To these prudent and salutary regulations followed a statute entitled “An act for rendering the Province of Georgia more defencible, by prohibiting the importation of black slaves, or negroes, into the same.”  For this enactment, besides the consideration stated in the title, the following reasons are assigned:  1.  On account of the cost of purchase, which, the settlers themselves being too poor to defray, must be met by the Trustees; on whom it would be a tax greater than they had funds to pay, or believed that they could obtain. 2.  Because of the additional expense of their after maintenance, which must be provided, in addition to that already incurred for the support of those by whom they were to be employed.  And 3. because the Trustees were desirous that the settlers should acquire the habits of labor and industry, of economy and thrift, by personal application.[1]

[Footnote 1:  See their reasons at large in the publication entitled Impartial Inquiry into the State and Utility of the Province of Georgia, Lond. 1741; or in Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, Vol.  I. pages 166-173, and McCALL’S History, Vol.  I. p. 25, &c.]

It is remarked by Mr. Burke, that “These regulations, though well intended, and indeed meant to bring about very excellent purposes, yet might at first, as it did afterwards, appear, that they were made without sufficiently consulting the nature of the country, or the disposition of the people which they regarded."[1]

[Footnote 1:  European Settlements in America, Vol.  II. p. 266.]

Governor Belcher, of Massachusetts, in a letter to Lord Egmont, observes, “I have read Mr. Oglethorpe’s state of the new colony of Georgia once and again; and by its harbors, rivers, soil and productions, do not doubt that it must in time make a fine addition to the British Empire in America; and I still insist upon it that the prohibitory regulations of the Trustees are essential to its healthy and prosperous condition; and the alteration of the Constitution to the advantage of females must give great encouragement to first undertakers or settlers, as your Lordship observes."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Letter Book, in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol.  V. p. 254.]

The visit of the Indians was made subservient to the favorite purpose of Oglethorpe, by rousing attention to the improvement of the race in knowledge and religion.  At their earliest interviews with him, they had expressed a wish that their children might be taught to speak and read the English language, and they themselves instructed in the principles of Christianity.  From their intercourse with the Carolinians for many years, they had been made sensible of the superiority which such attainments conferred, even where that intercourse had been, as it mostly was, with the traders; but no missionary had been sent, as in our times, to form them to civilization, and “teach them