Stamp Act reactions
Archibald Hinshelwood to Joshua Mauger, August 19, 1765. (Gilder Lehrman Collection)
There is a violent spirit of opposition raised on the Continent against the execution of the Stamp Act, the mob in Boston have carried it very high against Mr. Oliver the Secry (a Town born child) for his acceptance of an office in consequence of that act. They have even proceeded to some violence, and burnt him in Effigy &c. They threaten to pull down & burn the Stamp Office now building, and that they will hold every man as Infamous that shall presume to carry the Stamp Act into Execution; so that it is thought Mr. Oliver will resign. I don’t find any such turbulent spirit to prevail among us, if it should, the means are in our Hands to prevent any tumults or Insults; what the consequences may be in the Colonies who have no military force to keep the rabble in order, I cannot pretend to say.
Pennsylvania Packet advertisements, 29 August 1765
“AMERICANUS” (Joseph Galloway), letter to The New-York Gazette, 15 August 1765, reprinted two weeks later in the Pennsylvania Journal (29 August 1765), EXCERPTS.
At a time when almost every American pen is employed in placing the transactions of the Parliament of our mother country is the most odious light, and in alienating the affections of a numerous and loyal people from the royal person of the best of sovereigns; permit, however unpopular the task, through the impartial channel of your paper, to point out the impudence and folly of such conduct, and to give a brief and true state of the facts included in the dispute between Great Britain and her colonies. From whence the cool and unprejudiced may form a right judgment of the motives of her late [recent] conduct, and of the impropriety and rashness of the method that is taken to prevail on her to alter or repeal her measures. It is a truth too universally known that the people of England are involved in a debt under which they struggle with the utmost difficulty. From its enormity many judicious persons have predicted the ruin of the nation. Foreign powers rely on it as the only foundation of their hopes of reducing the British dominions. The protection of America has, in no small degree, contributed to this burden of the mother country. To the large sums of money that have been expended from the English treasury and the parental care of a British Parliament, we in a great measure owe our present freedom from Indian barbarities, popish cruelties and superstition. . .