ubt, that their own
Augustine would suffer from it."

Devoutly acknowledging the protecting and favoring providence of God
in this wonderful deliverance from a most formidable invading foe,
General Oglethorpe appointed a day of Thanksgiving to be observed by
the inhabitants of the Colony.[1]

[Footnote 1: Appendix, No. XXVI.]

Thus was the Province of Georgia delivered, when brought to the very
brink of destruction by a formidable enemy. Don Manuel de Monteano had
been fifteen days on the small island of St. Simons, without gaining
the least advantage over a handful of men; and, in the several
skirmishes, had lost a considerable number of his best troops, while
Oglethorpe's loss was very inconsiderable.[1]

[Footnote 1: McCALL, I. 188.]

The writer of a letter from Charlestown, South Carolina, has this
remark; "that nearly five thousand men, under the command of so good
an officer as the Governor of St. Augustine, should fly before six
or seven hundred men, and about one hundred Indians, is matter of
astonishment to all."[1]

[Footnote 1: Gentleman's Magazine for 1742, p. 895. See also Appendix,
No. XXVII. for an account of the forces.]

The Rev. Mr. Whitefield, in a letter to a noble Lord, says, "The
deliverance of Georgia from the Spaniards, one of my friends writes
me, is such as cannot be paralleled but by some instances out of the
Old Testament. I find that the Spaniards had cast lots, and determined
to give no quarter. They intended to have attacked Carolina, but,
wanting water, they put into Georgia, and so would take that Colony
on their way. But the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong. Providence ruleth all things. They were wonderfully repelled
and sent away before our ships were seen."[1] "A little band chased a
thousand; and a small one overcome a large people."

[Footnote 1: _Letters_, V.I. let. CCCCLXXXIX. p. 467.]

The writer of the _History of the rise, progress, and settlement of
the Colony of Georgia_, so often quoted in this chapter, closes his
account of this invasion with the following remark: "Instead of
raising and heightening their success, to do honor to the General's
character; we ought rather to lessen or diminish some of the
circumstances, to render it, in such an age as this, more credible.
But we have taken no liberties at all. The facts are represented,
step by step, as they happened; and the reader left to make his own
inferences, estimate, and opinion."[1]