They were starved and tortured, loaded
with fetters, locked up in filthy dungeons, herded together with
thieves and murderers, or those suffering from smallpox and other
loathsome diseases. It was horrible, but no one troubled about it.
There had always been misery in the world, there always would be,
men thought, and no one had pity for prisoners.
But now young Oglethorpe had a friend who was imprisoned for debt,
and, being treated in this horrible fashion, he died of smallpox.
Oglethorpe's generous heart was grieved at the death of his
friend, and he began to enquire into the causes of it. The things
he discovered were so awful that he stood aghast with horror at
the misery of the imprisoned debtors. And what was more he did not
rest until he had made other people see the horror of it also. Soon
there was an outcry all over England, and some of the worst evils
were done away with.
Then the idea came to Oglethorpe that he would found a colony in
America, where poor debtors who had regained their freedom might
find a refuge and make a new start in life. He decided to found
this colony to the south of South Carolina, so that it might not
only be a refuge for the oppressed, but also form a buffer state
between the Carolinas and Spanish Florida. So from George II
Oglethorpe got a charter for the land lying between the Savannah
and the Altamaha rivers, and in honour of the King the colony was
called Georgia.
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