The =British Coffee-House= was one of the first inns to take to itself the newly imported title. It stood on the site of the granite building numbered 66 State Street, and was, as its name implies, as emphatically the headquarters of the out-and-out loyalists as the _Bunch of Grapes_, over the way, was of the unconditional Whigs. A notable thing about it was the performance there in 1750, probably by amateurs, of Otway's "Orphan," an event which so outraged public sentiment as to cause the enactment of a law prohibiting the performance of stage plays under severe penalties. Perhaps an even more notable occurrence was the formation in this house of the first association in Boston taking to itself the distinctive name of a Club. The =Merchants' Club=, as it was called, met here as early as 1751. Its membership was not restricted to merchants, as might be inferred from its title, though they were possibly in a majority, but included crown officers, members of the bar, military and naval officers serving on the station, and gentlemen of high social rank of every shade of opinion. No others were eligible to membership. Up to a certain time this club, undoubtedly, represented the best culture, the most brilliant wit, and most delightful companionship that could be brought together in all the colonies; but when the political sky grew dark the old harmony was at an end, and a division became inevitable, the Whigs going over to the _Bunch of Grapes_, and thereafter taking to themselves the name of the Whig Club.[1] Under date of 1771, John Adams notes down in his Diary this item: "Spent the evening at Cordis's, in the front room towards the Long Wharf, where the _Merchants' Club_ has met these twenty years. It seems there is a schism in that church, a rent in that garment." Cordis was then the landlord.[2] Social and business meetings of the bar were also held at the _Coffee-House_, at one of which Josiah Quincy, Jr. was admitted. By and by the word "American" was substituted for "British" on the _Coffee-House_ sign, and for some time it flourished under its new title of the =American Coffee-House=. But before the clash of opinions had brought about the secession just mentioned, the best room in this house held almost nightly assemblages of a group of patriotic men, who were actively consolidating all the elements of opposition into a single force. Not inaptly they might be called the Old Guard of the Revolution. The principals were Otis, Cushing, John Adams, Pitts, Dr. Warren, and Molyneux. Probably no minutes of their proceedings were kept, for the excellent reason that they verged upon, if they did not overstep, the treasonable.