Venting fiscal outrage

On September 12, 1765 a mob of Portsmouth citizens hung George Meserve in effigy. The crowd also hung a figure of the British Prime Minister who approved the Stamp Act, and another depicting the Devil, whom citizens said, created taxes in the first place. The image of the Devil, emerging from a leather boot, appeared to be whispering in the ear of the dummy George Meserve. Above the three effigies a sign read:

"George, my son, you are rich in station,
But I would have you serve this nation."

Meserve was lucky; tax agents in other American colonies were tarred and feathered, a nasty sometimes fatal punishment. Later that night, the rowdy people of Portsmouth dragged the three effigies to Hay Market, where the John Paul Jones House stands today, and set them on fire.

Soon after he was roasted in effigy, the real George Meserve arrived home. Met by an irate crowd, Meserve was forced to stand on the balcony of the Old Statehouse and resign his post for the second time.

For the next few months, Meserve walked on eggshells. His father, shipbuilder Col. Nathaniel Meserve, had been a war hero during the siege at Louisbourg in Canada. George had a nice house on Vaughan Street, but now he was afraid even to conduct business locally for fear of arousing public anger. He slept uneasily, he told a friend, and kept a weapon at his bedside.

A few months later, when the King's official commission arrived from England, George had to publicly resign for the third time. A mob surrounded his house on Vaughan Street, swords drawn, and demanded George give up his commission, which he did without hesitation. The official document was then reportedly stuck on the point of a sword, paraded through town and delivered to a ship captain with instructions to return it to the King. When the stamp tax finally became official in November, nobody was dumb enough to collect it.

Taking it all back

Gov. John Wentworth, who was appointed to replace his uncle Benning in 1766, had a formula for keeping peace in Portsmouth during violent times. Today it sounds hauntingly like President Obama’s promise of "transparency".

"The grand secret of peace," Wentworth wrote, "is to cause men to think before they act, the longer, the better; and to be steady, open, and resolute, without any mystery or intrigue. In this way there will never be great tumults. It is impracticable to raise a dangerous mob if all the business is understood. Men will not be led to broken heads, gaols and gallows, unless they are somehow deceived."

The front page of the April 11, 1766 New Hampshire Gazette included a discussion of "the devilish stamp act". At great risk, the paper openly wondered whether it might be reasonable for the Sons of Liberty to sink ships carrying imported paper bearing the dreaded tax stamps. Most locals, the Gazette included, wanted to abolish the Stamp Act before it led to an American revolution. Being English was fine, the Portsmouth majority believed, as long as they were treated like English citizens.

A week later, on April 18, "Good News" arrived of the repeal of the "most ruinous and never-to-be-forgotten stamp act". Gazette publisher Daniel Fowle, to dramatize the moment, printed the notice in huge letters with daggers pointing toward the words STAMP ACT.

The Liberty Pole at Prescott Park is a memorial to this insurrection. After shipping the Stamp Act commission back to England, locals raised a banner near the former "Swing Bridge" in the Old Puddle Dock area, now Strawbery Banke Museum. The banner read, "Liberty, Property and No Stamp." The Swing Bridge and the Puddle Dock are gone, but a reproduction pole and banner remain on this spot.

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