Stamps for this purpose had to be bought of stamp officers appointed by the king. They were for the most part not unlike our revenue stamps. One kind was a red-ink seal, made with a hand stamp; the other a seal on blue paper, to be fastened on the article. The cost varied from one cent to fifty dollars each. No document was legal unless stamped. Our people at once saw that if England could levy taxes in this way, she could in many other ways, and there would be no end to such high-handed and tyrannical laws. Besides, there were no American representatives in Parliament, and Americans had no voice at all in the matter. They felt that the tax thus laid upon them was wrong. They did not object to paying the cost of a trifling tax. They felt bound to resist the rank injustice of the demand. It was not the amount but the principle at stake. =139. The Indignation of the People.=--The people were aroused. A storm of indignation swept over the land. Violent opposition broke out along the entire length of the colonies. They pledged themselves to stand by each other. The cry passed through the land: "No taxation without representation!" This became the watchword of the country. They did not wish to avoid paying a fair assessment in a fair way; but they insisted that, as always before, their own legislatures and not Parliament should levy the contribution. Our forefathers declared over and over again that they would not be taxed by a governing body three thousand miles away, whose members had never seen America. =140. Patrick Henry and his Bold Speech.=--One day the Virginia Assembly was in session. Washington was there in his seat, and Jefferson, then a young law student, stood listening at the door. Patrick Henry stoutly argued that Virginia was not bound to obey any law which was plainly a menace to the common freedom of Englishmen. "Cæsar had his Brutus," said the bold and eloquent orator; "Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third"---- "Treason!" shouted the Speaker of the Assembly, and the cry, "Treason, treason!" rang through the room. [Illustration: PATRICK HENRY'S BOLD SPEECH.] The intrepid patriot finished his sentence: "may profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it!" =141. The People combine to resist the Hated Law.=--The people combined to resist, and a stamp-tax congress was held in New York. Lovers of liberty would not deal in stamped goods. They refused to buy a single stamp. Riots occurred at the stamp offices. Packages of stamps were seized, and some were publicly burned in the streets. Boxes of stamped paper arriving in vessels were seized and thrown overboard. Publishers of newspapers decorated their headlines with skull and cross-bones instead of stamps. Stamp officers were dragged out and compelled to swear they would not sell any stamps. [Illustration: PATRICK HENRY.]