“Every spot is hallowed. Where the Vernon River flows by Beaulieu, the dashing D’Estaing landed to make his attack with the allied forces of Savannah. Hard by is Bethesda, ‘House of Mercy,’ where Jew, Protestant and Roman Catholic united in founding Georgia’s noblest charity. There it was that Wesley sang his inspired songs and Whitefield with his eloquence thrilled the world. On the river is the grove where General Greene lived and died, and Whitney wrought from his fertile brain the wonderful invention which revolutionized commerce. Near at hand, almost sunk into oblivion, is the spring made historic by the daring of Jasper and Newton. There stands Savannah’s pride, her Academy of Arts and Science. Over there is the home where Washington was entertained, and across the street are the guns which he captured at Yorktown. Here, at our very feet, Casimir Pulaski fell, charging at the head of his legion, while Jasper, rescuing the colors, yielded up his gallant life.” [Illustration: HEADQUARTERS OF WASHINGTON DURING A VISIT TO SAVANNAH.] The real romance of history is the settlement of the colony of Georgia. Two centuries ago the fertile lands extending from the Savannah to the Altamaha had attracted the attention of pioneers and public men. Sir Robert Montgomery had his eye upon this favored tract, as yet unsettled, and described it as “an amiable land lying along the same parallel with Palestine.” But it was reserved for the first soldier and gentleman of his day to found the new colony and perfect a noble benefaction. Had England exercised the same care over the other colonies as over Georgia, it is possible that the War of the Revolution might have been postponed indefinitely. It is worthy of note that while Virginia and the New England colonies were settled by exiles who drifted to the barren shores of Jamestown and Plymouth to escape religious and civil persecution, the Georgia colonists sailed the seas in the good ship _Ann_ under the fostering care of the mother country, piloted by statesmen and noblemen, and sought the smiling Savannahs with all the forms of royal patronage. These people, released from debtors’ prisons and freed from pecuniary obligations, cleared by a single act of royal clemency from bankruptcy, departed for Georgia with ships supplied from the coffers of nobility, while the spiritual welfare of the people was nurtured by the clergymen of the Established Church. It was a lofty benefaction, and when these hitherto unfortunate men felt their fetters fall, and knew that no bailiff awaited them in Savannah, it was no wonder that, on the morning of the 2d of February, 1733, they gave thanks “for the safe conduct of the colony to its appointed destination.”