merchants, and divines to meet, by their own authority, at New-York, for that purpose. In the mean time three mobs were raised, under Durgy, Leach, and Parsons, who by different routes marched into Newhaven to seize the stamp-master. They succeeded; and, having brought their prisoner before the Assembly-house at Hertford, they gave him the alternative to resign or die. Mr. Ingersoll appealed several times by confidential messengers to the Assembly then sitting, but, finding them inclined to countenance the mob, he was forced to resign, and authenticate the same by whirling first his hat, and next his wig, three times round his head, and then into the air; whilst the General Assembly and Consociation (which last venerable body never fails to be ready with its counsel and assistance on all salutary occasions) shouted with the multitude, from their windows, at the glorious achievement.
This special Assembly, having sufficiently manifested the part they wished the colony to take, broke up, leaving further proceedings to the mob, who continued to act up to the specimen already given, and the Congress of New York, which met then accordingly, agreed upon and transmitted to England a petition for a repeal of the obnoxious act.[39]
The October session of the General Assembly is always holden at Newhaven: there and then they were
informed by Mr. Dyer,[41] who had made one of the petitioners at New York, that it was recommended by the Congress for the colonial governors to take the oath prescribed by the Stamp Act.
The General Assembly, however, voted that the Governor of Connecticut should not take it; and, moreover, determined to continue Mr. Fitch in his office, notwithstanding the disfranchisement incident on his refusal, if he would be guided by their advice: the Rev. Mr. Ebenezer Devotion, one of the Representatives, and Eliphalet Dyer (above mentioned), one of the Council, offered to pay the imposed fine of 1,000l. However, the Governor presented himself before the Council, whose business it was to administer the oath, but which, it is thought, Mr. Fitch presumed would be denied, and therefore artfully devised this means at once of avoiding the oath and shifting the penalties
from himself upon them. Seven out of the twelve, suspecting the Governor’s design, put their fingers in their ears, shuffled their feet, and ran groaning out of the house; the other five stayed, and administered the oath, with a view to saving themselves and the Charter and direct the wrath of the people against the Governor; but in this they were mistaken, incurring in common with him the odium of the patriots. The Stamp Act having thus gained footing, the Assembly broke up. Legal proceedings also were discontinued, and the courts of justice shut. The Consociations and Associations kept frequent fasts of their own appointment, prayers, and preaching against Roman Catholic rulers, Arminian governors, and false-hearted councillors and episcopizing curates. Hereupon the mobs became outrageous; sedition was law and rebellion gospel. The stamp-master was called a traitor to his country, and the episcopalians enemies to Zion and liberty.
The fastings, prayers, and riots brought about a revolution in the colony. Fitch, who had taken, and the five assistants who had administered, the oath, as well as many officers, both civil and military, who declined to take a rebellious part, were dismissed from their posts; and a new Governor, other councillors, &c. were chosen, and the people fitted for every kind of mischief—all, however, under the pretence of religion and liberty. The patriotic Mr. Dyer distinguished himself by furnishing the fasting ministers with proper materials to inflame the minds of the people against the just demands of the King. One of his Machiavellian dogmas was, that the King claimed the colonies as his patrimony, and intended to raise a revenue in each
province; and that, having gained this point, his purpose was to govern England by America and America by England, and thereby subvert liberty and establish tyranny in both, as the kings of France had done by means of the various parliaments in that country. Mr. Dyer declared he had this information from the best authority in England, and added, that the liberties of both countries depended on America resisting the Stamp Act, even unto blood. These and such like reveries supplied the ministers of the Gospel with a great body of political divinity, and the mob with courage to break Churchmen’s windows, and cry out, “No bishops! no popery! no kings, lords, and tyrants!” Everything but decency and order overran the colony. Indeed, the General Assembly kept up their meetings, but it was only to transact such business as was not affected by the Stamp Act. The mobs of the fasting ministers continued their lawless proceedings, without further interruption and impediment than what they met with from the strenuous exertions of the King’s friends, who had repeatedly saved the lives of the stamp-master, Governor Fitch, the five rejected councillors, the episcopal clergy, and many good subjects, at the hazard of their own, though they could not preserve them from daily abuse and insult.
The mob, having been spirited up and trained to violence and outrage for several months, began to make some alarm even to the instigators, especially as they were hitherto disappointed in their expectations of the act being repealed. The Governor and Council, therefore, directing their attention to the dangerous consequences of the lawless state and refractory temper the
people were in, and being struck with the foresight of their own perilous situation, resolved, early in 1766, to open the courts of law under the Stamp Act, if the very next packet did not bring certain advices of its repeal; and all parties who had causes depending in any court were to be duly notified by the Governor’s proclamation. This determination was no less mortifying to the mob than gratifying to the King’s friends, who were convinced that the Stamp Act ought, both in policy and justice, to be enforced, and therefore had risked their lives, fortunes, characters, and colonial honours in its support. The patriots, now apparently sickened with licentiousness, became very complaisant to the loyalists, declaring that, in all their opposition to the Stamp Act, they had meant nothing personal, and desiring to have past animosities buried in oblivion. All things thus settled, tranquillity seemed to be returning; when, lo! the packet arrived with the fatal news of the repeal of the Stamp Act. Then a double portion of madness seized the patriots, who, in their excess of joy “that victory was gained over the beast, and over his mark,” utterly forgot their late penitential and tranquil professions, branding the King’s friends with the appellations of tories, Jacobites, and papists. The Gospel ministers left off their fastings, and turned mourning into joy and triumph. “Now we behold,” they said in their pulpits, “that Great Britain is afraid of us; for the Stamp Act is repealed, even upon the petition of an illegal body of men. If, therefore, we stand fast in the liberties wherein Christ has made us free, we need not fear in future the usurpations of the kings, lords, and bishops of England.” The accompanying claim