effected without the
establishment at Boston, on the recommendation of the Commissioners,
of two regiments of the line which arrived September 28, 1768, and were
landed under the guns of eight men-of-war, without opposition. The cost
of maintaining the two regiments in Boston was doubtless not included
in the 13,000 pounds charged to the revenue as the annual expense of
collecting 30,000 pounds of customs.

In spite of the two regiments of the line, with artillery, Boston was
not quiet in this year 1768. The soldiers acted decently enough, no
doubt; but their manners were very British and their coats were red,
and "their simple presence," conveying every day the suggestion of
compulsion, was "an intolerable grievance." Every small matter was
magnified. The people, says Hutchinson, "had been used to answer to the
call of the town watch in the night, yet they did not like to answer to
the frequent calls of the centinels posted at the barracks;... and either
a refusal to answer, or an answer accompanied with irritating language,
endangered the peace of the town." On Sundays, especially, the Boston
mind found something irreverent, something at the very least irrelevant,
in the presence of the bright colored and highly secular coats; while
the noise of fife and drum, so disturbing to the sabbath calm, called
forth from the Selectmen a respectful petition to the general requesting
him to "dispense with the band."

These were but slight matters; but as time passed little grievances
accumulated on both sides until the relation between the people and the
soldiers was one of settled hostility, and at last, after two years, the
tense situation culminated in the famous Boston Massacre. On the evening
of March 5, 1770, there was an alarm of fire, false as it turned out,
which brought many people into the streets, especially boys, whom one
may easily imagine catching up, as they ran, handfuls of damp snow to
make snowballs. For snowballs, there could be no better target than
red-coated sentinels standing erect and motionless at the post of duty;
and it chanced that one of these individuals, stationed before the
Customs House door, was pelted with the close-packed missiles. Being
several times struck, he called for aid, the guard turned out, and a
crowd gathered. One of the soldiers was presently knocked down, another
was hit by a club, and at last six or seven shots were fired, with or
without orders, the result of which was four c