Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 225

the Country to advise me of his being appointed Distributor
of the Stamps for this Province. I have told you in former
Letters that a great Outcry had been raised throughout all
the Colonies against the Stamp Act from the time an Account
of its being passed had reached them & that all the Printers
had been inserting in their Weekly Papers Pieces calculated
to spirit up the People who when several of the Persons
appointed to distribute the Stamps arrived from England
became outrageous against them & expressed their Resent-
ment by insulting them & by hanging or burning them in
Effigie almost in every Town or place of any Resort, which so
much alarmed many of the Distributors that they thought fit
publickly to declare that they would not act. The People here
being in general actuated by the same kind of Spirit that
possess't the Inhabitants of the other Colonies no sooner
heard of their Countryman M^r Hood's Arrival than Numbers
of them assembled in many different Parts of the Province to
express their Indignation against him after the manner of the
Northern Colonies & so unanimous did they appear that no
one who disapproved of such Proceedings dared to oppose
them & scarcely to signify their Disapprobation. Such a
Reception from his Countrymen in general while those who
had been heretofore his particular Acquaintance treated him
contemptuously or at least with the greatest Coolness made
M^r Hood you must think sufficiently uneasy, but he had soon
greater Reason to be terrified for it being known a few Days
afterwards that he had rented & was fitting up a small
Wooden House in this place as a Store or Shop for the
Reception of a quantity of Goods which he had imported &
intended to sell by Retail a Mob consisting of three or four
hundred People assembled in the night of the second Inst &
almost leveled it with the Ground & notwithstanding so many
were concerned no Body will accuse an Individual of being
one of them, & was any one to be informed against & com-
mitted on that Account he would I am apprehensive be
immediately rescued. The next Day M^r Hood (who unluckily
has no Friend or near Relation of any Consequence in the
Province & therefore rests altogether upon me for Protection
& Countenance) represented to me by a Letter (for he was
now afraid to appear) what he had already suffered & dread-
ing worse might befal him desired me not only to protect his
Person by receiving him into my House, but also to see his
Goods secured, & to say whether I would advise him to
relinquish the Office he had obtained. As I did not think it
became me to advise him to resign I told his Uncle who
brought me the Letter that I must leave that matter to himself
but that he might if he pleased remain a while at my house.

Letter Bk. IV