After the adoption in Massachusetts of Patrick Henry's resolves, the people, brooding over the injuries which Adams made them believe they were receiving under the Stamp Act, became fiercer in temper. Open treason was talked, and many of the addresses to the Governor, composed by Adams, were models of grave and studied insolence. The rough population which abounded about the wharves and shipyards grew riotous, and, with the usual indiscrimination of mobs, was not slow to lift its hands against even the best friends of the people. "Mob law is a crime, and those who engage in mobs are criminals." This is a fundamental axiom of orderly government that cannot be denied. The first great riot was in anticipation of the arrival of the stamps. On the morning of August 14, 1765, there appeared, at what is now a corner of Washington and Essex streets, two effigies, hanging on an elm tree, representing Andrew Oliver, the stamp agent, and Lord Bute, the former prime minister. In the evening these images were carried as far as Kilby street, where there was a new unfinished government building, wrongly supposed to have been erected for use as a stamp office. This the mob completely demolished, and, taking portions of its wood-work with them, they proceeded to Fort Hill, where a bonfire was made in front of the house of Mr. Oliver, burning the effigy of Lord Bute there, and committing gross outrages on Oliver's premises, which were plundered and wrecked. A few nights later riots recommenced with redoubled fury, the rioters turning their attention to the house of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, who was also chief justice, and kinsman of Oliver. Hutchinson was not only the second person in rank in the colony, but was also a man who had personal claims of the highest kind upon his countrymen. He was an American, a member of one of the oldest colonial families, and, in a country where literary enterprise was very uncommon, he had devoted a great part of his life to investigating the history of his native province. His rare abilities, his stainless private character, and his great charm of manner, were universally recognized. He had at one time been one of the most popular men in the colony, and although Hutchinson was opposed to the Stamp Act, the determined impartiality with which, as Chief Justice, he upheld the law, soon made him obnoxious to the mob. [Illustration: ANDREW OLIVER, STAMP COLLECTOR ATTACKED BY THE MOB. His beautiful mansion on Oliver street, Fort Hill, was wrecked and he narrowly escaped with his life.]