A friend of Oglethorpe's died in a debtor's prison, which aroused his sympathies for the poor. He examined English jails, and found them so dirty and dark and damp that strong-bodied men, to say nothing of women and children, soon sickened and died in them. Besides, he found that the jailers were often bad men, who whipped the prisoners on their bare backs and stole their food. The prison was a poor place for a man in debt, anyway. How could a man pay his debts while he was shut up in prison? [Sidenote: =King George II grants a charter=] Oglethorpe, like many other noble men before him, thought of America as a place of refuge for the unfortunate. King George II gave him a charter for the land between the Savannah and the Altamaha, and made his heart glad by declaring that all Protestants should be tolerated there. [Illustration: JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE _From an original portrait painted by Simon Francois Ravenet, from a mezzotint by Burford in the print room at the British Museum_] [Sidenote: =A select body of emigrants=] When the debtors heard the news that Oglethorpe was to plant a colony for them there was great excitement among them. But he carefully selected his settlers, so that no lazy man might be found among them. Arms and tools with which to work on the farms were given to the settlers. [Sidenote: =At Charleston=] When the time came, thirty families were ready to sail. Oglethorpe carried them direct to Charleston, South Carolina. When they landed, in 1733, the people of Charleston were only too glad to have a colony south of them as a "buffer" against the Spaniards who occupied Florida, and who had already attacked South Carolina. [Sidenote: =Savannah laid out=] Therefore, the people of Charleston, to give the new colony a good start, presented the settlers with one hundred head of cattle, a drove of hogs, and fifteen or twenty barrels of rice. Rejoicing in their new supplies, the colony sailed to the Savannah River, and not far from its mouth, on a beautiful bluff, Oglethorpe marked out the streets of the new city. The settlers went to work with a will, cutting down trees and making them into cabins. They soon had comfortable homes, although very different from what they had known in England. [Sidenote: =Italians=] Soon other colonists came to Savannah. Among these was a company of Italians who had come to raise the silkworm and to manufacture silk. [Sidenote: =German Protestants=] In the next year after Oglethorpe planted the settlement a band of sturdy German Protestants arrived. These settlers built their homes to the north of Savannah, and called the colony "Ebenezer," which means "the Lord hath helped us." Between these two settlements a band of pious Moravian immigrants founded a colony. Then followed the settlement of Augusta, far up the Savannah River and well out among the Indians, which served as a sort of outpost. [Illustration: OGLETHORPE SURVEYING THE SITE OF SAVANNAH] [Sidenote: =Highlanders=]