Interference with Popular Rights Resented

On the morning after the massacre, the Sons of Liberty gathered in great numbers in Faneuil Hall. The lieutenant-governor convened his council, and that afternoon a town-meeting was held in the South Meeting-house (yet standing), then the largest building in the city. The people there resolved "that nothing could be expected to restore peace and prevent carnage, but an immediate removal of the troops." A committee of fifteen, with Samuel Adams as their chairman, were sent the next morning, with that resolution, to Hutchinson and Dalrymple. "The people," said Royal Tyler, one of the committee, "are determined to remove the troops out of the town by force, if they will not go voluntarily. They are not such people as formerly pulled down your house, that conduct these measures, but men of estates--men of religion. The people will come in to us from all the neighboring towns; we shall have ten thousand men at our backs, and your troops will probably be destroyed by the people, be it called rebellion or what it may." Hutchinson replied: "An attack on the king's troops would be high-treason, and every man concerned in it would forfeit his life and estate." The committee renewed the demand for the removal of the troops. The officials would only promise to send one regiment away. This unsatisfactory answer the committee reported to an adjourned town-meeting that afternoon, when it was immediately resolved that it was "the unanimous opinion of the meeting, that the reply made to the vote of the inhabitants, presented to his honor this morning, is by no means satisfactory, and that nothing else will satisfy them but a total and immediate removal of all the troops." Samuel Adams, John Hancock, William Molineux, William Phillips, Joseph Warren, Joshua Henshaw and Samuel Pemberton were appointed to carry this resolution to the civil and military authorities. Adams presented the resolutions. Again the lieutenant-governor and the colonel temporized. Hutchinson said he had no power to remove the troops. Adams proved that he had, by the provisions of the charter. Still the crown-officers hesitated. Adams resolved that there should be no more trifling with the will of the people. Stretching forth his hand toward Hutchinson, and in a voice not loud but clear, he said: "If you have power to remove one regiment, you have power to remove both. It is at your peril if you do not. The meeting is composed of three thousand people. They are become very impatient. A thousand men are already arrived from the neighborhood, and the country is in general motion. Night is approaching; an immediate answer is expected."

This was the voice of the province--of the continent--and the crown-officers knew it. Fear of the angry people and dread of the frowns of the ministry agitated them with conflicting emotions. Hutchinson grew pale; his knees trembled, and Adams afterward said, "I enjoyed the sight." The lieutenant-governor's council had unanimously recommended the removal of the troops; the people demanded it, and after conferring together in a whisper, Hutchinson and Dalrymple agreed to send the troops to Castle William. The committee returned to the meeting with the good news, and the Old South Meeting-house rang with acclamations of joy. The humbled troops were speedily sent out of the town. It was a signal triumph for the people; and the rights of man. These troops had been sent to overawe the people; the people had overawed the troops. The inhabitants kept a strict guard over the prisoners and a vigilant oversight of the troops while they remained, "many of the most respectable citizens appearing as common soldiers" in this duty.

The funeral of the victims of the massacre occurred on the 8th of March. It was made an occasion of a great popular demonstration. Four hearses that bore the bodies of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, who were murdered on the 5th, met at the spot, in King street, where the tragedy was enacted. Thence they moved to the Middle Burial-ground, followed by an immense concourse of people of all classes and conditions, on foot; and then by a long line of carriage "of the gentry of the town," who occupied them. The bodies were placed in one vault. The newspapers of the country were shrouded in broad black lines. The Boston Gazette, printed on Monday, the 12th of March, was heavily striped with black lines, and contained pictures of four coffins, bearing the initials of the slain and the skull and cross-bones. Long afterward John Adams wrote: "Not the battle of Lexington or Bunker Hill, not the surrender of Burgoyne or Cornwallis, were more important events in American history than the battle of King street, on the 5th of March, 1770. The death of four or five persons, the most obscure and inconsiderable that could have been found upon the continent, has never yet been forgiven in any part of America."