rse of the session (six months after the Governor's speech
upon the subject), the Assembly passed an Act granting compensation to
the sufferers by the late riots, the principal of whom were the
Lieutenant-Governor, the Collector of Customs, and the appointed
Distributor of Stamps. The Act was accompanied by a declaration that it
was a free gift of the Province, and not an acknowledgment of the
justice of their claim; it also contained a provision of amnesty to the
rioters. The Act was agreed to by the Council and assented to by the
Governor; but it was disallowed by the King on the advice of the English
Attorney and Solicitor General, because, as alleged, it assumed an act
of grace which it belonged to the King to bestow, through an act of
oblivion of the evils of those who had acted unlawfully in endeavouring
to enforce the Stamp Act, which had been passed by the British
Parliament the same year. The Massachusetts Assembly ordered that their
debates should henceforth be open to the public.

The Legislature of New York also passed an Act granting compensation to
those who had suffered a loss of property for their adherence to the
Stamp Act, but stated it to be a free gift.

Before the close of 1766, dissatisfaction and distrust were manifest in
several colonies, and apprehensions of other encroachments by the
British Parliament upon what they held to be their constitutional
rights. Even the General Assembly of Virginia, which had in the spring
session voted a statue to the King, and an obelisk to Mr. Pitt and
several other members of Parliament, postponed, in the December
following, the final consideration of the resolution until the next
session. The Virginia press said: "The Americans are hasty in
expressing their gratitude, if the repeal of the Stamp Act is not, at
least, a tacit compact that Great Britain will never again tax us;" and
advised the different Assemblies, without mentioning the proceedings of
Parliament, to enter upon their journals as strong declarations of their
own rights as words could express.[289]

The Assembly of New York met early in 1766, in the best spirit; voted to
raise on Bowling Green an equestrian statue to the King, and a statue of
William Pitt--"twice the preserver of his country."

"But the clause of the Mutiny or Billeting Act (passed in 1765, in the
same session in which the Stamp Act was passed), directing Colonial
Legislatures to make specific contributions towards the support o