No consideration, however brief, of his life and work can be complete without some reference to the remarkable effect the establishment of his colony had on emigration to America.  Pennsylvania gave a refuge and home to the most intelligent and progressive peoples of Europe, chafing under the religious restrictions which, at home, they could not escape.  The Mennonites, the Dunkers, and the Palatines were among these, but by far the most important were the so-called Scotch-Irish—­Scotchmen who, a century before, had been sent to Ireland by the English government, in the hope of establishing there a Protestant population which would, in time, come to outnumber and control the native Irish.  The Scotch were Presbyterians, of course, and finding the Irish environment distasteful, began, about 1720, to come to America in such numbers that, fifty years later, they formed a sixth part of our entire population.  Nearly all of them settled in Western Pennsylvania, from which a steady stream flowed ever southward and westward, furnishing the hardy pioneers of Kentucky and Tennessee, and forming the main strength of American democracy.  We shall see, in the chapters which follow, how many of the men eminent in the country’s history, traced their descent from this stock.

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One more interesting experiment in colonization, conceived and carried out by a man of unusual personality, remains to be recorded.  James Oglethorpe, born in 1689, for forty years led the usual life of the wealthy English gentleman—­first the army, then a period of quiet country life, and finally parliament.  There, however, he took a place apart, almost at once, by his interest in prison reform.  The condition of the English prisons of the day was indescribably foul and loathsome, and as horror after horror was unearthed by his investigations, a great project began to take shape in his mind.  This was nothing less than the founding in America of a colony where prisoners for debt should be encouraged to settle, and where they should be given means to make a new start in life.  For in those days, a man who could not pay his debts was cast into prison and kept there, frequently in the greatest misery, as though that helped matters any.

In 1732, Oglethorpe succeeded in securing a charter for such a colony, which he named Georgia, in honor of the King.  Trustees were appointed, the support of influential men secured, and on November 16, 1732, the first shipload of emigrants left England.  Oglethorpe himself accompanied them.  He had undertaken to establish the colony on the condition that he receive no recompense, and was authorized to act as colonial governor.