Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
volunteering through necessity or exiled by insolvency and want. In
fact, they were picked men. They were commanded by officers most
respectably connected in the Highlands, and the descendants of some of
them have held and still hold high offices of honor and trust in the United
Kingdom.''
According to Colonel Jones, the Scotch emigrants, while in Savannah,
were told by some Carolinians that they were foolish to interpose them
selves between Savannah and Florida, that it was perilous in the extreme
thus to court danger on the frontier, and that the Spaniards, from the
secure forts in which they dwelt on the border, would shoot them upon
the very spot which they were expected to defend. But the Scotch
Highlanders were in no wise intimidated, and they replied by saying
that they would beat the Spaniards out of the forts which they occupied
and would thus find houses ready built in which to live. Such an answer
was well in keeping with the record which they were destined to make as
courageous fighters. It was full of the spirit of Bannockburn, and to
men like John Mohr Mclntosh, Capt. Hugh Mackay, Ensign Charles
Maekay, Col. John Mclntosh, Gen. Lachlan Mclntosh and others of the
same heroic stock, Georgia, both as a colony and as a state, owes a debt
of gratitude which time cannot diminish.
At an early date, Capt. Hugh Mackay, with the assistance of Indian
guides furnished by Tomo-chi-chi, located a road between New Inverness
and Savannah, and the same route is today followed by the splendid
highway which runs between Savannah and Darien. The town which
was settled by the Highlanders began to prosper. It was beautifully
situated on a bluff of the river, in a grove of wide-spreading live oaks,
while around it for miles stretched the level forests of Georgia. In
after years it was destined to become an important commercial seaport;
but before this time arrived it was fated to suffer almost complete anni
hilation. The Highlanders at New Inverness were the chief dependence
of Oglethorpe in the Spanish hostilities which ensued; and while they
saved Georgia from destruction, it was at grim cost to themselves.
Most of the gallant band were either killed in battle or taken prison
ers. The greatest fatalities occurred during the disastrous assault upon
St. Augustine. It seems that Colonel Palmer, who commanded a force
of Highlanders at the time of the siege, disregarded the instructions of
Oglethorpe, only to be surprised by the enemy at Fort Moosa, with
tragic results. The Highlanders fought like tigers, but fell in great
numbers. Those who survived were afterwards permitted to taste the
sweets of victory when the Spanish power was overthrown at the battle
of Bloody Marsh. But the remnant was pathetically small, some moved
to other localities, and the little Town of New Inverness finally passed
into other hands, to emerge eventually into the modern City of Darien.*
* Of the condition of this town in 1743 we find the following account in the
London Magazine for 1745, p. 551: '' Our first Stage we made New Inverness, or
the Darien, on the Continent near 20 miles from Frederica; which is a Settlement
of Highlanders living and dressing in their own Country Fashion, very happily and
contentedly. There is an Independent Company of Foot of them, consisting of 70
men who have been of good service. The Town is regularly laid out, and built of
Wood mostly, divided into Streets and Squares; before the Town is the Parade,
and a Fort not yet finish'd. It is situated upon a very high Bluff, or point of Land,