Lieutenant Spaulding free from the jail to which he had been committed on a charge of high treason for saying that, "if the king had signed the Quebec bill, it was his opinion he had broken his coronation oath," at a town-meeting held in January following chose such a committee. This body removed two assessors from office for refusing to execute an order of the town to assess a tax, payable in potash salts, for the purpose of procuring 100 pounds of powder, 200 pounds of lead, and 300 flints, for the town use; suspended another town officer till by his conduct he proved himself a Whig; and disarmed a suspected Tory. The example of this town was generally followed by others, without waiting the action of a convention. The General Assembly of New York had refused to adopt the resolves and Articles of Association of the Continental Congress, and the courts of justice were continued in that province, while elsewhere they were almost universally suspended. Affairs were at this pass, causing great dissatisfaction among the patriots of the Grants, when the time for the session of the King's Court of Cumberland County, to be holden at Westminster the 14th of March, 1775, drew near. A deputation of forty citizens of the county waited upon the chief judge, Colonel Chandler, at Chester, and endeavored to dissuade him from holding the court. He admitted that it would be better to hold no court in the present state of affairs, but said there was a case of murder which it was necessary to try, after which, if not agreeable to the people, no other cases should come on. In answer to the objections of one of their number, that the sheriff would be present with an armed posse and there would be bloodshed, he assured them that no arms should be brought against them, and dismissed them with thanks for their civility. After considerable discussion of methods to prevent the sitting of the court, it was decided that it should be permitted to come together, when the objections to its proceeding should be laid before it, "thinking," says the "Relation of the Proceedings," "they were men of such sense that they would hear them."[57] It presently became known that the court intended to take possession of the court-house the day before its session was to begin, and hold it with a strong guard against the intrusion of those opposed to its opening. To forestall this purpose, about 100 men, armed only with clubs that the stalwart men of Rockingham took from a neighboring woodpile, entered the court-house late in the afternoon of that day, with the intention of holding it till the judges should hear their grievances. They had not been long within it when the sheriff, with a strong posse of armed men and attended by the officers of the court, came marching up the level street of the little town. Halting near the door, he demanded entrance, but received no answer. He then read the king's proclamation in a loud