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236 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
made governor-in-ehief of the province and placed at the helm of affairs.
He had fully met all expectations, not only of the province but of the
crown.
Returning prosperity was indicated at this time by the colony's
increased exports to England. These included 25,000 pounds of indigo,
55 hogsheads of rice, large quantities of resin, etc.; but the relative
weakness of the province was still such that Georgia, in response to a
communication from the Earl of Chatham, could offer little assistance
to the mother country in a war against the French in Canada. How
ever, the militia of the province was most effectually employed in safe
guarding the borders. It was at this time that a nest of outlaws con
gregated on lands between the Altamaha and the St. John was broken
up. The principal settlement of these brigands was located on the
Satilla River, thirty miles above its mouth, at a place called New Han
over. Here, the notorious Edmund Gray, somewhat after the fashion
of Robin Hood, held sway over a band of outlaws, who, holding no title
to land and professing no allegiance to Georgia, were deemed a menace
to the peace of the province. Orders were, therefore, issued by the
Crown to disperse these marauders, a result accomplished without blood
shed, chiefly through the determination of Governor Ellis to use the
militia if necessary. All preliminaries were arranged by a conference
with ample powers.
In a former chapter we traced at some length the growth of the
Midway settlement. The desire for an outlet on the ocean front led the
Dorchester Puritans, who were largely interested in exports such as
rice, indigo and cotton, to establish a town at the mouth of the Midway
River, on an eminence well wooded. Such was the beginning of
Sunbury.
Once a rival of Savannah, there is not a vestige left of the ancient
town which in colonial days arose on the gentle slopes of the Midway
River, near the point where it widens into St. Catharine's Sound. The
streets and squares and market places of the town have been completely
obliterated. Weeds today choke the deserted docks where vessels used
to land rich cargoes. Oyster shells in great white heaps mark the
rugged shore lines; and on the hilltops, where formerly blazed the
hearthstone fires, long rows of tasseled corn may be seen in summer,
forming a coat of green wherewith to hide the tragedy which time has
here wrought. The only link between past and present on these long-
abandoned heights is the pathetic little graveyard; but even here the
brambles riot among the crumbling tombstones.
Perhaps nowhere else in Georgia has the ruthless plowshare of Fate
exemplified more strikingly the final estate to which things human and
terrestrial are at last doomed. Yet this buried metropolis produced
two signers of the Declaration of Independence, a distinction enjoyed
by few cities in America. The commercial importance of Sunbury at
the beginning of the Revolution is attested by the fact that seven square-
rigged schooners have been known to enter the port in one day, and
Capt. Hugh MeCall,* Georgia's earliest historian—our authority for
this statement—adds that Sunbury competed with Savannah for the
'History of Georgia," Edition of 1909, Vol. I, p. 177.