On the evening of May 18, 1769, at Providence, Rhode Island, Jesse Saville, “a Tidesman belonging to the Custom-House” who was accused of “Informing,” was seized by a number of people, stripped naked, covered from head to foot with turpentine and feathers and severely beaten. “For the better bringing to Justice and condign Punishment the Authors of this daring & atrocious Outrage, the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Customs” offered a reward of fifty pounds sterling for their discovery and conviction.[100] A similar case of tarring and feathering, the offender being “a Person who had informed against a Merchant, respecting a Vessel then in the West-Indies,” occurred in New Haven, Connecticut, in September, 1769.[101] In New York, in October, 1769, “one Kelly, an Oysterman, Mitchner, a Tavern-keeper, and one or two more, having, it is said, made an Information to the Custom-House Officers, which occasioned the Seizure of a few Casks of Wine belonging to the Mate of a Vessel, and was, it is said, the whole Saving he had made of three Years Wages: The Populace being greatly incensed against the Informers, after several Days Search, found and seized them, placed and tied them in Carts, and carried them thro’ great Part of the City, attended with many Thousand People, who huzza’d, insulted and treated them with the utmost Indignity, often besmearing their Faces and Clothes with Tar, and sprinkling them with Feathers.... The Magistrates interposed, but were for some Time unable to stop the Cavalcade, till the Populace had in some Measure satiated their Resentment.”[102] The Boston Chronicle for October 26–30, 1769,[103] contained the following under the heading of “Boston”: “Last Saturday evening, a person suspected to be an informer, was stripped naked, put in a Cart, where he was first tarred, then feathered, and in this condition, carried through the principal streets of the town, followed by a great concourse of people.” During the year 1770 there was much popular feeling against merchants who imported goods contrary to the non-importation agreement. Such importers were threatened with many dire punishments including tar and feathers, and in several instances the threatened punishments were administered.[104] At Philadelphia, in October, 1773, a certain Ebenezer Richardson, accused of “seeking an opportunity to distress the Trade of Philadelphia,” was publicly notified, by “Tar _and_ Feathers,” of the punishment which was in store for him, a punishment which he narrowly escaped by leaving the city “closely pursued by many well-wishers to peace and good order.”[105]