WILLIAM LIVINGSTON.
Fac-simile of the engraving in Sedgwick's Life of William Livingston. Cf. Lossing's Field-Book, i. 330.
There are in the Sparks MSS. (no. xx.) copies of annotations which Franklin, then in London, made on the margins and fly-leaves of sundry pamphlets, which just at this time were engaging attention in London, and these comments show how the struggle was regarded by a mind of Franklin's astuteness, amid the influences of the British capital. Sparks printed parts of these annotations in his Familiar letters and miscellaneous pieces by Dr. Franklin, and again in his edition of Franklin, vol. iv.[213] Some letters which passed between Franklin and William Strahan in 1769 are also of great interest.[214]
The Boston Massacre of March, 1770, was the violent culmination of prevailing passions, and was in a measure induced by the sacrifice of life which resulted from the boarding by a press-gang from the "Rose" frigate of a ship belonging to Hooper, of Marblehead,[215] and by the riotous proceedings which, in Jan., 1770, brought about the death of the boy Snider.[216] Soon after the affray of March, the town of Boston published a Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston (Boston, Edes and Gill, 1770),[217] which depicted the condition of the people at the time, and gave an appendix of depositions, including one of Jeremy Belknap.[218] Copies were sent to England at once,[219] but the rest of the edition was kept back till after the trial, when "Additional Observations" were appended.[220] The volume, thus completed, was reprinted in New York in 1849, with notes and illustrations by John Daggett, Jr.; and again in Frederick Kidder's History of the Boston Massacre (Albany, 1870), which is the most considerable monograph on the subject.[221]
FROM BICKERSTAFF'S BOSTON ALMANAC, 1769.
This song was written by John Dickinson, with some assistance from Dr. Arthur Lee, and was sent (printed in the Penna. Chronicle, July 4, 1768) by Dickinson from Philadelphia to Otis, accompanied by a letter dated July 4, 1768. It was sung to the tune "Hearts of Oak", and was made conspicuous in Boston by being sung at Liberty Hall and the Greyhound Tavern in Aug., 1768. It had been reprinted in the Boston Gazette, July 18th. An amended copy, "the first being rather too bold", was given in the Penna. Chronicle July 11th. In September it appeared as a broadside, with the music. Edes and Gill's Almanac, in reprinting it in 1770, says it is "now much in vogue in North America." (Cf. Tudor's Life of Otis, pp. 322, 501; Moore's Songs and Ballads of the Rev., p. 37; Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 166; Mem. Hist. of Boston, iii. p. 131.)
A parody appeared in the Boston Gazette, Sept. 26, 1768 (Moore, p. 41). This parody gave rise to the "Massachusetts Song of Liberty", which is given in Edes and Gill's Almanac (1770), as well as in Bickerstaff, under the full title of The Parody parodized, or the Massachusetts Liberty Song. It has been ascribed to Mrs. Mercy Warren. (Cf. Moore, p. 44; Lossing, Field-Book of the Rev., i. 487.) The Almanac (Edes and Gill) of 1770 also contains "A new Song composed by a Son of Liberty and sung by Mr. Flagg at Concert Hall, Boston, Feb. 13, 1770."
A stenographic report was made of the trial of Preston, and sent to England, but it has never been published.[222]
The trial of eight of the soldiers took place Nov. 27, 1770, and John Hodgson,[223] the stenographer of the earlier trial, made a Report, The trial of William Wemms, ... published by permission of the Court (Boston, 1770),[224] which gives the evidence and pleas of counsel, and a report of the trial of Edward Manwaring and others, accused of firing on the crowd from the windows of the custom-house. They were acquitted.[225]