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162 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
the English had vanquished the French fleet in the battle of the Nile, held up his
hands in helplessness and exclaimed: 'I cannot be everywhere.' But Oglethorpe
seemed to have the faculty of being everywhere and of covering every foot of ground
and every sheet of water, from the mouth of the St. John's to St. Simon's Island
He served the guns on shipboard and 011 the land batteries, and even acted as engi
neer. He had the power of initiative. He possesses the aggressive genius of attack.''
"Walpole called him a 'bully.' He was not that; but he was a military man
every inch of him, strict and severe in discipline, better suited to the scenes of war
than to the patient civic administration of the council board. After the Spanish
had been driven from the limits of Georgia and the peace of Europe had been accom
plished, leaving Frederica free from the fear of further invasion, Oglethorpe sailed
away to the old country and left the work of rehabilitating the Colony to other
hands. It is fortunate, perhaps, for his fame that he did so. The rules of the
trustees were much modified. The charter was surrendered to the Crown and the
drastic lines upon which the paternal government of Oglethorpe had been projected
were partially changed. But conditions had shifted. A Colony environed by an
implacable foe, subject to spoliation at any time, must be governed, perhaps, by the
rules of the ramparts and of the quarterdeck. A people basking in peace and
developing under the arts need vastly different regulations. But fortunate for all
of us it was that the first period of Georgia's existence was shaped by a master hand
and its destinies guided by one of the noblest men and one of the knightliest soldiers
in Europe.
"After the departure of Oglethorpe and the conclusion of peace Frederica began
to retrograde. The troops were finally removed and the fortifications fell into decay.
Houses commenced to tumble down, and there were 'barracks without soldiers, gong
without carriages, and streets overgrown with weeds.' Even in 1774, two yean
before the Declaration of Independence, Frederica was a ruin; from the crumbling.
walls of the deserted houses, figs andj pomegranates were growing; and the brave
town soon dwindled into nothingness. During the Revolution the British troops well-
nigh completed the spoliation of time. The mission of Frederica, according to CoL
Jones, was accomplished when the Spaniards no longer threatened. Its doom was
pronounced in the hour of its victory. Fannie Keinble, who visited the ruins in
1839 saw 'the wilderness of crumbling gray walls compassionately cloaked with a
thousand graceful creepers.' "*
GENERAL OOLETHOEPE'S EPITAPH.—In the chancel of the parish church at Gran-
ham, in the County of Essex, Eng., on a mural tablet of white marble, is the follow
ing inscription to General Oglethorpe. The last resting place of the great humani
tarian and soldier is near the water's edge, sixteen miles to the east of London. His
palatial residence, which stood in the immediate neighborhood, was burned to th^
ground some time during the last century and the moldering gateway to the garden
alone remains to tell where the colony of Georgia was first outlined in the dreams of
the illustrious founder.
Near this place lie the remains of JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE, Esq., who
served under Prince Eugene, and in 1714 was Captain Lieutenant in the first troup
of the Queen's Guards. In 1740 he was appointed Colonel of a Regiment to be
raised for Georgia. In 1745 he was appointed Major-General; in 1747, Lieutenant
General; and in 1760, General of His Majesty's forces. In his civil station he was
very early conspicuous. He was chosen Member of Parliament for Haslemere, in
Surry, in 1722, and continued to represent it till 1754.
In the committee of Parliament, for inquiring into the state of the jails, formed
25th of February, 1728, and of which he was Chairman, the active and persevering
zeal of his benevolence found a truly suitable enjoyment, by visiting with his col
leagues of that generous body, the dark and pestilential dungeons of the Prisons,
which at that time dishonored the metropolis; detecting the most enormous oppres-
sions; obtaining exemplary punishment on those who had been guilty of such outrages
against humanity and justice; and redressing multitudes from extreme misery to
light and freedom. Of these, about seven hundred, rendered, by long confinement for
debt, strangers and helpless in the country of their birth, and desirous of seeking
an asylum in the wilds of America, were by him conducted thither in 1732.
* Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials and Legends, by L. L. Knight. Vol. I.