the Stamp Act in March 1765 caused a good deal of unrest in the American colonies. The Sons of Liberty were a leading group of American dissidents at this time. The Loyal Nine, a group of nine area businessmen, led the Sons of Liberty and were a link between the common people and wealthier classes. That summer the Loyal Nine arranged the unification of the North and South End mobs. On Pope Night 1765, townspeople held a "Union Feast", with a single procession led jointly by the South End mob leader, Ebenezer Mackintosh, and the North End leader, Samuel Swift. The two mobs stopped battling each other, and Mackintosh became the leader of the united group. John Hancock and other patriot merchants provided them with food, drink, and supplies. In author Alfred Young's view, Pope Night provided the "scaffolding, symbolism, and leadership" for resistance to the Stamp Act in 1764–65. The passage in 1774 of the Quebec Act, which guaranteed French Canadians free practice of Catholicism in the Province of Quebec, provoked complaints from some Americans that the British were introducing "Popish principles and French law". Such fears were bolstered by opposition from the Church in Europe to American independence, threatening a revival of Pope Night. Commenting in 1775, George Washington was less than impressed by the thought of any such resurrections, forbidding any under his command from participating: Generally, following Washington's complaint, American colonists stopped observing Pope Night, although according to the Bostonian Society some citizens of Boston celebrated it on one final occasion, in 1776. Sherwood Collins argues that the tradition ended in Boston at this time not only because of Washington's order, but because most of the celebrants were likely patriots who did not stay in Boston while it was held by the British; and, moreover, because it celebrated the failure of a plot against the British king and Parliament, who were now the enemy. The tradition continued in Salem as late as 1817, and was still observed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1892. In the 1880s bonfires were still being lit in some New England coastal towns, although no longer to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. In the area around New York, stacks of barrels were burnt on election day eve, which after 1845 was a Tuesday early in November. Festivities At the height of its popularity, Pope Night in Boston was a three-part