Causton was one of the first company of emigrants, and landed in Georgia with Oglethorpe, in February, 1733. He was a man of no substance, and his character was not as good as it might have been. In fact, he left England in disgrace, having practised a fraud upon the public revenue. He was naturally proud, covetous, cunning, and deceitful. By his clever rascality he wriggled himself into Oglethorpe’s favour, and, on the arrival of the few emigrant gaol-birds in the Savannah river, was appointed a sort of dictator of the infant settlement, and had charge of the stores which the trustees sent over for the use of the colonists. We have already seen that, even when Wesley left for England at the end of the year 1737, the inhabitants of Savannah were not more than 518 in number, of whom only 369 were adult males and females. This was no large kingdom; but Thomas Causton was a large man, because he was at the head of it. Indeed, the molehill empire seems to have magnified itself to the utmost extent possible, by the introduction of law, the establishment of courts, the appointment of officers, the election of juries, and the adoption of everything else within its power which was likely to make it a pompous minikin miniature of the great system of government at home. Causton was “chief magistrate,” and of course a “chief” had subordinates under him. There was a recorder, also a bailiff. There were constables, and tithingmen, and other great functionaries, all armed with solemn authority to rule, govern, and keep in order, first themselves, and then about five hundred men, women, and children, including John Wesley the Oxford priest, and Charles Delamotte the merchant master of almost a ragged school. “The ocean is in tempest tossed, To waft a feather and to drown a fly.”