th a coat of tar and feathers, and parading
him about the streets in a cart for the contemplation of
his neighbours. Another amusement was making Tories ride
the rail. This consisted in putting the 'unhappy victims
upon sharp rails with one leg on each side; each rail
was carried upon the shoulders of two tall men, with a
man on each side to keep the poor wretch straight and
fixed in his seat.'

Even clergymen were not free from the attentions of the
mob. The Rev. Jonathan Boucher tells us that he was
compelled to preach with loaded pistols placed on the
pulpit cushions beside him. On one occasion he was
prevented from entering the pulpit by two hundred armed
men, whose leader warned him not to attempt to preach.
'I returned for answer,' says Boucher, 'that there was
but one way by which they could keep me out of it, and
that was by taking away my life. At the proper time, with
my sermon in one hand and a loaded pistol in the other,
like Nehemiah I prepared to ascend my pulpit, when one
of my friends, Mr David Crauford, having got behind me,
threw his arms round me and held me fast. He assured me
that he had heard the most positive orders given to twenty
men picked out for the purpose, to fire on me the moment
I got into the pulpit.'

That the practices of the mob were not frowned upon by
the revolutionary leaders, there is good reason for
believing. The provincial Congress of New York, in December
1776, went so far as to order the committee of public
safety to secure all the pitch and tar 'necessary for
the public use and public safety.' Even Washington seems
to have approved of persecution of the Tories by the mob.
In 1776 General Putnam, meeting a procession of the Sons
of Liberty who were parading a number of Tories on rails
up and down the street's of New York, attempted to put
a stop to the barbarous proceeding. Washington, on hearing
of this, administered a reprimand to Putnam, declaring
'that to discourage such proceedings was to injure the
cause of liberty in which they were engaged, and that
nobody would attempt it but an enemy to his country.'

Very early in the Revolution the Whigs began to organize.
They first formed themselves into local associations,
similar to the Puritan associations in the Great Rebellion
in England, and announced that they would 'hold all those
persons inimical to the liberties of the colonies who
shall refuse to subscribe this association.' In connection
with these associa