WEBVTT NOTE 24. Response in New York 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.440 Volume 3, Chapter 24, Response in New York 2 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:11.440 The people of Massachusetts and Rhode Island had now set the example. The other colonies 3 00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:17.240 were not slow to follow. Neither was the lesson lost on the appointed stamp distributors in 4 00:00:17.240 --> 00:00:25.000 the remaining colonies. As early as August 26, New York's stamp master, James McEvers, 5 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:32.760 Threatened with the same fate as Oliver, hastily resigned his post before mob action surfaced. 6 00:00:32.760 --> 00:00:39.120 On September 2, the frightened William Cox, stamp distributor for New Jersey, hastily 7 00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:46.440 resigned his post even though he had received no threats from the populace. In Maryland, 8 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:53.400 stamp master Zachariah Hood refused to resign, even after a mob raised his house on September 9 00:00:53.400 --> 00:01:01.600 2, an act that followed the whipping, pilloring, hanging and burning of his effigy. The people 10 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:07.720 of Maryland saw that more drastic measures were necessary. They set upon Hood and forced 11 00:01:07.720 --> 00:01:13.240 him to flee for his life to New York City. There he was driven from an inn by New York 12 00:01:13.240 --> 00:01:20.240 radicals but found congenial refuge at Fort George run by Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader 13 00:01:20.240 --> 00:01:28.720 Here, Colden. Hood had not yet resigned, but he was no longer a present danger to Marylanders. 14 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:34.460 New York might be free of its stamped distributor, but the potential menace of the stamped paper 15 00:01:34.460 --> 00:01:41.360 remained. The paper arrived from England toward the end of October, but it found the people 16 00:01:41.360 --> 00:01:47.040 of New York ready to meet it, headed by the Sons of Liberty of New York, formed a few 17 00:01:47.040 --> 00:02:16.040 The Suns organized a crowd of some 2,000 New Yorkers to prevent the landing of the stamped paper, but the implacable Tory Codwallader Colden arranged for a British warship to stand watch while the paper was unloaded at night at his fortress on Fort George. That night, October 26, the following warnings were posted throughout New York City. 18 00:02:16.040 --> 00:02:32.040 Pro patria, the first man that either distributes or makes use of stamped paper, let him take care of his house, person, and effects, vox populi, we dare. 19 00:02:32.040 --> 00:02:40.040 The evening before the Stamp Act was to take effect, a public meeting warned that the Stamp Act would be disobeyed. 20 00:02:40.040 --> 00:02:48.040 A crowd paraded through the city shouting liberty and threatening to bury alive Major Thomas James. 21 00:02:48.040 --> 00:02:57.040 James, commander of the troops at Fort George, had boasted that he would cram the stamps down the New Yorker's throats with the end of his sword. 22 00:02:57.040 --> 00:03:03.040 The following night, November 1, a mob of about two thousand New Yorkers, 23 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:08.960 soldiers, many of them former soldiers and privateersmen as well as seamen, carpenters 24 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:15.520 and rural folk, marched to the house of the hated Colden, carrying and then hanging and 25 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:19.880 burning effigies of Colden and of the devil. 26 00:03:19.880 --> 00:03:25.720 The crowd, defying efforts of the mayor and council to disperse it, broke into Colden's 27 00:03:25.720 --> 00:03:32.160 coach house and paraded around the coach, later hanging the two effigies on a public 28 00:03:32.160 --> 00:03:38.360 Give It, and then burning them along with the coach and other Colton carriages. 29 00:03:38.360 --> 00:03:45.600 The mob then broke into Major James's home, smashed the interior, and leveled the house. 30 00:03:45.600 --> 00:03:50.160 The people had not yet attacked Fort George to seize the stamps. 31 00:03:50.160 --> 00:03:56.760 At this point, conservative opponents of the stamp tax bitterly tried to dissuade the people 32 00:03:56.760 --> 00:04:00.480 from such a bold course. 33 00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:06.280 Directed by Robert R. Livingston and James Duane, the conservatives gained the concession 34 00:04:06.280 --> 00:04:14.000 from Colden that he would not issue the stamps. But the radical liberal leaders would not 35 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:21.480 be put off by this tactical retreat. The stamped papers themselves must be destroyed. Armed 36 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:26.800 New Yorkers pass into the city to support an attack on the fort and posters signed by 37 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:34.160 by such Sons of Liberty names as Sons of Neptune, an organization of semen, and Free Sons of 38 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:40.960 New York threatened an all-out assault on the fort on the night of November 5, unless 39 00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:47.480 the stamped papers were surrendered. Under this threat, Governor Colden, on the advice 40 00:04:47.480 --> 00:04:54.200 of the British General Thomas Gage and the New York Council, finally capitulated and 41 00:04:54.200 --> 00:05:00.320 and turned the paper over to the municipal authorities. In mid-November, a second shipment 42 00:05:00.320 --> 00:05:05.800 of stamps was again turned over to the municipal corporation. 43 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:11.520 The Sons of Liberty, the indomitable leaders of the radical resistance in New York City, 44 00:05:11.520 --> 00:05:18.520 were unsurprisingly led by wealthy merchants and lawyers, and rested on a mass base of 45 00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:24.960 of Artisans, Small Businessmen, and Laborers. Its original leaders had been the liberal 46 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:30.840 lawyers William Livingston and John Moran Scott, but they were soon replaced by better 47 00:05:30.840 --> 00:05:38.520 and more radical organizers who were also wealthy merchants. Isaac Sears, a privateer, 48 00:05:38.520 --> 00:05:44.520 John Lamb, a manufacturer of mathematical instruments, and Joseph Alacocque.