Chap XLIII.} 1770. March |
This text is part of:
‘
[341]
that you should not have fired without the order of a
civil Magistrate?’
asked Hutchinson on meeting Preston.
‘I did it,’ answered Preston, ‘to save my men.’1
The people would not be pacified, till the regiment was confined to the guard-room and the barracks; and Hutchinson himself gave assurances that instant inquiries should be made by the County Magistrates.
The body of them then retired, leaving about one hundred persons to keep watch on the examination, which lasted till three hours after midnight.2 A warrant was issued against Preston, who surrendered himself to the Sheriff; and the soldiers who composed the party were delivered up and committed to prison.3
The next morning the Selectmen of the Town and the Justices of the County spoke with Hutchinson at the Council Chamber. ‘The inhabitants,’ said the former, ‘will presently meet, and cannot be appeased while the troops are among them.’
Quincy of Braintree, on behalf of the Justices, pointed out the danger of ‘the most terrible consequences.’
‘I have no power to remove the troops,’ said Hutchinson, ‘nor to direct where they shall be placed;’ but he sent to invite Dalrymple and Carr, the Commanding Officers, to be present in Council.
They attended, and the subject was ‘largely discussed.’
At eleven, the Town Meeting was opened in Faneuil Hall by prayer from Cooper; then Samuel Adams and fourteen others, among them, Hancock
1 Vindex, Samuel Adams, in Boston Gazette, 10 Dec. 1770, and 14 Jan. 1771.
2 Hutchinson to Gage, 6 March, 1770. ‘I was up till three o'clock.’ Hutchinson to Sir Francis Bernard, 12 March, 1770.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.