The Act was not to go into operation until the 1st of November (1765); but long before the first of November it was evident that it would not go into effect at all. It was universally condemned and made impossible of application. There was instant protest from the colonial assemblies so soon as it was known that the Act was passed; and the assembly of Massachusetts proposed that a congress of delegates from the several colonies be held in October, ere the Act went into effect, to decide what should be done to serve their common interest in the critical matter. The agitations and tumults of that eventful summer were not soon forgot. In August, Boston witnessed an outbreak such as she had never witnessed before. Mr. Andrew Oliver, who had been appointed distributer of the stamps there, was burned in effigy; the house in which it was thought the stamps were to be stored was torn down; Mr. Oliver’s residence was broken into and many of its furnishings were destroyed. He hastily resigned his obnoxious office. Mobs then plundered the house of the deputy registrar of the court of admiralty, destroying his private papers and the records and files of the court,—because the new acts of trade and taxation gave new powers to that court. The house of the comptroller of customs was sacked. Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, the lieutenant-governor of the colony, found himself obliged, on the night of the 26th, to flee for his life; and returned when order was restored to find his home stripped of everything it contained, including nine hundred pounds sterling in money, and manuscripts and books which he had been thirty years collecting. Only the walls and floors of the house remained. [Illustration: JOHN DICKINSON] [Illustration: THOMAS HUTCHINSON] [Illustration: THOMAS HUTCHINSON’S MANSION, BOSTON]