gentlemen of family and character in their respective counties; and, as he was sensible what an advantage it was to the troops of any nation to have in every company a certain number of such soldiers as had been bred up in the character of gentlemen, he engaged about twenty young gentlemen of no fortune, to serve as cadets in his regiment, all of whom he afterwards advanced by degrees to be officers, as vacancies happened; and was so far from taking any money for the favor, that to some of them, he gave, upon their advancement, what was necessary to pay the fees of their commissions, and to provide themselves for appearing as officers."[1]

[Footnote 1:  London Magazine, for 1757, p. 546.]

“He carried with him, also,” says a writer of that day, “forty supernumeraries, at his own expense; a circumstance very extraordinary in our armies, especially in our plantations.”

With a view to create in the troops a personal interest in the Colony which they had enlisted to defend, and to induce them eventually to become actual settlers, every man was allowed to take with him a wife; for the support of whom some additional pay and rations, were offered.[1] In reference to this, Governor Belcher, of Massachusetts, in writing to Lord Egmont, respecting the settlement of Georgia, has these remarks; “Plantations labor with great difficulties; and must expect to creep before they can go.  I see great numbers of people who would be welcome in that settlement; and have, therefore, the honor to think, with Mr. Oglethorpe, that the soldiers sent thither should all be married men[2].”

[Footnote 1:  Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol.  VIII. p. 164.]

[Footnote 2:  Manuscript Letter Book of Governor Belcher, in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society.]

Early in the spring of 1738, some part of the regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Cochran, embarked for Georgia, and arrived at Charlestown, South Carolina, on the 3d of May.  They immediately proceeded to their destined rendezvous by land; as the General had taken care, on his former expedition, to have the rout surveyed, and a road laid out and made passable from Port Royal to Darien, or rather Frederica itself; and there were a sufficient number of boats provided for passing the rivers.

As soon as Oglethorpe obtained the proper stores of arms, ammunition, military equipments, and provisions, he embarked for Georgia, the third time, with six hundred men, women, and children, including the complement of the new raised regiment, on the 5th of July, in the Hector and Blandford, men-of-war; accompanied by five transports.  They arrived at St. Simons on the 9th of September, where their landing at the soldier’s fort, was announced by a discharge of artillery, and cheered by the garrison.  The General encamped near the fort, and staid till the 21st, to forward the disembarkation, and give out necessary orders.[1]