ho was unable to
pay his debts was judged to be as criminal as the man who, though able,
refused to pay. Both were thrown into the same prison, and subjected
to the same hardships. In "Little Dorrit," Charles Dickens has told
something of those unfortunates who were thrown into prison for debt.

There was apparently nothing too atrocious to be sanctioned by the
commercial ambition of the English. It armed creditors with the power to
impose the most cruel burdens upon their debtors, and it sanctioned the
slave trade. Many crimes have been committed to promote the commercial
supremacy of Great Britain, and on that blind policy was based the law
which suffered innocent debtors to be deprived of their liberty and
thrown into prison.

This condition of affairs Oglethorpe set himself to reform; and while
thus engaged, he became impressed with the idea that many of the
unfortunates, guilty of no crime, and of respectable connections, might
benefit themselves, relieve England of the shame of their imprisonment,
and confirm and extend the dominion of the mother country in the New
World, by being freed from the claims of those to whom they owed money,
on condition that they would consent to become colonists in America.
To this class were to be added recruits from those who, through lack
of work and of means, were likely to be imprisoned on account of their
misfortunes. Oglethorpe was also of the opinion that men of means,
enterprise, and ambition could be enlisted in the cause; and in this he
was not mistaken.

He had no hope whatever of personal gain or private benefit. The plan
that he had conceived was entirely for the benefit of the unfortunate,
based on broad and high ideas of benevolence; and so thoroughly was this
understood, that Oglethorpe had no difficulty whatever in securing
the aid of men of wealth and influence. A charter or grant from the
government was applied for, in order that the scheme might have the
sanction and authority of the government. Accordingly a charter was
granted, and the men most prominent in the scheme of benevolence were
incorporated under the name of "The Trustees for establishing the
Colony of Georgia in America." Georgia in America, was, under the terms
of the charter, a pretty large slice of America. It embraced all that
part of the continent lying between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers,
and extending westerly from the heads of these rivers in direct lines to
the South Seas; so that the