the four men who had been tarred and feathered was again the subject of popular indignation because of his bringing away clothing from Cat Island. He was taken from his bed one night by a mob and carried to the public whipping-post where he was severely whipped and beaten.[113] During the year 1775, when the spirit of rebellion rose to the height of armed resistance and open warfare, there was increased occasion for recourse to summary procedure. In that year mobs gathered in many places,[114] riots were numerous and cases of tarring and feathering occurred in several of the colonies. In June, 1775, Laughlin Martin and James Dealy were stripped of their clothes, tarred and feathered, and carted through the Streets of Charleston, South Carolina, by order of the “Secret Committee,” one of the committees which had been formed to carry on an independent government in that Province.[115] In August of the same year, this committee had another man, “a Mr. Walker, Gunner of Fort Johnston,” treated in the same way.[116] In September, 1775, James Smith, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Duchess County, New York, together with Coen Smith of the same place, were “handsomely tarred and feathered” for acting in open contempt of the resolves of the County Committee. “The judge undertook to sue for, and recover the arms taken from the Tories by order of said committee, and actually committed one of the committee, who assisted at disarming the Tories, which enraged the people so much, that they rose and rescued the prisoner, and poured out their resentment on this villanous retailer of the law.”[117] In December, 1775, “at Quibbletown, New Jersey, Thomas Randolph, cooper, who had publicly proved himself an enemy to his country, by reviling and using his utmost endeavors to oppose the proceedings of the continental and provincial conventions, in defence of their rights and liberties; and being judged a person not of consequence enough for a severer punishment, was ordered to be stripped naked, well coated with tar and feathers, and carried in a wagon publicly around the town—which punishment was accordingly inflicted. As soon as he became duly sensible of his offence, for which he earnestly begged pardon, and promised to atone, as far as he was able, by a contrary behavior for the future, he was released and suffered to return to his home, in less than half an hour. The whole was conducted with that regularity and decorum that ought to be observed in all public punishments.”[118] In the later years of the Revolution, also, there were cases of tarring and feathering. At Charleston, South Carolina, in 1776, “John Roberts, a dissenting minister, was seized on suspicion of being an enemy to the rights of America, when he was tarred and feathered; after which, the populace, whose fury could not be appeased, erected a gibbet on which they hanged him, and afterwards made a bonfire, in which Roberts, together with the gibbet, was consumed to ashes.”[119]