At the close of the war of 1812-15, a new impetus was given to everything throughout the South, and especially to education.  The ambition for wealth seized upon her people, the high price of cotton favored its accumulation, and with it came new and more extravagant wants, new and more luxurious habits.  The plain homespun jean coat gave way to the broad-cloth one; and the neat, Turkey-red striped Sunday frock of the belle yielded to the gaudy red calico one, and there was a sniff of aristocratic contempt in the upturned nose towards those who, from choice or necessity, continued in the old habits.

Material wealth augmented rapidly, and with it came all of its assumptions.  The rich lands of Alabama were open to settlement.  The formidable Indian had been humbled, and many of the wealthiest cultivators of the soil were commencing to emigrate to a newer and more fertile country, where smiling Fortune beckoned them.

The first to lead off in this exodus was the Bibb family, long distinguished for wealth and influence in the State.  The Watkinses, the Sheroos, and Dearings followed:  some to north, some to south Alabama.  W.W.  Bibb was appointed, by Mr. Madison, Territorial Governor of Alabama, and was followed to the new El Dorado by his brothers, Thomas, John Dandridge, and Benajah, all men of substance and character.

For a time this rage for a new country seemed to threaten Georgia and South Carolina with the loss of their best population.  This probably would have been the result of the new acquisition, but, in its midst, the territory between the Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee was ceded by the Indians, and afforded a new field for settlement, which effectually arrested this emigration at its flood.  The new territory added to the dominion of Georgia was acquired mainly through the energy and pertinacity of George M. Troup, at the time Governor of Georgia.

I have much to record of my memories concerning this new acquisition, but must reserve them for a new chapter.

CHAPTER III.

The Georgia company.

Yazoo purchase—­governor Mathews—­James Jackson—­burning of the Yazoo act—­development of free government—­constitutional convention—­slavery:  Its introduction and effects.

The grant by the British Government of the territory of Georgia to General Oglethorpe and company, comprised what now constitutes the entire States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, except that portion of Alabama and Mississippi lying below the thirty-first degree of north latitude, which portions of those States were originally part of West Florida.