CAMEO XXXVI.

the mother's view, however, her discipline and their characters never quite recovered a dispersion into different friends' houses, which was John Wesley. rendered needful by a fire, which destroyed the rectory.

1703.

At the time of the fire, John, the second surviving son, was five years old, having been born on the 17th of June, 1703. He was left behind in the nursery, or rather, when following the maid with the younger child, was frightened at the flame, and ran back, but was heard crying miserably, and dragged out just in time before the roof fell in. At this time, the elder brother, Samuel, was at Westminster School, and by and by he became a master and was enabled to give the advantages of education there to his brothers, John and Charles, whose abilities enabled them to gain scholarships, and ultimately fellowships at Oxford. There the effects of their mother's training showed itself in the influence these young men exercised over their contemporaries. In these slack times, when all kinds of excesses were winked at and tolerated, they lived in the practise of the strictest laws of the Church, constant at public and private prayer, communicating at every opportunity, keeping the fasts sincerely, and visiting the poor. Other youths joined with them, and from the method they tried to follow out, they were termed Methodists.

In 1725, John was ordained deacon, and also became Fellow of Lincoln College. He was evidently one of the leading religious spirits of the day, and General Oglethorpe invited him to assist in founding the Church of Georgia. The Epworth family were much excited at the opening of missionary work, Mrs. Wesley declared that if she had twenty sons she would give them all, and her husband only wished to be ten years younger that he might devote himself to the work.

Detachments of new settlers were being sent out, Saltzburg Protestants from Bavaria, Highlanders from Inverness, and Moravians, besides the English debtors, the good General apparently conceiving, as many people did in his time, that all Protestants were alike and could conform together.

The Saltzburgers called their home Ebenezer ; the Highlanders named their town New Inverness, and were soon good friends with the Red Indians, hunting the buffalo together in the great herds which then ranged the country. Oglethorpe sailed in 1735, with two ships, one containing, besides himself and John Wesley, two more for the mission, and the Moravian Bishop, whose piety made a deep impression on Wesley. They found the town of Savannah making great progress, and with a beautiful garden growing round it; and they proceeded to lay out the foundation of other towns.

So far all had gone well, but difficulties began. The English debtors, as might have been expected, did not like work, and when they found that it was not permissible to keep slaves, those who had the means betook themselves to Carolina, and the others, who could not, stayed and murmured against the exclusion of slaves and spirits. The Germans were willing to do without either, but they objected to the military

training rendered needful by the neighbourhood of the Spaniards who held Florida, and who showed symptoms of considering the Georgian settlement an aggression, while the Highlanders were well pleased to be drilled, but wanted their whiskey.

Sir Robert Walpole, always afraid of the peace being broken, showed a distrust of Oglethorpe; and there was another disappointment in John Wesley, who never attempted to learn the Indian language, or to go on with the mission that Mr. Quincey had begun, but remained ministering at Savannah, where his very strong Catholic doctrine and discipline were not appreciated by many. He was very susceptible too, and there was an attachment between him and a certain Miss Sophy Causton, which lingered on a good while, till at last he seemed to have decided against continuing his addresses, and she married. Thereupon, he took the strange step of excluding her from the Holy Communion. An action for defamation was brought against him, and he was obliged to leave the Colony. His brother Charles was about to sail for Georgia, and he wrote a dissuasive letter, but the engagement was made, Charles came out, and worked for some years more peacefully. So also did George Whitfield, a young man, who, though the son of the hostess of the Bell Inn at Gloucester, had obtained a University education by becoming a servitor at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he had been one of Wesley's first band of devoted followers, and was deeply pious, as well as endowed with a wonderful and enthusiastic eloquence. Coming out to Georgia he there won the people's hearts. He made himself welcome to the Indians, comforted the good dying chief Tomo Chichi, and founded an orphanage, which he supported by the collections after his sermons.

He was not opposed to slavery, thinking, like the old Spanish friars, that it afforded the best means of training and converting the negro race, and so it might be if the masters thought not of their own gain, but of the benefit of their slaves.

on the

More difficulties were coming. England and Spain were verge of war, and Oglethorpe found that the Spaniards were making preparations in Florida. He raised two little forts, called St. Andrew and St. George, and when the enemy were advancing as if to attack the former, the old soldier so fired his guns as to make it appear as if the fort and a fleet were saluting each other, and the Spaniards withdrew.

There was an amicable meeting, in which Oglethorpe consented to give up his station at Fort George, but he placed a fort on the little island of Amelia instead, and as there was a lull in hostilities, he went back to England and obtained permission to raise a regiment there for the defence; while the Spaniards were insisting on his recall and the break up of his colony.

When in 1739 the smouldering fire broke out, the Spaniards attacked the island of Amelia, but were beaten off after killing two Highlanders. Then Oglethorpe, with his own regiment, the Georgian Militia, and a number of friendly Indians, set out to attack the Spanish town of St. Augustine, which was well fortified, but he failed, chiefly because his

CAMEO XXXVI.

Settlers in
Georgia.

1737.

CAMEO XXXVI.

Oglethorpe's

return. 1738.

orders were disobeyed by his irregular troops. Moreover, he offended some of the Indians by showing anger and indignation when the head of a Spaniard was brought to him.

The next year, a strong force of Spaniards attacked Frederica, but Oglethorpe entirely defeated them, and there was a public thanksgiving, at which Whitfield preached enthusiastically. The following year, Oglethorpe went home, and there remained, though he continued to work for the benefit of the colony he had founded and saved. Though not an entire success, it is the monument of a wise and pure-hearted charity.

WITH Queen Caroline, much was lost of sagacity and firmness, though George II. still felt implicit confidence in Sir Robert Walpole.

This Minister's leading desire was to secure peace, and the country, after a term of rest, was in a turbulent condition, desirous of an outbreak. One great source of discontent was the trade with South America. The Spanish Government held that the use of colonies was to increase the trade of the mother-country, and therefore the numerous Spanish provinces from Florida southwards were forbidden to obtain European goods from any save Spanish traders; nay, even Indulgences were purchased wholesale from the Pope by his Catholic majesty, and retailed to the colonial Spaniards, who were perhaps the most superstitious of all Romanists.

Spain, however, was less and less able to minister to all the requirements of advancing civilisation, and there was a market for English goods. By treaty, the Spanish crown had been compelled to consent to one English ship every year being sent out to America, but no more, except that in stress of weather it was permissible to put into a Spanish port. The right of search for contraband articles had been acknowledged by all nations, and the American harbours were watched by Guarda costas, or preventive ships.

The English merchants were bent on eluding these stipulations. The single ship was kept continually full of goods by lesser ones, which supplied her as fast as her cargo was sold off; and again, smugglers would come off to the English ships, hovering on the coast, and make their bargains. The Spanish guards naturally used their right of search whenever there was suspicion, and often with violence and injustice. In especial, the captain of a Jamaica trader was by his own account

CAMEO XXXVII.

South American trade.

CAMEO XXXVII.

Jenkyns's Ears. 1739.

captured and his vessel searched by a Spanish Guarda costa, and though nothing contraband was found, he was treated with great violence, and one of his ears was torn off by the ruffians, who bade him show it to his countrymen. That he had lost half an ear was certain, and also that he displayed something in cotton wool, which he said was the missing lobe; but there were enemies who averred that he had left his ear in the pillory, and that the curiosity in his pocket was a bit of rabbit's skin! Moreover, all had happened seven years before the case was brought forward, and Jenkyns was examined before a Parliamentary Committee. When he was asked how he felt when he found himself in the power of those truculent enemies, he replied, "I commended my soul to God, and my cause to my country," and this reply made a great sensation throughout the country, and there was a determination to avenge the wrongs of Jenkyns. Sir Robert Walpole remained desirous of averting war, and he entreated the House to wait patiently and avoid exasperating the Spaniards by denunciations; but the opposite party were not to be silenced, and all his negotiations were betrayed to them by the Spanish envoy, a Hibernian Spaniard, Thomas Fitzgerald, now translated into Don Thomas Geraldino. This man, likewise, made the worst of everything to the Court of Spain, caused Walpole's intentions to be distrusted there, and declared the interest of Spain to be in the fomenting of English dissensions. George II. himself was more of a soldier than anything else, and without his Queen to check him, sent messages through the Duke of Newcastle, likely to lead to war.

However, Walpole succeeded in arranging a Convention, by which a compensation in money was agreed upon for the injuries that the Spaniards had inflicted upon the English in their trade. However, in Parliament, the arrangement was most indignantly received, at the right of search not being given up, nothing being said about Jenkyns' ears, nothing about the boundary between Georgia and Florida, and the sum accepted in compensation being insufficient. Young William Pitt, who was just becoming prominent in debate, spoke most hotly against it, and so did that strong Tory, or rather Jacobite, Sir William Wyndham, who ended by saying that remonstrance being of no effect, he should withdraw and serve his country with his prayers.

All this loud-voiced opposition greatly offended the Spaniards, who could not believe that it was against the will of the Minister, and thought that he was dealing treacherously with them. Cardinal Fleury offered to mediate, but in vain, and on the 19th of October, 1739, war was declared.

There was general rejoicing, every one expected conquests, som of the Members of Parliament walked in procession behind the hera who proclaimed war by sound of trumpet, the Prince of Wales rà not far behind, and stopped at the Rose Tavern near Temple Bar drink "Success to the War." Bonfires were lighted, and bells were rung in the churches. “Ah!” said Walpole, as he heard them, "there is ringing of bells now, soon there will be wringing of hands."