Filled with enthusiasm for their plan, the Trustees proceeded
to spread abroad the most glowing descriptions of the country
where the new colony was to be settled.
"The kind spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live --
At once they promise, when at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None sickly lives, or dies before his time.
Heaven, sure, has kept this spot of earth uncurst,
To shew how all things were created first."
So wrote Oglethorpe, quoting the lines as the best pen picture he could give
of the new land, and truly, if the colonists found the reality less roseate
than they anticipated, it was not the fault of their generous,
energetic leader, who spared neither pains nor means in his effort
to make all things work out as his imagination had painted them.
The Trustees having, with great care, selected thirty-five families
from the number who wished to go, the first emigrant ship sailed for Georgia
in November, 1732, bearing about one hundred and twenty-five
"sober, industrious and moral persons", and all needful stores
for the establishment of the colony.
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