From “Loyall Nine” to “Sons of Liberty”

We have a reasonably good idea of who eight of Boston’s “Loyall Nine” were:

• John Avery, Jr., distiller and merchant
• Thomas Chase, distiller
• Thomas Crafts, Jr., painter
• John Smith, brazier
• Stephen Cleverly, brazier
• Henry Bass, jeweler
• George Trott, jeweler
• Benjamin Edes, printer

In addition, the ship masters Henry Wells and Joseph Field were also lumped in with this group by different contemporaries.

Within months after they started organizing anti–Stamp Act protests, the group appears to have adopted another name. Back during Parliament’s debate over that law, opponent Isaac Barré called American colonists “Sons of Liberty,” as reported to this side of the Atlantic by Jared Ingersoll. By the fall the “Loyall Nine” started using that phrase.

The handbills that Bass described the group printing in his December 1765 letter said: ”The True-born Sons of Liberty, are desired to meet under LIBERTY-TREE, at XII o’Clock, THIS DAY…” Evidently any man could merit that label by coming out to resist the new tax from London. In early 1766 the phrase also started to appear in newspapers in other ports.

But the group also used that term for themselves. In January 1766 John Adams called them “the Sons of Liberty.” On 15 February, Crafts wrote to Adams that “the Sons of Liberty Desired your Company at Boston Next Wensday.” Those are clearly references to a specific group, not to everyone taking a certain political stand.

It looks like the more general use won out. By August 1769, “An Alphabetical List of the Sons of Liberty who din’d at Liberty Tree [Tavern], Dorchester” included 300 names. Clearly those Sons of Liberty weren’t just the “Loyall Nine”—though all eight men listed above were there.

Nonetheless, because of some unsubstantiated claims and portrayals in popular culture, the belief persists that the Sons of Liberty was an identifiable group of activists, not a mass movement, as I’ve written before. Because of that squishiness, I tend not to use the term. But of course it’s strongly associated with the Revolution.

TOMORROW: Back to the bowl.

“Stamp Act Memes” Online Talk on 9 Sept.

On Thursday, 9 September, I’ll deliver the latest version of my online talk “How Americans Fought the Stamp Act with Memes” via the American Revolution Round Table of New Jersey.

For details about that event and how to cadge an invitation, see this description.

This event feels bittersweet because I had the pleasure of speaking to this group in Morristown once and had planned to be there again. I was even building a longer trip around the event with archive and family visits. But “community spread” of the Covid-19 virus has risen again, and we decided that it’s safer to avoid large gatherings.

Speaking of large gatherings, my talk will explore how crowds, with the help of newspaper printers, defined the details of an anti-Stamp Act protest in August 1765, and then repeated that action with variations for months until they made the law a dead letter.

We can see that effect in this 6 September letter from the Philadelphia printer David Hall to his mentor and business partner in London, Benjamin Franklin:

We are all in a Ferment here, as well, as in the other Governments, about the Stamp Law taking, or not taking place.

You, very probably before this can reach, may have heard of Mr. [Andrew] Oliver, the Stamp officier being hanged in Effigy in Boston; a House pulled down, which was supposed to have been erected for the Business of the Stamp Office, and other Damage done him; upon which he resigned and, it is said, wrote home to the Commissioners of the Stamp-Office, letting them know that he could not put the Law in Execution; and that he believed it impracticable for any One else to do it.

Soon after this Mr. [Augustus] Johnston, appointed for Rhode Island; Mr. [James] McEvers for New York, and Mr. [William] Coxe for New Jersey, all gave up their Commissions.

At New-London the Stamp Officer has likewise been hanged in Effigy. And at New-Haven the House of the Officer there, has been beset by a Number of People, who desired to know whether he intended to act in that office, or resign? His Answer, it is said, was, that having accepted the Office in Person he did not think he had Power to resign. They then demanded whether he would deliver the Stamp Materials, as soon as they arrived, to them, in Order to make a Bonfire, or to have his House pulled down? Upon which he promised, that when they Arrived, he would either reship them to be sent back, or that when they were in his House, his Doors should be open, and they might then act as they thought proper, on which they despersed.

Mr. [Jared] Ingersoll has likewise been hanged in Effigy [actually, all those preceding Connecticut events were aimed at Ingersoll], as has Mr. [Zachariah] Hood, the officer for Maryland.

Mr. [George] Mercer, the Officer for Virginia, is not yet Arrived, but the People of that Colony, are much enraged.

Mr. [John] Hughes [of Pennsylvania] has not yet resigned; whether he will, or not, I cannot say, but I understand his Friends are all endeavouring to get him to resign.

In short, there seems to be a general Discontent all over the Continent, with that Law, and many thinking their Liberties and Privileges, as English Men lost, or at least in great Danger, seem Desperate. What the Consequences may be, God only knows; but, from the Temper of the People, at Present, there is the greatest Reason to fear, that the Passing of that Law will be the Occasion of a great Deal of Mischief.

The most awkward part of the news for Franklin was that he had used his influence as a lobbyist to get Coxe, Hughes, and Hood appointed as stamp agents in their respective colonies. The patronage job was supposed to be a pleasant surprise. Instead, those men came under threat, and Hood actually had to decamp for New York.

Two Gentlemen Who Couldn’t Possibly Take Charge of Connecticut’s Stamped Paper

When the British government instituted the Stamp Act for North America, one of the first steps was to buy a lot of paper. With the tax added, that paper was budgeted to bring in over £100,000 from the thirteen colonies that became the U.S. of A. alone. The untaxed cost of that paper was less, but it was still a substantial investment for the government.

The paper was also a substantial chunk of government property to take care of. Naturally, most colonial officials didn’t want to take any more responsibility for that than they had to.

On 9 Sept 1765, as the anti-Stamp protests heated up in Connecticut, designated stamp master Jared Ingersoll asked a favor of Cadwallader Colden (1688-1776, shown here), the acting governor of New York:

the Stampt papers intended for this Colony are Expected to arrive Soon at N. York & were to have been forwarded to me who am appointed the Distributer here, but the unaccountable rage & fury of the Mob is at present So high against Stamp Officers & papers that I do not think it Safe to have the later Sent here as yet

I have therefore to desire of you to protect the Same when they Shall arrive by placing them in the Fort, or otherwise as you shall be Able, until Some further Steps may be taken . . .

my Duty to the King obliges me to give You this trouble

I am Sr
Yr Most Obedt & Most Humbl. Servt.…

On 14 September, Colden responded:

I have yours of the 9th desiring me to take care of the stamp Paper for your Colony when they arrive. In my opinion they may be put more safely & with greater ease on board one of the Men of War at this Place, & more easily conveyed from thence to your Colony, than by placeing them in this Fort, where it is too probable there will be a necessity of placeing those designed for this Colony. This Fort at present is crowded with Men & military Stores. It may be proper for you or some Person for you to be in this place to take care of your Stamp’d Papers, as my hands are too full with the affairs peculiar to this Province. . . .

I am with great Regard, Sir,…

Ingersoll publicly resigned his post as stamp master on 19 September, as described starting here. He therefore told Colden that the papers were really no longer his charge:

by the time that your favour of the 14th reached my house, I had been Compelled in a most Extraordinary manner to declare I would not directly or indirectly intermeddle with the Stampt papers intended for this Colony—at present therefore when all the Springs of Government are broken I can do no more than recommend to you to take the best Care you Can of those Stampt papers for the Crown until you shall have further directions concerning them from the Commissioners of Stamps, or from me

I am
Yr. Most Obedt. Humb Servt.…

When the stamps for Connecticut actually arrived, Gov. Colden silently disregarded that request and had his son David (1733-1784) take up the correspondence on 28 October:

The Gover. Orders me to inform you that Captn. Davis has brought over three Packages of Stamp’d Papers Marked for Connecticut, which are now lodged in the Governor’s House in the Fort. The Gaspey Cutter is now here & is a very fitt vessell for carrying the Papers to you if you can prevail upon Captn. [Archibald] Kennedy to order her to do it. We hear more Stamped Paper is on board three Ships daily expected here.

I am with great Regard, Sir,…

Ingersoll replied directly to the acting governor on 31 October:

Yesterday I received your favour of the 28th advising me of the Safe arrival of part of the Stamp papers intended for this Colony. I immediately advised with the Governour [Thomas Fitch] on the Subject & for Answer have to Say, that as the people of this Colony have with impunity offered the most high handed violence to my person on account of my having undertaken to be Distributor of Stamps And still Continue their threats to me in case I shall intermeddle with the Stamp papers, as also the destruction of the papers themselves, and as the house of Representatives of this Colony have lately voted the Act of Parliament itself unprecedented & unconstitutional whereby the peoples Spirits are kept up, and as we have no Strong hold wherein to place the papers, I Cannot think it Safe for me or the papers or prudent to bring them into the Colony & have therefore only to thank you for your past goodness & to repeat to you my request that you will be So good as to keep & protect the papers that have or shall arrive at N.York until you Shall receive further directions about the Same.

I am Sr
Yr. Most Obedt. Humble Servt.…

I like how the complimentary closes to those letters give an “Alphonse and Gaston” tone to this exchange.

By the time Colden received Ingersoll’s last letter, the situation in New York had become dire. Connecticut’s paper was the least of his troubles.

“Succeeded with Liberty and Property and three Cheers”

After being surrounded by five hundred men on horseback, detained in a Wethersfield tavern for three hours, and warned by the crowd leader that he wasn’t sure he could contain them any longer, Connecticut stamp agent Jared Ingersoll finally reached his limit.

“I now thought it was Time to submit,” he wrote a few days later.

Ingersoll spoke to that local militia officer:

I told him I did not think the Cause worth dying for, and that I would do whatever they should desire me to do. Upon this I look’d out at a front Window, beckoned the People and told ’em, I had consented to comply with their Desires; and only waited to have something drawn up for me to sign. We then went to Work to prepare the Draught. I attempted to make one myself; but they not liking it, said they would draw one themselves, which they did, and I signed it.

They then told me that the People insisted on my being Sworn never to execute the Office. This I refused to do somewhat peremtorily; urging that I thought it would be a Prophanation of an Oath. The Committee seemed to think it might be dispensed with; but said the People would not excuse it. One of the Committee however said, he would go down and try to persuade them off from it. I saw him from my Window amidst the Circle, and observing that the People seemed more and more fixt in their Resolution of insisting upon it, I got up and told the People in the Room, I would go and throw myself among them, and went down, they following me.

When I came to the Circle, they opened and let me in, when I mounted a Chair which stood there by a Table, and having pulled off my Hat and beckoned Silence, I proceeded to read off the Declaration which I had signed; and then proceeded to tell them, that I believed I was as averse to the Stamp-Act as any of them; that I had accepted my Appointment to this Office, I thought upon the fairest Motives; finding, however, how very obnoxious it was to the People, I had found myself in a very disagreeable Situation ever since my coming Home; that I found myself, at the same Time, under such Obligations that I did not think myself at Liberty peremtorily to resign my Office without the Leave of those who appointed me; that I was very sorry to see the Country in the Situation it was; that I could nevertheless, in some Measure, excuse the People, as I believed they were actuated, by a real though, I feared, a misguided Zeal for the Good of their Country; and that I wished the Transactions of that Day might prove happy for this Colony, tho’ I must own to them, I very much feared the Contrary;—and much more to the same Purpose.

Remarkably, this rehash of Ingersoll’s arguments for the past month combined with new chidings and warnings didn’t get the crowd all angry again. I have to assume those men were tired of waiting around. Or maybe they just stopped listening after a while. They were clearly more interested in seeing Ingersoll go through rituals of crowd deference and patriotism:

When I had done, a Person who stood near me, told me to give Liberty and Property, with three Cheers, which I did, throwing up my Hat into the Air; this was followed by loud Huzzas; and then the People many of them were pleased to take me by the Hand and tell me I was restored to their former Friendship.

I then went with two or three more to a neighbouring House, where we dined. I was then told the Company expected to wait on me into Hartford, where they expected I should publish my Declaration again. I reminded them of what they had before told me, that it might possibly ensnare the Assembly for them to have an Opportunity to act, or do any Thing about this Matter. Some inclined to forego this Step, but the main Body insisted on it.

We accordingly mounted, I believe by this Time to the Number of near one Thousand and rode into Hartford, the Assembly then sitting. They dismounted opposite the Assembly House, and about twenty Yards from it. Some of them conducted me into an adjoining Tavern, while the main Body drew up Four abreast and marched in Form round the Court House, preceeded by three Trumpets sounding; then formed into a Semi-circle at the Door of the Tavern. I was then directed to go down and read the Paper I had signed, and which I did within the Presence and Hearing of the Assembly; and only added that I wisht the Consequences of this Day’s Transaction might be happy. This was succeeded with Liberty and Property and three Cheers; soon after which the People began to draw off, and I suppose went Home. I understand they came out with eight Days Provision, determined to find me, if in the Colony.

Those were some very determined citizens.

And what about Connecticut’s officeholders? The legislature that had sent Ingersoll to London to represent the colony in 1764, the governor he had consulted with the day before, the delegates who had ridden past the tavern where the crowd was holding him as he called to them from a window? They had more natural sympathy with Ingersoll, but they hadn’t been any help to him at all.

I am told the Assembly were busy in forming some Plan for my Relief, the lower House thinking to send any Force, was it in their Power, might do more hurt than good to me, agreed to advise the sending some Persons of Influence to interpose by Persuasion, &c. and communicated their Desire to the upper Board, in Consequence whereof certain Gentlemen of the House were desired and were about to come to my Relief, it being about half an Hour’s Ride; but before they set out they heard the Matter was finished.

Had they come, I conclude it would have had no Effect.

With Ingersoll’s unconditional, written, publicly repeated resignation on 19 Sept 1765, there were no stamp agents left in New England or New York. Protests on the Boston model were spreading to the Middle and Southern Colonies.

But in six weeks, at the start of November, the Stamp Act was still supposed to take effect.

(The photo above shows the Old State House in Hartford. It wasn’t built until 1796, three decades after Ingersoll’s experience. But it’s a handsome building.)

“The Sight of me seemed to enrage the People”

Yesterday we left Jared Ingersoll on 19 Sept 1765 in the middle of a circle of five hundred club-bearing men on horseback in Wethersfield, Connecticut. (That’s the handsome Wethersfield meeting-house, built in 1761, and burying-ground in the photo.)

For anyone following these sestercentennial posts, it should come as no surprise what those men wanted Ingersoll to do: resign from his job collecting the Stamp Tax. He insisted that he had “always declared that I would not exercise the Office against the general Inclinations of the People.” Which those men were no doubt attempting to express.

Ingersoll went on to say that he “had given Orders to have the stamp’d Papers stopt at New-York” and not shipped to him in New Haven unless the colonial legislature would “plainly shew their Minds and Inclination to have the stampt Paper brought into the Colony.” He also warned the crowd “that the Governor, would have Power and Instructions to put in another if I should be removed” from office.

That led to this open-air exchange, as Ingersoll reported it a few days later:

They said, Here is the Sense of the Government, and no Man shall exercise that Office.

I askt if they thought it was fair that the Counties of Windham and New-London should dictate to all the rest of the Colony?

Upon this one said, It don’t signify to parly—here is a great many People waiting and you must resign.

I said I don’t think it proper to resign till I meet a proper Authority to ask it of me; and added, What if I won’t resign? what will be the Consequence?

One said Your Fate.

Upon which I looked him full in the Face and said with some Warmth, MY FATE you say.

Upon which a Person just behind said, The Fate of your Office.

I answered that I could Die, and perhaps as well now as another Time; and that I should Die but once.

Upon which the Commandant (for so, for Brevity sake, I beg Leave to call the Person who seemed to have the principal Conduct of the Affair) said we had better go along to a Tavern (and which we did) and cautioned me not to irritate the People.

Ingersoll went to the tavern but didn’t refrain from irritating people. Instead of dismounting, he told the men that they should tell him all they had to say and he’d ride on to Hartford. “They said No, You sha’n’t go two Rods from this Spot, before you have resigned; and took hold of my Horse's Bridle.” Though Ingersoll “was told repeatedly that they had no Intentions of hurting me or my Estate; but would use me like a Gentleman,” he understood that was on condition that he cooperate. So he got off his horse and went into the tavern with the crowd leaders.

In the discussion that followed, Ingersoll perceived a gap between those designated spokesmen and the men outside:

Upon the whole, This Committee behaved with Moderation and Civility, and I thought seemed inclined to listen to certain Proposals which I made; but when the Body of the People come to hear them they rejected ’em, and nothing would do but I must resign.

While I was detained here, I saw several Members of the Assembly pass by, whom I hailed, acquainting them that I was there kept and detained as a Prisoner; and desired their and the Assembly’s Assistance for my Relief. They stopt and spoke to the People; but were told they had better go along to the Assembly where they might possibly be wanted. Major [Elihu] Hall also finding his Presence not altogether agreeable, went away; And Mr. [Yale] Bishop, by my Desire, went away to let the Governor and Assembly know the Situation I was in.

After much Time spent in fruitless Proposals, I was told the People grew very impatient, and that I must bring the Matter to a Conclusion; I then told ’em I had no more to say, and askt what they would do with me?

They said they would carry me to Windham a Prisoner, but would keep me like a Gentleman.

I told them I would go to Windham, that I had lived very well there, and should like to go and live there again.

This did not do. They then advised me to move from the front Window, as the Sight of me seemed to enrage the People. Sometimes the People from below would rush into the Room in great Numbers, and look pretty fierce at me, and then the Committee would desire them to withdraw.

Ingersoll and the committee spent three hours in this sort of back-and-forth. Finally the militia leader Ingersoll called the Commandant came up to warn “that he could not keep the People off from me any longer; and that if they once began, he could not promise me where they would end.”

TOMORROW: Where they ended.

“About Five Hundred Men, all on Horseback, and having white Staves”

When Boston 1775 last left Connecticut stamp agent Jared Ingersoll, he’d been hanged and burned in effigy in half a dozen towns, a crowd had surrounded his New Haven home, and he’d promised not to carry out the Stamp Act if it proved unpopular. Which, frankly, it already appeared to be.

On 10 September, Ingersoll wrote a long letter to the Connecticut Gazette pointing out that he owed his post to the recommendation of London alderman Barlow Trecothick, known as a friend to American interests. Both he and Trecothick had argued against the Stamp Act. So surely they couldn’t have conspired to pass that law just to enrich themselves, right?

Again, when the measure of making ye Appointments in America was thus general [i.e., non-partisan], & come into as generally, will any body think that any one of the persons concerned Imagined he betrayed his Country by falling in with the measure? Perhaps at this time, when popular rage runs so very high, some may think the friends of America mistook their own & their Countrys true Interest, when they listened to these overtures, but who can think their intentions were ill?

And wasn’t it better for American colonists if other Americans collected the tax, rather than some appointee from Britain?

That didn’t convince Ingersoll’s opponents. An item in the 16 Sept 1765 Boston Gazette referred to him as “Gared Negrosoul,” rhetoric sinking low enough to cause collateral damage.

Ingersoll hoped that the Connecticut legislature could give him some cover before symbolic violence gave way to real damage. In yet another long letter, written 23 September, he reported:

Having received repeated and undoubted Intelligence of a Design formed by a great Number of People in the eastern Parts of the Colony to come and obtain from me a Resignation of the above mentioned Office, I delivered to the Governor [Thomas Fitch], on the 17th, at New-Haven, in his way to meet the General Assembly at Hartford on the 19th, a written Information, acquainting him with my said Intelligence, and desiring of him such Aid and Assistance as the emergency of the Affair should require. On the 18th I rode with his Honour and some other Gentlemen, Members of the Assembly, in hopes of being able to learn more particularly the Time and Manner of the intended Attack.

About eighteen Miles from hence, on the Hartford Road, we met two Men on Horseback with pretty long and large new made white Staves in their Hands, whom I suspected to be part of the main Body. I accordingly stopt short from the Company, and askt them if they were not in pursuit of me, acquainting them who I was, and that I should not attempt to avoid meeting the People. After a little Hesitancy they frankly owned that they were of that Party, and said there were a great Number of People coming in three Divisions, one from Windham through Hartford, one from Norwich through Haddam, and one from New-London, by the way of Branford, and that their Rendezvous was to be at Branford on the Evening of the 19th, from thence to come and pay me a Visit on the 20th. These Men said they were sent forward in order to reconnoitre and to see who would join them.

I desired them to turn and go with me as far as Mr. [Yale] Bishop’s the Tavern at the Stone House, so called [in Meriden]. One of them did. Here I acquainted the Governor and the other Gentlemen with the Matter; and desired their Advice. The Governor said many Things to this Man, pointing out to him the Danger of such a Step, and charging him to go and tell the People to return Back; but he let the Governor know, that they lookt upon this as the Cause of the People, & that they did not intend to take Directions about it from any Body.

Ingersoll wrote that he feared those men would go to New Haven, the local militia would turn out as “an Opposition to their Designs,” and “some Lives might be lost.” Given that the people of New Haven had already turned out against him, that looks like wishful thinking. In any event, he decided to meet the crowd at Hartford. But he also sent a letter to his family in New Haven “that they and my House might be put in a proper state of Defence and Security.”

On Thursday, 19 September, Ingersoll proceeded toward Hartford with his host and legislator Elihu Hall of Wallingford.

we went on together until we come within two or three Miles of Weathersfield, when we met an advanced Party of about four or five Persons. I told them who I was, upon which they turned, and I fell into Conversation with them, upon the general Subject of my Office, &c.

About half a Mile further we met another Party of about Thirty whom I accosted, and who turned and went on in the same Manner.

We rode a little further and met the main Body, who, I judge, were about Five Hundred Men, all on Horseback, and having white Staves, as before described. They were preceded by three Trumpets; next followed two Persons dressed in red, with laced Hats; then the rest, two abreast. Some others, I think, were in red, being, I suppose, Militia Officers.

They opened and received me; then all went forward until we came into the main Street in the Town of Weathersfield, when one riding up to the Person with whom I was joined, and who I took to be the principal Leader or Commandant, said to him, We can’t all hear and see so well in a House, we had as good have the Business done here; upon this they formed into a Circle, having me in the Middle, with some two or three more, who seemed to be the principal Managers, Major Hall and Mr. Bishop also keeping near me.

I began to speak to the Audience, but stopt and said I did not know why I should say any Thing for that I was not certain I knew what they wanted of me…

Which by this point seems remarkably obtuse.

TOMORROW: A parley in Wethersfield.

A Preemptive Resignation from New York’s Stamp Agent

After Parliament enacted the Stamp Act in early 1765, Treasury Department officials asked London alderman Barlow Trecothick for recommendations about which American gentleman to appoint as stamp agent for each colony.

Trecothick had started out working for the rich Boston merchant Charles Apthorp, married an Apthorp daughter, and then settled in London as a merchant doing business with North America and the Caribbean. He had argued against the Stamp Act, so officials hoped that other opponents of the law would accept his choices as fair.

The stamp agents would have to be reliable for the imperial government, of course. Trecothick figured it would help if they were established in American business or legal circles. And since selling the stamped paper and stamps would bring in a steady income, he wanted to reward his own connections—that’s just how the Empire worked.

For New York he chose the merchant James McEvers (1705-1768, shown here). McEvers was another brother-in-law of Charles Ward Apthorp, whose move from Boston to New York in the early 1760s turned out to be a major blow to Boston’s economy.

Everything seemed to be going along fine until the newspapers brought word of the demonstration and riot in Boston on 14 August. Twelve days later, McEvers wrote to Jared Ingersoll in Connecticut about his correspondence with the Treasury Department’s “Secretary to the Stamp-duties”:

I rec’d a Letter from John Brettel Esq. Forwarded by you, Inclosing a Bond to Execute for the Due Performance of the Office of Stamp Master for this Province, which I Readely Did (and Return’d it per the Last Paquet that Sail’d from hence) as there was then Little or no Clamour here about it, and I Immagin’d I Should be Able to Transact it; but since Mr. [Andrew] Olivers Treatment att Boston has Been Known here and the Publication of a Letter from New Haven, the Discontent of the People here on Account of the Stamp Act Publickly Appears, I have Been Threaten’d with Mr. Olivers Fate if not Worse, to Prevent which I have Been under a Necessity of Acknowledgeing I have Wrote for a Resignation which I have Accordingly Done, and have Been Inform’d you have Done the Same, of Which I Beg you’l Advise me, and if you have not should be Glad to Know how you Purpose to Act, as it may be some Government to me in Case I Cant Procure a Release.

On the same day McEvers also wrote to Trecothick, explaining that he wanted to be relieved of the office.

The New York merchant worried that backing out would cost him respect in London, but local Whigs insisted that he would benefit in America. A letter from New York published in the 6 Sept 1765 Pennsylvania Gazette said:

We congratulate our Countrymen upon the late Resignations of the Stamp Officers - ------ and especially the Friends and Well wishers of the Gentleman appointed to that Office in this City. The Number of his Friends and Well wishers, which was considerable before, is greatly increased by this Resignation; which has entirely cleared his Character from the Imputation of joining in the Design to enslave his Country; for we are well assured, as his Appointment was without his Solicitation or Knowledge, so his Resignation was voluntary, and not the Effect of any Menace or Disturbance, nothing of which has yet appeared in this Place.

Thus, the 14 August demonstration and riot in Boston not only caused Massachusetts’s stamp agent to resign, but also inspired the New York stamp master to do the same.

Anti-Stamp Protests Draw Nearer to Jared Ingersoll

Jared Ingersoll wrote his conditional resignation as Connecticut’s stamp-tax collector on 24 Aug 1765, and the newspapers published it soon after. But demonstrations against the new law continued, coming closer to his home in New Haven.

Lyme’s 29 August protest was written up as a “Tryal of J—d Stampman, Esq., before the Proctors of Liberty.” The defendant did allegedly “enter into a Confederacy with some other evil minded, wicked, and malicious persons, to kill and destroy his own mother, Americana. . . . The Weapon he obtain’d was called a Stamp.” After the guilty verdict, the court pronounced this punishement:

That he should be forthwith tied to the tail of a Cart, and drawn thro’ all the principal streets in Town, and at every Corner and before every House should be publicly Whip’d; and should be then drawn to a Gallows erected at least 50 feet high, and be there hanged till he should be dead, and then cut down by the common Hangman, and buried at the meeting of three Roads and a Monument erected over him, shewing the Cause of his ignominious Death, that the infamy of his Crime might be perpetuated to after Generations.

That sentence was reported to be carried out, presumably on an effigy.

Sometime during the first week of September, Ingersoll’s New Haven neighbors surrounded his house and demanded he resign. He answered that “having accepted the Office in Person he did not think he had Power to Resign.” The crowd asked if, when the stamped paper arrived, he preferred to hand it over for a bonfire “or to have his House pull’d down.”

Ingersoll pleaded that everyone should just wait until colonial legislature met in Hartford to take a stand on the issue. The crowd insisted on an answer sooner than that. Finally, Ingersoll promised to let the crowd do whatever they wanted with the stamped paper if it ever came. That was enough to avert an effigy-hanging and burning in New Haven.

But on the night of 10 September the neighboring town of West Haven saw:

a horrible Monster, or Male Giant, twelve Feet high, whose terrible Head was internally illuminated. He was mounted on a generous Horse groaning under the enormous Weight. This Giant seemed to threaten Destruction to every Person or Thing around him, which raised the resentment of a Number of stout Fellows, who constantly pelted him with Stones till he fled. The Assailants pursued and soon took him Captive, and triumphantly drove him about a Mile in the Town, attended with the discordant Noise of Drums, Fiddles, and taunting Huzzas.

The People then directed their Course toward a Hill called Mount Misery. There the Giant was accused, fairly tried and Condemned by a special Jury and Impartial Judge as an unjust Intruder, a Patron of Ignorance, a Foe of English Freedom, etc. and was sentenced to be burnt. The Sentence was accordingly executed, amidst the joyful Acclamations, of near three Hundred Libertines, Men, Women and Children.

It should be mentioned that, through the whole of this Raree show, no unlawful Disorder happened, as was the Case in the last truly deplorable and truly detestable Riot in Boston.

The 26 August attack on the house of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson was already notorious, and this newspaper report insisted that Connecticut protesters wouldn’t follow that example. Which may not have been completely reassuring for Jared Ingersoll.

“Since we are doomed to Stamps and Slavery”

As I wrote yesterday, Jared Ingersoll opposed the Stamp Act as one of the Connecticut colony’s agents in London, but once the law passed he gladly accepted the job of collecting that tax.

In the summer of 1765, other Connecticut men tried to get in on the same action by telling Ingersoll they were ready to be his deputies for their parts of their colony. One such plea came from William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819, shown above), who wrote on 3 June:

Since we are doomed to Stamps and Slavery, & must submit, we hear with pleasure that your gentle hand will fit on our Chains & Shackles, who I know will make them set easie as possible. . . . .

If you propose to have a Subaltern in every Town, I shall be at your service for Stratford if it be agreeable.

Johnson also delivered and endorsed a similar request from Nathaniel Wales, Jr., of Windham, dated 1 June:

Notwithstanding my small acquaintance yet as I understand you are betrusted with the afair of the Stamp Duty I beg Leave to hint that if in ye. plan you should want a person in Each County town to dispose of Blanks or paper I should be glad to be improved for ye purpose, if it should suit you & you can confide in me; and as I keep an office in the Center and dont practise Riding abroad can doubtless serve you. 

But those men and others wrote their letters before New Englanders heard (in exaggerated form) about the Virginia Burgesses’ resolutions against the Stamp Act, and before Bostonians had their first public protest and riot on 14 August. Public sentiment shifted from resignation to resistance.

Five days after the disturbances in Boston, Wales wrote to Ingersoll again:

I receved yours and observe its Contence, and for answer must say that I wrote my first to you without much Consideration and while matters were much undigested both in my and other peoples minds; but on further Consideration I am of opinion that the Stamp Duty can by no means be Justifyed, that it is an imposition quite unconstitutional and so Infringes on Rather destroys our Libertys and previlidges that I Cant undertake to promote or Encorage it without acting dirictly Contrary to my Judgment and the true Intrest of my own native Country; and tho I would be a Loyal Subject yet that I may be & not Endeavour to promote that Law which in my privit Judgment is not Right, as ye case may be, I must therefore on the whole refuse accepting—if offered—any trust relative to Distributing the Stamps, nor would I accept thereof had I thousand pounds annexed to the trust. So that what trouble I have given you I must beg your pardon for

Wales wrote that letter a week before the people of Windham hanged and burned Ingersoll in effigy. For all we know, Wales might even have been involved in that demonstration—he was an active Whig by 1768.

Likewise, Johnson went on to represent Connecticut at the Stamp Act Congress, formed to protest the law he had once offered to administer. He sought compromise at the start of the Revolutionary War, which his neighbors found suspicious, but over time regained enough influence to be sent to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

TOMORROW: The people of Connecticut are not satisfied.

Jared Ingersoll’s Non-Resignation as Stamp Master

Jared Ingersoll had an unusual relationship with the anti-Stamp Act movement in 1765 America. As the year began, he was an agent for the colony of Connecticut in London, and he lobbied officials there not to proceed with the plan.

Ingersoll’s 11 February letter describing the debate over the law in Parliament is our sole source for Isaac Barré’s speech celebrating American colonists as “Sons of Liberty.” That phrase (already established in British political rhetoric) inspired activists all along the North American coast.

But once the imperial government enacted the Stamp Act, Ingersoll lobbied to be named the collector for Connecticut, which would grant him an income and authority. He’d done his level best to stop the law, he reasoned; now he might as well make the most of the new situation.

But then came the events of late August. Ingersoll was reportedly hooted out of Boston. While he traveled home to New Haven, he might have heard similar grumblings in his own colony. On 22 August towns began burning Ingersoll in effigy, just as Bostonians had done to signal their disapproval of Massachusetts stamp master Andrew Oliver (before proceeding to ruin his house).

Ingersoll therefore penned a public letter on 24 August, printed in the colony’s newspapers over the following week:

To the Good People of Connecticut.

When I undertook the Office of Distributor of Stamps for this Colony, I meant a Service to you, and really thought you would have viewed it in that Light when you come to understand the Nature of the Stamp Act and that of the Office; but since it gives you so much Uneasiness, you may be assured, if I find (after the Act takes Place, which is the first of November) that you shall not incline to purchase or make use of any stampt Paper, I shall not force it upon you, nor think it worth my While to trouble you or my Self with any Exercise of my Office; but if, by that Time I shall find you generally in much Need of the stampt Paper and very anxious to obtain it, I shall hope you will be willing to receive it of me, (if I shall happen to have any) at least until another Person more agreeable to you can be appointed in my room.

I cannot but wish you would think more how to get rid of the Stamp Act than of the Officers who are to supply you with the Paper, and that you had learnt more of the Nature of my Office before you had undertaken to be so very angry at it.

There’s been a lot written in recent years about “non-apology apologies.” Ingersoll’s letter seems to be one, as well as a non-resignation resignation. He promised not to do the job of stamp master if people still didn’t want him to while chiding those same people for not already learning “more of the Nature of my Office before you had undertaken to be so very angry at it.”

Two days later, Oliver wrote to Ingersoll from Boston with the text of his own resignation, which was much more definite—and still wouldn’t prove to be enough to satisfy his neighbors. Nor did Ingersoll’s public letter win over many critics.

TOMORROW: Other Connecticut men who wanted to distribute the stamps.

“A special Court for the Trial of a certain Criminal”

Yesterday I quoted two reports of anti-Stamp Act protests from the 30 Aug 1765 New-London Gazette. Here’s yet another, from the town of Lebanon, Connecticut, datelined 27 August:

Yesterday was held in this Town, a special Court for the Trial of a certain Criminal, late A[gen]t for this Colony: He made his Appearance at the Bar of said Court, in the Person of his VIRTUAL Representative, and was denied none of the just RIGHTS of Englishmen, being allowed the sacred Privilege of Trial by his Peers, &c.—

After a full Hearing, he was sentenced to be taken from the tribunal of Justice, placed in a Cart, with a Halter about his Neck, carried in Procession thro’ the Streets of the Town, to expose him to just Ignominy and Contempt, and then to be drawn to the place of Execution, and hanged by the Neck ’till dead, and afterwards to be committed to the Flames, that if possible he might be purified by Fire; which Sentence was immediately Executed amidst a vast concourse of Spectators exulting in the Prospect of Liberty.

On the right Hand of the Prisoner stood the grand Seducer of Mankind [i.e., you know who], offering him a Purse and hissing this Proposal, Accept this Offer and Inslave your Country and 400l. per Annum, shall be your Reward. His injured Country, represented by a Lady dressed in Sable, with Chains rattling at her Feet, was placed on the other Side, thus pleading with her base, unnatural Child.—My Son! remember that I have treated you with the utmost Tenderness, and bestow’d on you my highest Honours, pity your Country, and put not on me those Chains: to which he ungrateful, degenerate Son replied, in a Label proceeding from his Mouth, Perish my Country, so that I get that Reward: upon the utterance of which, such indignant Wrath swell’d in the Bosom of this venerable Matron, that her Power of Speech fail’d; yet the Sentiments of her Heart appeared glowing in Capital Characters upon her Breast, in the following Words:

“———Heaven crush those Vipers,
Who, singled out by a Community,
To guard her Rights, shall for a grasp of Ore,
Or Paltry Office, sell them to the Foe.”

Which awful prophetic and parental Curse presently took Place: for as soon as this Representative was exhibited sufficiently to excite mass Abhorrence and Detestation of his Crimes, being protected by a strong Guard, from the rage of the Populace thro’ the whole Procession; and after hanging till he was dead, was cut down and delivered into the Power of his false Friend and Seducer, who according to his usual Practice, chang’d from a Tempter to a Tormentor; plunging his Prisoner headlong into a huge pyramid of Fire, and followed him immediately himself, with his mighty Paws barring fast the Gates of this suitable Habitation: Mean while the Heavens resounded with Acclamations and loud Huzzas: Nor did a weeping Eye or relenting Heart hinder or allay any Demonstration of Joy, which an ardent Love of Liberty could inspire in the Breasts of her most virtuous Sons.

The lines of verse ascribed to mother England came from the play Mahomet, the Impostor, written by Voltaire and adapted by the Rev. James Miller for British audiences. Voltaire wrote that play as an attack on religious zealots; its original title is Le Fanatisme. Ironically, rural New Englanders were rather fond of religious zealotry.

It’s striking how within a short time all these rural towns shared the same understanding of how to protest the Stamp Act, based on the Boston August 14 model:

• hang the colony’s stamp agent in effigy with a small devil tempting him and some poetic labels.
• parade that pageantry around town.
• throw it in a bonfire after dark. 

Though there was an old British tradition of effigies and bonfires, especially on the Fifth of November, this particular political ritual seems to have gone from novelty to norm in less than two weeks.

Connecticut town leaders appear to have tried to distinguish their towns not by inventing new forms of protest but by how cleverly they could compose labels and describe the usual event for the newspapers. The printer of the New-London Gazette, Timothy Green, evidently thought his own town’s (expanded) report didn’t include enough poetry to match up to others, so he added: “As we would not chuse to be tho’t wholly out of Fashion, we affix the following from Addison’s Cato.” It reminds me of the competition among rural New England towns to erect the tallest Liberty Pole in 1774-75.

Meanwhile, Jared Ingersoll, the colony’s royally appointed stamp-tax collector, was taking steps to calm the populace.

COMING UP: Ingersoll’s public letter to the good people of Connecticut.

“Those Diversions which usually accompany such Proceedings”

The New-London Gazette of 23 Aug 1765 offered this report on an event in that Connecticut town the night before:

Yesterday, a little before Night, the Effigy of J—d I——l, Esq; late Agent for this Colony, (but now distributor of Stampt Paper for the same) was hung up by the Neck in the most public part of this Town, having a young Imp of the Devil at his right Shoulder, represented as dictating him, and a Stamp Act at his Breast, under which was an inscription in Praise of LIBERTY; in this position the Effigy continued about an Hour; when it was taken down, and being fixt on a Pole was carried thro’ the Town, amidst the loud Acclamations of some Hundred People: this Ceremony being over, there was a repeated discharge of Cannon from the Battery, and the Effigy being properly fixt over a Bon-fire, it was consumed.  

The next week the same newspaper published a more detailed report on that event, adding that the procession included “People of all Professions, and Denominations, and accompanied with various kinds of Musick, Guns, Drums, &c. and incessant Acclamations of the Multitude, the Number far exceeding whatever had been known to assemble in this Place on any Occasion”!

That was the second time in two days that Jared Ingersoll had been hanged in effigy in New London County.

The 30 August New-London Gazette also included this report from a little to the north:

We hear from Windham, that on the Morning of the 26th Instant [i.e., of this month], certain ever memorable and most respectable Gentleman, made his Appearance in Effigie, suspended between the Heavens and the Earth, (as an Emblem of his being fit for neither), he was cloathed in white and black, with a View to represent the great Contrast of his Character, he once indeed (to his praise be it spoken) when in public Trust reflected Honor upon himself and Country, but now, O detestable Change! has for the Sake of a pitiful Pension, basely undertaken to be the Tool of Oppression, and to spread Misery and Poverty among his Friends and Brethren of this Colony, by collecting from them the small remains of Wealth they are now possessed of.

Now as each Beast of Prey, tho’ pinch’d for Food,
Yet spares his Brother Natives of the Wood;
So holds he still close Union with the Devil,
To Virtue only and his Friends uncivil.

A little above him was represented the Enemy of all honest Men [i.e., the Devil], with a Piece of Stampt Paper in his Hand offering it to him, but by his Aspect appeared very doubtful of Success.—

Underneath was written these Mottos,  viz. LIBERTY, in Capitals; below, May this be the Fate of all Enemies to Liberty and Property. On the other Side, Property, below, Behold the Man who refers his private Interest to publick Trust.

They continued in this Position ’till Evening, when thee was a prodigious Concourse of People gathered, the Effigies were taken down, and carried through the Town, attended by a large Proesssion, with the loudest Acclamations of the People—

The Procession being ended, the Effigies were consumed in that Element which is the most proper to blot out the blackest Crimes by an Intire Demolition of the Object. The Rest of the Evening was spent in those Diversions which usually accompany such Proceedings.

That last line feels somewhat ironic, but it suggests that people in Connecticut should consider hanging and burning the stamp master in effigy was just something you did.

TOMORROW: Back to New London County.

Norwich’s Protest Against the Stamp Act

In order to discuss the anti-Stamp Act demonstration and riots in Newport in time for its reenactment last Saturday, I completely skipped over developments in Connecticut. Which had, in fact, come earlier in August 1765. So let’s catch up!

As I quoted back here, one letter describing Boston’s 14 August protest against the new law, with stamp-tax collector Andrew Oliver hung in effigy, included this passage:

It was Observd that a Connecticut Man very attentively viewd the Image and at length took off the Lines on which some one asked him what he was about. He replied, that as he was going home he was only taking a Sample of the Fruit of that Tree, it would be seen more; for he was satisfied that some their Trees would bear the like.

The 23 Aug 1765 New-London Gazette showed that Connecticut Whigs had indeed adopted the Boston method of protest:

NORWICH, August 22.

The noble patriotic Fire which has lighted up in one Place and another, and of late shone so conspicuous at Boston, blazed here, with all the vehemence and splendor of a Comet, guided by the dictates of Prudence and Decorum.

’Twas last Night [i.e., 21 August] our reputable STAMP-MASTER, in Effigie, made his public Appearance in this Town, clad in a Suit of White, trim’d with Black, the Gift of his Native Country, both as an Emblem of his Purity and Innocence, and his sorrow and tender Concern for this unhappy People: On his right Hand stood the restless Father of Mischief [i.e., the Devil] with the Stamp Act in his Hand, giving Credentials to his all attentive Pupil; the malignity of his Heart was lively portray’d by the expressive Cardinal Knave at Cards on his Breast, accompanied with a cautious Memento to all Place Men, that

“When Vice prevails & impious Men bear Sway,
“The Post of Honour is a private Station.”

Their Appearance was Becoming, and Procession Glorious, attended by such Invectives, Huzza’s, & disdainful Music as are the pure emanations of injured Freedom: After passing thro’ Town, our Hero with his Companion, was conducted “In all the Majesty of Greece” to the height of a loft Hill, perhaps the highest Summit he will e’er ascend, and there in Complaisance to his Fellow, committed to the Flames; and a few loyal and constitutional Healths crown’d the Night.

I'm not sure why Norwich was the first Connecticut town to host such a demonstration. That colony’s designated stamp master, Jared Ingersoll, had received several letters from men hoping to be his deputies for particular towns. Dr. Daniel Lathrop (1712-1782) appears to have been the sole hopeful from Norwich, but there’s no sign that his neighbors knew of his offer to help collect the tax. If he was smart, he kept quiet.

TOMORROW: Protests spread.

Andrew Oliver’s August Resignation

The anti-Stamp Act protest in Boston on 14 Aug 1765, followed that evening by the destruction of Andrew Oliver’s new building and other property, had a quick result: Oliver resigned as stamp agent for Massachusetts.

Oliver told his Connecticut counterpart Jared Ingersoll, who had visited Boston just a few days before, that he’d “stood the attack for 36 hours—a single man against a whole People, the Government not being able to afford me any help during that whole time.”

I’m not sure Oliver’s resistance quite totals to “36 hours.” That would have been from dawn on 14 August, when his effigy on Liberty Tree became apparent, to the evening of the 15th. Oliver resigned, according to his own writing, on that afternoon.

In the third, posthumously published volume of his history of Massachusetts, Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson described his friend’s decision:

Several of the council gave it as their opinion, Mr. Oliver being present, that the people, not only of the town of Boston, but of the country in general, would never submit to the execution of the stamp act, let the consequence of an opposition to it be what it would. It was also reported, that the people of Connecticut had threatened to hang their distributor [Ingersoll] on the first tree after he entered the colony; and that, to avoid it, he had turned aside to Rhode Island.

Despairing of protection, and finding his family in terror and great distress, Mr. Oliver came to a sudden resolution to resign his office before another night, and immediately signified, by a writing under his hand, to one of his friends, that he would send letters, by a ship then ready to sail for London, which should contain such resignation; and he desired that the town might be made acquainted with it, and with the strong assurances he had given, that be would never act in that capacity.

Oliver’s decision took Hutchinson by surprise, suggesting it came after he left the Council meeting. On 20 Aug 1765 the lieutenant governor wrote, “This resolution he took without my knowing any thing of it & yet I was charged with advising him against it.”

Gov. Francis Bernard told the story differently on 16 August:

In the Afternoon of Yesterday, sevral Gentlemen applied to Mr. Oliver, to advise him to make a publick declaration, that he would resign the Office, & never act in it; without which they said, his House would be immediately destroyed, & his Life in continual Danger. Upon which he was obliged to authorise some Gentlemen to declare in public, that he would immediately apply for leave to resign, & would not act in the Office, (as indeed it was impossible for him to do) until he received further Orders. This satisfied the Leaders; but the lower Part of the Mob were not so easily pacified. 

However, Bernard appears to have skipped town before any of that happened (it’s not in the part of the letter he composed on the evening of 15 August), so he was reporting hearsay.

Oliver addressed his official resignation to the Treasury Office in London, which oversaw the collection of the stamp duty. He also released the news to “one of his friends,” and then copied out those “terms of Capitulation” for Ingersoll:

Mr. Oliver acquaints Mr. Waterhouse that he has wrote to the Lds. of the Treasury, to desire to be excused from executing the Office of Distributor of the Stamps: and that when they arrive he shall only take proper care to secure them for the Crown, but will take no one Step for distributing the same at the time appointed by the Act. And he may inform his friends accordingly.

Thursday Afternoon, 15th. August.

Why did Oliver make Samuel Waterhouse the recipient of this letter? Waterhouse was only a private merchant (he joined the Customs office in 1772). Oliver might have chosen him for two reasons:

• Waterhouse wrote a lot of newspaper essays supporting the royal government, so he knew how to get news into the press. (Indeed, the resignation was reported in the papers on 19 August.)
• Oliver was giving Waterhouse a heads-up that the office of stamp agent was soon to be vacant in case he wanted to apply for it himself.

The Whigs in town considered the second possibility serious enough that the following February Oliver had to publicly declare that he hadn’t meant that at all. By then he’d had to resign again—but I’ll get to that in December.

TOMORROW: The mob turns out again.

The Flight of the Stampmen in the Boston Gazette

In preparation for the next two days of Stamp Act sestercentennial events in Boston, I looked up the issue of the Boston Gazette for Monday, 12 Aug 1765.

That was the last issue published before effigies appeared on the big South End elm. It’s easily read on the Massachusetts Historical Society’s online collection of the newspapers of Harbottle Dorr.

On page 3, the local news included these items:

Early on Monday Morning last departed this Town, after a short Stay, for his native Place the Colony of Connecticut, the most reputable STAMPMAN [Jared Ingersoll], attended by his Brother Functioner of this Province [Andrew Oliver, shown above], amidst the Exclamations of the People—And we hear they were bewildered and lost their Way in going thro’ Roxbury; but by the Help of Sambo an innocent Negro Man, they were convey’d through Sheep-Alley into the great Road again, leading to Watertown.

We hear from Providence, in the Colony of Rhode Island, that the Freemen of that Town being lately called, to confer on such Measures as should appear to them necessary relative to the STAMP ACT,* whereby the Liberties, the darling Boast of the English North American Subject, which was once deem’d indefeasible, must be greatly abridg’d, if not totally annihilated; they according met for the aforesaid Purpose, and unanimously appointed a Committee to prepare Instructions suitable to be given their Representatives for their Conduct in the next general Assembly, on this truly alarming Occasion; and that they are to be laid before that Town for their Approbation To-Morrow; at which Time those Sons of Liberty are to convene again for the noblest of all Causes, their Country’s Good.—A Proceeding this, that conveys the most lively Idea of Principles nobly patriotic, and which will, it is to be wish’d, serve as an Example to other Towns, to exert themselves at this Crisis, and to remind them that they are entitled to all the Privileges of British Subjects, as long as they are denominated such, and to bear in utter Abhorrence the Name without the Substance.

Ironically, Jared Ingersoll, the Connecticut stamp agent who left Boston under a cloud, was also the man responsible for popularizing “Sons of Liberty” as the name of Stamp Act opponents.

As for that asterisk, it led readers to these lines of poetry:

———— Instead of voted Aid,
Free, cordial, large, a never failing Source,
The cumb’rous Imposition follow’d harsh.

THOM. Lib.

That was a quotation from Liberty by James Thomson (1700-1748). Specifically, it was from a passage about the tyranny of Charles I. You know, the king who was overthrown and executed by the Puritans.

Missing Stamp Act Sources

Yesterday I quoted an extract from Jared Ingersoll’s letter of 11 Feb 1765, about the House of Commons debate over the Stamp Act, as it appeared in the 27 May Boston Post-Boy. Researching that text was a good reminder of how spotty the historical record remains.

When the Newport Mercury published that same text on the same day, its printer datelined the item “New London, 10 May.” That strongly suggests the text first appeared in print in the 10 May issue of the New-London Gazette. But no copies of that newspaper are known to have survived. Thus, the publication that sparked the “Sons of Liberty” movement is apparently lost.

The same situation applies to other descriptions of the debate. The 13 May Newport Mercury and 13 May Boston Gazette both contained a long description of the discussion in the House of Commons, paraphrasing opposition member Isaac Barré’s speech at length (but not emphasizing the same points as Ingersoll’s letter).

The 13 May article from Newport indicates that its source for that description was the New-York Gazette, or Weekly Post-Boy, published on Thursdays. But the run of that newspaper is not available for 1765. (That article also included the claim that there was “a majority of about forty voices in favour of the bill.” In fact, the vote was 245-49, so that report wasn’t completely reliable.)

Finally, in 1852 the historian Jared Sparks (shown above as a young clergyman) reported that Francis Dana (1743-1811) of Boston had “heard Barré’s speech, and wrote home an account of it at the time.” As far as I can tell, that letter has never been published. Does its text survive in the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard (MS Sparks 44)? The Dana family papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society? Or nowhere? How did it accord with the other accounts?

In digging around I was also struck by how Boston shopkeeper Harbottle Dorr began his personal newspaper archive in 1765. Apparently he decided that something big started that year.

Finally, the Debate Over the Stamp Act

So did Isaac Barré speak against the Stamp Act in the House of Commons on 6 Feb 1765? Edmund Burke recalled that debate as unexciting, but on 12 February Horace Walpole wrote that Barré had delivered “a pretty heavy thump” to bill advocate Charles Townshend.

On 4 May the Providence Gazette cited “several Letters from London” to Newport that characterized Barré’s remarks this way:

Col. B—, confirmed the Equity of the Taxation, but doubted whether the Colonies were in a Capacity to pay it, and seemed inclinable to favor them.

Not very stirring.

But Jared Ingersoll (1722-1781), outgoing agent (lobbyist) for Connecticut, sent a much more dramatic account to Gov. Thomas Fitch. That manuscript, dated 11 Feb 1765, was transcribed and published in 1918.

Part of that letter was also published in America in 1765, including the 27 May Boston Post-Boy:

Mr Charles Townshend spoke in favour of the Bill, (Stamp Duty), and concluded his Speech by saying to the following Effect:

“These Children of our own Planting, (speaking of Americans), nourished by our Indulgence, until they are grown to a good Degree of Strength and Opulence, and protected by our Arms, will they grudge to contribute their Mite to relieve us from the heavy load of national Expence which we lie under?[”…]

Which having said and sat down, Mr. Barre arose, and, with Eyes darting Fire [he was in fact blind in one eye] and an outstretched Arm, spoke as follows, with a voice somewhat elevated, and with a Sternness in his Countenance, which express’d in a most lively Manner, the feelings of his Heart:

“Children planted by your Care? No! Your Oppression planted them in America; they fled from your Tyranny, into a then uncultivated Land, where they were exposed to almost a1l the Hardships, to which humane Nature is liable; and among others, to the Savage Cruelty of the Enemy of the Country; a People the most subtile, and, I take upon me to say, the most truly terrible of any People that ever inhabited any Part of GOD’s EARTH, and yet actuated by Principles of true English Liberty; they met all these Hardships with Pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own Country, from the Hands of those that should have been their Friends.

“They nourished up by your Indulgence? They grew by your Neglect of them: As soon as you began to care about them, that Care was exercised in sending Persons to Rule over them, in one Department and another; who were, perhaps, the Deputies of some Deputy, of Members of this House, sent to spy out their Liberty, to misrepresent their Actions, and to prey upon them; Men, whose Behaviour, on many Occasions, has caused the Blood of those Sons of LIBERTY, to recoil within them; Men promoted to the highest Seats of Justice: some to my Knowledge, were glad by going to foreign Countries, to Escape being bro’t to a Bar of Justice, in their own.

“They protected by your Arms? They have nobly taken up Arms in your Defence, have exerted their Valour, amidst their constant and laborious Industry, for the Defence of a Country whose Frontier, while drench’d in Blood, its interior Parts have yielded all its little Savings to your Enlargement: and BELIEVE ME, REMEMBER I THIS DAY TOLD YOU SO, That the same Spirit which actuated that People at first, will continue with them still: But Prudence forbids me to explain my self any further. GOD KNOWS, I do not at this Time speak from Motives of Party Heat; What I deliver, are the genuine Sentiments of my Heart: However superior to me in general Knowledge and Experience, the respectable Body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that Country. The People there are as truly Loyal, I believe, as any Subjects the King has; But a People jealous of their Liberties, and who will vindicate them, if they should be violated; but the Subject is too delicate, I will say no more.”

That speech inspired American opponents to the Stamp Act to call themselves “Sons of Liberty,” a phrase with deeper roots in British culture that lasted into other political battles as well.

Barré remained one of Parliament’s most vocal opponents of new taxes on the American colonies. Not that his oratory convinced many of his colleagues. His motion to adjourn without approving the bill, which was a form of up-or-down vote, failed by 245 votes to 49.

As for Jared Ingersoll, he decided the fight against the Stamp Act was lost, applied successfully for the position of stamp agent in Connecticut, and became a target of the Sons of Liberty—the very political movement his reporting had helped to inspire.