GEORGETOWN,  CAPTUBE  OF     568  GEORGIA  COAST,  CONQUEST  OF  THE


Georgeto'WTi  (S.  C),  Capture  of.  In  Jnne,
1781,  General  Marion  moved  against  George-
town, on  Winy  aw  Bay.  The  garrison  made
very  slight  resistance,  and  then  fled  down  the
bay  and  hurried  to  Charleston.  He  had  not
men  enough  to  garrison  Georgetown,  so  he
moved  the  spoils  up  the  Pedee  to  his  old  en-
campment at  Snow's  Island.  (See  Marion^a
Camp.)

Georgia,  Colony  op,  whs  one  of  the  original
thirteen  states  of  the  Union,  and  was  the  latest
settled.  When,  in  1729,  the  proprietors  of  the
CaroUuas  surrendered  their  charter  to  the
crown,  the  whole  country  southward  of  the
.  Savannah  River  to  the  vicinity  of  St.  Angns-
tine  was  a  wilderness,  peopled  l>y  native  tribes,
and  was  claimed  by  the  Spaniards  as  -a,  part,  of
Florida.  The  English  disputed  the  claim,  and
war-clouds  seemed  to  be  gathering.  At  that
juncture  General  James  Edward  Oglethorpe,
commiserating  the  wretched  condition  of  pris-
oners for  debt  who  crowded  the  English  pris-
ons, proposed  in  Parliament  the  founding  of  a
colony  in  America,  partly  for  the  benefit  of  this
nnfortniiate  class,  and  as  an  asylum  for  op-
pressed Protestants  of  Germany  and  other  Con-
tinent^al  states.  A  committee  of  inquiry  re-
ported favorably,  and  the  plan,  as  proposed  by
Oglethorpe,  was  approved  by  King  George  IL
A  royal  charter  was  obtained  for  a  corporation
(June  9,  1732)  for  twenty  one  years,  "in  trnst
.  for  the  poor,"  to  establish  a  colony  in  the  dis-
puted territory  south  of  the  Savannah,  to  be
called  Georgia,  in  honor  of  the  liing.  Individ-
uals subscribed  largely  to  defray  the  expenses
of  emigrants,  and  within  two  years  Parliament
appropriated  $160,000  for  the  same  purpose.
