89 



son, Secretary of the Historical and Literary Committee, dated 

 August 20, 1841, in relation to the materials which he has col- 

 lected for his History of the State of Georgia, and inviting aid 

 in making further collections. 



The belief, he says, that there may be in the keeping of the Philo- 

 sophical or Historical Societies of Pennsylvania, some papers or docu- 

 ments, some written or published records, pertaining to this period, has 

 induced our Board to apply for the use of whatever are to be found. 



There have been many interesting ties subsisting between Penn- 

 sylvania and Georgia. In the founders of their respective colonies, 

 there was a harmony of plan which proved the accordance of their 

 natures, and in their treatment of the aborigines, the humanity and 

 moderation of each made him eminently conspicuous. Penn and 

 Oglethorpe were the noblest examples of lenity towards the Indians 

 in the history of the settlement of British America. The character 

 of the early settlers of the two colonies is analogous in many respects, 

 and closely interwoven. There emigrated to both of them large 

 masses of Germans, Saltzburgers and Moravians, coming from one 

 Fatherland, holding one creed, and bound together by identical do- 

 mestic habits : they separated in consequence of poverty, in America, 

 but still bore the lengthened and not ruptured chain of friendship 

 along with them. The town of Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, was 

 settled by Moravians from this colony in 1741, under the guidance 

 of their good Bishop Nitchman. In the labours of Whitfield we find 

 another bond of interest, and the large contributions to his Georgia 

 Orphan House, which he obtained in your state, evinced the reality 

 of its interest in the rising colony of the south. Franklin, the im- 

 mortal Franklin ! was another link to bind us together. For a series 

 of years he was the agent of this province, acting as her solicitor in 

 England, and his letters to friends in Georgia, could they all be 

 recovered, would constitute a most desirable possession for our citi- 

 zens. (Three of them, together with his account against the state 

 of Georgia for services rendered her in London, all in his own hand 

 writing, were fortunately found a few days since, among some old 

 papers in the loft of a counting-room, but the greater part of his cor- 

 respondence is irrecoverably gone.) These, with other facts, which 

 might be mentioned, are ties which bind us together over and above 

 the common sympathies which we entertain as members of the same 

 great nation. 



