ling lobsters on a
little gravelly bench, where the river whispers and lisps among the
pebbles as the tide creeps in. It is a weather-beaten ex-skipper or
ex-pilot, with strands of coarse hair, like seaweed, falling about a
face that has the expression of a half-open clam. He is always ready
to talk with you, this amphibious person; and if he is not the most
entertaining of gossips--more weather-wise that Old Probabilities,
and as full of moving incident as Othello himself--then he is not the
wintery-haired shipman I used to see a few years ago on the strip of
beach just beyond Liberty Bridge, building his drift-wood fire under a
great tin boiler, and making it lively for a lot of reluctant lobsters.

I imagine that very little change has taken place in this immediate
locality, known prosaically as Puddle Dock, during the past fifty or
sixty years. The view you get looking across Liberty Bridge, Water
Street, is probably the same in every respect that presented itself to
the eyes of the town folk a century ago. The flagstaff, on the right,
is the representative of the old "standard of liberty" which the Sons
planted on this spot in January, 1766, signalizing their opposition
to the enforcement of the Stamp Act. On the same occasion the patriots
called at the house of Mr. George Meserve, the agent for distributing
the stamps in New Hampshire, and relieved him of his stamp-master's
commission, which document they carried on the point of a sword through
the town to Liberty Bridge (the Swing Bridge), where they erected the
staff, with the motto, "Liberty, Property, and no Stamp!"

The Stamp Act was to go into operation on the first day of November. On
the previous morning the "New Hampshire Gazette" appeared with a deep
black border and all the typographical emblems of affliction, for was
not Liberty dead? At all events, the "Gazette" itself was as good as
dead, since the printer could no longer publish it if he were to be
handicapped by a heavy tax. "The day was ushered in by the tolling
of all the bells in town, the vessels in the harbor had their colors
hoisted half-mast high; about three o'clock a funeral procession was
formed, having a coffin with this inscription, LIBERTY, AGED 145,
STAMPT. It moved from the state house, with two unbraced drums, through
the principal streets. As it passed the Parade, minute-guns were fired;
at the place of interment a speech was delivered on the occasion,
stating the many advantages