The Growth of Discontent: Samuel Adams and Hutchinson

The morning after the massacre the select-men waited on Hutchinson and urged the removal of the troops. At eleven the town meeting came together, and chose a committee, with Samuel Adams at its head, to wait upon the governor and demand the withdrawal of the troops. Hutchinson wished to delay and postpone. He offered to have the Twenty-Ninth Regiment, which had fired on the people, removed to the Castle, and the other put under proper restraint. The committee went back through thronged streets, and made its report, which was pronounced unsatisfactory, and a new committee, again headed by Adams, went back to the governor. The interview which followed in the council-chamber, as the daylight slowly faded, was one of the great dramatic scenes of the American Revolution. In that moment Samuel Adams was pre-eminent, and all the greatness and force of his mind and character concentrated to raise him up as the great tribune of the people. The incarnation of right and justice, the true champion of the people, he stood before the fit representative of a weak, vacillating, proud, and stupid ministry, and made the representative quail before him. "If you can remove one, you can remove both," he said to Hutchinson; "there are three thousand people in yonder town meeting; the country is rising; night is falling; and we must have an answer." Hutchinson hesitated a moment, trembled, and gave way. Before a week elapsed, all the troops were withdrawn; and meantime they had watched the funerals of their victims, seen their companions arrested for murder, beheld a town meeting called to hurry their departure, and had been kept under strict guard by the militia of the town they went forth to garrison. Staying and going were alike full of humiliation and defeat. It was a great triumph; and as the news of the events at Boston spread, a strong sense of relief filled the colonies.