ants who persisted in importing British goods and secretly selling
them, thus taking sides as it were against their countrymen in the contest
that was going on. While doing this a man whom they considered a spy and
informer came by; and the boys, in some way or other, became involved in a
quarrel with him. The man retreated to his house; the boys followed him
and threw snow-balls and pieces of ice at the house when he had gone in.
The man brought a gun to the window and shot one of the boys dead on the
spot.

[Illustration: Boston Massacre.]

This of course produced a very intense excitement throughout the city. The
soldiers naturally took part with those supposed to favor British
interests; this exasperated the populace against them, and finally, after
various collisions, a case occurred in which the British officer deemed it
his duty to order the troops to fire upon a crowd of people that were
assembled to taunt and threaten them, and pelt them with ice and snow.
They had been led to assemble thus, through some quarrel that had sprung
up between a sentinel and one of the young men of the town. In the firing
three men were killed outright, and two more were mortally wounded. The
killing of these men was called a massacre, and the tidings of it produced
a universal and uncontrollable excitement throughout the provinces.

[Illustration: Lord Chatham.]

In proportion, however, as the spirit of resistance to British rule
manifested itself in America, the determination became more and more firm
and decided on the part of the British government not to yield. It is a
point of honor with all governments, and especially with monarchical
governments, not to give way in the slightest degree to what they call
rebellion. There were, however, a few among the British statesmen who
foresaw the impossibility of subduing the spirit which was manifesting
itself in America, by any force which could be brought to bear upon so
distant and determined a population. Lord Chatham was one of these; and he
actually brought forward in Parliament, in 1775, just before the
revolution broke out, a bill for withdrawing the troops from Boston as the
first step toward a conciliatory course of measures. Franklin was present
in Parliament, by Chatham's particular request, at the time when this
motion was brought forward. In the speech which Lord Chatham made on this
occasion, he alluded to Franklin, and spoke o