"the Margraviate of Azilia." In his
description of the country he writes "that Nature has not blessed the
world with any tract which can be preferable to it; that Paradise, with
all her virgin beauties, may be modestly supposed, at most, but equal to
its native excellencies."

Having obtained, from the Lords Proprietors of Carolina a grant of the
lands between Savannah and the Altamaha, he issued his proposals for
settling this "future Eden"; but, though garnished with the most glowing
descriptions, and set forth under the most captivating attractions, they
were issued in vain; and the three years having expired within which he
was to make the settlement or forfeit the land, the territory reverted
to Carolina, and his scheme of colonization came to an end. The
Margraviate of Azilia was magnificent upon the map, but was
impracticable in reality.

The Lords Proprietors of Carolina having failed in their scheme of
government, and their authority being crushed by the provincial
revolution of 1719, they sold their titles and interest in that province
to Parliament in 1729; reserving to Lord John Carteret, one of their
number, the remaining eight shares of the country, as he refused to join
the others in disposing of the colony. After the purchase of the
territory of Carolina, which then extended from the St. John's to
Albemarle Sound, it was deemed too large for one government, and was
therefore divided into two provinces, under the respective titles of
North and South Carolina. The territorial boundary of South Carolina,
however, on the south, was the Savannah River; the remaining portion
being then held in reserve by the British Crown.

The same year that the House of Commons resolved on an address to the
King to purchase the rights of the Lords Proprietors to this territory,
a committee was appointed by Parliament "to inquire into the state of
the gaols of the kingdom, and to report the same and their opinion
thereupon to the House." This committee, raised on the motion of James
Oglethorpe, Esq., in consequence of the barbarities which had fallen
under his own observation while visiting some debtors in the Fleet and
Marshalsea prisons, consisted of ninety-six persons, and Oglethorpe was
made its chairman. A more honorable or effective committee could
scarcely have been appointed. It embraced some of the first men in
England; among them thirty-eight noblemen, the chancellor of the
exchequer, the master of rolls, Admiral