitutional History of the First British Empire (Oxford, 1930), 170; and by C. M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History (New Haven, 1938), IV, 372.

²⁰ The name Corporation for Establishing Charitable Colonies in America was suggested by the Petitioner’s Memorial of December 7. 1730 (America and West Indies, 1730, p. 383), but there is no evidence that the petitioners ever contemplated more than one colony.

²¹ H. E. Bolton, and M. Ross, The Debatable Land (Berkeley, California, 1925), 71. With all the subsequent changes in boundary, Georgia remains the largest State east of the Mississippi.

²² Allen D. Candler, Editor, The Colonial Records of Georgia (Atlanta, 1904), II, 20, 152; Egmont’s Diary, I, 155, 278, 313.

²³ Land in England in the 17th Century continued to be held under feudal terms : frankalmoin, grand serjeanty, petty serjeanty, and knight service. These old feudal tenures were not adapted to the changing civilization, however, and since 1660 they had in general been merged into the one great tenure of free and common soccage, which carried with it only the obligations of an oath, of allegiance in the case of the King, of fidelity in the case of lesser lords, and the payment of a fixed rent. This “quit rent” freed the tenant from any service, military or otherwise. Sir Frederick Pollock, The Land Law (London, 1896), 59, 130-131. See also Ch. IV, “The Proprietaries: Introductory,” and the notes of pages 139 and 202-203 in C. M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, II.

²⁴ Herbert L. Osgood, The American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1924), III, 36-37.

²⁵ This provision was interpreted liberally in the contemporary press. The liberties guaranteed were said to extend to those transported to the Colony as well as those born there. See The Political State of Great Britain, XLIV (Aug., 1732), 151-152.

²⁶ This provision, as one might suspect, was placed in the Charter at the behest of the Board of Trade. It is interesting to note that in its report of December 30. 1730, the Board of Trade laid it down that “the person who superintends this Settlement … altho’ he shall not act under the title of Governor should … not only be approved by H. M… . but also take the naval oath to observe the Acts of Trade and Navigation… .” America and West Indies, 1730, 396-397. In view of the fact that the Trustees never appointed a governor and of the friction arising with the Board of Trade, this wording, had it been incorporated into the Charter, would probably have taken on great significance.

²⁷ James Ross McCain, Georgia as a Proprietary Province (Boston, 1917), 39.

²⁸ Diary. III, 124.

²⁹ Colonial Records of Georgia, II, 506.

³⁰ C. O. 5/671, pp. 189-194; Acts of the Privy Council, IV, 123-124.

³¹ The fullest account of these transactions is given in the Journal of the Board of Trade, 1750-1753, p. 197ff.

³² Journal of Board of Trade, 1750-1753, p. 213.

³³ Acts of Privy Council. IV. 128; Journal of Board of Trade, 1750-1753. p. 400.