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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 267
Notwithstanding the frequent and emphatic protests of the bold
patriots of Georgia against the arbitrary course of the British Crown,
there was little talk of actual separation and little desire for any
thing beyond mere redress of grievances, except on the part of
some few violent extremists, until .Parliament passed the Bos
ton Port Bill in 1774. This was, perhaps, the most drastic measure
enacted by the London lawmakers to punish the rebellious colonies;
but, to make matters still worse, Parliament revoked the charter of
Massachusetts and required all persons charged with crime to be sent
to England for trial. Though the heaviest suffering was entailed upon
New England, whose commerce it suspended, the other colonies were
given due warning of what they, too, might expect; but the harsh legis
lation also served to develop a sense of kinship which separate colonial
charters, rival interests, and inadequate facilities of travel, had tended
to obscure.
What called for the Boston Port Bill was the famous episode of the
tea chests. "While the imperial tax now rested only upon tea, the Puri
tan colonists of New England were determined to eliminate the beverage
from the bill of fare, until the oppressive duty should be removed; and
only the most pronounced Tory deigned to moisten his throat with the
forbidden liquid. The story of the Boston tea party is one of the famil
iar classics of American history. To the youthful imagination it rivals
the- legends of the adventurous Spaniards, DeSoto and Ponce de Leon;
and the youngest child in the nursery can prate of the bold men who, in
the guise of Indians, went on shipboard and plunged the outlawed mer
chandise into the sea. This provoked the retaliatory act, .which was
designed to close the Boston harbor; but, instead of reducing the indig
nant patriots to submission, it fired the whole Atlantic seaboard into
grim resistance and foreshadowed the banners of the Continental army
under George Washington.
Even the loyal colony of Georgia felt the tie of allegiance yield; and
nothing except the most persistent efforts on the part of Governor
Wright prevented the province from sending delegates to Philadelphia.
On July 20, 1774, there appeared in the Georgia Gazette a call for the
patriots to meet in Savannah for the purpose of taking radical action;
and the stout Whigs who sounded this earnest bugle-note were Noble W.
Jones, Archibald Bulloch, John Houstoun and John Walt'on, the signer's
brother. Pursuant to this call, the patriots met at Tondec's Tavern on
July 27th following and John Glen, the chief justice of the colony, pre
sided. To give some idea as to who the early patriots were, the following
committee of thirty-one, which includes the colonial ancestors of many
present-day Georgians, was appointed to report resolutions: John Glen,
Joseph Clay, John Smith, Noble W. Jones, Lyman Hall, William Young,
Edward Telfair, Samuel Parley, George Walton, Joseph Habersham,
Jonathan Bryan, Jonathan Cochran, George Mclntosh, John Benefield,
William Gibbons, Benjamin Andrew, John Winn, John Stirk, Archibald
Bulloch, John Screven, John Stacy, Henry Davis Bourquin, Elisha But
ler, WilMam Baker, Parmenus Wey, John Baker, John Mann, Suttoii
Banks, David Zubly, and John Morel. The resolutions were outspoken
in character, condemning as tyrannous the closing of the Boston harbor,
and emphasizing the injustice of taxation without representation. More-