nt to remove the troops out of the town, together with the
advice of moderate men, prevented the townsmen from falling on the
soldiers. Capt. Preston, who commanded, and the party who fired on the
inhabitants, were committed to jail, and afterwards tried. The captain
and six of the men were acquitted. Two were brought in guilty of
manslaughter (and were lightly punished). _It appeared on the trial that
the soldiers were abused, insulted, threatened, and pelted before they
fired._ It was also proved that only seven guns were fired by the eight
prisoners. These circumstances induced the jury to give a favourable
verdict. The result of the trial reflected great honour on John Adams
and Josiah Quincy, the counsel for the prisoners (promising young
lawyers and popular leaders), and also on the integrity of the jury, who
ventured to give an upright verdict in defiance of popular
opinion."[316]

A further hindrance to returning harmony in Massachusetts, as in the
other colonies, was another ill-judged act of the British Ministers in
making the Governor and judges wholly independent of the province in
regard to their salaries, which had always been paid by the local
Legislature in annual grants, but which were now, for the first time,
paid by the Crown. The House of Assembly remonstrated against this
innovation, which struck at the very heart of public liberty, by making
the administrator of the government, and the courts of law, wholly
independent of the people, and wholly dependent on the Crown, all
holding their offices during pleasure of the Crown, and depending upon
it alone for both the amount and payment of their salaries, and that
payment out of a revenue raised by taxing the people without their
consent.

The House addressed the Governor and judges to know whether they would
receive their salaries as heretofore, by grants of the Legislature, or
as stipends from the Crown. Three out of the four judges announced that
they would receive their salaries as heretofore, by grants from the
local Legislature; but Governor Hutchinson and Chief Justice Oliver
announced that they would receive their salaries from the Crown. They
therefore became more and more odious to the inhabitants, while the
discussion of the new question of the relations of the Executive and
Judiciary to the people, upon the grounds of public freedom and the
impartial administration of justice, greatly increased the strength of
the opposition and the import