f the resolutions and of
the commendatory remarks with which they were everywhere received,
the treasonable flavor of their boldest phrases no doubt grew less
pronounced, and high talk took on more and more the character of good
sense. During the summer of 1765 the happy phrase of Isaac Barre--"these
sons of liberty"--was everywhere repeated, and was put on as a kind
of protective coloring by strong patriots, who henceforth thought of
themselves as Sons of Liberty and no traitors at all. Rather were they
traitors who would in any way justify an act of tyranny; most of all
those so-called Americans, accepting the office of Stamp Master, who
cunningly aspired to make a farthing profit out of the hateful business
of enslaving their own countrymen.

Who these gentry might be was not certainly known until early August,
when Jared Ingersoll, himself as it turned out one of the miscreants,
brought the commissions over from London, whereupon the names were all
printed in the papers. It then appeared that the gentleman appointed
to distribute the stamps in Massachusetts was Andrew Oliver, a man very
well connected in that province and of great influence with the beet
people, not infrequently entrusted with high office and perquisites, and
but recently elected by the unsuspecting Bostonians to represent them in
the council of Massachusetts Bay Colony. It seemed inconsistent that a
man so often honored by the people should meanwhile pledge himself to
destroy their liberties; and so on the morning of the 14th of August,
Mr. Oliver's effigy, together with a horned devil's head peeping out of
an old boot, was to be seen hanging from the Liberty Tree at the south
end of Boston, near the distillery of Thomas Chase, brewer and warm
Son of Liberty. During the day people stopped to make merry over the
spectacle; and in the evening, after work hours, a great crowd gathered
to see what would happen. When the effigy was cut down and carried away,
the crowd very naturally followed along through the streets and through
the Town House, justifying themselves--many respectable people were
in the crowd--for being there by calling out, "Liberty and Property
forever; no Stamp." And what with tramping and shouting in the warm
August evening, the whole crowd became much heated and ever more
enthusiastic, so that, the line of march by some chance lying past
the new stamp office and Mr. Oliver's house, the people were not to be
restrained from destroyin