The British Parliament 121
all, though they naturally were a little slow in saying so plainly.^16 On this there may
have been more unanimity in 1765 than on any subsequent question, including
independence when it came, by which time much violence had occurred, and con-
servatism had had a chance to form.
Resistance to the Stamp Act began in Virginia, where the house of burgesses
forwarded a protest to England in May 1765, and at Boston, where in June the
house of representatives, by a circular letter to the other colonial assemblies, in-
vited them to send some of their members to a general meeting at New York, at
which a common front might be presented to Parliament. During the summer
staid Boston saw unedifying scenes, which were in fact revolutionary in character.
A group of men of the shopkeeping and artisan class, calling themselves first the
Loyal Nine and then the Sons of Liberty, and maintaining a discreet contact with
prominent merchants and with a few members of the assembly (including John
Adams on at least one occasion) served as intermediaries between upper and
lower classes in the city. They persuaded certain rougher elements, which had
staged a kind of gang warfare on the preceding Guy Fawkes day, that the Stamp
Act was a threat to their liberties, and that their physical energies might find a
worthier and more patriotic outlet. Someone made an effigy of Andrew Oliver,
who was to be distributor of stamps under the Act, and hung it on a tree. A mob
seized the effigy, paraded it about, and beheaded it. Another mob broke into the
vice- admiralty court, one of the courts involved in Grenville’s general reorganiza-
tion, and authorized to enforce the Stamp Act. The court records were destroyed.
When Thomas Hutchinson, a Bostonian of old family, who was Chief Justice and
Lieutenant Governor, tried to stop these depredations, the mobs attacked his
house, a new mansion in the Georgian style, systematically wrecked it, broke up
the furniture, cut down the trees, and stole £900 in cash. In the face of these
disturbances, and lesser ones elsewhere, the stamp distributors throughout the
colonies were intimidated into resigning. The Stamp Act Congress met in New
York, in more or less open defiance of the colonial governors, with these commo-
tions ringing in their ears. Nine colonies had sent delegates, of whom the most
vehement were the most influential. “It’s to be feared,” reported General Gage,
“that the Spirit of Democracy is strong amongst them.”^17 By this he meant the
inclination to question the governing authority of Parliament, and not merely its
wisdom.
The Congress drew up a declaration. It professed “all due subordination” to Par-
liament. It claimed as a right of Englishmen to be taxed only by their own repre-
sentatives, but observed that the colonies could not possibly be represented in the
House of Commons. For the “people of Great Britain” (that is, Parliament) to vote
away the property of the colonists violated the “Spirit of the British constitution.”
The Congress, therefore, petitioned for repeal of the Stamp Act, and for removal of
the vice- admiralty courts.
16 The Morgans, op. cit., 114–15, “A Note on Internal and External Taxes,” argue that the Ameri-
cans never made any such distinction in the admissibility of taxes levied by Parliament.
17 Morgan, op. cit., 105. The Resolution of the Stamp Act Congress is printed here.