r interfering in the internal affairs
of Virginia.

[Illustration: HENRY'S FIRST AND LAST RESOLUTIONS (FACSIMILE OF THE
ORIGINAL DRAFT)]

[Sidenote: Opposition to the Stamp Act, 1765. _Higginson_, 164-165;
_McMaster_, 116.]

109. Stamp Act Riots, 1765.--Until the summer of 1765 the colonists
contented themselves with passing resolutions. There was little else
that they could do. They could not refuse to obey the law because it
would not go into effect until November. They could not mob the stamp
distributers because no one knew their names. In August the names of the
stamp distributers were published. Now at last it was possible to do
something besides passing resolutions. In every colony the people
visited the stamp officers and told them to resign. If they refused,
they were mobbed until they resigned. In Boston the rioters were
especially active. They detested Thomas Hutchinson. He was
lieutenant-governor and chief justice and had been active in enforcing
the navigation acts. The rioters attacked his house. They broke his
furniture, destroyed his clothing, and made a bonfire of his books
and papers.

[Sidenote: Colonial congresses.]

[Sidenote: Albany Congress, 1754.]

[Sidenote: Stamp Act Congress, 1765.]

110. The Stamp Act Congress, 1765.--Colonial congresses were no new
thing. There had been many meetings of governors and delegates from
colonial assemblies. The most important of the early congresses was the
Albany Congress of 1754. It was important because it proposed a plan of
union. The plan was drawn up by Benjamin Franklin. But neither the
king nor the colonists liked it, and it was not adopted. All these
earlier congresses had been summoned by the king's officers to arrange
expeditions against the French or to make treaties with the Indians. The
Stamp Act Congress was summoned by the colonists to protest against the
doings of king and Parliament.

[Illustration: PATRICK HENRY "I am not a Virginian, but an American."]

[Sidenote: Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonists,
1765. _McMaster_, 115.]

111. Work of the Stamp Act Congress.--Delegates from nine colonies
met at New York in October, 1765. They drew up a "Declaration of the
Rights and Grievances of the Colonists." In this paper they declared
that the colonists, as subjects of the British king, had the same rights
as British subjects living in Britain, and were free from taxes except
those to which they had given their conse