[Footnote 1:  Appendix, No.  XXVI.]

Thus was the Province of Georgia delivered, when brought to the very brink of destruction by a formidable enemy.  Don Manuel de Monteano had been fifteen days on the small island of St. Simons, without gaining the least advantage over a handful of men; and, in the several skirmishes, had lost a considerable number of his best troops, while Oglethorpe’s loss was very inconsiderable.[1]

[Footnote 1:  McCALL, I. 188.]

The writer of a letter from Charlestown, South Carolina, has this remark; “that nearly five thousand men, under the command of so good an officer as the Governor of St. Augustine, should fly before six or seven hundred men, and about one hundred Indians, is matter of astonishment to all."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Gentleman’s Magazine for 1742, p. 895.  See also Appendix, No.  XXVII. for an account of the forces.]

The Rev. Mr. Whitefield, in a letter to a noble Lord, says, “The deliverance of Georgia from the Spaniards, one of my friends writes me, is such as cannot be paralleled but by some instances out of the Old Testament.  I find that the Spaniards had cast lots, and determined to give no quarter.  They intended to have attacked Carolina, but, wanting water, they put into Georgia, and so would take that Colony on their way.  But the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.  Providence ruleth all things.  They were wonderfully repelled and sent away before our ships were seen."[1] “A little band chased a thousand; and a small one overcome a large people.”

[Footnote 1:  Letters, V.I. let.  CCCCLXXXIX. p. 467.]

The writer of the History of the rise, progress, and settlement of the Colony of Georgia, so often quoted in this chapter, closes his account of this invasion with the following remark:  “Instead of raising and heightening their success, to do honor to the General’s character; we ought rather to lessen or diminish some of the circumstances, to render it, in such an age as this, more credible.  But we have taken no liberties at all.  The facts are represented, step by step, as they happened; and the reader left to make his own inferences, estimate, and opinion."[1]

[Footnote 1:  HARRIS’s Voyages, II. 345.]

The Governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, addressed letters to Oglethorpe, “congratulating him upon the important services rendered to the Colonies; and assuring him of the interest which they felt in the honor he had acquired by his indefatigable exertions, constant exposure, extraordinary courage, and unequalled military conduct; and offering their humble thanks to the Supreme Governor of nations for placing the fate of the Southern Colonies under the direction of a General so well qualified for the important trust."[1]

[Footnote 1:  For some of the letters see the work last quoted.]