his head. They acted at once on the statement of the famous
Declaration which they had just heard read to them, that "A
prince whose character is marked by every act that may define a
tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Once off his pedestal, however, the king suddenly became valuable
and precious to them, for he, as well as his horse, was made
mostly of lead and he could be melted down and run into bullets.
Lead was dear and scarce, and bullets were needed in the army.
The king's troops now "will probably have melted majesty
fired at them," some one wrote in a letter to General Gates. So
the pieces of the statue were carefully saved and most of it was
sent away secretly by ox-cart, so it is said, up into the
Connecticut hills to the home of General Wolcott in Litchfield,
for safe keeping. The general was returning there himself about
this time from Philadelphia, and perhaps he took charge of its
transportation. We shall hear of it again in Litchfield, for this
story, which begins in New York, ends in Connecticut.

The story should really begin in London, for the statue was made
there. The colonists sent an order for it after the repeal of the
Stamp Act in 1766. This act had excited great resentment in the
colonies because it was an attempt to tax the people without
their consent. When it was at last repealed, they were overjoyed,
and New York determined to express its renewed loyalty to the
king by erecting a statue of him. The laws of the colony state
that it was set up "as a monument of the deep sense with which
the inhabitants of this colony are impressed of the blessing they
enjoy under his [King George's] illustrious reign, as well as
their great affection for his royal person."