George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

‘ [378] and venture their lives and fortunes, effectually to

chap. XX.} 1766. Jan.

prevent the Stamp Act.’ On the following night the ship which arrived from London with ten more packages of stamps for New-York and Connecticut, was searched from stem to stern, and the packages were seized and carried in boats up the river to the shipyards, where, by the aid of tar barrels, they were thoroughly consumed in a bonfire.

The resolutions of New-York were carried swiftly to Connecticut. The town of Wallingford voted a fine of twenty shillings on any of its inhabitants ‘that should use or improve any stamped vellum or paper;’ and the Sons of Liberty of that place, adopting the words of their brethren of New-York, were ready ‘to oppose the unconstitutional Stamp Act to the last extremity, even to take the field.’ The people of the county of New London, meeting at Lyme, declared ‘the general safety and privileges of all the colonies to depend on a firm union.’ They were ‘ready on all occasions to assist the neighboring provinces to repel all violent attempts to subvert their common liberties;’ and they appointed Major John Durkee to correspond with the Sons of Liberty in the adjoining colonies. Israel Putnam, the brave patriot of Pomfret,—whose people had declared, that their connection with England was derived only from a compact, their freedom from God and nature, and to be maintained with their lives,—rode from town to town through the eastern part of Connecticut, to see what number of men could be depended upon, and gave out that he could lead forth ten thousand.

Massachusetts spoke through its House of Representatives, which convened in the middle of January. They called on impartial history to record the strong