All this time, Washington was in the midst of the turmoil, not as a leader but more as a peacemaker, though always in full sympathy with the fast growing American idea. As we take a swift view of those times, we are apt to suppose that the change of mind, uniting the colonies in opposition to Great Britain, came suddenly and unanimously, but, as in all places and situations, where there is freedom of thinking, the general conviction came slowly, especially the conviction to use force in the defense of the rights of of man as learned in the hard freedom of the wilderness. What we might call the high-water mark of mind, in favor of force for maintaining colonial liberty, was that of Patrick Henry, whose slogan was “Give me liberty or give me death.” On the other hand, there were many, from the aristocratic mansion to the log cabin in the forest, who looked upon force against the mother country as a horror and a crime. Between these extremes, Washington labored for patience among the colonists and a change of policy among the law-makers of Great Britain. In writing to his wife’s uncle, an influential man in London, he said, “The Stamp Act engrosses the conversation of the speculative part of the colonists, who look upon this unconstitutional method of taxation as a direful attack upon their liberties, and loudly exclaim against the violation.” [Illustration: Washington Surrendering His Commission.] In the New England colonies, the people were far more fierce in their resentment toward the requirement that they must buy stamps to make legal almost every transaction. This method of getting money for the British government was so offensive to Boston that a publicly encouraged mob hanged the stamp distributor in effigy, the windows of his house were broken, and the building to be used as his office was broken to pieces, and the fragments burned in the streets. The officers of the town, trying to disperse the crowd, were driven away with stones. The next morning the stamp distributor renounced his office in the public square and no one could be found willing to take his place. Down in Virginia, the stamp distributor did not try to fulfill his office, but came on to Williamsburg and amidst much applause publicly denounced the Stamp Act and vacated the office. On the first of November, 1765, when the act was to become law and go into operation, there was tolling of bells throughout New England. Ships in the harbors displayed their flags at half-mast. Shops were shut, business was suspended, and every form of defiance they could invent was displayed all day and that night.