Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

[138] preceding August, by hanging him in effigy, breaking into his house, and destroying part of his furniture, some of the inhabitants of Boston had induced Mr. Secretary Oliver to promise that he would not act as Distributor of Stamps; and on the evening of the 26th of the same month, they attacked the house of Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson, who had rendered himself obnoxious by his subserviency to the British ministry, and “destroyed, carried away, or cast into the street, everything that was in the house; demolished every part of it, except the walls, as far as lay in their power; and had begun to break away the brick-work. The damage was estimated at about twenty-five hundred pounds sterling, without any regard to a great collection of public as well as private papers in the possession and custody of the Lieutenant-governor.” ¹ At a town meeting in Cambridge three days later (Aug. 29), it was “Voted, that the inhabitants of this town do detest and abhor the riotous proceedings in the town of Boston, in robbing and destroying the dwelling-houses of the lieutenant-governor and others; and they will, on all occasions, use their utmost endeavors to secure their own inhabitants and their dwelling-houses and property against such ravages.” But when the Governor, in his address to the General Court, recommended that compensation should be made to the sufferers, and intimated that, if they did not make it voluntarily, they might soon be required to do so,² the town voted, Oct. 14, 1765, that their “Representatives be and are hereby instructed by no means to vote for any moneys being drawn out of the Province treasury to make good the demands of the late sufferers, as mentioned in his Excellency's speech, have sustained.” In their reply to the Governor's address, Oct. 25, 1765, the House of Representatives said, “We highly disapprove of the late acts of violence which have been committed; yet till we are convinced that to comply with what your Excellency recommends will not tend to encourage such outrages in time to come, and till some good reason can be assigned why the losses those gentlemen have sustained should be made good rather than any damage which other persons on any different occasions might happen to suffer, we are persuaded we shall not see our way clear to order such a compensation to be made. We are greatly at a loss to know who has any right to require this of us, if we should differ with your Excellency in point of its being an act of justice which concerns the credit of the government.” ³ A year later, however, when the odious