WHOEVER has conversed much with those who have been lately at Boston must know that the arrival of the King’s troops at that town in 1768 was exceed ingly disgustful to all that part of the people who call themselves the sons of liberty, and deny the authority of the British parliament to pass the late acts for imposing duties upon certain articles of trade imported into America, and who cer tainly form a great majority of the people in that town, though perhaps not of the persons of the best fortunes and most respectable characters in the place. Whether they are right in this opi nion, I shall not here inquire. But it ought to be clear beyond the possibility of a doubt on the side of the Americans, in order to justify the vio lent measures that have been taken at Boston to carry it into practice, which have amounted to little less than a forcible opposition to the execu tion of those acts of parliament, or, in the lan guage of the statute of treason, a levying war against the King. And in the conduct of this opposition (even if we suppose for a moment that the opposition itself could be justified upon the principles of the law of nature, which in some cases of extreme necessity allows of a re sistance against illegal exercises of power), they have not behaved with that openness and candour that would have been suitable to the dignity of their pretensions, but have persecuted both those of their own countrymen who presumed to differ from them in opinion, and the King’s troops who were sent thither to preserve the public peace, with the utmost malice and in justice….

On Friday the 2d of March last, between ten and eleven o’clock in the forenoon, as three sol diers of the 29th regiment of foot were passing by Mr. John Gray’s rope-walk in a peaceable and inoffensive manner, one Green a rope-maker, who was at work there, asked one of the soldiers whether he wanted work; to which the soldier answered that he did. “Then,” said Green “you shall go and clean my necessary-house.” … This insult provoked the soldier to use a good deal of ill language in return, and to swear that he would have satisfaction for it. Upon this one of the rope-makers, named Nicholas Ferriter, came up to him and tripped up his heels, and, after he was fallen, another of them, named John Wilson, took his sword from him, (which, Fer riter says, appeared naked under his coat,) and carried it into the rope-walks. The soldier then went to Green’s barrack, and in about twenty minutes returned with about eight or nine more soldiers, armed with clubs, who began with three or four men in Mr. Gray’s warehouse by asking them why they had insulted the soldier aforesaid? These men immediately called out for assistance, upon which they were joined by a number of rope-makers, with whose help they beat off the soldiers. The soldiers upon this re-turned to their barrack, and in a few minutes appeared again in the rope-walk with a stronger party, making now about thirty or forty, armed with clubs and cutlasses, and headed by a tall negroe drummer. This party fell upon the rope-makers near the tar-kettle; but, nine or ten more of the rope-makers coming up to the assistance of their companions, the soldiers were again beat off with considerable bruises, and fol lowed by the rope-makers as far as Green’s-lane, when a corporal came and ordered the soldiers into their barracks; and Mr. John Hill, an elderly gentlemen of the town, who seems to have been a magistrate, persuaded the rope-makers to go back, and they readily obeyed him.

Hitherto we see no footsteps of a massacre, or intended massacre, of the inhabitants. Some soldiers, having been affronted by the rope-ma kers, go out to take revenge on them without their military weapons, armed only with clubs, in order to give them a beating. The occasion of the quarrel was sudden, and the duration of it short. No officers, not even the serjeants and corporals, appear to have been concerned in it; and a single corporal had influence enough to put an end to it.

On the next day, Saturday the 3d of March, there happened another fray in Mr. MacNeil’s rope-wall between three grenadiers and six or seven rope-makers, in which the rope-makers had again the advantage.

These contentions heightened the animosities of both parties. The soldiers wished for another engagement to revenge themselves on the rope- makers; and the towns-people seem to have re solved to make use of their vast superiority of numbers, which had given them the advantage in the former encounters, either to destroy the soldiers intirely, or to drive both them and the commissioners of the customs out of the town. With this view they seem to have intended to draw the soldiers out of their barracks to a ge neral engagement of the same kind as the for mer, that is, with sticks and clubs, and to assem ble a large mob for that purpose, of which the rope-makers should be the leaders, that it might seem to be only a renewal of the quarrel that had lately happened, and not a general design of the inhabitants to rise upon them. This at least appears to me to have been the plan formed by the towns-people on this occasion, upon a care ful perusal of all the evidences relating to this unhappy business, which are submitted to the reader’s consideration.

These animosities were considerably heightened by the sudden absence of a serjeant of the 14th regiment on the evening of Saturday the 3d of March, which continued likewise on the follow ing day, Sunday the 4th of March, and gave rise, in that time of jealousy, to a suspicion among the soldiers that he had been murdered by the rope-makers. This suspicion proved to be ill-grounded: but, while it continued, it occasioned Colonel Carr, the Lieutenant Colonel of the 14th regiment, and his officers, to go, on the Sunday, into Mr. Gray’s rope-walk, and search for him in every part of it with the greatest anxiety and diligence, to the surprize, and, it seems, not much to the satisfaction, of Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray upon this went directly to Colonel Dalrymple, (the Lieutenant Colonel of the 29th regiment, and commanding officer of the troops then at Boston,) and related to him what he understood had passed at the rope-walk two days before; to which the Colonel replied that it was much the same as he had heard from his people, and then said that Mr. Gray’s man was the aggressor by affronting one of the sol diers by asking him if he wanted work, and then telling him to clean his little-house. Mr. Gray made answer that he would dismiss his journey man the next morning for that insolent expres sion, and would further do every thing in his power to prevent his people from giving the sol diers any affront for the future. And Colonel Dalrymple in like manner assured Mr. Gray that he had done, and should do, every thing in his power to keep the soldiers in order and prevent their any more entering Mr. Gray’s inclosure. Presently after Colonel Carr came in and asked Colonel Dalrymple what they should do; for that they were daily losing their men; and that three of his grenadiers passing quietly by the rope-walks had been greatly abused, and one of them so much beat that he was likely to die of his bruises. He then said that he had been searching for a serjeant who had been murdered. — Upon which Mr. Gray said, “Yes, Colonel”; I hear you have been searching for him in my “rope-walks”; and asked him whether that serjeant had been in the affray there on the Fri day? The Colonel replied, “No”; for he was “seen on the Saturday.” Mr. Gray then asked him how he could think of looking for him in his walks, and said that, if he had applied to him, he would have waited on him and have opened every apartment he had for his satisfac tion. This is the substance of Mr. John Gray’s deposition (No. 9.) and shews how greatly the suspicions of the officers and soldiers were alarm ed by the sudden and unaccountable absence of the serjeant.

Source: A Fair Account of the Late Unhappy Disturbance at Boston in New England (London: Printed for B. White, 1770), 5–6, 10–14.