an increasingly major grievance that led to the American Revolution. The Americans saw no need for the troops or the taxes; the British saw colonial defiance of their lawful rulers. The Stamp Act met great resistance in the colonies. Colonial assemblies sent petitions and protests. Local protest groups, led by colonial merchants and landowners, established connections through correspondence – the so-called "Committees of Correspondence – that created a loose coalition extending from New England to Georgia. British goods were boycotted. Opposition to the tax also took the form of violence and intimidation. Custom houses and tax collectors were attacked. Protests and demonstrations initiated by the newly formed Sons of Liberty often turned violent and destructive as the masses became involved. A word used frequently by colonists was "liberty" during the Stamp Act upheaval. Opponents of the new tax staged mock funerals in which "liberty's" coffin was carried to a burial ground. They insisted that liberty could not be "taken away without consent." A more reasoned approach was taken by some elements. James Otis, Jr. wrote the most influential protest, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved. Otis, the radical leader in Massachusetts, convinced the Massachusetts assembly to send a circular letter to the other colonies, which called for an inter-colonial meeting to plan tempered resistance. The Stamp Act Congress convened in New York City on October 7, 1765, with nine colonies in attendance; others would likely have participated if earlier notice had been provided. The Stamp Act Congress was another step in the process of attempted common problem-solving. The Albany Congress in 1754 had been held at the urging of royal officials as a forum for voicing constitutional concerns and afforded the more conservative critics of British policy some hope of regaining control of events from the unruly mobs in the streets of many cities; in contrast, the Stamp Act Congress was strictly a colonial affair, reflecting the first significant joint colonial response to any British measure. Delegates to the Stamp Act Congress approved a fourteen-point Declaration of Rights and Grievances as a petition to the Parliament and the King, formulated largely by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. The statement echoed the recent resolves of the Virginia House of Burgesses, which argued that colonial taxation could only be carried on by their own assemblies. The delegates singled out the Stamp Act and the use of the vice-admiralty courts for