is to enjoy all the privileges of a free-born subject."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Political state of Great Britain, for August_, 1732,
Vol. XLIV. p. 150.]
Oglethorpe himself stated the object, the motive, and the inducements
of such an emigration in the following terms. "They who can make life
tolerable here, are willing to stay at home, as it is indeed best for
the kingdom that they should. But they who are oppressed with poverty
and misfortunes, are unable to be at the charges of removing from
their miseries, and these are the persons intended to be relieved. And
let us cast our eyes on the multitude of unfortunate individuals in
the kingdom, of reputable families, and of liberal, or at least
easy education, some undone by guardians, some by lawsuits, some
by accidents in commerce, some by stocks and bubbles, and some by
suretyship; but all agree in this one circumstance, that they must
either be burdensome to their relations, or betake themselves to
little shifts for sustenance, which, it is ten to one do not answer
their purposes, and to which a well-educated person descends with the
utmost constraint. What various misfortunes may reduce the rich,
the industrious, to danger of a prison,--to a moral certainty of
starving!--These are the persons that may relieve themselves, and
strengthen Georgia by resorting thither, and Great Britain by their
departure.
"With a view to the relief of people in the condition I have
described, his Majesty has, this present year, incorporated a
considerable number of persons of quality and distinction, and
invested a large tract of South Carolina in them, by the name of
Georgia, in trust, to be distributed among the necessitous. Those
Trustees not only give land to the unhappy, who go thither, but are
also empowered to receive the voluntary contributions of charitable
persons to enable them to furnish the poor adventurers with all
necessaries for the expense of the voyage, occupying the land, and
supporting them, until they find themselves settled. So that now the
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