he provincial assembly, and
on its invitation five other colonies joined with Massachusetts in
sending memorials and petitions to England against the proposed tax. The
assembly of Virginia was in session when the news came that the tax was
enacted, and Patrick Henry, a lawyer, brought forward some defiant
resolutions, of which four were carried, though only by a small
majority. His speech, which contained an insolent reference to the king,
was much admired. A general congress of the colonies was proposed by
Massachusetts and met at New York on November 7. Representatives of nine
colonies attended and others sent expressions of good-will. The members
drew up a statement of their claims and grievances in moderate terms,
and further expressed them in an address to the king, a memorial to the
lords, and a petition to the commons.

These orderly proceedings were accompanied by outbursts of lawless
violence. Societies for resistance were organised. The "sons of
liberty," as they called themselves in reference to Barre's speech, were
active in Boston, and in August, 1765, a mob plundered the house of a
man who was nominated as a distributor of stamps, destroyed a building
on his land which they believed was to be used as a stamp-office, hanged
him in effigy, and forced him to renounce his appointment. A sermon
preached by Jonathan Mayhew, a popular unitarian minister, on the words
"I would that they were even cut off which trouble you," was followed by
a more serious riot. Public buildings were attacked, the records of the
admiralty court were burnt, and the rioters forced their way into the
custom-house and got at the liquor in the cellars. Maddened by drink
they wrecked the stately mansion of Hutchinson, the lieutenant-governor,
and destroyed his fine collection of books and manuscripts. Persons of
good position more or less openly encouraged these excesses and no one
was punished for them. Outbreaks of mob violence, though of a less
riotous kind, took place in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and elsewhere. On
November 1, the day on which the stamp act came into operation, copies
of it were offered for sale headed, "The folly of England and the ruin
of America," bells were tolled, and mock funerals passed through the
streets.

Everywhere the new stamps were seized and destroyed. At New York the
lieutenant-governor, encouraged by the presence of the king's troops,
tried to secure the stamps sent to the town. A riot ensued. Genera