Golden and dragged out his coach of state. In it they put a figure made
of sticks and rags to represent the owner. They marched the streets,
shouting as they went, and finally surrounded the fort. The soldiers
were drawn up on the ramparts with cannon and gun directed toward the
Bowling Green. But no shots were fired. The rioters being denied
admission to the fort, into which they were anxious to get because the
stamps were stored there, tore down the wooden railing around the
Bowling Green, and, kindling a huge fire, burned the coach and the
figure in it.

As the flames blazed high, the fury of the mob increased. They rushed
away toward Vauxhall on the outskirts of the town (where Greenwich and
Warren Streets now cross). Vauxhall at this time was occupied by a major
of the British army named James. He had said that the stamps ought to be
crammed down the throats of the people with the point of a sword. In
revenge for this his house was broken into, his handsome furniture, his
pictures and treasures of every sort dragged out, and kindled into a
bonfire around which the mob danced and howled.

The people were quite determined to take the law into their own hands
and destroy every trace of the hated stamps. You shall know presently
what prevented them.




CHAPTER XXI

THE BEGINNING of REVOLUTION