The sailors flocked in from the vessels, the farmers from the country, and the shouts, and ringing of bells, and firing of cannon made the city fairly tremble. Colden was terrified at the storm that was raised, and took refuge in the fort. An old man, bent and bowed with the weight of eighty years, he tottered nervously to the shelter of its guns, and ordered up a detachment of marines from a ship of war in port, for his protection. In his indignation, he wanted to fire on the people, and the black muzzles of the cannon pointing on the town had an ominous look. Whether he had threatened to do so by a message, we do not know; at any rate, the people either suspected his determination or got wind of it, for during the day an unknown person handed in at the fort-gate a note, telling him if he did, the people would hang him, like Porteus of Edinburgh, on a sign-post. He wisely forebore to give the order, for if he had not, his gray hairs would have streamed from a gibbet. At length the day of turmoil wore away, and night came on, but with it came no diminution of the excitement. Soon as it was dark, the "Sons of Liberty," numbering thousands, surged tumultuously up around the fort, and demanded that the stamps should be given up that they might be destroyed. Golden bluntly refused, when with loud, defiant shouts they left, and went up Broadway to "the field" (the present Park), where they erected a gibbet, and hanged on it Colden in effigy, and beside him a figure holding a boot; some said to represent the devil, others Lord Bute, of whom the _boot_, by a pun on his name, showed for whom the effigy was designed. The demonstration had now become a riot, and the Sons of Liberty degenerated into a mob. The feeling that had been confined to words all day must now have some outlet. A torchlight procession was formed, and the scaffold and images taken down, and borne on men's shoulders along Broadway towards the Battery. The glare of flaring lights on the buildings and faces of the excited crowd, the shouts and hurrahs that made night hideous, called out the entire population, which gazed in amazement on the strange, wild spectacle. They boldly carried the scaffold and effigies to within a few feet of the gate of the fort, and knocked audaciously for admission. Isaac Sears was the leader of these "Sons of Liberty." Finding themselves unable to gain admittance, they went to the Governor's carriage-house, and took out his elegant coach, and placing the two effigies in it, dragged it by hand around the streets by the light of torches, amid the jeers and shouts of the multitude. Becoming at last tired of this amusement, they returned towards the fort, and erected a second gallows, on which they hung the effigies the second time.