Robert felt it was a home-thrust that Councilman Gray gave, who said further:—
“If mischief shall come, your excellency, by means of your not doing what the council has advised, you alone must bear the blame. If the commanding officer after that should refuse to remove the troops, the blame then will be at his door!”
“I will do what the council has advised,” said Hutchinson.
“I shall obey the command of your excellency,” said Dalrymple.
The victory was won. “The lobsters have got to go,” the shout that went up in the Old South, when Mr. Adams informed the people.
Very galling it was to the king’s troops to hear the drums of the citizens beating, and to see armed men patrolling the streets, while they were packing their equipments. It was exasperating to be cooped up in Fort William, with no opportunity to roam the streets, insult the people, drink toddy in the tap-rooms of the Tun and Bacchus and the White Horse taverns. No longer could the lieutenants and ensigns quarter themselves upon the people and be waited upon by negro servants, or spend their evenings with young ladies. They who came to maintain law and order had themselves become transgressors, and were being sent to what was little better than a prison, while Captain Preston and the men who fired upon the unarmed citizens were in jail as murderers. It was a humiliating, exasperating reflection.