STATE STREET, called King Street in the days of Stamp-acts and “the Regulars,” is the main artery of the heart of New England. The old State House, which stands at the head of it, was called the Town House, and was first erected in 1660. It is honourably mentioned in a book of travels, written in a pleasant vein, by “John Josselyn, Gent.” who visited the colonies in 1663. “There is also a Town House,” he says, “built upon pillars, where the merchants may confer. In the chambers above they hold their monthly courts. Here is the dwelling of the Governor (Bellingham). On the south there is a small but pleasant common, where the gallants, a little before sunset, walk with their marmalet madams, as we do in Moorfields, till the nine o’clock bell rings them home to their respective habitations; when presently, the constables walk the rounds to see good order kept, and to take up loose people.” The State House has been twice burnt, and rebuilt. A council chamber, ornamented with full-length portraits of Charles II. and James II. formerly occupied the east end; and it was in this chamber that James Otis declared before a court of admiralty, that “taxation without representation is tyranny,”—a phrase which became, before long, a slogan in the mouths of the people. “Then and there,” writes President Adams, “was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there, the child Independence was born.” It was upon a trial of the question of “Writs for Assistance,” a power which was required by the Board of Trade to enforce some new and rigorous Acts of Parliament touching trade; and Otis opposed the Attorney-General. “As soon as he had concluded,” says the historian, “Otis burst forth as with a flame of fire, with a promptitude of classical allusion, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous eloquence, which carried all before him.” This was the preparation for the resistance to the Stamp Act, and the Revolution soon followed.