atoon presented their guns ready to fire, as soon as the word should
be given.... For some time the appearance of things were dismal. The
soldiers outrageous on the one hand, and the inhabitants justly incensed
against them on the other: both parties seemed disposed to come to
action."

Had the affair gone further, so that the soldiers fired again, or the
townspeople stormed the barracks, then the affray would have resembled
the riots not uncommon in Europe at that time, and known even in
England. In such a case the turbulence of Boston might have been proved.
But the good town was later able to claim that up to the actual breaking
out of hostilities not one soldier or Tory had been harmed in
Massachusetts. In the present case nothing further happened. The
stubborn people stood their ground, but the eager troops were restrained
and led away. The punishment of the offenders took place according to
law, with John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., leaders of the Whigs, as
successful defenders of the captain.

The important consequences were political. Though the people dispersed
that night, they assembled on the morrow in a crowded town meeting,
where Samuel Adams guided the actions of the assembly. Adjourning from
Faneuil Hall to the Old South, which itself could not accommodate them
all, the throng passed the very spot of the Massacre and under the
windows of the State House, where the lieutenant-governor viewed them.
This man was Hutchinson, acting governor in the absence of Bernard, and
at last about to arrive at the goal of colonial ambition.

Thomas Hutchinson has been too much condemned, and of late years almost
too much commended. He had spent thirty years in the service of the
colony, holding more offices, and more at the same time, than any man of
his generation. Now he was unpopular and misjudged, yet he was a man for
his day and party honest and patriotic; his end, in exile in England,
was one of the tragedies of American loyalty. But though a braver man
than Bernard and more public-spirited, his methods were equally
underhanded, and he fatally mistook the capacity of his countrymen to
govern themselves. A man who could wish for less freedom of speech in
England was not the man to sympathize with the spirit of Americans.

He now, backed by a few councillors and officials, was to face Sam Adams
and the Boston town meeting. With a committee from the meeting, Adams
came to the State House to demand the withdrawal o