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a law. Its discussion in the House of Commons brought the administration and its enemies into fierce and terrible collision. During it, Colonel Barre, who had stood side by side with General Wolf on the Plains of Abraham, delivered that short, unpremeditated and thrilling speech, in reply to Charles Townsend's interrogation, "And will these American children, planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgences to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy burden under which we lie?" Springing to his feet, the fiery soldier replied, They planted by your care! No, your oppressions planted them in America. They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them in one department and another, who were perhaps the deputies of deputies to some members of the House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them, whose behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of these sons of liberty to recoil within them. They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defense, have exerted a valor amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defense of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little earnings to your emolument."

With a warning to the government to desist from its rash and perilous course, he sat down. A breathless silence followed this sudden and impassioned address, bursting as it did from a soul on fire. J. Ingersoll, ef Connecticut, sat in the gallery and listened to it. By the next packet he dispatched it to the colonies. "Sons of Liberty! was the baptismal name pronounced in the British Parlia ment. "Sons of Liberty" echoed the men of Boston, and organized into a band under that name. A large tree stood

on the corner of Washington and Essex streets, which they christened "Liberty Tree," and beneath its branches assem bled from time to time to deliberate on the momentous question of taxation.

Southward swept the flame of rebellion. Virginia, whose House of Burgesses had ever been distinguished for stubborn resistance to every assumption of authority by the governor, * rang the alarum bell," and sent her thrilling accents of defiance on. The assembly was in session when the news arrived, and though the denunciations were loud and deep, no one seemed inclined to take the lead in the House till Patrick Henry, who had been a member but a few days, snatching a fly-leaf from old Coke upon Lyttleton, wrote five daring resolutions upon it, and rising read them to the utter astonishment of all. He declared that the colonies alone had power to levy taxes, and defended his resolutions with an eloquence and boldness that electrified the House. Kindling on the glorious theme of Human Liberty, he poured forth with impassioned fervor and vehement energy those noble sentiments which soon found an echo in every part of the land. Forgetting for a moment every thing but the great subject which engrossed his soul, he suddenly exclaimed, "Cæsar had his Brutus--Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third-" "Treason!" shouted the defaulting Speaker Robinson. "Treason! Treason!" rang through the House. Pausing till the echo of the damning accusation had died away, he turned his flashing eye full on the speaker and shouted, "may profit by their example! If this be treason, make the most of it!" A fierce and exciting debate followed, but it was only like the occasional wind gusts heard in the pauses of the thunder. Henry's eloquence rolled over and drowned every thing else. His resolutions were carried.

Washington sat there a witness of the scene, and gazed,

one may well imagine with what feelings, on the inspired countenance of the young and fearless orator.

The flame spread on every side. British ministers were hung in effigy on Liberty Tree. Associations were formed to reject all British manufactures. People in Philadelphia refused to eat mutton, that they might have more wool for domestic use. Ladies of the first rank dressed in homespun. The stern Puritan clergy cried "To your tents, oh Israel!" When the churchmen preached loyalty to the Lord's anointed, "The People," retorted William Livingston, "are the Lord's anointed," The "Stamp Act" was hawked about the streets of New York, under the title of Folly of England and Ruin of America."

South Carolina heard the bugle-blast of Virginia and Massachusetts, and snatching up the trumpet, through her Gadsden, blew a call so clear, loud and glorious, that the heart of the nation leaped up at the sound. With the lofty, fearless and eloquent Gadsden at the South, the fiery patriot Patrick Henry in Virginia, and the sanest madman that ever became an Oracle of the Gods, Otis of Boston, at the North, there was no danger of lack of energy or courage. "Death to the man who offers a piece of stamped paper to sell!" shouted the people of Boston. Bonfires, harangues, threats, riots and violence, filled the officers of government with alarm. Hutchinson of Connecticut fled to his castle. The stamp-officer of Rhode Island, trembling for his life, resigned at the clamors of the mob. The house of the stamp-master of Annapolis was leveled to the ground by the infuriated multitude. Ingersoll, stamp-master of Connecticut, fled in terror from New Haven with the governor. In his flight he met first two, then five, and a little after thirty, and finally five hundred men on horseback, armed with clubs cut from the forest and stripped of their bark. Three bugles heralded their approach, and opening to the right and left they received into their midst the

trembling stamp-officer. Halting in the main street of Wethersfield, they bade him resign. Ingersoll, having retired to a house, hesitated and delayed. The people grew more and more indignant, and at length their swelling shout for vengeance so alarmed him that he obeyed, saying, “After all, it is not worth dying for."

"Swear to the writing," cried the mob. Ingersoll refused. "Then shout for Liberty and Property three times," they cried. "Liberty and Property!" shouted the crest-fallen stamp-master. Then three loud huzzas rent the air. A thousand men had now assembled, each with his white cudgel, and gathering round Ingersoll, escorted him with the sound of bugles to Hartford, and there, in the presence of the legislature, made him read his resignation. In his journey thither he rode a white horse, and some one asking him what he thought of the strange cavalcade accompanying him, he replied that he now had a clearer idea, than ever before, of that passage in the Revelations which describes Death on the pale horse and hell following him. Thus officer after officer was compelled to resign, until but one, Hughes, the Quaker of Philadelphia, remained. Tossing on his bed of sickness, he at last heard the muffled drums beating their mournful throbs, and the deep toll of the bell of the State House sending its dull echoes over the city, followed by the still more alarming sound, the muffled tread of excited men on their march to his dwelling, and trembling for his life, reluctantly yielded and promised to resign.

In the midst of this excitement, the First Congress of the colonies met at New York [Oct. 7th, 1765,] and laid the foundation of their liberty. The excitement was not confined to this country, but spread to England, and when in the following winter Parliament assembled, the question of the Colonies absorbed all others. A noble attempt was made to repeal the Stamp Act, and during the discussion