town; they are met by Oglethorpe himself, with the Highland company, are overcome, pursued, and most of the party killed or taken prisoners. A second party of the Spaniards march to the assault; they come to a place where the narrow avenue, bending with the edge of the morass, forms a crescent: as they reach the fatal spot, Highland caps rise up in the wood, and, under the command of Mackay and Sutherland, an attack is begun. The opposing grenadiers at first stood firm, and discharged volley after volley at an enemy whom the thicket concealed. But, as Oglethorpe hastened to the scene, he found the victory already complete, except as a Highland shout, or the yell of an Indian, announced the discovery of some straggling Spaniard. The enemy had retreated, with a loss of about two hundred men, leaving to the ground, which was now strown with the dead, the name of "the Bloody Marsh.”

Despairing of success, and weakened by divisions, deceived, too, by an ingenious stratagem, the Spaniards, on the night of the fourteenth, reëmbarked, leaving a quantity of ammunition and guns behind them. On the eighteenth, on their way to the south, they renewed their attack on Fort William, which was bravely defended by Stuart and his little garrison of fifty men. The English boats watched the movements of the retreating squadron till it was south of the St. John's; and, on the twenty-fourth day of July, Oglethorpe could publish an order for a general thanksgiving for the end of the invasion.

Thus was Georgia colonized and defended; its frontiers were safe against inroads; and, though Florida still lingered under the jurisdiction of Spain, its limits were narrowed. To meet the complaints of the disaffected, in July, 1743, Oglethorpe, after a year of tranquillity, sailed for England, never again to behold the colony with which the disinterested toils of ten years had identified his fame. For the welfare of Georgia, he had renounced ease and the enjoyment of fortune, to scorn danger, and fare "much harder than any of

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the hatred

the people that were settled there." Yet his virtues were the result of sentiment, not of reflection, and were colored by the prejudices of his nation of Papists, the aversion to Spain. But the gentleness of his nature appeared in all his actions: he was merciful to the prisoner; a father to the emigrant; the unwavering friend of Wesley; the constant benefactor of the Moravians; honestly zealous for the conversion of the Indians; invoking for the negro the panoply of the gospel. He loved to relieve the indigent, to soothe the mourner; and his name became known as another expression for "vast benevolence of soul."

The life of Oglethorpe was prolonged beyond fourscore; and, even in the last year of it, he was extolled as "the finest figure" ever seen- the impersonation of venerable age; his faculties were still bright, and his eye was undimmed; but his legislation did not outlive his power. The system of tail male went gradually into oblivion; the importation of rum was no longer forbidden; slaves from Carolina were hired by the planter, first for a short period, then for life or a hundred years. Slavers from Africa sailed directly to Savannah, and the laws against them were not rigidly enforced. Whitefield, who believed that God's providence would certainly make slavery terminate for the advantage of the Africans, pleaded before the trustees in its favor, as essential to the prosperity of Georgia; even the poorest people earnestly desired the change. The Moravians still expressed regret, moved partly by a hatred of oppression, and partly by antipathy to the race of colored men. At last, they, too, began to think that negro slaves might be employed in a Christian spirit; and it was agreed that, if the negroes are treated in a Christian manner, their change of country would prove to them a benefit. A message from Germany served to hush their scruples. "If you take slaves in faith, and with the intent of conducting them to Christ, the action will not be a sin, but may prove a benediction."

CHAPTER LII.

WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION.

AFTER the departure of Oglethorpe, the southern colonies enjoyed repose; for the war for colonial commerce had become merged in a vast European struggle, involving the principles and the designs which had agitated the civilized world for centuries. In France, Fleury had adhered to the policy of peace, when, by the death of Charles VI., the extinction of the male line of the house of Hapsburg raised a question on the Austrian succession. The pragmatic sanction, to which France was a party, secured the whole Austrian dominions to Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of Charles VI.; while, from an erudite genealogy or previous marriages, the sovereigns of Spain, of Saxony, and of Bavaria, each derived a claim to the undivided heritage. The interest of the French king, his political system, his faith, as pledged by a solemn treaty, the advice of his minister, demanded of him the recognition of the rights of Maria Theresa in their integrity; and yet, swayed by the intrigues of the Belle-Isles, and the hereditary hatred of Austria, without one decent pretext, he constituted himself the centre of an alliance against her. As England, by its arrogant encroachments on Spain, unconsciously enlarged the commercial freedom, or began the independence, of colonies; so France, by its unjustifiable war on Austria, floated from its moorings, and foretold the wreck of Catho lic legitimacy.

In the great European contest, England, true to its policy of connecting itself with the second continental power, gave subsidies to Austria. The fleets of England and France meet in the Mediterranean; the fleet of England is victorious. France declares war against England also; and the little conflicts in America are