Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/358

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GREAT SEAL OF GEORGIA IN COLONIAL DAYS.

last to sever her relations with England and join in the Revolutionary movement. Her most prominent men, James Habersham and Noble Jones, through their influence with the Royalists and the popular Governor, Sir James Wright, held the people down at least to a show of allegiance to the British Crown. "It excites small wonder," writes Col. Charles C. Jones, "that many of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Georgia should have tenaciously clung to the fortunes of the Crown, and sincerely deprecated all ideas of separation. Of all the American colonies, this province had subsisted most generously upon royal bounty, and had been the recipient of favors far beyond those extended to sister States." But if the old families were still faithful to England, there was one spot where Republicanism was aflame. The parish of St. John had been settled by New England people who had moved first to South Carolina and then to Dorchester and Sunbury