Welsh Journals

The Exiles Corner. HUGH JONES-PRISONER AND PIONEER. II. WHEN still a prisoner on parole, Hugh Jones fell in love with Selah, the daughter of Rowland Williams, a Virginia planter. He married her on 1st May, 1783. Twenty months later he migrated to Georgia. In a letter to his parents he says My father in law and my self (as well as thousands more families from the Northern States) moved to Georgia in the winter 1784-1785. We were six weeks on our journey, the distance being 500 miles nearly by the road we travelled, for we chused to go through the pine barrens, which was but thinly inhabited, so that we had to pitch our tents and camp in the woods everv night. But by the mercy of God whose providence con- ducted us through the same desert lands, we have arrived in the State of Georgia, which I like better than Virginia N. or S. Carolina, though I do not like the lower part of this State no more than I do the lower parts of the northward States; but I chuse rather to live in the hill country, which is most healthy. This State (or at least the upper part of it) is a new settled place, purchased lately from the Indians. I live in a new settled town named Washington, in memory to the illustrious Genl. Washington. I teach young gentlemen the art of surveying and navigation as well as qualify them for the store house and compting house. Our lands here produce Tob°, Indian Corn, Indigo, all kinds of English corn, especially barley; the inhabitants are unacquainted with the good liquor that is made of it, but I instruct them in it and encourage them in making barley to malt as much as I can." There is a P.S. to the letter:—" This being a new country, and few geese in it, I'm oblige to write with straw reed or anything I can get, which is the cause of my writing so bad a hand." Six years of prosperity made Hugh Jones a strong advocate of the advantages of America over the Homeland. He tried hard (but vainly to induce his parents and his brothers to join him in Georgia. In March, 1790, he wrote to his parents I am going to make a proposal which is as follows, viz., if you will leave your native country and come over to this part of America, I will maintain you while you and I live. It is out of my power to assist you while I remain at so great a distance from you, and as this part is but a new country and we undergo great hardships in settling a new place. I have got a large plantation opened, and I will build a house for you, and if it should coast you all vou are worth to get here I should be glad to see you; for here you might supply your wants and live in plenty and in peace. This is a fine country for raising tobo, wheat, barley, Indian corn, cotton, etc., etc., with a variety of fruits too tedious to mention here. Every thing that grows in Europe thrives well here, and this climate suits European con- stitutions. The lower parts next the sea coast is unhealthy. It is there they make rice and indigo, but we raise rice and indigo enough here for our own use. We can raise barley here, but there are few here that know how to brew. Only take retrospective view of the different situation of the farmers in the Island of Britain and the planters on the Continent of America! The farmer has to pay heavy rents for their farms, yea, and sell a part of almost everything they make in order to procure money enough to pay their land lords. They have to pay the tenth of all they make to a parcel of idle priests for read- ing a few prayers for them every Sunday, and sometimes read a sermon for them; besides all this they have a heavy tax to pav. Whereas on the contrary the planters works their own lands. Consequently they have no rents to pay. Our ministers of the Gospel are all here Methodist or Babtist, so they are no charge to us. They preach the Gospel to us in its purity, and bear their own charges. Only those that travel a great deal, they have a small sum allow'd as they ought to have. Our taxes here are but light, my tax last year amounted to no more than 19s. 6d. paper money, and I had 400 acres to pay for and one negro. If you were only over here you might live at your ease and go where you please, and you may sit under your vine and fig tree and none to make you afraid. The Indians are in a manner subdued, for we gained a compleat victory over them about two years ago, so that they were glad to leave the field and all their trinkets, their cloaths, their earrings and nose jewels, and other things peculiar to them. I would not advice you to come here if I knew it would be for your hurt, but I am fully persuaded that if you will come you will never repent it." To his brother John he writes :­ I still have a hope within me that I shall see some of you in the land of the living. I would do anything that lay in my power to get you here, but I am afraid you are too timorous. The thought of crossing the Atlantic makes you afraid. But in my humble opinion, my very dear friend, you had better cross ten such oceans tnan to remain where you are; for consider, is it not better for you to have an extensive tract of land of your own, where you may open a large planta- tion, build comfortable houses, plant orchards, make you a pleasant garden, raise a good breed of horses, a good stock of cattle and hogs, etc., etc., and raise Indian corn and all kind of English grain and pulse, with a great variety of other kind unknown to you, as also tobacco, rice and indigo, than to be confine to a barber shop,* knitting peri- wigs, and mowing old bristly beards. I expect you remain unmarried yet. If so you may marry Written in 1790 before he knew John had become a Methodist Preacher.