At length the day of turmoil wore away, and night came on, but with it
came no diminution of the excitement. Soon as it was dark, the "Sons of
Liberty," numbering thousands, surged tumultuously up around the fort, and
demanded that the stamps should be given up that they might be destroyed.
Golden bluntly refused, when with loud, defiant shouts they left, and went
up Broadway to "the field" (the present Park), where they erected a
gibbet, and hanged on it Colden in effigy, and beside him a figure holding
a boot; some said to represent the devil, others Lord Bute, of whom the
_boot_, by a pun on his name, showed for whom the effigy was
designed.

The demonstration had now become a riot, and the Sons of Liberty
degenerated into a mob. The feeling that had been confined to words all
day must now have some outlet. A torchlight procession was formed, and the
scaffold and images taken down, and borne on men's shoulders along
Broadway towards the Battery. The glare of flaring lights on the buildings
and faces of the excited crowd, the shouts and hurrahs that made night
hideous, called out the entire population, which gazed in amazement on the
strange, wild spectacle.

They boldly carried the scaffold and effigies to within a few feet of the
gate of the fort, and knocked audaciously for admission. Isaac Sears was
the leader of these "Sons of Liberty."

Finding themselves unable to gain admittance, they went to the Governor's
carriage-house, and took out his elegant coach, and placing the two
effigies in it, dragged it by hand around the streets by the light of
torches, amid the jeers and shouts of the multitude. Becoming at last
tired of this amusement, they returned towards the fort, and erected a
second gallows, on which they hung the effigies the second time.