The house of Benjamin Hallowell, jun., comptroller of the customs, was next entered; and, elevated and emboldened by liquors found in his cellar, the mob, with inflamed rage, directed their course to the house of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, who, after vainly attempting resistance, was constrained to depart, to save his life. By four in the morning, one of the best houses in the province was completely in ruins, nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors. The plate, family pictures, most of the furniture, the wearing apparel, about nine hundred pounds sterling, and the manuscripts and books which Mr. Hutchinson had been thirty years collecting, besides many public papers in his custody, were either carried off or destroyed. The whole damage was estimated at two thousand five hundred pounds. [Illustration: Attack, on the Governor's House.] On the arrival of the 1st of November, on which the stamp act was to go into effect, the day was ushered in at Boston by the tolling of the bells; many shops and stores were shut, and effigies of the authors and friends of that act were carried about the streets, and afterwards torn in pieces by the populace. Nor was Massachusetts alone; the obnoxious act received similar treatment in the other colonies. On the 24th of August, a gazette was published at Providence, with _vox Populi, vox Dei_, for a motto; effigies were exhibited, and in the evening cut down and burned. In Portsmouth, New Castle, and other places, the bells were tolled to denote the decease of Liberty. In Connecticut, Mr. Ingersoll, the stamp-master, was compelled to resign. The spirit manifested in New York produced a similar resignation. Offended with the conduct of Lieutenant-Governor Colden, in relation to the stamp act, many of the inhabitants assembled one evening, and breaking open his coach-house, took out his coach, which, with his effigy, they burned, amid the acclamations of several thousand spectators. [Illustration: Burning of the Coach and Effigy of Governor Colden.] In Philadelphia, on the appearance of the ships having the stamps on board, all the ships in the harbor hoisted their colors half-mast high; the bells were muffled, and continued to toll till evening. Similar demonstrations of dissatisfaction were made in numerous other places. The opposition to the stamp act was so universal and so formidable, as to prevent all hope of its successful operation; had this measure been persisted in, the Revolution in America would doubtless have dated at an earlier day. Fortunately for the American colonies, the administration of Lord Grenville terminated in July, 1765--that minister being succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham, while the Duke of Grafton and General Conway were made secretaries of state.