But the Fates were against him. Mercer arrived on October 30, and at once went to his father's house. Having word of this, a crowd of men, some of them leading citizens in their home counties, started off to find him. As they approached the Capitol they met him and asked him whether he intended to retain his office as stamp distributor. To this he gave an evasive answer, and continued to the coffee house nearby where Governor Fauquier, Speaker Robinson, and several members of the Council were seated on the porch. The crowd, which had followed him, pressed toward them and a cry was heard, "Let us rush in." But when Fauquier and the others advanced to repel them, someone called out, "See the Governor, take care of him." Upon this they fell back. And when Mercer promised that he would give his answer at the Capitol the next day at five, they seemed satisfied and permitted him to walk through them side by side with the Governor to the Palace.[44] In the meanwhile, word of Mercer's arrival had spread through the countryside, so that the next day hundreds of persons poured into town. As five o'clock approached a vast crowd assembled in the Capitol yard. There Mercer spoke to them. His appointment had been unsolicited, he said. He had not, as had been rumored, urged the passage of the Stamp Act. "And now," he added, "I will not, directly by myself or deputies proceed in the execution of the act ... without the assent of the General Assembly of this colony." At this there was a great shout of approval, and those near him raised him aloft and bore him out through the gate to a nearby tavern. As they entered, the huzzas were redoubled, while drums rattled, and horns blared. That night the town was illuminated and bells rang out. The following night the occasion was climaxed by "a splendid ball."[45] As for the stamps, they never touched land. They were transferred to a warship, "it being the place of the greatest, if not the only security for them." If the mob could have laid their hands on them they would certainly have gone up in flames. Now in various parts of the colony men met to organize what they called Sons of Liberty. The merchants of Norfolk, native-born Scotsmen many of them, had a double grievance, since the Sugar Act threatened their trade and the Stamp Act their liberty. In March about thirty leading citizens met at the house of Mayor Calvert, where "they brought daylight on" debating the best way to resist both acts. At their call the people crowded into the courthouse to protest. "We will ... defend ourselves in the full enjoyment of ... those inestimable privileges of freeborn British subjects of being taxed only by representatives of their own choosing.... If we quietly submit to the execution of the said Stamp Act, all our claims of civil liberty will be lost, and we and our posterity become absolute slaves."[46]