Subsidiary to this it was designed to make Georgia a silk, wine, oil and drug-growing colony. It was calculated that the mother country would be relieved of a large body of indigent people and unfortunate debtors, and, at the same time, assist the commerce of Great Britain, increase home industries, and relieve, to an appreciative extent, the impost on foreign productions. Extravagant expectations were formed of the capabilities of Georgia by the enthusiastic friends of the movement. It was to rival Virginia and South Carolina, and at once to take the first rank in the list of provinces depending on the British crown. Its beauties and greatness were lauded by poets, statesmen and divines. It attracted attention throughout Europe, and to that promised land there pressed forward Swiss, German, Scotch and English alike. The benevolence of England was aroused, and the charities of an opulent nation began to flow towards the new plantation. The House of Parliament granted L10,000, which was augmented, by private subscription, to L36,000. Oglethorpe had implicit faith in the enterprise, and with the first shipload, on board the Ann, he sailed from Gravesend November 17, 1732, and arrived at the bar, outside of the port of Charleston, South Carolina, January 13, 1733. Having accepted of a hearty welcome, he weighed anchor, and sailed directly for Port Royal; and while his colony was landing at Beaufort, he ascended the boundary river of Georgia, and selected the site for his chief town on the high bluff, where now is the city of Savannah. Having established his town, he then selected a commanding height on the Ogeechee river, where he built a fortification and named it Fort Argyle, in honor of the friend and patron of his early years. Within a period of five years over a thousand persons had been sent over on the Trustee's account; several freeholders, with their servants, had also taken up lands; and to them and to others also, settling in the province, over fifty-seven thousand acres had been granted. Besides forts and minor villages there had been laid out and settled the principal towns of Augusta, Ebenezer, Savannah, New Inverness, and Frederica. The colonists were of different nationalities, widely variant in character, religion and government. There were to be seen the depressed Briton from London; the hardy Gael from the Highlands of Scotland; the solemn Moravian from Herrnhut; the phlegmatic German from Salzburg in Bavaria; the reflecting Swiss from the mountainous and pastoral Grisons; the mercurial peasant from sunny Italy, and the Jew from Portugal.