Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

166 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
conditions he was doing the province any real harm. He ought to have
told the trustees the exact truth, but instead of doing this, he preferred
to urge a philosophic patience and a submissive spirit upon the colonists.
Georgia was the only one of the English provinces in which any
restriction existed at this time as to the ownership of lands, as to the
employment of slave labor, or as to the use of alcoholic liquors. As we
have already seen, the trustees, while forbidding negro slaves, permitted
white servants. These were brought into the colony under contracts
called indentures, in which they bound themselves to hard labor for a
term of years, usually from three to four; and at the expiration of this
time they were to be given lands to occupy as settlers. Servants of this
character were, as a rule, worthless. They were known as "indented"
or "articled" servants; and if not an indolent lot, they were ill-adapted
to agricultural employment in the Georgia swamps under a blistering
sun. As a consequence, many of them fell victims to malarial fever.
Besides, scores of these servants ran away, finding conditions of life
much easier in the other colonies. We are not surprised to learn, there-
fore, that for the first six years after Colonel Stephens became presi
dent of the colony, Georgia, instead of flourishing, slowly declined until
conditions finally reached an acute climax.
Prayers for relief had been made to the trustees as early as 1735,
but without success. In 1738 a petition, signed by more than a thousand
colonists residing in the neighborhood of Savannah had been forwarded
to the home authorities asking for modifications in the law as to slaves
and ownership of lands; but the Scotch settlers at Darien and the Salz-
burgers at Ebenezer had opposed the introduction of slave labor in
counter petitions. Consequently, the trustees had again refused to
modify a set of rules to which they were committed by fixed principles.
But there was no relinquishment of purpose on the part of the colonists.
An incessant bombardment of the London office commenced to reach" its
dramatic culmination when Thomas Stephens, a son of Georgia's aged
president, was sent to England as the mouthpiece of this discontented
element to demand measures of relief, much to the embarrassment of an
aggrieved father, who was not in sympathy with his errand.*'
While these disappointments were being suffered by the trustees,
further vexations were begun for them by Thomas Stephens, who had
come to England claiming to represent the people of Georgia. As the
agent of the inhabitants of the province, he had on March 30, 1742, pre
sented a petition to the Privy Council complaining against the oppres
sions of the trustees and asking for relief. This petition was referred
to the committee of the council for plantation affairs and a copy of it
was sent by the committee to the trust with the desire that an answer
might be returned as speedily as possible by the trustees. This answer
was filed on May 3, 1742, but before a hearing could be held by the
council the matter had been taken up by the House of Commons. On
April 30 a petition was presented in the House for Thomas Stephens,
but in the name of the inhabitants of Georgia, and it was moved that
the petition be referred to a private committee. The friends of the
trustees objected to this disposition of the matter, because they feared
* Thomas Stephens made to kneel before the House of Commons.