City Arms to fall upon such methods as they shall then think most advisable for their reciprocal interest. On the 31st there was a general meeting of the principal merchants at this tavern, which was known under the various names of the City Arms, the Province Arms, the New York Arms, and stood on the upper corner of Broadway and Stone, now Thames street, on the site later occupied by the City Hotel. Resolutions were adopted and subscribed by upwards of two hundred of the principal merchants; 1st, to accompany all orders to Great Britain for goods or merchandize of any nature kind or quality whatever with instructions that they be not shipped unless the Stamp Act be repealed; 2nd, to countermand all outstanding orders unless on the conditions mentioned in the foregoing resolution; 3rd, not to vend any goods sent on commission, shipped after the 1st January succeeding, unless upon the same condition. In consequence of these resolutions the retailers of goods subscribed a paper obliging themselves not to buy any goods, wares or merchandize after the 1st January unless the Stamp Act were repealed. This was the first of the famous Non Importation Agreement, the great commercial measure of offense and defense against Great Britain. It punished friends and foes alike and plunged a large portion of the English people into the deepest distress; at the same time it taught the Colonies the value and extent of their own resources." _J. A. Stevens, The Stamp Act in New York (Magazine of American History, June, 1877)._