Full power was vested in them to sell the town lots, except such as they might determine to reserve for public uses. Upon completion of the survey, and upon filing plans of the town in accordance with the requirements of the Act, the Commissioners were authorized to select one of their number as an Intendant. Thereupon they were declared incorporated by the name and style of the “Intendant and Commissioners of the town of Hardwicke,” with power to make such by-laws and regulations for its good order and government as were not repugnant to the constitution and laws of Georgia, and of the United States. Although fortified by this legislation, no action was taken by the Commissioners, three of whom are now dead. Hardwick exists only in name, and will probably never be vitalized into a municipal entity. VI. PETERSBURG, JACKSONBOROUGH, FRANCISVILLE, &C., &C. Near the close of a spring day in 1776 Mr. William Bartram, who, at the request of Dr. Fothergill, of London, had been for some time carefully studying the flora of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, forded Broad river just above its confluence with the Savannah, and became the guest of the commanding officer at Fort James. This fort,—which he describes as “a four-square stockade with saliant bastions at each angle, mounted with a block-house, where are some swivel guns, one story higher than the curtains which are pierced with loop-holes, breast-high, and defended by small arms,”—was situated on an eminence in the forks of the Savannah and Broad, equidistant from those rivers and from the extreme point of land formed by their union. Fort Charlotta was located about a mile below on the left bank of the Savannah. The stockade of Fort James was an acre in extent. Within this enclosure were a substantial house for the commandant, officers’ quarters, and barracks for the garrison, consisting of fifty rangers well mounted, and armed each with a rifle, two dragoon pistols, a hanger, a powder horn, a shot pouch, and a tomahawk.[252] For a distance of two miles the peninsula above the fort was laid out for a town called _Dartmouth_ in honor of the Earl who had exerted his influence in procuring from the King a grant and special privileges in favor of the _Indian Trading Company of Georgia_. For the defense of the territory known as the _New Purchase_, had this fort been erected and maintained. Dartmouth never realized the expectations which, in its infancy, had been formed for it. After a short and feeble existence it gave place to Petersburg which, during the tobacco culture in Georgia, attracted to itself a considerable population and was regarded as a place of no little commercial importance.