The conference concluded on October 26, and in November, Governor Denny announced to the Pennsylvania Assembly that "a general peace was secured at Easton." "From 1755 to 1769 Chew served as Attorney General of Pennsylvania and as the Recorder of Philadelphia, earning a reputation that was second to none." In a letter warning the Crown against enacting the Stamp Act, Attorney General Benjamin Chew described the mood in America: "…it is impossible to say to what length their irritated and turbulent Spirits may carry them." The Stamp Act was repealed two months later. "Chew's political views were at all times close to those of his predecessor, William Allen. He supported the Proprietary interests, opposed the Stamp Act and other English abuses, but opposed independence." "The Chew court...was without a question the most professional and formally trained high court to date." "Chew's pro-American views and actions were not enough to save him, but he was not persecuted in the way that some pacifists were, as his record of speaking out against British abuses was well known. It was not until the following year that his liberty was restricted" by the Executive Council of  When he was finally paroled and sent to New Jersey for preventive detention as a suspected Loyalist, "Chew refused to take the action of the Council seriously at first, and thoroughly intimidated the young soldiers from the City Troop who were sent to pick him up. Eventually realizing his predicament he signed a parole...although he insisted that there was no charge against him except that he had held office under the Proprietor." After the state and national governments had been formed, in 1791, Chew was appointed by Thomas Mifflin, Pennsylvania's first Governor and the former President of the Continental Congress, to preside as the President over Pennsylvania's first High Court of Errors and Appeals. He held the position until he retired in 1808. Pennsylvania at first made no provision for any appeal from its Supreme Court, but in February 1780 legislation established the High Court of Errors and Appeals. It was empowered to hear appeals from the Supreme Court and also from the Court of Admiralty and the Register Court. Chew received the highest compliment Pennsylvania could pay him: he was appointed by Governor Thomas Mifflin as President of the High Court, despite the fact that he was by then close to seventy. Prior to the American Revolution, Chew was friends with both George Washington and John Adams, and was a strong advocate for the colonies. As a lifelong pacifist, however, Chew believed that protest and reform were necessary to resolve the ongoing American conflicts with the British Parliament.