The General Assembly, however, voted that the Governor of Connecticut should not take it; and, moreover, determined to continue Mr. Fitch in his office, notwithstanding the disfranchisement incident on his refusal, if he would be guided by their advice: the Rev. Mr. Ebenezer Devotion, one of the Representatives, and Eliphalet Dyer (above mentioned), one of the Council, offered to pay the imposed fine of 1,000_l._ However, the Governor presented himself before the Council, whose business it was to administer the oath, but which, it is thought, Mr. Fitch presumed would be denied, and therefore artfully devised this means at once of avoiding the oath and shifting the penalties from himself upon them. Seven out of the twelve, suspecting the Governor’s design, put their fingers in their ears, shuffled their feet, and ran groaning out of the house; the other five stayed, and administered the oath, with a view to saving themselves and the Charter and direct the wrath of the people against the Governor; but in this they were mistaken, incurring in common with him the odium of the patriots. The Stamp Act having thus gained footing, the Assembly broke up. Legal proceedings also were discontinued, and the courts of justice shut. The Consociations and Associations kept frequent fasts of their own appointment, prayers, and preaching against Roman Catholic rulers, Arminian governors, and false-hearted councillors and episcopizing curates. Hereupon the mobs became outrageous; sedition was law and rebellion gospel. The stamp-master was called a traitor to his country, and the episcopalians enemies to Zion and liberty.