n of
salute. They did not notice, however, that the commander of the land
force, Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, went ashore privately, at about
eleven o'clock, and sauntered over the town. He met no local militia;
he saw nor horns nor hoofs of insurrection; he saw not even the royal
Governor, for he had retired to Jamaica Plain; and instead of a cordial
Executive greeting and proper directions as to what to do, he found that
everything was left to himself. He knew that neither the Council nor the
Governor had provided quarters for his command; but from the doings
or non-doings of this day he conceived feelings towards the runaway
official which he expressed by words, at the time, "full as plain as
pleasant," and afterwards officially in writing to his superiors.
Bernard met Dalrymple's intimations of cowardice by the truthful
allegation that there was not the least danger of insurrection, and of
want of attention by the mean allegation that the Colonel was chagrined
because he was not complimented with a dinner.

An hour after the Commander made his reconnoissance, about noon, the
boats moved in fine order towards the Long Wharf, so termed as being a
noble commercial pier running far out into the Bay. Here the Fourteenth
Regiment, under Colonel Dalrymple, landed, and, having formed, marched,
in the words of the time, with drums beating, fifes playing, and colors
flying, up King Street (now State Street) to the Town-House, where it
halted. It is not said that the troops were complimented by the presence
of the people, who, on holidays then as on holidays now, usually
appeared, having an air of self-respect, well-dressed, well-behaved,
with nothing moving among them more threatening than the baton of the
police as the sign of law and authority, but respecting that as the
symbol of their own law. What Tory writers and officials say warrants
the inference that the Patriots kept away. Dalrymple said that the
Convention was planet-stricken; "Sagittarius," a Tory scribbler, says
the Convention ran, and tells how they ran:--"The courage of the
faithful only consisted in blustering, for the morning that the troops
landed they broke up, and rushed out of town like a herd of scalded
hogs." If the Patriots generally were absent, it was from design. The
Fourteenth Regiment remained near the Town-House until the Twenty-Ninth
joined it, when the column marched to the Common. About four o'clock
these troops were joined by the Fifty-Nint