h and endurance of fatigue,
the whites were better calculated for such labour than the
negroes. These were the prominent arguments, drawn from the
various considerations of internal and external policy,
which influenced the Trustees in making this prohibition.
Many of them, however, had but a temporary bearing, none
stood the test of experience."[516]

It is clear, then, that the founders of the colony of Georgia were not
moved by the noblest impulses to prohibit slavery within their
jurisdiction. In the chapter on South Carolina, attention was called
to the influence of the Spanish troops in Florida on the recalcitrant
Negroes in the Carolinas, the Negro regiment with subalterns from
their own class, and the work of Spanish emissaries among the slaves.
The home government thought it wise to build up Georgia out of white
men, who could develop its resources, and bear arms in defence of
British possessions along an extensive border exposed to a pestiferous
foe. But the Board of Trade soon found this an impracticable scheme,
and the colonists themselves began to clamor "for the use of
negroes."[517] The first petition for the introduction and use of
Negro slaves was offered to the trustees in 1735. This prayer was
promptly and positively denied, and for fifteen years they refused to
grant all requests for the use of Negroes. They adhered to their
prohibition in letter and spirit. Whenever and wherever Negroes were
found in the colony, they were sold back into Carolina. In the month
of December, 1738, a petition, addressed to the trustees, including
nearly all the names of the foremost colonists, set forth the
distressing condition into which affairs had drifted under the
enforcement of the prohibition, and declared that "the use of negroes,
with proper limitations, which, if granted, would both occasion great
numbers of white people to come here, and also to render us capable to
subsist ourselves, by raising provisions upon our lands, until we
could make some produce fit for export, in some measure to balance our
importations." But instead of securing a favorable hearing, the
petition drew the fire of the friends of the prohibition against the
use of Negroes. On the 3d of January, 1739, a petition to the trustees
combating the arguments of the above-mentioned petition, and urging
them to remain firm, was issued at Darien. This was followed by
another one, issued from Ebenezer on the 13th of