s. Since the New England people were fitted
by their temperament and history to take the lead in the struggle, at
their chief town naturally took place the more important incidents.
These, which were often dramatic, had nevertheless a political cause and
significance which link them in a rising series that ended in a violent
outbreak and the eleven months' leaguer.

As to the siege itself, it varies an old situation, for Boston was beset
by its own neighbors in defence of the common rights. Previously the
king's troops, though regarded as invaders, had been but half-hearted
oppressors; it was the people themselves who persistently provoked
difficulties. The siege proper is of striking military interest, for its
hostilities begin by the repulse of an armed expedition into a community
of farmers, continue with a pitched battle between regular troops and a
militia, produce a general of commanding abilities, and end with a
strategic move of great skill and daring. It is the first campaign of a
great war, and precedes the birth of a nation. Politically, the cause of
the struggle is of enduring consequence to mankind. Socially, the siege
and its preliminaries bring to view people of all kinds, some weak, some
base, some picturesque, some entirely admirable. The period shows the
breaking up of an old society and the formation of a new. A study of
the siege is therefore of value.

It will be observed that the siege cannot satisfactorily be considered
as a distinct series of military or semi-military events, abruptly
beginning and still more abruptly ending. Such a view would reduce the
siege to a mere matter of local history, having little connection with
the larger movements of the American Revolution, and appearing almost as
an accident which might have happened at any other centre of sufficient
population.[1] On the contrary, neither the siege nor the Revolution
were accidents of history. That the Revolution was bound to come about,
and that its beginnings were equally bound to be at Boston, these were
conditioned in the nature, first of the colonists in general, and second
of the New Englanders in particular. However striking were certain of
the occurrences, they were of less importance than their causes and
consequences.

Accordingly I shall consider as an organic series the more important of
those events which happened in Boston during the reign of George the
Third, and which ended when the last of his redcoats departed