"We therefore think it our indispensable duty, in justice to ourselves and posterity, as it is our undoubted privilege, in the most open and unreserved, but decent and respectful terms, to declare our greatest dissatisfaction with this law: _and we think it incumbent upon you by no means to join in any public measures for countenancing and assisting in the execution of the same_, but to use your best endeavors in the General Assembly to have the inherent, unalienable rights of the people of this Province asserted and vindicated, and left upon the public records, that posterity may never have reason to charge the present times with the guilt of tamely giving them away."[188] [188] Town Records, MS., September 18; Boston Gazette, September 23, 1765. Virginia responded to Boston. Many of her justices of the peace surrendered their commissions, rather than aid in the enforcement of the law, or be "instrumental in the destruction of their country's most essential rights and liberties."[189] [189] Pennsylvania Gazette, October 31, 1765. Annual Register for 1765, p. [53.] As the opposition deepened, there was a natural tendency to outbreak and violence. But this was carefully restrained. On one occasion, in Boston, it showed itself in the lawlessness of a mob. But the town, at a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, called without delay on the motion of the opponents of the Stamp Act, with James Otis as chairman, condemned the outrage. Eager in hostility to the execution of the Act, Boston cherished municipal order, and constantly discountenanced all tumult, violence, and illegal proceedings. Her equal devotion to these two objects drew the praises and congratulations of other towns. In reply, March 24, 1766, to an Address from the inhabitants of Plymouth, her own consciousness of duty done is thus expressed. "If the inhabitants of this metropolis have taken _the warrantable and legal measures to prevent that misfortune, of all_ _others the most to be dreaded, the execution of the Stamp Act_, and, as a necessary means of preventing it, have made any spirited applications for opening the custom-houses and courts of justice,--_if at the same time they have bore their testimony against outrageous tumults and illegal proceedings_, and given any example of the love of peace and good order, next to the consciousness of having done their duty is the satisfaction of meeting with the approbation of any of their fellow-countrymen."[190] [190] Town Records, MS., March 24: Boston Gazette, March 31, 1766. Learn now from the Diary of John Adams the results of this system.