USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Walks & talks about historic Boston > Part 11
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that at the first act of violence on the part of the British troops, twenty thousand men would spring to arms from the hundred towns of Massachusetts. Dalrymple appeared be- fore the Selectmen with one or two other officers and haughtily demanded food and shelter for his troops.
"You will find both at the Castle" ( Castle William) replied the Guardians of the town, with the assurance that the law was upholding them. "And you will find quarters for my soldiers?" asked the Colonel. "We will not," responded the Selectmen. Then Dalrymple hurried away in wrath and en- camped one regiment in tents on the Common, and the other was compelled to bivouac as best they could in the chilly air of an October night. The compassion of the inhabitants was excited for the poor soldiers whom they could not blame, and at nine o'clock the Sons of Liberty generously opened Fan- euil Hall and allowed the warriors to slumber there. The next day was the Sabbath. The unwise Dalrymple, again paraded his troops through the streets, when the people were engaged in public worship, disturbing them with the noise of the fife and drum. Every strong feeling of the New Eng- lander was thus violated. His Sabbath was desecrated, his worship was disturbed and his liberty was infringed. Natural hatred of the troops, deep and abiding, was soon engendered and the terms "rebel" and "tyrant" were freely bandied be- tween them.
As cold weather came on the commander was compelled to hire houses at exorbitant rates in which to quarter his men and to furnish food at the expense of the town. There was nothing for the troops to do for the people were orderly. The main guard was stationed opposite the State House, (Old State House) with cannon pointing toward the legislative hall. The people understood this covert threat and quietly laughed at it. Governor Bernard himself became convinced at last, that the troops could not repress the rising tide of republican- ism, nor overturn the authority of the Government. The Commissioners returned from Castle William, whither they had fled when the storm of popular indignation broke upon them, and were very haughty and overbearing when pro- tected by armed men. They arrested Hancock and Malcolm, the leader of the mob, on false charges, claiming penalties for violation of acts of Parliament, amounting to almost half a million dollars in Hancock's case. Not a charge was estab- lished. When the Massachusetts Assembly met in 1769, they
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simply organized, and then resolved that it was incompatible with their dignity and freedom to deliberate while confronted by an armed force. They petitioned the Governor to remove the troops from the town but their reasonable request was met by a haughty refusal. When they learned that Governor Bernard proposed to go to England, they forwarded a peti- tion to the King asking for his removal. One of the Gov- ernor's political friends sent to England proofs of his duplic- ity, greed, petty malice, mischievous exaggeration, falsehoods, and continual plottings, for the destruction of the Massachu- setts free government and he was immediately removed from the office he had so disgraced. He never recrossed the Atlantic and died in England in 1779. When Parliament saw the strong combination in America they commenced to waver, but old King George was stubborn, it being his inflexible rule never to redress a grievance unless it was prayed for in a spirit of obedience and humility, and Lord North was his willing and most subservient echo. Lord Hillsborough was also another sycophant of the King, and he said: "We can grant nothing to the Americans, except what they ask with halters around their necks.'
Such was the loss and suffering caused by the loss of the American trade, that the English people were on the point of rebellion and King George had all he could do to repress a riot in the City of London, when the houses of the Crown Officers were attacked, and the King's palace at Whitehall was menaced by an immense crowd of people. It is said that the interference of the Royal Guards alone saved the life of the King. The attempt to coerce America was proving an expensive and losing game. The exports to America from England in 1768 amounted to $12,000,000. In 1769 they amounted to only a little over $8,000,000. The total produce of the taxes the first year was less than $80,000 and the ex- pense of the new Custom House reduced the profits to $1475 and the extra military expenses in America amounted for the same time to $850.000!
Samuel Adams was right when he declared after the repeal of the Stamp Act, "The conduct of England is permitted and ordained by the unsearchable wisdom of the Almighty for hastening the independence of the Colonies." When Lord North came into power in 1770 he found a bold. bitter and defiant opposition in Parliament, for many of the thinking and well-to-do middle class of the English were beginning to feel
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a sympathy for the Colonists. 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 replied, "the main 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 one but to Him who made me."
A number of the patriotic merchants went to the Governor's house to protest. He would not allow them to enter. They held a meeting to protest and the Governor sent a sheriff to disperse them. The troops were ordered to be in readiness and furnished with ball cartridges, and the haughty Colonel Dalrymple would have been only too glad of the opportunity to fire upon the citizens at the least provocation.
John Hancock wrote a respectful letter to the Governor. stating that their meeting was a lawful one and they would not disperse. Governor Hutchinson knew the determination and disposition of Bostonians and acted wisely in not pressing the matter. John Gray of Boston had an extensive rope walk, which employed a large number of patriotic men. who, as they passed daily by the barracks of the troops to and from their work, bandied coarse taunts with the soldiers. On the 2d of March 1770, a soldier who applied for work at the rope walk was rudely turned away. He challenged the men to a boxing match and was severely beaten. Full of wrath he hastened to the barracks and returned with several companions when they beat the ropemakers and chased them through the streets. This was the prelude to what is known in American history as the
BOSTON MASSACRE
The citizens espoused the cause of the rope makers and a large crowd assembled in the afternoon to punish the soldiers, but Mr. Gray and the military authorities interfered and pre- vented further disturbances for the time being. The citizens dispersed, but resolved to renew the contest, and the soldiers in the barracks prepared bludgeons and gave warning to their particular friends not to be abroad on Monday night. Fresh wet snow had fallen. Monday evening, the 5th of March, frost had covered the streets of Boston with a coat of ice.
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The moon was in the 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 hun- dred people, armed with clubs and other weapons, were on King (State) Street, and, provoked by the insolence and brutality of the lawless soldiers, 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 pro- voking the people to commit some act of violence, and so give him an excuse for letting "loose the dogs of war," were going about the street, boasting of their valor, insulting citizens with coarse words, and striking many of them with sticks and sheathed swords. Meanwhile the people in the streets were increasing in numbers every minute, 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 level- ing 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 called out, "There goes a mean fellow who will not pay my master for shaving him." A sentry stationed near the Custom House (on State Street near the Union Bank Building) ran out and knocked the boy down with his gun. The cry of fire and the riotous behavior of the soldiers caused an alarm bell to be rung, and the whole town was aroused. While all this excitement was in progress in the streets between the British soldiers and the citizens of Boston, Captain Preston, commanding the company, was en- joying an entertainment at Concert Hall, on the corner of Hanover and Court Streets. He was called out by an excited messenger, who told him that a fracas had started between his troops and a crowd of Bostonians and his presence was needed at once. He rushed out and down to the scene of action. Some of the leading citizens tried to persuade the crowd to disperse and had almost gained their respectful
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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, concluding his inflammatory speech by boldly sav- ing: "To the main guard! To the main guard! There is the best!" The populace immediately echoed the words, "to the main guard," with vehemence, and separating into three ranks, took different routes towards the quarters of the main guard. While one division was passing the Custom House, the barber's boy called out: "There is the scoundrel who knocked me down." The crowd instantly began pelting him with snow balls, and bits of ice and pressed towards him. He raised his musket and pulled the trigger. Fortunately for him. it missed fire when the crowd tried to seize him. As he ran, calling for help, Captain Preston, the officer of the day, sent eight men with unloaded muskets, but with ammunition in their cartridge boxes to help their comrade. Henry Knox, afterwards General in the Continental Army, was standing nearby. and seizing Preston, begged him to recall his men. "If they fire." said Knox, "your life must answer for the consequences." Preston answered, "I know what I am about," and followed his men. The crowd pelted this detach- ment with snowballs and ice, and Crispus Attucks, a brawny negro from Nantucket. gave a loud war whoop and shouted : "Let us fall upon the rest ! the main guard ! the main onerd!" The soldiers instantly loaded their guns. The crowd pressed on them, struck their muskets and cried out. "You are cow- ardly rascals for bringing arms against naked men."
Attucks shouted, "You dare not fire." and called on the crowd behind him to come on. Just then Captain Preston came up, and tried to appease the multitude, and parried a blow with his arm, which Attucks had aimed at his head. It struck the musket of a soldier and knocked it to the ground and a struggle ensued between Attucks and the soldier for its possession. Captain Preston called 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 his piece and shot Attucks dead. Five other soldiers fired at short intervals without any restraint by Preston. The killed were Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, Cris- pus Attucks and Patrick Carr. Six were wounded, two of them mortally, Christopher Mack and John Clark. Five of
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the populace were killed, six were wounded (two mortally) and four were slightly hurt. Of the eleven, only one ( At- tucks) 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, had not Captain Preston restrained them.
The news of the tragedy, which occurred near midnight, went like wild fire over the town. Alarm bells rang, drums beat, and the cry went forth, "the soldiers are murdering the people ! to arms ! to arms!" Colonel Dalrymple and the Lieut. Governor were soon on the spot, and promised the orderly citizens that justice should be vindicated in the morning. Meanwhile Preston had been arrested and put into prison, and the next morning the eight soldiers were committed, all charged with the crime of murder.
Such is the story of the Boston Massacre gleaned from the evidence of witnesses at the trial of Preston and his men. The killing of citizens was undoubtedly a massacre as the out- rageous conduct of the soldiers created the mob, which was approved by Dalrymple, their Commander. At such a time of popular excitement it was his duty to keep his soldiers in their barracks. There is not the least doubt but that he hoped for an excuse "to begin work in Boston."
The day following, Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson con- vened his Council and the citizens of Boston held a great Town Meeting in the Old South Meeting House, then the largest audience room in the city. Here the people unani- mously resolved "that nothing could be expected to restore peace and prevent carnage but an immediate removal of the troops. On the following day the lion hearted Samuel Adams and fourteen other patriots waited upon the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor and Colonel Dalrymple and presented the Resolution passed at the mass meeting of citizens. After quite a discus- sion the Governor agreed to send one regiment to Castle William. This failed to prove satisfactory when reported at the adjourned meeting, who resolved "that nothing alse would 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 Pem- berton were appointed to convey the Resolutions to the Civil and Military authorities. Adams presented the Resolutions. Hutchinson said he had no power to remove the troops.
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Adams proved that he had by the provisions of the Charter. The Crown Officers hesitated. Adams, firm as a rock, resolved that there should be no more temporizing. Stretching forth his hand and turning toward the Governor, he said, in a clear, ringing voice, "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 becoming very impatient. A thousand men have al- ready arrived from the neighborhood and the country is in general motion. Night is approaching, an immediate answer is expected."
Hutchinson grew pale, his knees trembled, and Adams en- joyed the sight and as a result the Crown Officers issued the order for the removal of the troops to Castle William. The people triumphed and the Old South Meeting House rang with shouts and exclamations of joy.
John Adams, late in life, depicted the dramatic scene in the Council Chamber, when the demand of the citizens assemble ! at the Old South was carried to Governor Hutchinson at the Old State House.
He says: The day was waning, and the room was lighted only by the blaze from the open fireplace. From the walls looked down the portraits of dead Kings of England and Governors of the Province. At the head of the Council Board sat Governor Hutchinson, a good and able man, but sorely tried and perplexed. At his right hand sat Colonel Dalrymple, and about the board were the Councillors in their scarlet coats and large white wigs. Before them all stood Samuel Adams, clad in his plain red cloak, spokesman for the Committee and through them for the citizens of Boston. His hand trembled as he spoke, but his eyes flashed fire, and his voice was firm and unbroken, meeting the Governor's evasions and subter- fuges with the terse demand, "Both regiments, or none." The Governor still resisted however, while the hours passed and the shadows deepened in the chamber. One by one the Coun- cillors and Colonels yielded, and still the Governor stood out alone, until at last, Andrew Oliver, his Secretary and chief reliance counselled that further resistance was useless. Then the Governor gave Colonel Dalrymple the formal recommend- ation and the Committee returned to their fellow townsmen at the Old South with the glad news of success. The troops were removed and in derision were called "Sam Adams Regiments."
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The troops had been sent to overawe the people but the people had overawed the troops. The funeral of the victims of the Massacre occurred on the 8th of March and was a great popular demonstration. "Four hearses bore the bodies of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, who were murdered, met at the spot in King Street where the tragedy was enacted. Thence they moved to the Middle Burying Ground, followed by an immense concourse of people and the bodies were placed in one vault."
John Adams wrote long afterwards, "Not the battle of Lexington, or Bunker Hill. not the surrender of Burgoyne or Cornwallis, were more important events than the battle of King Street, on the fifth of March, 1770." In the autumn of 1770, after the excitement over the event had somewhat subsided, Captain Preston and his men were tried for mur- der, in a court in Boston. Josiah Quincy, Jr. and John Adams were counsel for the prisoners. They were severely criticised by their compatriots, but they entered upon their duties with humane motives and discharged them with fidelity to their clients, the law and the testimony. Robert Treat Paine, after- wards one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was the counsel for the Crown. Preston and six of his sol- diers were declared "not guilty" by a Boston jury. The other two, the soldier who killed Attucks, and the other who shot Maverick, were convicted of manslaughter, only and for that offence they were each branded on the hand, in open court and discharged. The place of the massacre on State Street is indicated by a stone block, with paving stones radiating therefrom, about twelve feet south of the southeast corner of State and Exchange Streets. On the west corner of Exchange Street is this tablet :
Opposite this Spot Was shed the first Blood of the AMERICAN REVOLUTION March 5, 1770
The citizens of Boston could not forget this massacre of her citizens in her streets and the 5th of March was a memorable day in the calendar for many years. At a town meeting held March 5. 1778, the following vote was passed : "Resolved That the Hon. Samuel Adams, Nathaniel Barber. Esq., William
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Cooper, Esq., John Pitts, Esq., John Scollay, Esq., William Austin, Esq., and Percy Morton, Esq., be and hereby are appointed a Committee to apply to a proper gentleman to deliver an oration on the 5th of March next to perpetuate the memory of the horrid massacre perpetrated on the even- ing of the 5th of March, 1770, by a party of soldiers of the 9th Regiment under the command of Captain Thomas Preston, and to impress on our minds the ruinous tendency of standing armies being placed in free and populous cities in a time of peace ; and the necessity of such noble exertion in all future times as the inhabitants of the town then made whereby the (lesigns of the conspirators against the public peace may still be frustrated."
"This Committee made choice of Colonel William Tudor, and we may be sure he did justice to the subject. The oration was delivered at I o'clock, noon, in the Old South Meeting House, Old Faneuil Hall not being capacious enough to re- ceive the inhabitants that attended upon the occasion. The several bells in the town were tolled for half an hour, begin- ning at one quarter of an hour after 9 o'clock. The oration was delivered to a large and crowded audience and received by them with great applause." The observance of the anni- versary of this massacre was discontinued in 1783 by a mo- tion which stated "that it was the opinion of many of the inhabitants that it would be for the public benefit to exchange the present institution for another of the same general nature, such, for instance, as an anniversary for celebrating the glo- rious and happy Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, in which the orator might consider the steps that led to this great Revolution.
The Boston Tea Party December 16, 1773
"The waves that wrought a country's wreck, Have rolled o'er Whig and Tory,
The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck,
Shall live in Song and Story.
The waters in the rebel bay,
Have kept the tea leaf savor,
Our old North Enders in their spray
Still taste a Hyson flavor ;
And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows,
With ever fresh libations,
To cheat of slumber all her foes
And cheer the wakening nations."
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Bancroft, the historian, says: "The destruction in Boston Harbor in December, 1773. of the cargoes of tea sent to that port by the East India Company, was, by far, the most momentous in the annals of the town." It is generally con- ceded to have been the most prominent cause which led to the American Revolution. The arbitrary course of the British Government for ten years previous had caused great agitation in the Colonies and had educated the people to a clear percep- tion of their rights. If they were to be taxed to support the British Government, they contended that they should be repre- sented in the British Parliament. The watchword with the patriots was :- "Taxation without representation is tyranny." In that long controversy preceding the resort to arms, the people of Great Britain seem to have entirely forgotten their own history and how long and tenaciously their ancestors fought for their rights, wresting, as at Runnymede, conces- sions from despotic monarchs. Only one explanation can be given of their course, and that is well stated by a writer on this subject, "Their difficulty seems to have been that they looked upon Americans, not as their equals, but as in- feriors, as their subjects, and as having no rights that the
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Englishman was bound to respect." The celebrated moralist, Dr. Johnson, probably represented quite a class, when he said of the Americans, "They are a race of con- victs and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." England at that period had been en- gaged in a series of long and costly wars and was deeply in debt. She looked across the sea and saw the American Colonies growing rapidly in wealth and population. Here
The Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773
was a gold mine. which, if properly worked, would help very materially to replenish the King's coffers. "Might makes Right" was the motto of the corrupt British min- istry of those days and without asking the advice or ap- proval of the Colonists the odious Stamp Act was passed in 1765. The fate of that obnoxious measure is well known. Then came the tax on tea. The East India Company had seventeen million pounds of tea in warehouses, and a larger importation than usual coming in from India.
With the temper prevailing in America, on the question of taxation, the company saw that the profitable market of America would be cut off, and they were in dire financial
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straits. They could not pay the debts of the company, to say nothing of dividends. In their extremity the East India Company offered to pay the British Government an export duty of six pence per pound on the tea, if they would take off the three pence per pound import duty in America. But, determined to pursue a coercive policy with the Americans, the British Government refused to entertain the proposition. By an Act of Parliament, passed May 10. 1773, the East India Company, in exportation of its teas to America, were allowed a drawback of the full amount of English duties, binding itself only to pay three pence per pound on its being landed in the English Colonies and the company given a license to export six hundred thousand pounds, which were to be sent to Boston, New York, Phila- delphia and Charleston, S. C., the principal American ports. The East India Company looked on this matter in purely a commercial light, but to the Colonists it was a question of abstract principle, and the new Tea Act did not deceive them as to the purpose of the British Government. This last Act solidified the Colonists. they felt that right and justice was on their side. "It was not that they were poor and unable to pay, but because they would not submit to wrong. They were prosperous and happy. It was upon a community at the very height of its prosperity that this insidious scheme suddenly fell, and it immediately roused a more general opposition than had been created by the Stamp Act." Benjamin Franklin said at this time: "The Ministry believe that three pence a pound on tea, of which one does not, perhaps, drink, ten pounds a year, is sufficient to overcome the patriotism of an American."
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