GEORGIA. William Erwin or Ewen, born in England in 1775. John Houston, son of Sir Patrick Houston, one of the prime instigators and organizers of the Sons of Liberty (1774), was Governor in 1774-76, 1778. His portrait was destroyed by fire during the Civil War. Houston County was named in his honor. Edward Telfair, born in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright in 1735 and died at Savannah in 1807. When the revolutionary troubles commenced he earnestly espoused the side of the colonies, and became known locally as an ardent advocate of liberty. He was regarded as the foremost citizen of his adopted state, and his death was deeply mourned throughout the state. FLORIDA. George Johnstone, a member of the family of Johnstone of Westerhall, was nominal Governor of Florida when that colony was ceded by Spain to Great Britain in 1763. He was one of the Commissioners appointed by the British government to try and restore peace in America in 1778. SCOTS AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE Presbyterians in the Colonies, being dissenters, were untrammeled and free to speak their mind in defence of their country's right, and history shows that they did not fail their opportunity: the doctrine of passive obedience never finding favor with them. In the Colonies the Presbyterian ministers claimed equal rights, religious freedom, and civil liberty. Their teaching had great influence, particularly in the South, and Patrick Henry of Virginia, David Caldwell, Dr. Ephraim Brevard, Rev. Alexander Craighead (d. 1766), and James Hall of North Carolina, the two Rutledges and Tennant of South Carolina, William Murdoch of Maryland, James Wilson and Thomas Craighead of Pennsylvania, Witherspoon of New Jersey, Read and McKean of Delaware, Livingston of New York, and Thornton of New Hampshire, with their associates had prepared the people for the coming conflict. In Maryland the lower house of the General Assembly was a fortress of popular rights and of civil liberty. Its resolutions and messages, beginning in 1733, and in an uninterrupted chain until 1755 continually declared "that it is the peculiar right of his Majesty's subjects not to be liable to any tax or other imposition but what is laid on them by laws to which they themselves are a party." These principles were reiterated and recorded upon the journals of every Assembly until 1771. The resolutions, addresses, and messages of the lower house during this period discuss with remarkable fullness and accuracy the fundamental principles of free government, and most of them emanated from William Murdoch, born in Scotland (c. 1720), who was one of the leading spirits and the directing force of the discussion. He led in the resistance to the Stamp Act and in other ways he united his colony in solid resistance to the attempt to levy taxes and imposts without their consent. In May, 1775, the General Synod of the Presbyterian Church met in Philadelphia and issued its