Filled with pity for the poor debtors with whom the English jails were then crowded, he formed a plan to pay the debts of the most deserving, send them to America, and give them what hundreds of thousands of men have since found in our country,--a chance to begin life anew.
[Illustration] Great numbers of people became interested in his plan, and finally twenty-two persons under Oglethorpe's lead formed an association and secured a charter from King George II.

for a colony, which they called Georgia.

The territory granted lay between the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, and extended from their mouths to their sources and then across the country to the Pacific Ocean.

Oglethorpe had selected this tract in order that his colonists might serve the patriotic purpose of protecting Charleston from the Spanish attacks to which it was then exposed.
Money for the colony was easily raised,[1] and in November, 1732, Oglethorpe, with 130 persons, set out for Charleston, and after a short stay there passed southward and founded the city of Savannah (1733).

It must not be supposed that all the colonists were poor debtors.