27. Response in Pennsylvania

John Hughes, Franklin’s lieutenant in Pennsylvania, also resisted resignation from the post of stamp distributor in Pennsylvania and Delaware. In early September, the people of Pennsylvania began to insist on Hughes’ resignation. Hughes lamented to Franklin that “the spirit or flame of rebellion” is now at “a high pitch” in America, a spirit that he termed “a sort of frenzy or madness.” Hughes’ determination not to resign was stiffened by Franklin’s admonition from his privileged sanctuary in England to carry out his office “whatever may be the madness of the populace [or] their blind leaders.” The favor of the colonial people must always be sacrificed in any clash with the authority of Great Britain.

The pressure against Hughes had not yet reached a peak, since the stamped papers had not arrived in the colonies. In the meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Assembly, dominated by conservative Quakers and their Tory allies from the increasingly overrepresented eastern counties, decided by only one vote on September 10 to send delegates to the intercolonial Stamp Act Congress called by the Massachusetts Assembly. Hughes, of course, led the fight against the move.

The pressure of the people continued to mount, however, and on September 16 the radical-liberals, led by Samuel Smith and aided by the New York Son of Liberty John Lamb, determined to reduce Hughes’ house to ashes. But in Philadelphia the principal Tory leaders, Hughes and Joseph Galloway, were able to organize a gang of seven to eight hundred to guard the house. The gang consisted largely of Galloway’s mass base in the city, the clubs of Philadelphian tradesmen known as the White Oaks and the Hearts of Oak. The governor and the municipal officials, like the proprietary, sympathetic to the resistance and more particularly hostile to the pro-royal Franklin party, remained neutral in the struggle and prudently left town. Confronted with Galloway’s gang, the popular mob contented itself with burning John Hughes in effigy.

For the next three weeks, Hughes was ill and hors de combat, but the conflict came to a climax on October 5 with the arrival of the stamped paper and of Hughes’ official commission. The people could wait no longer. The radical leaders met at the coffeehouse of the printer William Bradford, and summoned the people by tolling all the church bells and beating muffled drums throughout the city. A great crowd collected at the State House, particularly including Presbyterians. William Allen, Jr., son of the chief justice of the colony, headed the crowd. The governor and mayor took care to be absent from the scene. Only the Quaker alderman Benjamin Shoemaker attempted, vainly, to order the crowd to disperse. The crowd deputed seven of the prominent citizens of Philadelphia to demand Hughes’ resignation, with a threat of the extreme penalty should he refuse. The seven included Bradford, attorney James Tilghman, and merchants Robert Morris, Charles Thomson, Archibald McCall, John Cox, and William Richards. The stubborn Hughes resisted the demand even when learning of the threats of Virginia and Maryland mobs to kill him should he ever set foot there. Finally, the rather timid delegation agreed to a face-saving modification for Hughes. Hughes agreed only to defer executing the Stamp Act in Pennsylvania or Delaware until it was executed in the neighboring colonies. Still full of ginger, Hughes continued to harangue his enemies about their supposedly grievous crimes. He persisted in attacking the governor for not enforcing the tax, and the Presbyterians of the colony (recently united under New Light control) as rebels “as averse to Kings, as they were in the days of Cromwell, and some begin to cry out, no King but King Jesus.”