[189] Pennsylvania Gazette, October 31, 1765. Annual Register for 1765, p. [53.]
As the opposition deepened, there was a natural tendency to outbreak and violence. But this was carefully restrained. On one occasion, in Boston, it showed itself in the lawlessness of a mob. But the town, at a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, called without delay on the motion of the opponents of the Stamp Act, with James Otis as chairman, condemned the outrage. Eager in hostility to the execution of the Act, Boston cherished municipal order, and constantly discountenanced all tumult, violence, and illegal proceedings. Her equal devotion to these two objects drew the praises and congratulations of other towns. In reply, March 24, 1766, to an Address from the inhabitants of Plymouth, her own consciousness of duty done is thus expressed.
"If the inhabitants of this metropolis have taken _the warrantable and legal measures to prevent that misfortune, of all_ _others the most to be dreaded, the execution of the Stamp Act_, and, as a necessary means of preventing it, have made any spirited applications for opening the custom-houses and courts of justice,--_if at the same time they have bore their testimony against outrageous tumults and illegal proceedings_, and given any example of the love of peace and good order, next to the consciousness of having done their duty is the satisfaction of meeting with the approbation of any of their fellow-countrymen."[190]
[190] Town Records, MS., March 24: Boston Gazette, March 31, 1766.
Learn now from the Diary of John Adams the results of this system.
"The year 1765 has been the most remarkable year of my life. That enormous engine, fabricated by the British Parliament, for battering down all the rights and liberties of America,--I mean the Stamp Act,--has raised and spread through the whole continent a spirit that will be recorded to our honor with all future generations. In every Colony, from Georgia to New Hampshire inclusively, the stamp distributors and inspectors have been compelled by the unconquerable rage of the people to renounce their offices. Such and so universal has been the resentment of the people, that every man who has dared to speak in favor of the stamps, or to soften the detestation in which they are held, how great soever his abilities and virtues had been esteemed before, or whatever his fortune, connections, and influence had been, has been seen to sink into universal contempt and ignominy."[191]