Troops sent to Boston.
This was a very harsh measure, and some excuse was needed to justify it before Parliament. It was urged that Boston was a disorderly town, and the sacking of Hutchinson's house could be cited in support of this view. Then in June, 1768, there was a slight conflict between townspeople and revenue officers, in which no one was hurt, but which led to a great town-meeting in the Old South Meeting-House, and gave Governor Bernard an opportunity for saying that he was intimidated and hindered in the execution of the laws. The king's real purpose, however, in sending troops was not so much to keep the peace as to enforce the Townshend acts, and so the people of Boston understood it. Except for these odious and tyrannical laws, there was nothing that threatened disturbance in Boston. The arrival of British troops at Long Wharf, in the autumn of 1768, simply increased the danger of disturbance, and in a certain sense it may be said to have been the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Very few people realized this at the time, but Samuel Adams now made up his mind that the only way in which the American colonies could preserve their liberties was to unite in some sort of federation and declare themselves independent of Great Britain. It was with regret that he had come to this conclusion, and he was very slow in proclaiming it, but after 1768 he kept it distinctly before his mind. He saw clearly the end toward which public opinion was gradually drifting, and because of his great influence over the Boston town-meeting and the Massachusetts assembly, this clearness of purpose made him for the next seven years the most formidable of the king's antagonists in America.
The people of Boston were all the more indignant at the arrival of troops in their town because the king in his hurry to send them had even disregarded the act of Parliament which provided for such cases. According to that act the soldiers ought to have been lodged in Castle William on one of the little islands in the harbour. Even according to British-made law they had no business to be quartered in Boston so long as there was room for them, in the Castle. During the next seventeen months the people made several formal protests against their presence in town, and asked for their removal. But these protests were all fruitless until innocent blood had been shed. The soldiers generally behaved no worse than rough troopers on such occasions are apt to do, and the townspeople for the most part preserved decorum, but quarrels now and then occurred, and after a while became frequent. In September, 1769, James Otis was brutally assaulted at the British Coffee House by one of the commissioners of customs aided and abetted by two or three army officers. His health was already feeble and in this affray he was struck on the head with a sword and so badly injured that he afterward became insane. After this the feeling of the people toward the soldiers was more bitter than ever. In February, 1770, there was much disturbance. Toward the end of the month an informer named Richardson fired from his window into a crowd and killed a little boy about eleven years of age, named Christopher Snyder. The funeral of this poor boy, the first victim of the Revolution, was attended on Monday, the 26th, by a great procession of citizens, including those foremost in wealth and influence.
The "Boston Massacre."
The rest of that week was full of collisions which on Friday almost amounted to a riot and led the governor's council to consider seriously whether the troops ought not to be removed. But before they had settled the question the crisis came on Monday evening, March 5, in an affray before the Custom House on King street, when seven of Captain Preston's company fired into the crowd, killing five men and wounding several others. Two of the victims were innocent bystanders. Two were sailors from ships lying in the harbour, and they, together with the remaining victim, a ropemaker, had been actively engaged in the affray. One of the sailors, a mulatto or half-breed Indian of gigantic stature, named Crispus Attucks, had been especially conspicuous. The slaughter of these five men secured in a moment what so many months of decorous protest had failed to accomplish. Much more serious bloodshed was imminent when Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson arrived upon the scene and promptly arrested the offending soldiers. The next day there was an immense meeting at the Old South, and Samuel Adams, at the head of a committee, came into the council chamber at the Town House, and in the name of three thousand freemen sternly commanded Hutchinson to remove the soldiers from the town. Before sunset they had all been withdrawn to the Castle. When the news reached the ears of Parliament there was some talk of reinstating them in the town, but Colonel Barré cut short the discussion with the pithy question, "if the officers agreed in removing the soldiers to Castle William, what minister will dare to send them back to Boston?"
Lord North, as prime minister removes all duties except on tea, 1770.
Thus the so-called "Boston Massacre" wrought for the king a rebuff which he felt perhaps even more keenly than the repeal of the Stamp Act. Not only had his troops been peremptorily turned out of Boston, but his policy had for the moment weakened in its hold upon Parliament. In the summer of 1769 the assembly of Virginia adopted a very important series of resolutions condemning the policy of Great Britain and recommending united action on the part of the colonies in defence of their liberties. The governor then dissolved the assembly, whereupon its members met in convention at the Raleigh tavern and adopted a set of resolves prepared by Washington, strictly forbidding importations from England until the Townshend acts should be repealed. These resolves were generally adopted by the colonies, and presently the merchants of London, finding their trade falling off, petitioned Parliament to reconsider its policy. In January, 1770, Lord North became prime minister. In April all the duties were taken off, except the duty on tea, which the king insisted upon retaining, in order to avoid surrendering the principle at issue. The effect of even this partial concession was to weaken the spirit of opposition in America, and to create a division among the colonies. In July the merchants of New York refused to adhere any longer to the non-importation agreement except with regard to tea, and they began sending orders to England for various sorts of merchandise. Rhode Island and New Hampshire also broke the agreement. This aroused general indignation, and ships from the three delinquent colonies were driven from such ports as Boston and Charleston.
Want of union.
Union among the colonies was indeed only skin deep. The only thing which kept it alive was British aggression. Almost every colony had some bone of contention with its neighbours. At this moment New York and New Hampshire were wrangling over the possession of the Green Mountains, and guerrilla warfare was going on between Connecticut and Pennsylvania in the valley of Wyoming. It was hard to secure concerted action about anything. For two years after the withdrawal of troops from Boston there was a good deal of disturbance in different parts of the country; quarrels between governors and their assemblies were kept up with increasing bitterness; in North Carolina there was an insurrection against the governor which was suppressed only after a bloody battle near the Cape Fear river; in Rhode Island the revenue schooner Gaspee was seized and burned, and when an order came from the ministry requiring the offenders to be sent to England for trial, the chief-justice of Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins, refused to obey the order. But amid all these disturbances there appeared nothing like concerted action on the part of the colonies. In June, 1772, Hutchinson said that the union of the colonies seemed to be broken, and he hoped it would not be renewed, for he believed it meant separation from the mother-country, and that he regarded as the worst of calamities.