papers, much lauded by these gentry as an effective and
constitutional means of defeating the law, was after all nothing
but "a sort of admittance of the legality of the Stamp Act, and
had a tendency to enforce it, since there was just reason to
apprehend that the secret enemies of liberty had actually a
design to introduce it by the necessity to which the people would
be reduced by the cessation of business." It was well, therefore,
in view of such insidious designs of secret enemies, that the
people, even to the lowest ranks, should become "more attentive
to their liberties, and more inquisitive about them, and more
determined to defend them, than they were ever before known or
had occasion to be."

To defend their liberties, not against ministers but against
ministerial tools, who were secret betrayers of America, true
patriots accordingly banded themselves in societies which took to
themselves the name of Sons of Liberty and of which the object
was, by "putting business in motion again, in the usual channels,
without stamps," to prevent the Stamp Act ever being enforced.
Such a society composed mainly of the lower orders of people and
led by rising young lawyers, was formed in New York. On January
7, at Mr. Howard's coffee house, abandoning the secrecy which had
hitherto veiled their activities, its members declared to the
world their principles and the motives that would determine their
action in the future:

"Resolved: That we will go to the last extremity and venture our
lives and fortunes effectively to prevent the said Stamp Act from
ever taking place in this city and province; Resolved: That any
person who shall deliver out or receive any instrument of writing