$Unique_ID{USH00133} $Pretitle{11} $Title{Our Country: Volume 3 Chapter LIII} $Subtitle{} $Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.} $Affiliation{} $Subject{boston soldiers troops citizens adams preston three tea upon america} $Volume{Vol. 3} $Date{1905} $Log{} Book: Our Country: Volume 3 Author: Lossing, Benson J., LL.D. Volume: Vol. 3 Date: 1905 Chapter LIII American Affairs in Europe - The British Ministry - The Parliament and the Americans - James Otis Disabled - Troops in Boston - Interference with Popular Rights Resented - Disturbance in New York - Violation of Non-Importation Agreements and Its Consequences - Affray with Rope-Makers - Boston Massacre - After-Action of the People - Funeral of the Victims - Effects of the Massacre - A Triumph - Unwise Action of the British Ministry - Feelings of the Americans - Importations Renewed. AT the beginning of 1770, the quarrel between Great Britain and her American colonies was a chief topic for discussion and speculation in European court-circles. The French were watching the course of events with intense interest. Du Chatelet, in London, was keeping Choiseul well-informed of every political movement bearing upon American affairs and the sentiment of wise men on the continent, as well as the middle-classes of Great Britain, was rapidly drifting in favor of the really persecuted colonists. The British cabinet had not been in perfect unity for some time on the American question, and had just been recast. The Duke of Grafton, at whom Junius was then hurling his keenest shafts, had retired from the premiership, and Lord North had become prime minister of England, with a good working majority in Parliament. The Opposition in Parliament were bold, bitter, and defiant. Sir George Saville, in debate, charged the House of Commons with an invasion of the rights of the people when a ministerial member said In times of less licentiousness, members have been sent to the Tower for words of less offence." Saville instantly replied: "The mean consideration of my own safety shall never be put in the balance against my duty to my constituents. I will own no superior but the laws; nor bend the knee to any but to Him who made me." Lord North well knew the strength of the popular will behind these brave words, and bore the reproach quietly. By adroit management he stilled the rising tempest of indignation that was agitating the majority. In the House of Lords, Chatham, whose voice had been silent a long time, spoke warmly in favor of being just toward the Americans. "Let us save the constitution, dangerously invaded at home," he said, "and let us extend its benefits to the remotest corners of the empire. Let slavery exist nowhere among us for whether it be in America, or in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which spreads by contact, and soon reaches from the extremity to the heart." These words from both houses of Parliament went over the sea as pledges of hope for the Americans, for lately they had received only frowns from the national legislature. The colonists were irritated but calm, because they were conscious of their innate strength and the righteousness of their cause. Their just anger was controlled by wise judgment and marvellous sagacity. The bond of their union was growing stronger every hour because of common danger. Boston was then the focus of rebellious thought and action in America. Samuel Adams and his compatriots were longing for independence, and boldly prophesying the birth of a new nation in America; but his brave and fiery coadjutor, James Otis, had lately been disabled by the violence of a crown- officer, to which allusion has already been made. Mr. Robinson, one of the commissioners of customs, had misrepresented Otis in England. The latter made a severe attack upon Robinson in a Boston newspaper. For this the commissioner attempted to pull Otis's nose in a coffee-house. A fracas ensued, when Otis was so severely beaten that he never fairly recovered. His brain was disturbed by a blow on the head from a heavy cane. His great usefulness at that crisis was hopelessly impaired. John Adams, in his diary for January, 1770, gives a melancholy account of the patriot's mental condition: Otis," he wrote, is in confusion yet he loses himself; he rambles and wanders like a ship without a helm attempted to tell a story which took up almost all the evening; the story may, at any time, be told in three minutes with all the graces it is capable of but he took an hour. I fear he is not in his perfect mind. The nervous, the concise and pithy were his character till lately; now the verbose, the roundabout, and rambling and long-winded. . . . In one word, Otis will spoil the club. He talks so much and takes up so much of our time, and fills it with trash, obsceneness, profaneness, nonsense and distraction, that we have none left for rational amusements and inquiries. He mentioned his wife; said she was a good wife, too good for him; but she was a tory [she had married her daughter to a British officer], a high tory; she gave him such curtain-lectures, etc. In short, I never saw such an object of admiration, reverence, contempt, and compassion, all at once, as this. I fear, I tremble, I mourn, for the man and his country; many others mourn over him, with tears in their eyes." Poor Otis He lived, disabled, until the great Revolution (in the earlier stages of which he had borne the most conspicuous part) was almost ended in the independence of his country. Late in May, 1782, while he was standing in the door of a friend at Andover during a thunder-shower, he was instantly killed by a stroke of lightning - a method of dying for which he had often expressed an earnest desire. The troops in Boston were a source of constant irritation. "They must be removed to the Castle," said the good citizens. They shall remain," said the crown-officers and Hutchinson, in obedience to an order from Hillsborough, prorogued the Massachusetts Assembly till the middle of March, while some of them were on their way from a distance to hold a session in Boston. This arbitrary act inflamed the indignation of the people, and stirred the ire of all the colonies. It was immediately followed by violations of the nonimportation agreement by a few covetous Boston merchants, who coalesced with the crown-officers. Among them were Hutchinson's sons, who Mere his agents. They secretly sold tea. A meeting of patriotic merchants was held, and in a body they went to the lieutenant-governor's house to treat with his sons, who had violated the agreement. He treated them as incipient insurgents, and would not allow them to enter. He sent the sheriff into an adjourned meeting of merchants to order them to disperse. The troops were furnished with ball-cartridges, and Colonel Dalrymple was ready to shed blood in defence of the royal prerogative. The meeting sent a respectful letter to the governor, written by John Hancock, telling him plainly that their assemblage was lawful, and they should not disperse. Hutchinson, made wiser by past experience with an exasperated people, submitted to circumstances, and was quiet. Meanwhile the insolence and aggressive acts of the soldiery in New York had aroused the people there to resistance. Although it was winter, the Sons of Liberty frequently gathered around the Liberty-Pole, which had stood defiantly since it was iron-bound in 1767. At midnight in January (1770), some armed men went stealthily from the barracks with chisels and axes, cut down the pole, sawed it in pieces, and piled the fragments in front of Montague's, the rendezvous of the Sons of Liberty. The perpetrators of the act were discovered at dawn. The bell of St. George's Chapel, in Beekman street, was rung as if there were a great conflagration, and at an early hour on the 17th of January, full three thousand people stood around the stump of the consecrated pole. By resolutions they declared their rights, and contempt of the soldiers as enemies to the Constitution. The soldiers posted an insulting placard about the town. For about three days the most intense excitement prevailed. In affrays with the citizens, the soldiers were generally defeated, and on one occasion several of them were disarmed. Quiet was restored at length. The people erected another Liberty-Pole upon private ground purchased for the purpose upon Broadway, near the present Warren street and not long afterward the soldiers departed for Boston, where bloodshed had occurred. In spite of the threatening attitude of the citizens, four or five Boston merchants continued to import and sell tea, the specially proscribed article. The women of Boston protested against this violation of a sacred pledge. The mistresses of three hundred families subscribed their names to a league, binding themselves not to drink any tea until the revenue act was repealed Three days afterward the maidens of Boston were gathered in convention in the home of an opulent merchant, and there signed their names to the following pledge: We, the daughters of those patriots who have and do now appear for the public interest, and in that principally regard their posterity - as such, do with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign tea, in hopes to frustrate a plan which tends to deprive a whole community of all that is valuable in life." The recusant merchants were unmoved, and Theophilus Lillie announced his intention to import and sell tea in spite of public opinion. That opinion soon appeared embodied in a little mob, composed chiefly of half-grown boys, who set up a wooden post in front of Lillie's store, with a rudely carved head upon it, and a hand pointing to the merchant's door as a place to be avoided. Lillie was exasperated, but dared not interfere. A neighboring merchant of his stripe, named Richardson, a rough, stout man, having more courage, tried to get a farmer, who was passing in his cart, to knock down the post with his hub. The man was a patriot and refused, when Richardson rushed out and attempted to pull it down with his own hands. He was pelted with dirt and stones. In violent anger, he came out of Lillie's house, into which he had been driven by the mob, with a shotgun, and discharged its contents, without aim, into the little mob. A lad named Samuel Gore was slightly wounded, and another, named Christopher Snyder, was killed. He was the son of a poor German widow. The mob seized Richardson and an associate and hurried them to Faneuil Hall, where the citizens speedily assembled to the number of two or three hundred. Richardson was tried and found guilty of murder, but Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson refused to sign the death-warrant. After he had lain in prison two years, the king pardoned the offender. The murder of Snyder produced a profound sensation in the public mind throughout the colonies, as a prophecy of coming war. In Boston his funeral was m)de the occasion of a solemn pageant. His coffin was covered with inscription. One of these was: "Innocence itself is not safe." It was borne to Liberty Tree, where a very large concourse of citizens of every class assembled, and followed the remains to the grave. In that procession nearly five hundred children took part. The pall was carried by six of the victim's school-mates. Relatives and friends and almost fifteen hundred citizens followed. The bells of the city and of the neighboring towns tolled while the procession was moving; and in the newspapers, and by the lips of grave speakers in the pulpit and on the rostrum, little Christopher Snyder was spoken of as the first martyr to the cause of liberty in America. Dalrymple and his vicious Twenty-ninth regiment were impatient in the presence of such a popular demonstration. He wanted to be set at murderous work among the Bostonians, whom he thoroughly hated, but was restrained by the civil magistrates. This event was a forerunner of a more serious one a few days after ward. John Gray had an extensive rope-walk in Boston, where a number of patriotic men were employed. They often bandied coarse taunts with the soldiers as they passed by. On Friday, the 2nd of March (1770), a soldier who applied for work at the rope-walk was rudely ordered away. He challenged the men to a boxing-match, when he was severely beaten. Full of wrath he hastened to the barracks, and soon returned with several companions, when they beat the rope-makers and chased them through the streets. The citizens naturally espoused the cause of the rope-makers, and many of them assembled in the afternoon with a determination to avenge the wrongs of the workmen. Mr. Gray and the military authorities interfered, and prevented any further disturbance then. But vengeance only slumbered. It was resolved, by some of the more excitable of the inhabitants, to renew the contest and at the barracks the soldiers inflamed each other's passions, and prepared bludgeons. They warned their particular friends in the city not to be abroad on Monday night, for there would be serious trouble. Fresh wet snow had fallen, and on Monday evening, the 5th of March, frost had covered the streets of Boston with a coat of ice. The moon was in its first quarter and shed a pale light over the town, when, at twilight, both citizens and soldiers began to assemble in the streets. By seven o'clock full seven hundred persons, armed with clubs and other weapons, were on King (now State) street, and, provoked by the insolence and brutality of the lawless soldiery, shouted Let us drive out these rascals! They have no business here! Drive them out! At the same time parties of soldiers (whom Dalrymple had doubtless released from the barracks for the purpose of provoking the people to commit some act of violence, and so give an excuse for letting loose the dogs of war) were going about the streets boasting of their valor, insulting citizens with coarse words, and striking many of them with sticks and sheathed swords. Meanwhile the populace in the street were increasing in numbers every moment, and at about nine o'clock in the evening, they attacked some soldiers in Dock Square, and shouted: "Town-born, turn out Down with the bloody-backs!" They tore up the stalls of a market, and used the timber for bludgeons. The soldiers scattered and ran about the streets, knocking people down and raising the fearful cry of Fire! At the barracks on Brattle street, a subaltern at the gate cried out, as the populace gathered there, Turn out! I will stand by you. Knock them down! kill them! run your bayonets through them! The soldiers rushed out, and, leveling their muskets, threatened to make a lane paved with dead men through the crowd. Just then an officer was crossing the street, when a barber's boy cried out: There goes a mean fellow, who will not pay my master for shaving him." A sentinel standing near the corner of the Custom-house ran out and knocked the boy down with his musket. The cry of fire and the riotous behavior of the soldiers caused an alarm- bell to be rung. The whole city was aroused. Many men came out with canes and clubs for self-defence, to learn the occasion of the uproar. Many of the more excitable citizens formed a mob. Some of the leading citizens present tried to persuade them to disperse, and had in a degree gained their respectful attention, when a tall man, covered with a long scarlet cloak and wearing a white wig, suddenly appeared among them, and began a violent harangue against the government officers and the troops. He concluded his inflammatory speech by boldly shouting: "To the main-guard! to the main- guard! There is the nest! It is believed that the orator in the scarlet cloak was Samuel Adams. The populace immediately echoed the shout - "To the main-guard!" - with fearful vehemence, and separating into three ranks, took different routes toward the quarters of the main-guard. While one division was passing the Custom-house, the barber's boy cried out: There's the scoundrel who knocked me down! A score of voices shouted, "Let us knock him down! Down with the bloody-backs Kill him! kill him!" The crowd instantly began pelting him with snow-balls and bits of ice, and pressed toward him. He raised his musket and pulled the trigger. Fortunately for him it missed fire, when the crowd tried to seize him. He ran up the Custom-house steps, but, unable to enter the building, he called to the indian-guard for help. Captain Preston, the officer of the day, sent eight men, with unloaded muskets but with ball- cartridges in their cartouch boxes, to help their beleaguered comrade. At that moment the stout Boston bookseller, Henry Knox (who married the daughter of General Gage's secretary and was a major-general of artillery in the army of the Revolution), holding Preston by the coat, begged him to call the soldiers back. If they fire," said Knox, "your life must answer for the consequences." Preston nervously answered: I know what I am about," and followed his men. When this detachment approached, they, too, were pelted with snowballs and ice; and Crispus Attucks, a brawny Indian from Nantucket, at the head of some sailors, like himself (who had led the mob in the attack on the soldiers in Dock Square), gave a loud war-hoop and shouted, "Let us fall upon the nest! the main-guard! the main-guard!" The soldiers instantly loaded their guns. Then some of the multitude pressed on them with clubs, struck their muskets and cried out, You are cowardly rascals for bringing arms against naked men." Attuck shouted: "You dare not fire!" and called upon the mob behind him: "Come on! Don't be afraid! They daren't fire! Knock them down! Kill 'em!" Captain Preston came up at that moment and tried to appease the multitude. Attucks aimed a blow at his head with a club, which Preston parried with his arm. It fell upon the musket of one of the soldiers and knocked it to the ground. Attucks seized the bayonet, and a struggle between the Indian and the soldier for the possession of the gun ensued. Voices behind Preston cried out, "Why don't you fire! why don't you fire?" The struggling soldier hearing the word fire, just as he gained possession of his musket, drew up his piece and shot Attucks dead. Five other soldiers fired at short intervals, without being restrained by Preston. Three of the populace were killed, five were severely wounded (two of them mortally), and three were slightly hurt. Of the eleven, only one (Attucks) had actually taken part in the disturbance. The crowd dispersed; and when citizens came to pick up the dead, the infuriated soldiers would have shot them, if the captain had not restrained them. News of the tragedy spread over the town in a few minutes. It was now near midnight. There was a light in every house, for few besides children had retired on that fearful night in Boston. The alarm-bells were rung. Drums beat to arms. A cry went through the streets - " The soldiers are murdering the people! To arms! to arms! Turn out with your guns!" Preston also ordered his drums to beat to arms. Colonel Dalrymple, with the lieutenant- governor, were soon on the spot and promised the orderly citizens, who had taken the place of the dispersed mob, that justice should be vindicated in the morning. Order was restored, and before the dawn the streets of Boston were quiet. Meanwhile Preston had been arrested and put into prison and the next morning the eight soldiers were committed - ill charged with the crime of murder. Such is the sad story of the famous "Boston Massacre," gleaned from the conflicting evidence of witnesses at the trial of Preston and his men, and of contemporary writers. The 5th of March was celebrated as a solemn anniversary in the history of the colonies, until after the Declaration of Independence became a national holiday. The killing of citizens was undoubtedly a massacre, for the outrageous conduct of the soldiers created the mob. Their offensive acts on that night were undoubtedly approved by Dalrymple, their commander. It was his duty to keep them in the barracks at a time of popular excitement only, not an insurrection. He must have foreseen the result of their doings, and hoped for an excuse to "begin work in Boston," as he had said before. Such is the verdict of history after a lapse of more than a century. The event produced a profound impression everywhere. The cause of Boston became the cause of the continent. The story, embellished in its course from lip to lip, became a tale of horrors that stirred the blood of patriots everywhere. It was a crisis in the history of the colonies. Some were disposed to consider the events on that night as forming the principal cause of the Revolution which soon afterward broke out. John Adams said long years afterward: "On that night the foundation of American independence was laid;" and Daniel Webster, when speaking of the event, said: "From that moment we may date the severance of the British empire." The "foundation for the independence of America" was laid long before, when the early colonists began to yearn for the privileges of local self-government and the severance of the British empire was decreed when Andros was driven from New England. On the morning after the massacre, the Sons of Liberty gathered in great numbers in Faneuil Hall. The lieutenant-governor convened his council, and that afternoon a town-meeting was held in the South Meeting-house (yet standing), then the largest building in the city. The people there resolved that nothing could be expected to restore peace and prevent carnage, but an immediate removal of the troops." A committee of fifteen, with Samuel Adams as their chairman, were sent the next morning, with that resolution, to Hutchinson and Dalrymple. The people," said Royal Tyler, one of the committee, are determined to remove the troops out of the town by force, if they will not go voluntarily. They are not such people as formerly pulled down your house, that conduct these measures, but men of estate - men of religion. The people 'will come in to us from all the neighboring towns we shall have ten thousand men at our backs, and your troops will probably be destroyed by the people, be it called rebellion or what it may." Hutchinson replied: An attack on the king's troops would be high-treason, and every man concerned in it would forfeit his life and estate." The committee renewed the demand for the removal of the troop's. The officials would only promise to send one regiment away. This unsatisfactory answer the committee reported to an adjourned town-meeting that afternoon, when it was immediately resolved that it was the unanimous opinion of the meeting that the reply made to the vote of the inhabitants, presented to his honor this morning, is by no means satisfactory, and that nothing else will satisfy them but a total and immediate removal of all the troops." Samuel Adams, John Hancock, William Molineux, William Phillips, Joseph Warren, Joshua Henshaw and Samuel Pemberton were appointed to carry this resolution to the civil and military authorities. Adams presented the resolutions. Again the lieutenant-governor and the colonel temporized. Hutchinson said he had no power to remove the troops. Adams proved that he had, by the provisions of the charter. Still the crown-officers hesitated. Adams resolved that there should be no more trifling with the will of the people. Stretching forth his hand toward Hutchinson, and in a voice not loud but clear, he said: "If you have power to remove one regiment, you have power to remove both. It is at your peril if you do not. The meeting is composed of three thousand people. They are become very impatient. A thousand men are already arrived from the neighborhood, and the country is in general motion. Night is approaching; an immediate answer is expected." This was the voice of the province - of the continent - and the crown-officers knew it. Fear of the angry people and dread of the frowns of the ministry agitated them with conflicting emotions. Hutchinson grew pale his knees trembled, and Adams afterward said, "I enjoyed the sight." The lieutenant-governor's council had unanimously recommended the removal of the troops the people demanded it, and after conferring together in a whisper, Hutchinson and Dalrymple agreed to send the troops to Castle William. The committee returned to the meeting with the good news, and the Old South Meeting-house rang with acclamations of joy. The humbled troops were speedily sent out of the town. It was a signal triumph for the people and the rights of man. These troops had been sent to overawe the people; the people had overawed the troops. The inhabitants kept a strict guard over the prisoners and a vigilant oversight of the troops while they remained, many of the most respectable citizens appearing as common soldiers" in this duty. The funeral of the victims of the massacre occurred on the 8th of March. It was made an occasion of a great popular demonstration. Four hearses that bore the bodies of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, who were murdered on the 5th, met at the spot, in King street, where the tragedy was enacted. Thence they moved to the Middle Burial-ground, followed by an immense concourse of people of all classes and conditions, on foot; and then by a long line of carriages of the gentry of the town," who occupied them. The bodies were placed in one vault. The newspapers of the country were shrouded in broad black lines. The Boston Gazette, printed on Monday, the 12th of March, was heavily striped with black lines, and contained pictures of four coffins, bearing the initials of the slain and the skull and cross-bones. Long afterward John Adams wrote: Not the battle of Lexington or Bunker Hill, not the surrender of Burgoyne or Cornwallis, were more important events in American history than the battle of King street, on the 5th of March, 1770. The death of four or five persons, the most obscure and inconsiderable that could have been found upon the continent, has never yet been forgiven in any part of America." Late in the autumn of the same year, when public excitement had subsided, Captain Preston and his soldiers were tried for murder before a court in Boston. Josiah Quincy, Jr., and John Adams were counsel for the prisoners). They were known as ardent patriots, yet their acceptance of the task of defending these prisoners offended many of their compatriots, and severely tried the strength of their popularity. They entered upon their duties as counsellors with humane motives, and they discharged them with fidelity to their clients, the law, and the testimony. Robert Treat Paine, afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the counsel for the crown. Preston and six of the soldiers were declared not guilty by a Boston jury. The other two - the soldier who killed Attucks, and another who shot Maverick - were convicted of manslaughter only, and for that offence they were each branded in the hand with a hot iron, in open court, and discharged. This trial was another triumph for the Americans. The advocates in Parliament for the revival of the long-slumbering statute of Henry the Eighth, providing for the trial in England of persons accused of crimes in the colonies, gave as a reason for such revival, that American juries could not be trusted in the case of a crown-officer being on trial. This verdict of a Boston jury, under the circumstances, set that slander at rest forever, and amazed the judges of the English courts. The jury had simply triumphed over prejudice and strong emotion, and given a verdict in accordance with the dictates of conscience and perceptions of truth. On the evening when the Boston massacre occurred, Lord North asked leave of the British House of Commons to bring in a bill for repealing the duties on certain articles mentioned in Hillsborough's circular, but retaining a duty of three per cent on tea. This was a small tax - a very small burden - a mere pepper-corn rent," avowedly to save the national honor. The proposition found very little favor from either party. The friends of the Americans demanded a repeal of the whole revenue act the friends of the crown regarded a partial repeal as utterly useless, for they began to comprehend the deep-seated principle on which the Americans had planted themselves. Lord North, in his heart, wished to have a full repeal, and thereby insure a full reconciliation but the stubborn king would not relinquish an iota of his prerogative on compulsion, and the duty on tea was retained by the votes of a small majority in Parliament. The bill received the royal assent on the 17th of April. The monarch had already received intelligence of the massacre. When it was revealed to Parliament, it created a very great sensation. Had that body received the news sooner, the duty on tea would not have been retained. When intelligence of this act reached America, the colonists saw that the contest was not quite over. In the three per cent duty on tea lay the kernel of future oppressions - materials for chains of slavery. But the people, late in 1770, began to relax their loyalty to the non-importation leagues. The merchants of New York proposed to import everything but tea. Send us your Liberty-Pole, as you can have no further use for it," wrote the Philadelphians. The letter of the New York merchants was burnt by the students at Princeton, with James Madison at their head. In Boston it was torn in pieces, and in other colonies it was read with indignation. But Philadelphia and Boston merchants soon acquiesced and before the close of 1770 the colonists were importing everything from Great Britain excepting tea. The associations had exerted salutary influence on society in America. Many extravagant customs had been abolished; personal expenses had been curtailed, and some manufactures had been encouraged. Home-made articles were fashionable. The graduating class at Cambridge took their degrees in home- spun clothes in 1770. The spinning-wheel, which had been introduced into the colonies by the Scotch-Irish early in the last century, played an important part in the politics of the time. It had been introduced into England from India in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and it was such an improvement upon the ancient distaff in the process of spinning, that, according to a legend that prevailed in Great Britain and Ireland, it was a special gift from heaven. This gift the patriotic women of America used most effectually in helping their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons in successful resistance to oppression. How much the hearts, heads and busy fingers of the women of the Revolution contributed to the achievement of the great result may never be known. The service was very great.