Oglethorpe, who alone seemed really in earnest in his desire to fight the Spaniards, deserted by the English fleet, getting very little support from the officers and men of the Carolina regiments, found it impossible to carry on the campaign. Even his own men from Georgia were worn out by fatigue and the heat of Florida. Reluctantly therefore he gave over his expedition, and returned to Savannah. The campaign, however, had shown the Spaniards that the governor of Georgia was a man whose power was to be respected, and they did not renew their raids into his province for some years. Oglethorpe was a great builder as well as a very skilful military leader, and he used this time of peace to improve the prosperity and beauty of the towns he had settled in his colony. Savannah was already a thriving place, with fine squares, parks, and wide shaded streets. Now he turned his attention to Frederica, a town of a thousand settlers. He meant this to be a strong frontier fort, and designed an esplanade, barracks, parade-ground, fortifications, everything that could be of use to protect Frederica from an enemy. Not far from Frederica, on the same island of St. Simons, was a small settlement called Little St. Simons. A road connected the two places, running over a beautiful prairie and through a forest, and at the edge of this forest Oglethorpe built himself a small cottage and planted a garden and an orchard of oranges, grapes and figs. Here he made his home, where he could watch the water and keep an eye on Frederica and its forts. A number of his officers built country-seats for themselves near the general's cottage, almost all of them larger and more pretentious than that of the general. Strange as it may seem, the founder of Georgia never claimed or owned any other land in his province but this one small place, and he lived almost as simply as the poorest colonist, a great contrast to the elaborate state kept by the governors of such colonies as Virginia and Maryland or the luxury of William Penn's home at Pennsbury.