On his return from this wearisome campaign, Colonel Putnam again settled down to the chosen occupation of his youth and the solace of his latter years, on the farm. Having given ten of the best years of his life to soldiering, he felt that he was entitled now to the rewards of peace. But alas! within five months of his arrival home he lost two of his dear ones by death: his daughter Elizabeth, only seventeen years of age, who died in the winter of 1764-'65, and his beloved wife, Hannah, who passed away in the April following. Of the ten children born to Israel and Hannah Putnam in the twenty-six years of their happy married life, seven were living at the time of the mother's death, the youngest only three months old, and bearing the name of Peter Schuyler, in honor of the New Jersey colonel who had befriended his father when a captive in Canada. CHAPTER X TAVERN-KEEPER AND ORACLE No one could call in question Israel Putnam's loyalty, yet the year following his last campaign in behalf of King George, he might have been found opposing the Government and riding from town to town, for the purpose of inciting men to make armed resistance to the iniquitous "Stamp Act," which had been passed and made a law early in 1765. While James Otis, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry were eloquently declaiming against it, Putnam was for putting words into action, and as one of the "Sons of Liberty" was active in urging his countrymen to make a stand for freedom. Though prevented by an accident from taking part in the proceedings by which the "stamp-master" for Connecticut was compelled to resign his position and disavow the office to which he was appointed, yet Putnam was foremost in bringing this condition of affairs about. It seems that one Mr. Ingersoll was appointed stamp-master by the Crown, and, on being requested to resign from such an obnoxious office by the Sons of Liberty, he returned an evasive answer. Consequently, a body of them mounted their horses and went out to meet him, as he was on his way to Hartford. Finding him on the road, they caused him to dismount and, in the presence of the company, now swelled to several hundred, to read his resignation as a royal appointee, and to shout for "liberty and property," three times, as loud as he could. The spirit of the people, now thoroughly aroused, was very accurately expressed by Colonel Putnam, who, deputed by the Sons of Liberty to wait on the Governor of his State and inform him of the public sentiment respecting the Stamp Act, made him understand that there would be no temporizing whatever in the matter. "But what should I do," asked the perplexed Governor, "if the stamped paper should be sent me by the King's command?" "Lock it up until we shall visit you again," replied Putnam, boldly. "And what will you do then?"