On the flood tide of a prosperous business--celebrated for his legal acumen and forensic fame--in the full enjoyment of domestic felicity and social intercourse with friends--Mr. Chase glided smoothly along until his country began to writhe under kingly oppression. The Stamp Act, the first born of the scrofulous revenue system devised by the putrescent British ministry, met with a hostile reception at Annapolis. Mr. Chase and a band of kindred spirits under the cognomen of "Sons of Liberty," forcibly seized and destroyed the newly imported stamps and burned in effigy the stamp distributer. No further violence was then committed. The king's officers opened a newspaper battery against this "furious mob" directing their whole artillery against Mr. Chase complimenting him with the courtly names--"busy restless incendiary--ringleader of mobs--foul mouthed inflaming son of discord and faction--a common disturber of the public tranquillity--a promoter of the lawless excesses of the multitude" and other similar emphatic appellations--conferring upon the young patriot a diploma of distinction little anticipated by them. His answers to these vituperations were manly, charged with strong and conclusive logic--keen and withering sarcasm. The attack brought him fairly into the political field. So delighted were the people with the manner he handled the hirelings of the crown that they elected him to the colonial assembly. There he took a conspicuous part and became the uncompromising opposer of all measures that were not within the pale of the constitution or were tinctured with oppression. So strongly was he in favor of liberal principles that he gave his whole influence and vote in favor of the repeal of the law that compelled the people to support the clergy by which the stipend of his father was reduced one-half. Pursuant to the law of primogeniture then in force this was voting money out of his own pocket. His bold and independent course made him a subject of persecution with the creatures of the crown and an object of pride and admiration with the people. His enemies found him a bramble full of the keenest thorns and were awfully scarified every time they approached him. His tongue, pen, logic, sarcasm--all were blighting as a sirocco wind.