Due care had been taken to enforce it, by sending General Gage, as Governor, to Boston, where he arrived the preceding month with a number of troops. Determined, however, as Parliament seemed, on compulsion, the colonists were equally bent on resistance, and resolved on a Continental Congress to direct their operations. In the mean time, contributions for relieving the distressed people in Boston were voted by the colonies; and Connecticut, through the officiousness of Jonathan Trumbull, its Governor, had the honour of first setting the example, by having a meeting called in Hebron, the inhabitants of which remained loyal and refused to vote for the collection. Governor Trumbull imputed this to the influence of the Rev. Samuel Peters (of whom more will be said hereafter) and his family. Many were the attempts made to ruin his character, but unsuccessfully; he was too well beloved and befriended in the town. Falsehoods and seditions had now for some time been every day increasing in the province; and men who were secret propagators of traitorous opinions, pretended in public to look up to the Consociation, the great focus of Divine illumination, for direction. After much fasting and praying, that holy leaven discovered an admirable method of advancing the blessed work of protestant liberty. The doors of prisons were opened, and prisoners became leaders of mobs composed of negroes, vagabonds, and thieves, who had much to gain and nothing to lose. The besom of destruction first cleared away the creditors of the renegades, and then the Sandemanians, presbyterians, and episcopalians. The unfortunate complained to the Governor and magistrates of the outrages of the banditti, begging the protection of the laws. The following was the best answer returned by the magistrates: “The proceedings of which you complain are like the acts of Parliament; but be this as it may, we are only servants of the people, in whom all power centres, and who have assumed their natural right to judge and act for themselves.” The loyalists armed, to defend themselves and property against the public thieves; but the Liberty Boys were instantly honoured by the ministers, deacons, and justices, who caused the Grand Jury to indict, as tories and rioters, those who presumed to defend their houses, and the courts fined and imprisoned them.