convenient for supplying the West Indies with maize, Indian pease, and
potatoes, for which the demand was very great, perhaps the first planters
could scarcely have turned their attention to more profitable articles,
but without strength of hands little advantage could be reaped from them.
It is true the West-India Islands would produce such articles, yet the
planters would never cultivate them, while they could obtain them by
purchase: the lands there suited other productions more valuable and
advantageous. Abundance of stock, particularly hogs and black cattle,
might have been raised in Georgia for the same market. Lumber was also in
demand, and might have been rendered profitable to the province, but
nothing could succeed there under the foolish restrictions of the
Trustees. European grain, such as wheat, oats, barley, and rye, thrived
very ill on the maritime parts; and even silk and wine were found upon
trial by no means to answer their expectations. The bounties given for
raising the latter were an encouragement to the settlers, but either no
pains were taken to instruct the people in the proper methods of raising
them, or the soil and climate were ill adapted for the purpose. The poor
and ignorant planters applied themselves to those articles of husbandry
to which probably they had been formerly accustomed, but which poorly
rewarded them and left them, after all their toil, in a starved and
miserable condition.

The complaints of the Georgians, however ignorant they might be, ought
not to have been entirely disregarded by the Trustees. Experience
suggested those inconveniencies and troubles from which they implored
relief. The hints they gave certainly ought to have been improved towards
correcting errors in the first plan of settlement, and framing another
more favourable and advantageous. Such scattered thoughts of individuals
sometimes afford wise men materials for forming just judgments, and
improving towards the establishment of the best and most beneficial