George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

[333]

Intelligence of these events, especially of the con-

Chap XLIII.} 1770. Feb.

flict of the citizens with the soldiers, was transmitted to Boston,¹ where the townsmen emulously applauded the spirit of the ‘Yorkers.’ The determination to keep clear of paying the Parliament's taxes spread into every social circle. One week three hundred wives of Boston, the next a hundred and ten more, with one hundred and twenty-six of the young and unmarried of their sex, renounced the use of tea till the Revenue Acts should be repealed.² How could the troops interfere? Every body knew, that it was against the law for them to fire without the special authority of a civil magistrate; and the more they paraded with their muskets and twelve rounds of ball, the more they were despised, as men who desired to terrify and had no power to harm. Hutchinson, too, was taunted with wishing to destroy town meetings, through which he himself had risen; and the Press, calling to mind his days of shop-keeping, was cruel enough to jeer him for his old frauds, as a notorious smuggler.³

Theophilus Lillie, who had begun to sell contrary to the agreement, found a post planted before his door, with a hand pointed towards his house in derision. One of his neighbors, Richardson, an informer, asked a countryman to break the post down by driving the wheel of his cart against it. A crowd interposed; a number of boys chased Richardson to his own house and threw stones. Provoked but not endangered, he fired among them, and killed one of