d
or unstamped, until the King had acted on the petitions sent from the
Colonies. No wonder that he was moved to call it "a wretched situation."
It was indeed a wretched situation for one who had no higher ideas of
duty than to continue to serve the King and oppose the interests of the
people.

There was something more of an uproar in South Carolina than in Georgia;
but the truth of history appears to be that the resistance offered to
the Stamp Act in Georgia was much more serious than that displayed in
Carolina. Although Governor Wright used all his influence to support the
act, the people exercised so much vigilance in watching the stamp papers
and the officer sent to issue them, that none of the papers found their
way into use.

The Colonies were bordering on a state of revolution, when, through the
influence of the Earl of Chatham, the Stamp Act was repealed. There
was great rejoicing among the people, and a general manifestation of a
renewal of loyalty to the mother country. But the seeds of dissension
had been sown. The Stamp Act unnecessary and uncalled for, had given the
people cause to ponder over their real relations to the Crown; and out
of the discussion that had taken place arose a spirit of independence
that grew and thrived and spread day by day.

In short, the repeal of the Stamp Act gave the people of the Colonies
only momentary satisfaction. Their success in securing its repeal
gave them a new taste for liberty of action, and a new sense of their
importance as individuals. But King George III. was never satisfied with
the repeal of the Stamp Act of 1765. He declared that it had wounded
the Majesty of England. It fretted him, and the irritation that he felt
extended like a contagion to his cabinet. When the Earl of Chatham died,
there was no statesman to take his place. The mantle of his office fell
on Charles Townshend, who was more anxious to please the King than to
secure good government to the people of the Colonies. He was anxious
for the British Government to assert with vigor its right to govern the
Colonies as it saw fit.

Meanwhile the spirit of independence in the Colonies continued to assert
itself more openly day by day, and the determination grew among them
not to submit to taxation without representation in Parliament. The
organization of Sons of Liberty and Liberty Boys grew and spread both
North and South. One of the most fruitful causes of discontent was the
fact that Georgia and t