Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

GENERAL CONGRESS RECOMMENDED.

bly in Virginia. A general court at the former colony had appointed a committee of nine to consider what steps were necessary in the present emergency.* On June 6, 1765, the committee recommended that a general congress of delegates from all the colonies be held in New York on the first Tuesday in October for the purpose of consulting together regarding the general condition of affairs in the colonies and "to consider of a general and humble Address to his Majesty and the Parliament, to implore relief." In this plan Governor In this plan Governor Bernard deemed it wise to concur, and accordingly, James Otis, Timothy Ruggles and Oliver Partridge were appointed Massachusetts delegates to the congress.t

The action of Virginia and Massachusetts aroused the patriots in all the other colonies to similar resolves. The representatives of Providence were instructed at a public meeting to use their utmost endeavors to have commissioners appointed to attend the congress at New York, and in September the Assembly appointed delegates to that congress. In South Carolina Christopher Gadsden advocated the

227

finally persuading the Assembly to adopt the measure.* Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut also chose delegates.† The New Hampshire Assembly seemed to favor the plan of a congress, but failed to appoint delegates. Delaware and New Jersey || sent delegates elected by members of the assemblies acting informally.

From making a show of peaceful resistance, the colonists' discontent soon took on a violent form. One of the first outbreaks was the affair of the

[ocr errors]

Liberty Tree." A large elm tree in Boston under which the opponents of the Stamp Act were accustomed to assemble had been given this title. Early on the morning of August 14, 1765, two effigies were suspended from the branches of this elm, one of them being designed for Andrew Oliver, secretary of the colony, who had been appointed stamp distributor; the other, for the Earl of Bute, prime minister. The latter effigy consisted of a jack boot, with a head and horns peeping out at the top. Soon catching the spirit of the thing, the spectators formed a procession, carrying these effigies and shouting effigies and shouting "liberty and

Ramsey, South Carolina, vol. ii., pp. 457-459;

sending of delegates to the Congress, McCrady, South Carolina, 1719-1776, pp. 561

John Adams, Works, vol. i., pp. 67-69. † Hildreth, vol. ii., pp. 526-527; Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, pp. 177-178; Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 113; Mercy Warren, History of the American Revolution, vol. i., p. 31 et seq.; Tudor's Life of Otis, p. 216 et seq.

Rhode Island Colonial Records, vol. vi., pp. 449-452; Providence Town Meeting Records, vol. v., pp. 122-123; Bates, Rhode Island and the Formation of the Union, p. 46.

563; Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution, vol. i., p. 41.

Pennsylvania, Votes of the House of Representatives, vol. v., pp. 419, 420, 426; Scharf, Maryland, vol. i., pp. 535-539; Meerness, Maryland as a Proprietary Province, pp. 478-482; Connecticut Colonial Records, vol. xii., pp. 410, 421-425; Frothingham, p. 182.

New Hampshire Provincial Papers, vol. vii.,

p. 81.

|| New Jersey Archives, vol. ix., pp. 524-526.

228

OUTBREAKS IN OTHER COLONIES.

property forever! no stamps!" They then pulled down a new building, recently erected by Mr. Oliver, next set off for the house of Oliver himself, in front of which they beheaded his effigy, and finally proceeded to break the windows of the house with stones.* Less than two weeks afterward, a mob attacked and broke into the house of William Story, then deputy register of the court of admiralty, destroying his books and the files belonging to the court and ruining much of the furniture. They next proceeded to the house of Benjamin Hallowell, comptroller of the customs, where they repeated these outrages, regaling themselves with his wines which they found in the cellar. Having completed this work, they went to the house of Mr. Hutchinson and soon demolished it. While they carried off his plate and furniture and other highly valuable articles, the chief and the only irreparable loss was the destruction of papers and other historical records that he had been collecting for more than thirty years. The work of the mob was soon stopped and some of the mem

* Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, vol. ii., pp. 120–121; Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 135; Tudor, Life of Otis, pp. 221-222.

Tudor, Life of Otis, pp. 223-224; Hildreth, vol. ii., pp. 527-528; Grahame, United States, vol. iv., p. 216; Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay, vol. iii., p. 124 et seq.; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. xxxii., p. 268; Massachusetts Archives, vol. xxvi., p. 143; Hutchinson's Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 143. See also Tyler, Literary History of American Revolution, vol. ii., pp. 400-401 and on the value of Hutchinson's writings, pp. 394-411.

bers arrested and committed to jail, but all the prisoners somehow managed to escape punishment. Most of the people of Boston, however, were shocked by these excesses, and at a meeting expressed their abhorrence of such occurrences. They then organized a civic guard to prevent a recurrence of such deeds.* Nevertheless, none of the of the rioters, though well known, were punished, which would seem proof positive that the community generally sympathized with the actions of the mob, though unwilling to participate in them themselves. Similar outbreaks occurred in the other colonies. On August 24 a gazette extraordinary was published at Providence, with Vox Populi vox Dei for a motto, and the same day effigies were suspended and publicly burnt. On the 27th of August, the people of Newport organized a procession to conduct the effigies of three obnoxious persons, with halters about their necks, to a gallows near the town house, where they were hung and later cut down and burnt, amid general applause. On the last day of October the country people in the vicinity of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, approached the town under apprehension that the stamps would be distributed, but on being assured that there was no such intention, they quietly re

[blocks in formation]

THE STAMP ACT CONGRESS.

turned. At Portsmouth, Newcastle, and Greenland, bells were tolled to mourn the decease of Liberty, notice being sent to all the people to attend the funeral. A coffin inscribed "Liberty, aged cxlv. years," was prepared for the funeral procession that started from the state house; minute guns were fired until the corpse arrived at the grave, when an address was delivered in honor of the deceased. Scarcely had the oration been concluded, however, when the corpse exhibited signs of life and was revived. The inscription on the lid of the coffin was altered to "Liberty Revived;" the bells then changed their mournful tune to one of joy, and the people responded with shouts of applause. In Connecticut, Jared Ingersoll, the distributor of stamps, was burnt in effigy, and so great did the resentment become that he finally resigned his office.*

On October 7, 1765, the committees appointed by nine of the colonies assembled at New York.† Such colonies

Johnston, Connecticut, pp. 286–287; Bancroft, vol. iii., pp. 139–141.

The delegates were as follows:
Massachusetts.-James Otis, Oliver Partridge,
Timothy Ruggles.

South Carolina.- Thomas Lynch, Christopher
Gadsden, John Rutledge.

Pennsylvania.- John Dickinson, John Mor-
ton, George Bryan.

Rhode Island.- Metcalf Bowler, Henry Ward. Connecticut. Eliphalet Dyer, David Rowland, William S. Johnson.

Delaware. Thomas McKean, Cæsar Rodney.
Maryland. William Murdock, Edward Tilgh-
man, Thomas Ringgold.

New Jersey. Robert Ogden, Hendrick Fisher,
Joseph Borden.

229

as had not appointed delegates sent assurances of support and co-operation. Timothy Ruggles was appointed president of the congress. "In the course of a three weeks' session, a Declaration of the rights and griev ances of the colonies was agreed to.* By this declaration all the privileges of Englishmen were claimed as the birthright of the colonists. among the rest, the right of being taxed only by their own consent.+ Since distance and local circumstances made a representation in the British Parliament impossible, these representatives, it was maintained, could be no other than the several colonial legislatures. Thus was given a flat negative to a scheme lately broached in England by Pownall and others, for allowing to the colonies a representation in Parliament, a project to which both Otis and Franklin seemed at first to have inclined. A petition to the king and memorials to each house of Parliament were also prepared, in which the cause of the colonies was elo

New York.- Robert R. Livingston, John
Cruger, Philip Livingston, William Bayard,
Leonard Lispenard.

New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia did not send delegates. *See Hannis Taylor, The Origin and Growth of the American Constitution, App. iv. See also Appendix III at the end of the present chapter.

It was during the debates on these petitions that Gadsden said: "There ought to be no New England man, no New Yorker, known on the Continent; but all of us Americans."- Howard, Preliminaries of the Revolution, p. 155; Bancroft, vol. iii., p. 150.

Tudor in his Life of Otis, p. 227 et seq., gives some extracts from these.

.

« PreviousContinue »