When the Stamp Act reached Boston, intense excitement ensued, and it was denounced as a violation of the British Constitution, and as destructive of the first principles of liberty; a coffin was prepared, inscribed "Liberty, born at Plymouth, in 1620; died, 1765, aged 145 years;" an oration was delivered at the grave, a long procession having followed, with minute guns firing; but, just as the oration was concluded, the figure of Liberty showed symptoms of returning life, whereupon "Liberty revived" was substituted on the coffin, amid the joyful ringing of bells.

The obnoxious Stamp Act was passed March 22, 1765, but did not go into effect until November. It was such a source of disaffection, rebellious utterances and acts, that it was repealed the 18th of March, 1766, after having been in operation only four months. When the glad tidings reached America, the colonists saw in its repeal a promise of justice for the future, and went into frenzies of rapture. They had celebrations and bonfires, and were ready to purchase all the goods England had to sell. At New York, they put up a liberty pole in The Fields, with a splendid flag, inscribed "The King, Pitt, and Liberty." They ordered a statue of Pitt, who had insisted on the repeal, for Wall Street, and another of George III., for the Bowling Green.

The repeal of the obnoxious act was soon found to be only a snare of their rulers, under cover of which advantage was taken of their grateful mood to wring concessions. Citizens were seized by the British men-of-war in the harbor, and pressed to serve in the crews. Fresh taxes were levied. The soldiers openly insulted the people, and in a few weeks cut down their liberty pole. The angry but patient people raised a new pole, still with the loyal motto. The next spring the soldiers cut it down again. Next day came the Sons of Liberty, a society grown up with the peril of the times, composed of brave, loyal, and intelligent men, and set down a new pole sheathed with iron around its base, still with the old loyal motto: "To his most gracious Majesty George III., Mr. Pitt, and liberty." For almost three years this stanch liberty pole stood, though the soldiers attacked it once or twice. Finally, one January day in 1770, a squad of redcoats mustered at its base, and the gallant pole came down. The Liberty Boys were ready with another pole, but the timid corporation forbade them to raise it on public ground. So the Liberty Boys bought a strip of private ground close by the old stand, eleven feet wide and a hundred feet deep; and from the ship-yard, where it had been formed, they escorted their new mast, six horses, gay with ribbons, drawing it, a full band going before, and three flags flying free, inscribed "Liberty

and Property." They took the mast to the field, and dug a hole twelve feet deep, in which they stepped the liberty pole, after girding it with iron two-thirds of its length from the ground, defying the red-coats to cut it down. On it they shipped a topmast twenty-two feet long, on which was inscribed the word Liberty. This pole the British cut

down in 1776.

At Charleston, S. C., under a wide-spreading live oak-tree a little north of the residence of Christopher Gadsden, within the square now bounded by Charlotte, Washington, Brundy, and Alexander Streets, the patriots of 1765 were accustomed to assemble to discuss the political questions of the day; and from this circumstance, that oak, like the great elm in Boston, obtained the name of 'liberty tree,' and it is claimed, and generally believed in South Carolina, that under it Gadsden, as early as 1764, first spoke of American independence. In 1765, when the stamp paper reached Charleston, it was deposited at Fort Johnson. A volunteer force took the fort and captured the paper. Whilst they held the fort, they displayed a flag showing a blue field with three white crescents, which seems to have been improvised by the volunteers, of whom there were three companies. Underneath it, on the 8th of August, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed to the people. In 1766, the Sons of Liberty met under it, and with linked hands. pledged themselves to resist, when the hour for resistance came. Its history and associations were hateful to the officers of the crown, and after the city surrendered, in 1780, Sir Henry Clinton ordered it cut down, and a fire was lighted over the stump by piling its branches around it. Many cane-heads were made from its stump in after years, and a part of it was sawed into thin boards, and made into a neat ballotbox and presented to the '76 Association. The box was destroyed by fire, at the room. of the association, during the great conflagration of 1838.2

The old liberty tree in Boston was the largest of a grove of beautiful elms that stood in Hanover Square, at the corner of Orange (now Washington) and Essex Streets, opposite the present Boylston Market. The exact site is marked by a building, 2 Lossing.

1 Valentine's Manual of the City Councils of New York.

erected by the late Hon. David Sears, in whose front is a bass-relief of the tree, with an appropriate inscription. It received the name. of liberty tree' from the association called the 'Sons of Liberty' holding their meetings under it during the summer of 1765. The ground under it was called 'liberty hall.' A pole fastened to its trunk rose far above its branching top, and when a red flag was thrown to the breeze, the signal was understood by the people. Here the Sons of Liberty held many a notable meeting, and placards and banners were often suspended from the limbs or affixed to the body of the tree, and the following inscription was placed upon it: "This tree was planted in the year 1614, and pruned, by order of the Sons of Liberty, Feb. 14, 1766."2 Nov. 20, 1767, the day on which the new revenue law went into effect, there was a seditious handbill posted on it. It contained an exhortation to the Sons of Liberty to rise on that day and fight for their rights, stating, that if they assembled, they would be joined by legions; that if they neglected this opportunity, they would be cursed by all posterity. In June, 1768, a red flag was hoisted over it, and a paper posted upon it inviting the people to rise and clear the country of the commissioners and their officers.

In 1768, Paul Revere published a view of a part of the town of Boston, in New England, and British ships of war landing their troops, Friday, Sept. 30, 1768.

All the ships in front of the town, viz. the Beaver, Donegal, Martin, Glasgow, Mermaid, Romney, Launceston, and Bonetta, with several smaller vessels, carry the English red union ensign of the time on a staff at the stern, a union jack on the bowsprit, and a red pennant with a union at the main, except the Glasgow, which has a red broad pennant at her main. The Glasgow, seven years later, played an important part at the battle of Bunker's Hill. The troops are landed and being landed on Long Wharf, and have two pairs of colors, one of each pair is the ordinary union jack, the other a red flag with a union jack in the centre of it. This is probably the red union jack elsewhere mentioned.3

July 31, 1769, on Governor Bernard's being ordered to England, the general joy was manifested by congratulations among the people, salutes from Hancock's wharf, the union flag flying above the liberty tree, and bonfires on the hills. The flag was kept flying for several days.

1 The illustration represents the bass-relief.

2 Tudor's Life of Otis.

3 A fac-simile of this engraving was printed by the publisher of the ‘Little Corporal,' Chicago, Ill., in 1870. An engraving of Boston, by William Price, dedicated to Peter Faneuil, and probably of earlier date, as Faneuil died in 1742, represents numerous ships wearing the English union ensign, while the union flag or king's colors fly over the forts.