ompanies--the Georgia Company, the Georgia
Mississippi Company, the Upper Mississippi Company, and the Tennessee
Company--thirty-five million acres of land for $500,000. Nothing was now
wanting to complete the fraud but the signature of the governor. If he
put his name to the bill, it became a law. If he refused to sign it,
the scheme of the swindlers would fail. General George Matthews was the
governor at that time, and, though two of his sons had been made members
of the land-grabbing companies, it was hoped that he would refuse to
sign the bill. The hope was justified by the fact that he had refused to
sign a similar bill, and had given some very good reasons for it. It
was known, too, that he was a man of great courage, and honest in his
intentions; but the influence brought to bear on him was too great. His
judgment was weakened by the clamor of the prominent men around him, who
had become the paid agents of the swindlers. He resisted for some time,
but finally agreed to sign the bill. The secretary of Governor Matthews,
a man named Urquhart, tried to prevent the signing of the bill by
working on the governor's superstitions. He dipped the pen in oil,
thinking that when Matthews came to write with it, and found that the
ink refused to flow, he would take it as an omen that the bill should
not be signed. The governor was startled, when, after several efforts,
he found the pen would not write; but he was not a man to let so
trifling a matter stand in his way. He directed his secretary to make
another pen, and with this he made the land-steal bill a law. By a
stroke he made the bill a law, and also signed away his own popularity
and influence. The people of Georgia never trusted him afterwards; and
he left the State, finding it unpleasant and uncomfortable to live among
those who had lost their respect for him. Yet no charge of corruption
was ever made against him.

When the people learned that the Yazoo Fraud had become a law, they rose
up as one man to denounce it. Those who lived in the neighborhood of
Augusta determined to put to death the men who had betrayed them. They
marched to the legislative halls, and were only prevented from carrying
out their threats by the persuasion of the small minority of the members
that had refused to be coaxed, bullied, or bribed into voting for the
Yazoo Fraud. But the indignation of the people continued to grow as
they learned of the corrupt methods that had been employed to pass