ginia, North
Carolina, and Georgia were prevented by their Governors from sending
representatives to the Congress; but they forwarded petitions to England
similar to those adopted by the Congress.[270] It is worthy of remark,
that, with the exception of Boston, the proceedings of the populace, as
well as of the Conventions and Legislative Assemblies, against the Stamp
Act, were conducted in a legal and orderly manner, such as to command
respect in England as well as in America. But in Boston there had always
been a mob, which, under the direction and auspices of men behind the
scenes, and opposed to British rule in any form, was ready to come forth
as opportunity offered in lawless violence against the authority of the
Crown and its officers. In England, eighty years before, mobs were
employed to intimidate the Court, Lords, and Commons in passing the Bill
of Attainder against Strafford, and against Bishops and Episcopacy. The
Rev. Dr. Burgess, the most popular Puritan minister in London at that
time, called them his "band-dogs," to be let loose or restrained as
occasion required.[271] Such men as the "band-dogs" of Boston, who
found a good opportunity for the exercise of their vocation during the
discussions of the local Legislature and public meetings against the
Stamp Act, not content with the harmless acts of patriotism of hanging
Lord Bute and Mr. Andrew Oliver (the proposed distributors of the
stamps) in effigy and then making bonfires of them, they levelled Mr.
Oliver's office buildings to the ground, and broke the windows and
destroyed most of the furniture of his house. Some days afterwards they
proceeded to the house of William Story, Deputy Registrar of the Court
of Admiralty, and destroyed his private papers, as well as the records
and files of the Court. They next entered and purloined the house of
Benjamin Hallowell, jr., Comptroller of the Customs, and regaled
themselves to intoxication with the liquors which they found in his
cellar. They then, as Mr. Hildreth says, "proceeded to the mansion of
Governor Hutchinson, in North Square. The Lieutenant-Governor and his
family fled for their lives.[272] The house was completely gutted, and
the contents burned in bonfires kindled in the square. Along with
Hutchinson's public and private papers perished many invaluable
manuscripts relating to the history of the province, which Hutchinson
had been thirty years in collecting, and which it was impossible to
replace."