called the public to resistance. The people were taught, and most fortunately they perfectly understood the lesson, that the execution of this act would determine the question of freedom or slavery. Every where the most decided opposition was raised, and before the stamps themselves could reach the country, it was firmly resolved that they should not be used, and the officers, who had been appointed to distribute them, had all declined an employment, that was stigmatized with general abhorrence. The effervescence was so great in Boston,* that some disorders took place, which formed an exception to the general character of the town. During a period of several years, the people at times, in relation to political affairs, may be said to have returned to the first form of government in the colony, which * In a pamphlet entitled, “The conduct of the late administration examined, with an appendix containing original and authentic documents; Lendon, 1767;" and rep inted in Boston, there are various extracts of letters addressed to different public offices. Otis is mentioned two or three times in this work; and an opinion of his reported on hearsay, is given in the extract of a letter written probably by Governo: Bernard. The letter was dated October 19th, 1765, and the following is the extract. "By this you may guess (writes a person of unshaken loyalty to England) what a state this government is in, and it is not likely to mend, till the power and authority of Great Britain come to our relief. For this I can quote a great politician of this town, who is now at New York. This gentleman (it is Mr. Otis of whom he speaks) has, I believe, contributed more than any one man whatever, to bring us into the state of outlawry and confusion we are now in, and now begins to be frightened at it: before he left this town for New York, he said to a gentleman, if the government at home don't very soon send forces to keep the province, they will be cutting one another's throats from one end to the other of it." No man was quoted and misquoted more than Otis, he might have expressed himself in his usual strong manner, respecting the agitation of public feeling; the writer has attributed the remark to him, to justify sending a mili tary force into the province. was a simple democracy, and resumed their interference in a direct management of public concerns; yet this deviation was accompanied with very little turbulence, seldom with any destruction of property and never any of life. The conduct of these mobs, for such in truth they were, was remarkable for intelligence and moderation. At this period there arose a practice which was occasionally repeated, of signifying public sentiment in a very effectual way, though without any responsible or even ostensible agent, unless an inanimate one, the Liberty Tree, can be so considered. This tree was one of those majestic elms, of the American species, that form one of the greatest ornaments in the landscape of this country. It stood in front of a house, opposite the Boylston Market, on the edge of the street, which its spreading branches overshadowed.* On the 14th of August, 1765, an effigy representing Mr. Oliver, appointed to distribute the stamps, and a boot (the emblem of Lord Bute) with * In a letter of Governor Bernard to Lord Hillsborough, dated Boston, June 16, 1763, a copy of which was afterwards communicated to the legislature, he gives a description of this tree, which is alluded to, in the Vindication of the Town, entitled An Appeal to the World, as follows: "Your lordship must know that Liberty tree is a large old Elm in the High Street, upon which the effigies were hung in the time of the Stamp Act, and from whence the mobs at that time made their parades. It has since been adorned with an inscription, and has obtained the name of Liberty Tree, as the ground under it has that of Liberty Hall. In August last, just before the commencement of the present troubles, they erected a flag staff, which went through the tree and a good deal above the top of the tree. Upon this they hoist a flag, as a signal for the Sons of Liberty, as they are called; I gave my Lord Shelburne an account of this erection at the time it was made. This tree has often put me in mind of Jack Cade's Oak of Reformation." the devil peeping out of it, with the Stamp Act in his hand, and various other satirical emblems, were suspended from its branches. Chief Justice Hutchinson, directed the sheriff to remove this pageantry, but his deputies, from the indications of popular feeling. declined the task; and the Council of the Province thought if they did not interfere, that the affair would subside without disturbance. In the evening the figures were taken down, carried in procession through the streets, and through the Town House, to a small building in State-street, which Mr. Oliver had erected for a stamp office; this was entirely demolished, and the procession then moved to Fort Hill, where his house was situated, to make a bonfire of this pageantry. His family were alarmed, but some of his friends who were very obnoxious to popular ill will, remained with a shew of resistance. This provoked an attack, in which the windows were broken, and some injury done to the house and furniture. The next day Mr. Oliver announced through his friends on the exchange, that he had declined the office of stamp distributor; but it being intimated to him, that it would conduce to the quiet of the public, if he would come to this tree and resign it, openly, he appeared there accordingly, and declared in the presence of a large concourse of spectators that he would not accept the place. It was thenceforward called Liberty Tree. In February of the preceding year, the tree was carefully pruned, and the following inscription placed upon it. "This tree was planted in the year 1614, and pruned by order of the sons of Liberty, Feb. 14th, 1766."* On future occasions there was seldom any excitement on political subjects, without some token of it appearing on this tree: all popular processions paid a salute to it. Whenever any obnoxious offices were to be resigned, or agreements for patriotic purposes entered into, the parties received notice clandestinely, that they would be expected at the Liberty Tree, at a particular time, where they always found pens and paper and a numerous crowd of witnesses, though the genius of the tree was invisible. When the British army took possession of the Town in 1774, it fell a victim to their vengeance, or to that of the individuals, to whom its shade had been disagreeable.t The most striking instance of disorder occurred in the latter part of the same month of August, while the public exasperation against the stamp act was at its height. A mob assembled in State-street in the evening, and made an attack on the houses of Mr. Story and Mr. Hallowell, two of the officers connected with the customs, whose conduct had rendered them extremely unpopular. They entered * See Boston Gazette, March 31, 1766. + Every thing popular was contagious at that period. Similar trees were consecrated in various places. In Providence, an inhabitant gave a deed to the Town of a small piece of ground containing a large tree, to be used as a "Liberty Tree" forever. In the early part of the French Revolution, this emblem was adopted, and for many years, at the entrance of every public building a liberty tree was planted; the short-lived Lombardy poplar, which however survived what it was intended to be an emblem of, was used for this object, and soon appeared in a shabby, decayed state. these houses, breaking the windows, destroying the furniture, and almost demolishing them. At the house of Mr. Hallowell they penetrated to his cellar, and the liquors they found there inflamed them to madness. In this state they proceeded to the house of Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, which they plundered of a considerable sum in money and plate, destroyed all the furniture, and left the house in the morning with nothing but the bare walls remaining. One part of the devastation was irreparable, they scattered a vast quantity of manuscripts relating to the history and various concerns of the colony, which Mr. Hutchinson had been collecting with great assiduity for many years, and of which a very few were recovered. Compensation was afterwards made to the sufferers for their losses; and the public indignation was so universal, that no similar outrage was ever afterwards perpetrated. Chapter XV. The Stamp Act Congress-Opposite Principles of the Massachusetts Delegates-Brigadier Ruggles-Message of Governor Bernard. THE Committees from nine colonies, Masssachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New |