The Olive Branch Petition was signed by representatives from twelve colonies, and the Address to the Inhabitants of Great Britain was from “The Twelve United Colonies”. Why only twelve?
Georgia was late. Not only was it founded later than the other twelve colonies (it was only 43 years old when the Revolutionary War started), but it took longer for Georgia to pull together and send delegates to the Continental Congress. Some reasons for this, in my opinion, are that it was relatively “young” and therefore more sparsely settled and less established than the other colonies, and that it was off by itself, being the farthest south of any of them (except East and West Florida, which are a different story). But perhaps there were other, more compelling, reasons.
Georgia didn’t send any delegates at all to the First Continental Congress in 1774. And while the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, it wasn’t until July 7 that Georgia’s Provincial Congress chose delegates to send to Philadelphia.
No doubt many of the members of the Continental Congress were glad to have all thirteen colonies represented, and no doubt the president of Georgia’s congress (Archibald Bulloch, who also happened to be one of the delegates chosen to go to Philadelphia) was glad to report to the Continental Congress that Georgia was ready to fully join in. He wrote to the president of the Continental Congress:
As we appear so late in the American Cause, We must introduce ourselves with Expressions of Regret, that our Province has been so long divided, A Number of Incidents have Contributed thereto, which we think the less necessary to particularize as we hope they are pretty well got over…
We have already Resolved strictly to adhere to the Continental Association, and are heartily disposed Zealously to Enter into every measure that your Congress may deem necessary for the Saving of America…
Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 2, pp. 192-3
The delegates chosen were John Houstoun, Archibald Bulloch (sometimes spelled Bullock; president of the Georgia Provincial Congress), John Joachim Zubly (a clergyman who had preached a sermon entitled “The Law of Liberty” when the Provincial Congress convened on July 4th), Lyman Hall (who later signed the Declaration of Independence), and Noble Wimberly Jones.