In the year 1765 and for several succeeding years the “Sons of Liberty” were particularly active in stirring up resistance to the acts of the British government, which were considered oppressive. The “Sons of Liberty,” elsewhere as well as in Boston, seem to have been regularly organized and to have held secret meetings at which resolutions were adopted and definite plans of action were determined upon for either driving away or punishing certain “Stamp Masters,” “infamous importers,” and “informers.” Warning notices were frequently posted and published, signed by “P. P., Clerk,” “M. Y., Secretary,” &c. Hanging and burning in effigy, flagellation, tarring and feathering, and ducking, were the punitive measures generally threatened and not infrequently carried into effect.—These statements are based on a collection of notes on “Sons of Liberty” which were loaned to the writer by Mr. Albert Matthews. Footnote 92: For an exposition of the condition of society, its state of dissolution and lack of organization, during the Revolutionary period and subsequent to that period, see W. G. Sumner: “Alexander Hamilton” (1890). On page 13 this statement is made: “The Union was from the start at war with the turbulent, anarchistic elements which the Revolution had set loose.” Footnote 93: A correspondent of the _New England Gazette_ in 1776 asked “whether it would be featherable for a man to be detected with one of them (pardons from the king) in his pocket.”—Frank Moore: “Diary of the Revolution (1875), p. 226. Paul Leicester Ford, when writing his historical novel “Janice Meredith,” treated tarring and feathering as an ordinary incident of Revolutionary times. See Chapters XVII, XXXVIII. Footnote 94: John Drayton: “Memoirs of the American Revolution” (1821), I, 273. Frank Moore: “Diary of the Revolution” (1875), p. 44. Joseph Johnson: “Traditions and Reminiscences” (1851), p. 70. Edward McCrady: “South Carolina in the Revolution 1775–1780” (1901), p. 24. The date on which the tarring and feathering of Thomas Ditson of the town of Billerica took place was March 9, not March 8, as given by the above writers. For an explanation of the discrepancy in the date and for a description of the occurrence, see _Boston Gazette_, March 13, 1775 (No. 1039, p. 3); March 20, 1775 (No. 1040, p. 3). Footnote 95: Joseph Johnson: “Traditions and Reminiscences” (1851), p. 71. “The punishment of banishment, preceded by the more dreadful operation of tarring and feathering,” was put in execution by a “judicial Association” in the early days of a settlement on the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. See R. G. Jameson: “New Zealand, South Australia, and New South Wales” (London, 1842), pp. 190–191.