in time to save their lives, for the mob were prepared, by liquor and other excitement, for any deed. It was now midnight. With yells and curses they entered, and by four o'clock in the morning "one of the best finished houses in the colony had nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors."
Every thing but the kitchen furniture was taken from the dwelling or utterly destroyed. The rioters carried off between four and five thousand dollars in money, a large quantity of plate, family pictures, and clothing, and destroyed the fine library of the lieutenant governor, containing a large collection of manuscripts relating to the history of the colony, which he had been thirty years collecting. This loss was irreparable. The street in front of the house was next morning strewed with plate, rings, and money—destruction, not plunder, being the aim of the mob.
These proceedings were disgraceful in the extreme, and mar the sublime beauty of the picture exhibited by the steady and dignified progress of the Revolution. While no apology for mob rioters should be attempted, extenuating circumstances ought to have their due weight in the balance of just judgment. All over the land the public mind was excited against ministers and their abettors, and leading men in the colonies did not hesitate to recommend forcible resistance, if necessary, to the oppressions of the mother country. The principles underlying the violent movement in Boston were righteous, but the mass were too impatient for their vindication to await the effects of remonstrance and petition, argument and menace, employed by the educated and orderly patriots. As is commonly the fact, the immediate actors in these scenes were the dregs of the population. Yet it was evident that they had, in a degree, the sympathy of, and were controlled by, the great mass of the more intelligent citizens. The morning after the destruction of Hutchinson's house, a public meeting of leading men was held; expressions of abhorrence for the act were adopted, and the lieutenant governor received a pledge from the meeting that all violence should cease, if he would agree not to commence legal proceedings. He acquiesced, and order was restored.
The disturbances thus begun in Boston were imitated elsewhere during the summer and autumn. These will be hereafter considered. It may properly be mentioned here that the opposition to the Stamp Act was not confined to the continental colonies. The people of the West India plantations were generally opposed to it, and at St. Kitts the stamp-master was obliged to resign. Canada and Halifax, on the continent, submitted, and remained loyal through the Revolution that followed.
Boston, our present point of view, kept up the spirit of liberty, but avoided acts of violence. A newspaper appeared under the significant title of "The Constitutional Courant, containing matters instructing to liberty, and no ways repugnant to loyalty; printed by Andrew Marvel, at the sign of the Bribe Refused, on Constitution Hill, North America." Its headpiece was a snake cut into eight pieces (see page 508), the head part having N. E., the in-
Proceedings in Boston in Relation to the Stamp Act—Effigies burned.—Effect of the Stamp Act—Non-importation Associations.
itials of New England, inscribed upon it, and the other pieces the initials of the other colonies. Accompanying the device was the motto, Join or die.