The merchants who had assembled in the coffee-house were called the Non-Importation Association, branches of which spread throughout all the colonies.  The paper they signed was the non-importation agreement.  Next day, which was the first on which the stamps were to be distributed, the city seemed to sleep.  The shops were closed and the citizens remained indoors.  The flags were hung at half-mast and the bells tolled dismally.

But at night the silence changed to noise.  The citizens gathered in numbers.  They broke into the stable of Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader Golden and dragged out his coach of state.  In it they put a figure made of sticks and rags to represent the owner.  They marched the streets, shouting as they went, and finally surrounded the fort.  The soldiers were drawn up on the ramparts with cannon and gun directed toward the Bowling Green.  But no shots were fired.  The rioters being denied admission to the fort, into which they were anxious to get because the stamps were stored there, tore down the wooden railing around the Bowling Green, and, kindling a huge fire, burned the coach and the figure in it.

As the flames blazed high, the fury of the mob increased.  They rushed away toward Vauxhall on the outskirts of the town (where Greenwich and Warren Streets now cross).  Vauxhall at this time was occupied by a major of the British army named James.  He had said that the stamps ought to be crammed down the throats of the people with the point of a sword.  In revenge for this his house was broken into, his handsome furniture, his pictures and treasures of every sort dragged out, and kindled into a bonfire around which the mob danced and howled.

The people were quite determined to take the law into their own hands and destroy every trace of the hated stamps.  You shall know presently what prevented them.

CHAPTER XXI

The beginning of Revolution

On the morning after the night of rioting—­dark and dreary day that was quite in keeping with the gloomy feelings of the people—­Cadwallader Colden, the Lieutenant-Governor, decided that he would do away with the stamps that had caused so much trouble.  So he had them delivered to the Mayor, who was in accord with the citizens, and the Mayor put them in the City Hall amid many cheers.  A few days after this Sir Henry Moore (who had been appointed Governor of the province) arrived from England, and immediately won the hearts of the citizens by saying that he would have nothing to do with the stamps.  During the next few months excitement in New York and in the other colonies increased, and efforts to keep the stamps in use caused riots everywhere.

When the King saw that he could not enforce the Stamp Act, and that serious trouble was likely to occur from every attempt to do so, he repealed the act, the year after it had become a law.