How was it done? A splendid, 190-year-old silver tureen, one of the great treasures of the town, tells the story. The inscription on the tureen, which is topped by a hand clasping a key, says it was presented to Captain John George Boss by the friends of “reform and liberty of conscience”. The inscriptions says it was presented to him “as a token of esteem for his unwearied exertions in an arduous contest of six months, making every sacrifice even when visited with deep domestic affliction for the liberation of that borough which had been held in thraldom upwards of 60 years and which he gloriously accomplished in defiance of art and stratagem”.