upon stamped paper...shall incur the highest resentment of
this society, and be branded with everlasting infamy; Resolved:
That the people who carry on business as formerly on unstamped
Paper...shall be protected to the utmost power of this society."

Malicious men said that the Sons of Liberty were "much concerned
that the gentlemen of fortune don't publically join them," for
which reason the society "formed a committee of correspondence
with the Liberty Boys in the neighboring provinces." In February,
the society did in fact appoint such a committee, which sent out
letters to all the counties of New York and to all the colonies
except Georgia, proposing the formation of an intercolonial
association of the true Sons of Liberty; to which letters many
replies were received, some of which are still preserved among
the papers of the secretary, Mr. John Lamb. The general sense of
these letters was that an intercolonial association and close
correspondence were highly necessary in view of the presence, in
nearly every colony, of many "secret and inveterate enemies of
liberty," and of the desirability of keeping "a watchful eye over
all those who, from the nature of their offices, vocations, or
dispositions, may be the most likely to introduce the use of
stamped paper, to the total subversion of the British
constitution."

No doubt the society kept its watchful eye on every unusual
activity and all suspicious characters, but to what extent it
succeeded in "putting business in motion again, in the usual
channels, without stamps," cannot be said. Both before and after
the society was founded, much business was carried on in
violation of the law: newspapers and pamphlets continued to