Then tracts appeared in answer; clear, terse, sound, and able. These said, "No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any power or preëminence over his fellow-creatures more than another, unless they have voluntarily vested him with it. Since, then, Americans have not, by any act of theirs, empowered the British Parliament to make laws for them, it follows they can have no just authority to do it.... If, by the necessity of the thing, manufactures should once be established, and take root among us, they will pave the way still more to the future grandeur and glory of America; and, by lessening its need of external commerce, will render it still securer against the encroachments of tyranny." This was rank heterodoxy toward a power which had crippled the manufactures of America in all possible ways, and wished to keep her a great agricultural country. "The sacred rights of mankind," said the writer, "are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records; they are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." The wonder grew as to the authorship of these pamphlets. Some said John Jay wrote them; some said Governor Livingstone. When it was learned that Hamilton, only eighteen, had composed them, the Tories stood aghast, and the Patriots saw that a new star had risen in the heavens. Hamilton knew that the war was inevitable; that the time must soon come for which he longed when he wrote to his friend Ned, "I wish there was a war." He immediately began to study military affairs. There are always places to be filled by those who make themselves ready. He was learning none too early. His corps, called the "Hearts of Oak" in green uniforms and leathern caps, drilled each morning. While engaged in removing cannon from the battery, a boat from the Asia, a British ship-of-war, fired into the men, killing the person who stood next to Hamilton. At once the drums were beaten, and the people rushed to arms. The king's store-houses were pillaged, and the "Liberty Boys" marched through the streets, threatening revenge on every Tory. Young Hamilton, fearless before the Asia, could also be fearless in defence of his friends. Dr. Cooper, the President of Columbia College, was a pronounced Tory. When the mob approached the steps of the institution, Hamilton, nothing daunted, appeared before them, and urged coolness, lest they bring "disgrace on the cause of liberty." Dr. Cooper imagined that his liberal pupil was assisting the mob, and cried out from an upper window, "Don't listen to him, gentlemen! he is crazy, he is crazy!" But the mob did listen, and the president was saved from harm.