[74] Boston Gazette, September 23, 1765. The opposition spread and deepened, with a natural tendency to outbreak and violence. On one occasion in Boston, it showed itself in the lawlessness of a mob most formidable in character, even as is now charged. Liberty, in her struggles, is too often driven to force. 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 proceeding. On these two grounds she then stood: and her position was widely recognized. 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."[75] [75] Boston Gazette, March 31, 1766. Thus was the Stamp Act annulled, even before its actual repeal, which was pressed with assiduity by petition and remonstrance, at the next meeting of Parliament. Among potent influences was the entire concurrence of the merchants, and especially a remonstrance against the Stamp Act by merchants of New York, like that now made against the Slave Act by merchants of Boston. Some at first sought only its mitigation. Even James Otis began with this moderate aim. The King himself showed a disposition to yield to this extent. But Franklin, who was then in England, when asked whether the Colonies would submit to the Act, if mitigated in certain particulars, replied: "No, never, unless compelled by force of arms."[76] Then it was that the great Commoner, William Pitt, in an ever-memorable speech, uttered words which fitly belong to this occasion. He said:--