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like. The Governor came up to town from the Castle, and summoned a meeting of the Council, by whose advice he offered a large reward for the detection of the rioters. The sheriff seized a person known to have been active among them, but was induced to release him by the remonstrances of some considerable persons among the bystanders, who professed to dread any provocation to further disorder. A few other suspected culprits were committed to jail, but were rescued by a party, who entered the house of the keeper by night, and obtained his keys by threats of violence. The Superior Court was to begin a session on the day after the sack of Hutchinson's house. When his robed associates took their seats. on the bench, he joined them in the plain dress in which he had awaited the assault the evening before. Instead of charging the grand jury, as usual, he made a speech to the crowd collected in the court-room on the criminality and danger of such transactions as had just occurred; and the session in Boston was adjourned for six weeks. In other parts of the Province to which the Court proceeded, the grand juries everywhere took occasion to present addresses condemning the violences committed in the town. The Governor wrote to the Lords of Trade that the popular voice was in favor of the first of them, but that the assault on Hutchinson's house was generally disapproved.

As, after Oliver's resignation, there was no authorized custodian of the stamped paper which was now on its way, the Governor resolved to receive it himself, and keep it at the Castle; at the same time giving public notice that he had no purpose, as he had no right, to open any of the parcels, but that he felt bound to keep them in safety, lest any accident which might befall them should provoke the royal displeasure against the town or Province, and make them answerable for an indemnity. What was to be done after the day when, by the terms

of the Act, stamps would become necessary to the validity of business transactions and legal documents, was a question earnestly canvassed. Some people were of the opinion that business would have to cease, and the courts to be closed. Others advised to take the risk of continuing all transactions as heretofore, in disregard of the hated law. What was clear was, that, after what had taken place in Boston, no one could at present be so foolhardy as to attempt to distribute the stamped paper, even if in any quarter there should be a disposition to use it.

The intelligence brought from other Provinces showed the existence in them, too, of the same state of things. The stamps intended for New Hampshire came to Boston; but George Meserve, who had been appointed to distribute them, and who a little before had come from England to Portsmouth, had scarcely landed when he was frightened into a resignation, and Governor Bernard took the unclaimed property into his care. "The Stamp Act," wrote Governor Wentworth to Secretary Conway, "has been universally opposed," and the Stamp Distributors have been compelled by the mob" to engage not to execute their office. The militiamen "principally are the mob, so that experience has shown that it is in vain to beat to arms. It is impossible for me to point out, or even to conceive, what is necessary to be done to cure the insania which runs through the continent." And to the same effect was his language to the Board of Trade. "The Stamp Act has met with universal opposition. Nothing can be done here to enforce obedience to this Act. . . The militia are the very people on the other side of the question." 1 Augustus Johnston,

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1 Feb. 20, 1766, in answer to Conway's advice to apply to General Gage for troops, Governor Wentworth wrote to the Secretary that there were none nearer than New York; that they could not be spared

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from that place; and that, if it were not so, two hundred regulars could not be marched to New Hampshire through Connecticut and Massachusetts. (British Colonial Papers.) According to a report of General

Attorney-General of Rhode Island, who had been designated as Stamp Distributor for that Colony, made haste to publish his determination not "to execute his office against the will of our sovereign lord, the people." His promptness did not save him from indignity and danger. His effigy, and those of two other persons charged with unpatriotic proclivities, after being dragged about on a hurdle at Newport, were hanged and burned. The houses of all three were plundered, and they fled for safety, as did most or all of the revenue officers, to an English manof-war1 which was lying in the harbor.

In Connecticut, Governor Fitch was for submitting to the law, but was terrified into acquiescence in the popular sentiment. Jonathan Trumbull, then of the Council, afterwards Governor, would hear of no concession. Ingersoll persisted for a while in the purpose of executing his office of Distributor. From his home at New Haven he set out for Hartford, professedly to ask the advice of the Colonial Assembly which was in session there. On his way he was met at Wethersfield by a crowd of several hundreds of persons on horseback, who peremptorily, but without other violence, required him to resign his trust. A parley which followed, and which at last was carried on with heat, ended in his signing a form of resignation which had been prepared. He was conducted by the cavalcade to Hartford, where he read his resignation in the hearing of the Assembly.2

Gage, of Sept. 24, 1765, which I find among Mr. Sparks's papers in the Library of Harvard College, there were then somewhat more than ten thousand King's troops in America; namely, one hundred and thirty-five companies of infantry, and ten of artillery. Forty-two companies were in Canada, twenty-seven in Florida, eighteen in the western country, fourteen in Nova Scotia, three in New York, and part of a company in

Charleston, S. C. (Reverse of p. 69 of Sparks's MS. on the Stamp Act.)

1 A little squib entitled "Liberty and Property Vindicated, and the St-pm-n burned; a Discourse occasionally made on burning the effige of the St-pm-n [Johnston] in Newport," took the public taste so well that it was republished in Boston. It extols Pitt as the Moses of the American Israel.

2 Ingersoll, Letters relating to

The acts which have been described above were some of the rude symptoms of a fierce popular displeasure. It was not by movements of this nature that the English government was to be made to recede from its position. The tendency of some of them, rather, was to alarm friends of order, to the degree of detaching them from the popular cause. But the cause was too substantial to be ruined by folly on the part of misguided friends. It was taken up by steadier, more skilful, and more vigorous hands.

1765.

Sept.

The General Court of Massachusetts, convened in an extra session five weeks before the Stamp Act was to go into effect, was addressed by the Governor with an earnestness corresponding to the solemnity of the situation. He bespoke their condemnation of the late disorders in Boston, and of the current protestations of a purpose to resist the authority of Parliament, whose authority, he urged, could not be disputed, though, without doubt, it was liable to be exercised imprudently. He reminded them of the danger of a factious opposition, and especially of the probability that it would obstruct, rather than advance, attempts for the repeal of the obnoxious law. And he advised them to win the King's approval

the Stamp Act, 61-68. In Barber's Conn. Hist. Coll., 166, the following letter is printed:

TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF CONNECTICUT, When I undertook the office of Distributor of Stamps for this Colony, I meant a service to you, and really thought you would have viewed it in that light when you come to understand the nature of the Stamp Act and that of the office, but since it gives you some uneasiness, you may be assured if I find (after the Act takes place, which is the first of November) that you shall not incline to purchase or make use of any stampt paper, I shall not force it upon you. nor think it worth my while to trouble you or myself with any exercise

of my office; but if, by that time, I should find you generally in much need of the stampt paper, and very anxious to obtain it, I shall hope you will be willing to receive it of me (if I shall happen to have any), at least until another person more agreeable to you can be appointed in my

room.

I cannot but wish you would think more how to get rid of the Stamp Act than of the officers who are to supply you with the Paper, and that you had learnt more of the nature of my office, before you had undertaken to be so very angry at it.

I am yours, &c.,
J. INGERSOLL.
NEW HAVEN, 24th August, 1765.

by not waiting for his requisition before they should make good by a liberal grant the losses occasioned by the recent popular outbreaks. After three days he adjourned the Court, which had made him no reply as to either of these points. Looking forward to this meeting, he had written to the Secretary of the Board of Trade: " Every one tells me I shall not be able to engage them to assist me in carrying the Stamp Act into execution. However, I intend to try, and shall cry aloud, and spare not. If I do not succeed, there is an end of all government on the first of November. The people at present are Bedlam more so.' At this

actually mad,

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1 The day after the meeting of the Court (Wednesday, September 25), he informed them of the arrival of the stamped papers the Saturday before, and requested their advice as to the disposition of them, the abdication of Oliver having left them without legal custody. The Court replied by excusing themselves from any concern in the matter, the papers having been sent without any privity of theirs. (Journal of the Representatives for September 26.) The reason which the Governor gave for adjourning the Court was that, the judicial courts being then in session, a number of its members were kept away. But to the Board of Trade he wrote (September 28), that his motive to the measure was to prevent them from "adopting the follies of the people, and confirming their obstinacy. . There will be time for the people to grow cool and considerate." (Bernard's MS. Letters, IV. 164.)

'He had had serious misgivings about calling the Court together. August 18, he wrote to Thomas Pownall, begging that he might have express orders for it to meet at Salem, if at all. (Bernard's MS. Letters, IV. 11.) He could not, he said, "entirely depend upon the part the Assembly would act;" and at Boston they would

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be liable to be "menaced or reduced," while he could not convoke them elsewhere "without incurring a resentment which perhaps will be executed against me at my return to Boston, tho' a year hence." (Bernard to Pownall, August 23, in MS. Letters, IV. 15) He yielded to the Council's advice that he should meet the Court at Boston. (Letter of September 7, ibid., 158.)

8 October 12, he wrote further to the Board: "I have no better account of this Government than I have given in my late letters. The real authority of the Government is at an end. Some of the principal ringleaders in the late riots walk the streets with impunity. No officer dares attack them; no AttorneyGeneral prosecute them; no witness appear against them; and no judge sit upon them." (Bernard's Letters, IV. 169.) Again, October 17: "I have before complained of the Council in a body not supporting me as they ought to do, without an intention of arraigning individuals." (Ibid., 166.) Again, October 19, to John Pownall, Secretary of the Board of Trade: "I am the only person in the Province that has ventured to speak out in favor of the execution of the Stamp Act." (Ibid.)

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