If ten years' discussion convinced American patriots that they possessed more rights than their philosophy had yet dreamed of, constant dwelling on their condition developed a sensitiveness which registered oppression where none had been felt before. What a profound influence had those liberty-pole festivals so assiduously promoted by men like Samuel Adams and Alexander MacDougall: "for they tinge the minds of the people; they impregnate them with the sentiments of liberty; they render the people fond of their leaders in the cause, and averse and bitter against all opposers." In August, 1769, John Adams dined with three hundred and fifty Sons of Liberty at Dorchester, in an open field. "This," he said, noting the effect of the patriotic toasts and the inspiring popular songs, "is cultivating the sensations of freedom." For a decade these excitable Americans did, indeed, cultivate the sensations of freedom; went out periodically, as it were, to "snuff the approach of tyranny on every tainted breeze"; a practice which, becoming habitual, developed a peculiar type of mind which marked a man out from his fellows. Such a man was William Hall, Esquire, of North Carolina, at whose house Josiah Quincy stopped; "a most sensible, polite gentleman, and, although a Crown officer, a man replete with the sentiments of general liberty." How useless, indeed, were arguments drawn from positive law, or the citation of many legal precedents, to convince men _replete with sentiments of general liberty!_