A Revolutionary Object Lesson in the Cause of Patriotism, April 1775
(From Memoirs of the Revolution.)
With all these occurrences, men’s minds had become agitated; and it was deemed proper to bring forth something calculated to arrest the public attention, to throw odium on the British Administration, to put down the Crown officers in the Province, and to invigorate the ardor of the people. And nothing was deemed more likely to effect the same than some public exhibition which might speak to the sight and senses of the multitude.
For this purpose effigies were brought forward, supposed to be by the authority or connivance of the Secret Committee.... They represented the Pope, Lord Grenville, Lord North, and the Devil. They were placed on the top of a frame capable of containing one or two persons within it; and the frame was covered over with thick canvas, so that those within could not be distinguished. In the front of the frame on the top, the Pope was seated in a chair of state, in his pontifical dress; and at a distance immediately behind him the Devil was placed in a standing position, holding a barbed dart in his right hand; between the Pope and the Devil, on each side, Lords Grenville and North were stationed. Thus finished the frame and effigies were fixed on four wheels; and early in the morning, this uncommon spectacle was stationed between the Market and St. Michael’s Church in Broad-street to the gaze of the citizens.
Many were the surmises respecting it; but at length by its evolutions, it soon began to explain the purposes for which it was constructed. For no sooner did any of the Crown officers, Placemen, Counsellors, or persons known to be disaffected to the common cause, pass by than the Pope immediately bowed with proportioned respect to them, and the Devil at the same moment striking his dart at the head of the Pope convulsed the populace with bursts of laughter. While on the other hand, the immovable effigies of Lords Grenville and North, appearing like attendants on the Pope or criminals, moved the people with sentiments of disgust and contempt against them and the whole British Administration, for the many oppressive acts which they had been instrumental in procuring to be passed through both Houses of Parliament.
In this manner the machine was exposed; after which it was paraded through the town the whole day by the mob; and in the evening, they carried it beyond the town where surrounding it with tar barrels the whole was committed to the flames. Nor did the idea or influence of the thing end here—for boys forsook their customary sports to make models like it, with which having amused themselves, and having roused their youthful spirits into a detestation of oppression, they also committed them to the flames. And many of those very boys supported with their services and blood the rights and liberties of their country.