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262 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
Boys in the colony; and the unanimous vote by which they were sum
moned to official positions in the historic assembly served to foreshadow
the radical action which was about to be taken by the determined body
of patriots. Seized with alarm, the loyalists sought to disguise the fears
which they secretly entertained by ridiculing the quarters in which the
convention met. "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" was
asked in the mildewed accents of an old sneer. But Tondee's Tavern
was not an inappropriate birthplace for the cause of liberty; and it was
not the first time in the history of the world that an humble wayside inn
was called upon to furnish the rude cradle of emancipation.
Laughter is sometimes premature; and, though Rome was once saved
by the cackling of Juno's geese, it was not decreed that Georgia should
be kept within the British allegiance by the same musical notes. The
loyalists could, well afford to employ mild explosives until the real
cannonade commenced. Further down the road lurked heaviness of
spirit; and before Yorktown sealed eventually the bloody volume which
Lexington opened many an ounce of vermilion was destined to redden
the king's highway and many an anxious sigh was fated to fill the Tory
lungs which were then seeking by forced mirth to drown the young voice
of Yankee Doodle.
Georgia until now had been conservative. Perhaps, of all the orig
inal thirteen colonies, she had been the favorite of the mother-country:
an affectionate distinction quite often conferred upon the youngest mem
ber of the household. Yet, it could not be said that Georgia was less
ardently devoted to the cause of liberty than was either Virginia or
Massachusetts. The very charter of the colony committed her to the
love of freedom by making her an asylum for indigent but honest pris
oners for debt. She cherished the traditions of Runnymede; and she
lacked neither the bold initiative nor the patriotic fearlessness which was
needed for the approaching crisis.
But there were good reasons for tempering the rash counsels of impa
tience with the prudent safeguards of conservatism. Under the original
charter, Georgia, for twenty-one years, had been faithfully served by the
old trustees, without fee or emolument; and some of them were still in
life, including the illustrious founder of the colony, General Oglethorpe.
She bore the Teutonic name of the Brunswick house and she felt con
strained by the obligations of the baptismal vow to respect the scepter
of the Georges. Moreover, she had been peculiarly fortunate in most
of her dealings with the British Crown. Prosperity had filled the coffers
of the thrifty merchants and enlarged the smokehouses and the corn-
cribs of the industrious planters; immigration had commenced to pour
into the fertile lowlands from the other colonies; and she had experi
enced none of the ill-usage which nurtures the spirit of discontent.
'Governor Reynolds, though dominated by an infamous secretary, was
not himself an unworthy man. His faults lay chiefly in sins of omis
sion. Governor Ellis, in his watchful care of the province, had set a
standard which his successor, Governor Wright, was zealous to equal, but
could not hope to surpass. Indeed, until the passage of the obnoxious
Stamp Act, the royal governor was well beloved by the people of Georgia;
and even then it was freely admitted that the zeal of the old royalist
was not inspired by unfriendliness toward the colonial aspirations, but