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SAMlTET/ A. GREEN, r LL.D.

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THE

BOSTON MASSACRE,

MARCH 5, 1770

A Part of the Council's Report made to the American Antiquarian
Society at its Annual Meeting in Worcester, October 24, 1900.

SAMUEL A. GREEN, LL.D.

Womtttt, UtajSjsacuuisetts: :
PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON
311 Main Street.
1900.

THE BOSTON MASSACRE,
MARCH 5, 1770.

The Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770, has different
meanings to different persons, varying as seen from indi
vidual standpoints. To some minds the resistance then
made to British authority was the outcropping of a
thoroughly lawless and riotou.s spirit of a mob, utterly
beyond all excuse ; while to others it was the last expres
sion of a deep hostility to the mother country, which was
not only justifiable but praiseworthy. For some years
before the massacre a feeling of strong animosity against
England was growing rapidly among the Colonists, though
there was no one then so wild as to expect or even to
favor independence. During this period the gulf between
the two parties was gradually widening, and the general
trend of public affairs was against, reconciliation. Under
such conditions it is hardly to be supposed that the surface
would remain smooth and unruffled ; but, on the contraiy,
it is natural that it should have been disturbed more or less
by synipatbj' and prejudice.
Various causes had been at work to sow the seeds of
political discontent. Among the earliest was. the passage
of the Stamp Act by the English Parliament in 1765,
which was repealed, however, during the next year, as the
crown authorities found it impossible to enforce the law.
Another cause, the next in point of time, was the arrival
of a British fleet in October, 1768, bringing to Boston
from Halifax two regiments of soldiers. The. town had
made no provision for the accommodation of these troops,

and the inhabitants protested vigorously that the govern
ment had no right to quarter soldiers on them in time
of peace, without the consent of the General Court. For
the first night after their arrival, some of the troops found
shelter in Faneuil Hall, while others bivouacked on the
Common ; and it was several weeks before the needed
barracks were obtained. The arrival of these two regi
ments, sent in order to suppress popular movements, was
considered by the sober-minded people of the town, if not
as an insult and a threat, then surely as an impolitic step on
the part of the English government. Ever since the pas
sage of the Stamp Act, muttenngs of continued discontent
were heard; and for some years the political atmosphere
was hazy, and the outlook threatening. The elements, of
a general explosion were all present, and it required only
a certain combination of circumstances to produce the
spark that would fire the train. It is difficult now in
these piping times of domestic peace fully to appreciate
the deep feeling of hostility to the Crown which then
existed in the town of Boston. The population was a
homogeneous one, made up of 12,000 or 15,000 inhabit
ants, God-fearing and law-abiding people, who saw a small
army quartered in their midst. They had made protest
after protest, but all of no avail. The popular leaders
claimed that troops thus quartered, in time of peace,
without the consent of the Legislature, was as much
a violation of their chartered rights, as the posting of an
army on the banks of the Thames, without the consent
.of Parliament, would be contrary to the English Con
stitution. There were two classes in the community : one class
comprising a great majority of the population, who later
became known as patriots ; and the other made up largely
of office-holders, and men of a conservative turn of mind,
who became known as tories. The line of demarcation
separating these two sets of persons each year was becom-

ing more and more distinct, and the gap between them was
gradually growing wider and wider. The young men, as
thejr came upon the stage of action, sided with their sires,
and helped to mould public sentiment. The feeling of the
town and neighborhood was in favor of large and broad lib
erty in all matters concerning the province or the person,
but the idea of separation from the mother country had not
as yet entered their minds. To them the ubiquitous pres
ence of armed men in the streets was a continual menace
and threat, though they were there to keep order and to
enforce law ; and the sight of a scarlet uniform was as
irritating to them, as a red flag is supposed to be
to a mad bull. For two years this irritation had been
increasing, and it soon became an inflamed spot on the
body politic. What at. the outset was little more than
a deep feeling, in time developed into bitter and rampant
hostility, engendered by the sight of uniformed men.
The conditions were all favorable for a clash between
the civil and military authorities ; and from time to
time disputes and disagreements arose, but fortunately
they subsided without open rupture. A flint and a piece
of steel, brought into sudden contact with each other,
will produce a spark, but not more surely than an irre-
sj^onsible crowd will break the peace, when the indi
vidual members are pushed to extremities, and their
patience is exhausted. Oftentimes they are smarting from
half-forgotten injuries and insults which in the excitement
of the moment rise up and add fuel to the flames, and thus
unconsciously intensify the hatred. Under such conditions
rebellions arise, and revolutions begin. If the uprisings
are put down, they are called rebellions ; but if the)' are
successful, they become revolutions and are so recorded
in history. Success is the touchstone b}r which they are
judged. In derogation of the massacre, it has been said that the
crowd which opposed the soldiers on that memorable

occasion was a mob, and that the victims of that evening
met their just fate and died " as a fool dieth." Perhaps it
was a mob ; but if so, the line separating them from the
men who fell on Lexington green is both indistinct and
undefined. If the American Revolution had not proved
successful, the minute-men of that period would have
figured in history as rioters and law-breakers. No monu
ments would have been raised to their memory, and no
words spoken in praise of their deeds. In street brawls
both sides are apt to be in the wrong, though not neces
sarily to the same degree. The cause of this lies far
down in the frailties of poor human nature, and some
allowance must be made for individual imperfections.
The various crises in the world's history are in obedience
to natural forces which break out at one time or another.
They are part of an unknown plan .which governs human
action, and the power behind them is irresistible.
As a rule people are never moral or virtuous who are
not happj7 ; and in the interest of morality and religion, it
is the duty of communities to cultivate cheerfulness and
happiness. The framers of the Constitution of Massachu
setts recognized this truth when they were performing
their labors. In one of the chapters of the Constitution,
they laid down the general proposition that wisdom and
knowledge as well as virtue, diffused generally among
the mass, of the people, were necessary for the preserva
tion of their rights and liberties ; and that wisdom and
knowledge and virtue were dependent on many con
ditions, among which were good humor and all social
affections. In other words, contentment lies at the
foundation of character.
The active participants in the massacre, on the part of
the town, were men of humble origin and of no particular
social standing in the community, but they had the sympa
thy of their neighbors; and the victims of that eventful
evening received every mark of sincere sorrow when they

were laid away in their silent graves. The Massachusetts
Gazette: and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, March 15,
1770, says : —
"It is supposed their must have been a greater Number
of People from Town and Country at the Funeral of those
who were massacred by the Soldiers, than were ever
together on this Continent on any Occasion."
This short paragraph shows the feeling of public senti
ment at the time of the event better than statements made
in recent years that the whole affair was a mob, and that
it was not upheld by the good sense of the community.
If you please to call it so, the participants may have
been a. mob, a tumultuous crowd incited to violent deeds.
Human action cannot always be measured by rule, but it is
governed by individual feeling. Each one of us is con
scious of his own frailties, and we all know our own
short-comings. Whether a man belongs to the upper-ten
of society, or the lower-ninety, the motives of action are
similar, if not the same, for there is a good deal of human
nature in mankind. Theoretical ly the massacre — whether
viewed from the side of the aggressor or the aggrieved —
was a lawless act, but it found a place in the evolution
of events which brought about great results. Such popu
lar convulsions sometimes bring forth fruit that in the long
O CD
run ripens and mellows : " first the blade, then the ear ;
after that, the full corn in the ear." The participants, on
the part of the people, were the pioneers who blazed the
way to be travelled by others ; and they marked the trail
that led to the separation of the Colonies from- England.
They had their rough duties in the community, and while,
perhaps, they were not models of propriety in daily life,
they each were parts needed in the grand make-up of the
whole. Men of their class helped to form public opinion
which supported independence, and hastened the da}' when
it was declared. In connection with other actions deemed

riotous b}' conservative persons, the massacre was as essen
tial to the final and complete result as some of the more
orderly and parliamentaiy proceedings.
Finis coronal opus. " The end crowns all," says
Shakespeare ; and we have to judge the whole by the
result. The action of that evening, lawless though it were,
was a step in the stairway that a few years later led up to
the Declaration of Independence. The Boston Tea-Party
also was a rung in the ladder leading up to the same
plane, — which was equally lawless, but productive of
great and good results. That, too, constituted a phase in
evolution. No great deed in history is ever all right or
wholly wrong, but it is more or less composite, and must
. ->e .judged by the- general effect. The motives actuating ¦
different persons are not always clear, sometimes they are
good, and sometimes bad, but generally they are complex
in the same person.
The immediate victims of the massacre were Crispns
Attucks, Samuel Gray, and James Caldwell, who were
killed outright ; and two others, Samuel Maverick and
Robert Carr, who died soon afterward from their injuries.
Six others were badly wounded, of whom one, Christopher
Monk, a lad of seventeen 3'ears, for a long time after the
affair dragged out a miserable existence, and more than
once is mentioned by John Hancock, in his oration on the
fifth of March, 1774.
Owing to a combination of circumstances, the first man
here named, Crispiis Attucks, has acquired a local notoriety
throughout the limits of this Commonwealth, and by reason
of his racial origin he has gained a much wider reputation
among his colored brethren throughout the countiy.
According to universal testimony, in his day and genera
tion he had not made himself a very useful member of
society. And why should he have done so, as he belonged
to an abused and enslaved race, deprived of all those rights
which he valued the most? He was neither a freeman nor

a resident of Boston, but a bird of passage in the town,
who chanced to take part in the affray and was shot down
in the street. It is said that he was identical with the man
advertised in The Boston Gazette, or Weekly Journal,
November 20, 1750, as a "runaway" from his master
William Browne, of Framingham. He is there described
as a "Molatto Fellow, about 27 years of Age, named
Crispus, well set, 6 Feet 2 Inches high, short curl'd hair," '
etc. His name " Attucks " would suggest that he was of
Indian origin ; and the probability is that he was a
descendant of the Natick tribe. Undoubtedly, he repre
sented in his own person a mixture of three races, the red,
white and black. Twenty years later, on his- waj' to
North Carolina, he turns up . in Boston as a transient!
visitor. Like many in his position, he was reckless in his con
duct, and' had been . brought up to fear nothing in the line
of danger; and he was itching for a fight. It was the
most natural thing in the world that he should take part in
the affray, and with his large frame that he was the first to
get hit. He was the leader of the mob, and the crowd
took their pace from him. On such occasions a leader
only is needed to kindle a fire which water will not
quench. Some of the victims of that evening were not
active participants in the affra}', but simply bystanders
and onlookers. Such is apt always to be the case with
those who are present in a street brawl out of curiosity.
The innocent are as likely to suffer as the guilty ; and
when they do suffer, the}' get less sympathy. Attucks
little thought that in future generations a monument of
granite and bronze on a public site would be erected in
honor of himself and his comrades for the part the}' took
in the State-Street fight ; and that his own name, cut in

•The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (XIII. 300) for October,
1859.,

10
stone, would lead the list of those who fell on that event
ful evening. " Thus the whirligig of Time brings in his
revenges," and verifies the Gospel saying: "But many
that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first."
In justice to Captain Preston, the officer in charge of
the soldiers, it should be said, that he was tried for murder
and acquitted, though at a later trial two of his men, for
the part they took in the sad affair, were found guilty of
manslaughter and branded in the hand. The trial of
Captain Preston began on October 23, and lasted until
October 30, and that of the men on November 27, and
lasted until December 5 ; and it is said that these trials
ytare the first in the Province that took up in time more
than a day. each. The verdict of acquittal on the more
serious charge did not satisfy the people, and among them
there' were many expressions of dissent. At the trial of
the accused it seems somewhat odd that John Adams and
Josiah Quincy, Jr., should have appeared'for the soldiers,
and that Samuel Quincy, the elder brother of Josiah, should
have appeared for the people in opposition to the soldiers.
A few years later the position of these distinguished advo
cates was greatly changed, when Josiah Quincy, Jr., had
finished a young life which he had devoted to the defence
of the rights of the colonies ; and when John Adams stood
up in the Continental Congress, and together with other
patriots advocated the principles embodied in the Declara
tion of Independence ; and when Samuel Quincy, the
elder brother, had fled as a tory from his native land, and
ended his days under the British flag.
Twelve years ago the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
saw fit to erect a monument to the memory of the unfortu
nate victims who fell in State Street. Memorial stones
and tablets had been set up in various quarters of the
State commemorating deeds of danger and heroism done
in the interest of liberty and freedom ; and the question
was often asked why no monument had been raised to the

11
memory of those who took part in the Boston Massacre.
The answer was simple ; that these men had placed them
selves in an attitude of defiance of the law, and as
law-breakers they should not be honored. Further reflec
tion, on the part of the public, showed that the actors in
this affair were no more real rioters than those who a few-
years later threw the tea overboard at Griffin's wharf. In
a limited sense they were rioters, and so were many others
of that period, who are now considered patriots of the
highest type. On great occasions men often act from
their feelings or from impulse, and not from their reason ;
and their action is to be. judged by the result. It is rare
that any action, however good and pure, is wholly so ; but
it is mixed or mingled more or less, with what is other
wise. It is impossible to square it with a plumb or to
measure it by a rule. " The web of our life is of a mingled
yarn, good and ill together."
Out of deference to public sentiment, on May 17, 1887,
the General Court of Massachusetts made an appropriation
for the purpose of erecting a monument, in some public
place in the city of Boston, in memory of the men who
were killed by British soldiers at the time of the massacre.
It is but fair to add that a protest to the appropriation was
made by very respectable bodies and by eminent men,
who saw in this action an attempt, as they thought, to
perpetuate an error in history. There is a tendency now
adays, on the part of some writers, to palliate or readjust
the views commonly held by the tories of the Revolution
ary period, and otherwise to defend their political opinions.
If this attitude springs from a desire to find out historic
truth, it is both just and right ;. but if it comes from an
Anglomania, — as in some cases, I fear, it does, — then it
is both unjust and wrong. The great end of historical
investigation should lie the truth, and this should be
sought without fear or favor, and without bias or preju
dice. It was no discredit to the earl)' instigators of the

12
Revolution that, in the main, they belonged to the yeo
manry of the country, — the plain people, as Abraham
Lincoln liked to call them, — -and for the most part they
were not cultivated in the arts and graces of life, as they
were too bus)' in other matters to give much time to the
frills and furbelows of society. Their accomplishments
were of the home-spun order, and sprang from their
feelings rather than from their training. Certainty the)'
did not belong to the ruling classes, but they applauded
and upheld the men who took part in the massacre.
Their sympathies were with them, and when the victims
of that evening were taken to their last resting place,
the patriotic inhabitants of Boston and neighborhood in
many ways testified to the love and regard they bore
them. So deeply did they sympathize with these " rioters "
that they met each year thereafter in the Old South
meeting-house and listened to. the oft-told story of. the'
massacre, as related by some distinguished speaker.
These various addresses were known as Fifth of March
Orations, and for a time they entered into the literary and
intellectual life of the town of Boston ; nor was the
custom of commemorating the day given up until the
year 1783, when it was superseded by the celebration of
the Fourth of July, which has continued even to the
present time.
On the anniversary of the massacre, six years after the
event, the great Washington in camp at Cambridge recalled
it to the remembrance of his troops "as a day never to be
forgotten." On March 2, 1786, John Adams, in Avriting an official
communication from London, said: — "The 5th of March,
1770, ought to be an eternal warning to this nation
[England]. On that night the foundation of American
independence was laid." Mr. Adams, probably, was as
familiar Avith the train of circumstances leading up to
independence, as any other man ; and he knew, more-

13
over, the trend of public sentiment following the event.
If the foundation of American independence AA'as laid
then and there, the superstructure which has since been
erected bears witness that it was a solid foundation, and
such a one as never was laid by a mob.
Again, in writing to Dr. Jedidiah Morse, from Quincy,
January 5, 1816, John Adams said: — "How slightly
soever historians may have passed over this event [the
massacre] the blood of the martyrs, right or wrong, proved
to be the seeds of the congregation. Not the battle of
Lexington or Bunker's Hill, not the surrender of Burgoyne
or Cornwallis Ave re more important events in American
history than the battle of King Street, on the 5th of
March, 1770."
Coming down to a later period, Daniel Webster ex
pressed the same sentiment as Mr. Adams, when he said :
" From that moment Ave may date the severance of the
British Empire." The late George Livermore, a member
of this Society, said: "The Boston Massacre, March '5,
1770, may be regarded as the first act in the drama of the
American Revolution." And in very recent times that
distinguished Avriter and our associate, John Fiske, in
speaking of the massacre, has said : — " It is, therefore,
historically correct to regard them [the victims] as the
first martyrs to the cause of American independence ; as
such they have long deserved a monument in the most
honorable place that Boston could give for the purpose ;
and such a place is Boston Common."
It may be worth the Avhile here to record the fact
that a manuscript plan of King Street (iioav knoAvn as
State Street) at the time of the massacre is preserved in
the Boston Public Library. It was drawn by Paul Revere,
probably by order of the court, and Avas used at the trial
of Captain Preston and his soldiers. It shows the exact
¦place where fell Attucks and Gray, who were the first
victims; and in the year 1886 the spot was marked by

14
circles in the pavement of the street, near the corner of
Exchange Street, Avhich represent a Avheel eight or nine
feet in diameter, Avith its spokes and hub.

Measured by human life, a century is a long period of
time, so long, indeed, that the memory of man runneth
not to the beginning. Such round periods have a certain
fascination for the average person, who always takes a
delight in anniversaries ; and these periods offer a good
opportunity for a review of the progress in public achieve
ments. Standing, as we now do, on the di\7iding line
between two centuries of the Christian era, — the one that
is nearly passed, and the other about to begin, — it may be in
keeping Avith this occasion to change the subject and A'ery
briefly to consider the inheritance which the Nineteenth
century received from former civilization, and the gifts
Which it is about to make to the Twentieth. Among the
more important ones it received from preceding centuries
may be mentioned aphabetical writing, Arabic numerals,
the printing press, the mariner's compass, the telescope,
the barometer and the steam engine ; and among the
important ones it soon Avill give to the coming century
may be mentioned the application of electricity, not only
for the transmission of thought, but also of sound, and
for purposes of locomotion and of lighting streets and
dwellings. It may be proper to allude here to the fact
that the application of electricity for the transmission of
sound and the distant reproduction of the voice Avas first
put to a practical use by a distinguished member of this
Society. Besides these gifts to the next century may be
mentioned the application of steam to locomotion, Avhether
on land or Avater, Avhich has shortened in time the distance
between continents as Avell as between far-aAvay cities,
photography, spectrum analysis, and various institutions
for the amelioration of suffering and for the remedA'
of evils. The greatest boon to the human race since

15
the invention of printing, assuredly in the minds of the
medical profession, has been the discovery of the anes
thetic properties of sulphuric ether, by means of Avhich to
a vast extent human life has been saved and physical pain
prevented. It is difficult to overestimate the value of this
discovery ; and if a judgment Avere rendered by those avIio
have enjoyed its blessed benefits, the decision Avould be
overwhelming in its favor. Closely akin to anaesthetics in
importance is the introduction of antiseptic surgery Avith
its allied science of bacteriology, by Avhich myriads of
lives have been saved, to the great joy of parents and
friends. These are some of the larger inventions and
discoveries ; and then there are others so inconspicuous
and apparently so trifling that there is danger of overlook
ing them, though they belong to the great achievements
of the century. A case in point is the common friction
match, Avhich is so cheap that ho hovel or hamlet throughout
Christendom is ever Avithout it, and yet so useful that it is
found in eA'ery house or mansion, no matter Iioav palatial,
and in every vessel that sails the sea. Bunches of matches
are made by the millions and millions, and broad acres
of forests are cut doAvn each year to supply the Avood ;
and in every home they are used Avithout regard to Avaste
or economy. Perhaps no other invention of the century
comes so closely in touch with " the household and the
family in all parts of the Avorld as this necessity of
domestic life.
The inheritance of the Nineteenth century Avas large and
"•enerous, but its oavii bequests to the Twentieth are larger
and more generous. It is ahvays dangerous to play the
part of a prophet, but I predict that the next century Avill
five to its successor even greater inventions and discov
eries than those Ave are about to give, Avhich have been
made during the last hundred years. The next century
Avill lay more stress on the duties and obligations of moral
philosophy in the treatment of evils, political and social,

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