urchased from their shops; and this becoming notorious, one Theophius
Lillie, a tradesman at Boston, resolved to sell what was thus sold by
others. In order to point him out as one whose shop was to be shunned,
the mob placed a rude figure at his door, and a person named Richardson,
either a friend or a servant of Lillies, attempted to remove the
nuisance, and being defeated in his design by the mob, who pelted him
with stones, he took up a loaded gun and fired upon his assailants from
within doors. The shot killed a boy, who was forthwith recorded in
the newspapers as the first martyr in the cause of liberty. He was, in
truth, the first that was sacrificed, but the blow proceeded from the
hand of a persecuted American, and not from the hand of an Englishman.
It was not long, however, before the English were involved in quarrels
with the Americans, which resulted in the loss of life. The boldness of
the Bostonians seems daily to have increased after the above-mentioned
incident. It was in vain that merchants implored even to keep the goods
they had imported in store, as if bonded, until the duties in England
should be repealed: they were compelled to send them back to those
who had shipped them. At the same time, it was shrewdly suspected that
several of the Bostonian leaders still imported and sold goods largely;
or, at least, permitted goods to be imported in their vessels. The
people of New York, indeed, taxed the Bostonians with unfair and selfish
dealings, and renounced the non-importation agreement. This gave rise
to mutual recrimination between these two states: the New Yorkers called
the Bostonians pedlars, and the Bostonians said that the New Yorkers
were no patriots. At the same time, the Bostonians were fierce in their
hatred of the English government and its measures. If they acted with
duplicity in the matter of trade, they were at least consistent in
their denunciations against all connection with England. The soldiers
quartered in Boston were subject to constant insults from them, and were
continually interrupted in their duty. All classes conceived that as
they had not been called in by the civil magistrates of the place, that
their presence was illegal, and that every means employed to hasten
their departure, or make their stay uncomfortable was laudable. Hence,
no sentinel could stand in his place without being insulted; and it was
too much to expect from human nature, that the soldiers should suffer
con