American Rebels

by Nina Sankovitch

  Josiah Quincy Jr., meanwhile, took the verdict as a victory against mob rule and began preparing for the next trial, to be held in late November. He would have almost three weeks to prepare, and he vowed to himself that he would be ready. Adams might have shut him down in Preston’s trial, but in the trials of the eight men serving under Preston, Josiah Quincy Jr. would have his day in court.

  * * *

  The trial of the eight soldiers began on a cold and wet day at the end of November. Despite the damp and the chill, Josiah Quincy Jr. arrived at the courthouse feeling stronger than he had since his wedding a year before. He had worked hard to prepare for court, but he had also taken care of his health. Diligently adhering to doctor’s orders over the past weeks, he went to sleep early and slept long, he ate only simple food but ample amounts of it, and he imbibed little alcohol. Accompanied by his wife, he had enjoyed fresh air taken in drives through the countryside to spend time in Braintree with his father, Josiah Sr.

  Whether it was the weight he had gained, the sleep and rest he had enjoyed, or the assiduous research and writing he had undertaken, Josiah Jr. walked into the courtroom exhibiting a new robustness to match both his will and his determination; John Adams be damned, this case was all his.

  The jury, judges, and audience gathered in the courtroom on Queen Street fell quickly under Josiah Quincy Jr.’s spell. “Permit me, gentlemen, to remind you of the importance of this trial, as it relates to the prisoners. It is for their lives!” he began. “If we consider the number of persons now on trial, joined with many other circumstances which might be mentioned, it is by far the most important this country ever saw. Remember the ties you are under to the prisoners, and even to yourselves. The eyes of all are upon you.”16

  As he spoke, all attention was in fact riveted on him, standing still and tall before the jury. His unruly hair was held back by a ribbon, no wig on his head or barrister robes on his back. Josiah Quincy Jr. commanded respect, even with his bare head, crossed eyes, and austere and plain clothes. It was his voice that did it: as one observer noted, “His voice was like the music of the spheres; soft and melodious, yet powerful, clear, and distinct. He had a tenor voice [that] could be heard to the farthest verge of the most crowded assembly, and often far beyond.”17

  He took a deep breath and continued: “An opinion has been entertained by many among us, that the life of a soldier was of very little value,—of much less value than others of the community.”

  He paused, and then continued, “The law, gentlemen, knows no such distinction: the life of a soldier is viewed, by the equal eye of the law, as estimable as the life of any other citizen.”18

  John Adams, seated at the defense table, waited tensely for Quincy to begin what Adams was sure would be a condemnation of the Boston mob. But Quincy surprised him, and most likely everyone else in the courtroom.

  “Boston and its inhabitants have no more to do with this cause than you or any other members of the community. You are, therefore, by no means to blend two things so essentially different as the guilt or innocence of this town and the prisoners together. The inhabitants of Boston, by no rules of law, justice, or common sense, can be supposed answerable for the unjustifiable conduct of a few individuals, hastily assembled in the streets.”19

  But just as Adams had let out his sigh of relief, the tone of Quincy’s presentation turned. Quoting the words of John Dickinson, the “farmer of Pennsylvania,” who had advised the colonists to act with “prudence, justice, modesty, bravery, humanity, and magnanimity,” Quincy then asked the jury to consider whether “it [was] justice or humanity to attack, insult, ridicule, and abuse a single sentinel on his post? Was it either modest, brave, or magnanimous to rush upon the points of fixed bayonets, and trifle, vapour, and provoke, at the very mouths of loaded muskets?”20

  Quincy proceeded to answered his own questions. “Hot, rash, disorderly proceedings injure the reputation of a people, as to wisdom, valour, and virtue, without procuring the least benefit … [and no one] would sacrifice his judgment and his integrity, to vindicate such proceedings.” Having warned the jury against taking the side of the mob, Quincy then reminded the jury of their duty to be “zealous inquirers after truth … willing to hear with impartiality, to examine and judge for yourselves” the testimony to be presented.21

  “You are not sitting here as Statesmen or Politicians,” he warned the jury. “You ought to be careful to give a Verdict, which will bear the Examination of the Times, when the Pulses which now beat shall beat no more.”22

  Josiah Quincy Jr. then began his questioning of the witnesses. For this trial, Adams and Quincy had agreed that Quincy would handle both the prosecution and the defense witnesses, and Adams would present the closing argument. In all, between the Crown and the defense, over fifty witnesses were called. Josiah Quincy Jr. led his witnesses along, probing their observations and questioning their assumptions, to create a compelling picture of the night in question. Chaos had reigned when citizens and troops, forced to live and work in close confines, reached their limits of tolerance; in the end, the tragic consequences were the result, as John Adams put it in his closing argument, of “soldiers quartered in a populous town.”23

  Who could say who had fired at whom in such mayhem? Guilt could only be assigned where there existed proof of a trigger pulled or of a bayonet thrust; Josiah depended on the disorder of the recollections to blur lines of responsibility. As John Adams would argue at the end, without a clear line of guilt, no verdict could be returned.

  Before John began his closing argument, however, Josiah once again reminded the jury of the importance of remaining unbiased, especially in these turbulent times, he argued, when both the impassioned mob and the watching world waited for the verdicts. But another quality was just as vital: mercy. The jury, as “ministers of justice” must ensure that in the cause of “law and justice,… mercy … be executed in all … judgments.” He paraphrased Shakespeare in his final words to the jury: “The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven.… It is twice blessed; It blesses him that gives, and him that takes.”24

  In John Adams’ closing argument, he reminded the jury that in order to protect the innocent, proof had to be certain, without any doubt or question: “We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.”25

  With thunder on his brow, John leaned in close to the jury: “the people shouting, huzzaing, and making the mob whistle … a most hideous shriek, almost as terrible as an Indian yell.” He wondered aloud if, had the tables been turned and the citizens of Boston were so harangued and taunted and jeered, the civilians “would not have … shot down as many as were necessary to intimidate and disperse the rest.”26

  Josiah sat up straight, surprised by the turn in Adams’ argument. Could it be that now Adams was willing to put the citizens of Boston on trial? The defendants also surged forward in their seats but for a different reason. Was Adams admitting the guilt of his clients?

  But having presented the horrors of the mob, Adams assigned blame for its outrages not on the ones who had composed the mob but on the administration whose policies had enflamed it: citizens will turn “to mutinies, seditions, tumults, and insurrections … in direct proportion to the despotisms of the government.… The virtue and wisdom of the administration, may generally be measured by the peace and order, that are seen among the people.”27

  Furthermore, Adams added, it was the influence and actions of outsiders— “a Carr from Ireland and an Attucks from Framingham” who had behaved with the most violence and agitation, thereby besmirching “the good people of the town” of Boston.28

  To the relief of his clients, Adams then reviewed all the testimony and concluded by stating that if the soldiers had acted against citizens of Boston, they had d
one so in self-defense only: “Facts are stubborn things;… nor is the law less stable than the fact; if an assault was made to endanger their lives … the law reduces the offence of killing, down to manslaughter.”29

  The jury returned six verdicts of not guilty, and two of manslaughter. The two soldiers convicted of manslaughter, Mathew Kilroy and Hugh Montgomery, would be branded by fire on the hand—the letter M emblazoned on their thumb—while the other six soldiers were immediately released: “They went their way thro’ the Streets, with little, if any notice.”30

  John Adams left the courthouse feeling exhausted and unfathomably downcast. Certainly, the outcome of the two trials had been a victory for the accused men, for the law, and for the colony. As John would write later, “Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.”31 But John felt overworked and underappreciated; he especially disliked having his loyalty to the colony questioned and lamented “the cloud of Toryism that has lately … passed over me.”32

  Samuel Quincy, having lost both trials (the guilty verdicts in two of the nine cases hardly counted as a win) also left the courthouse feeling disgruntled and uncertain, and with the same questions plaguing him about both his integrity as a lawyer and his loyalty to the colony. Just the other day Samuel had seen a flyer by the courthouse proclaiming that in the Boston Massacre trials, “the Court [had] cheat[ed] with a Shew of Justice.” The flyer then exhorted fellow colonists: “we [must] rise up at the great Gale of Nature & Free the World from Such domestic tyrants.”33

  Samuel felt double-damned: he had lost the cases and, with that, incurred the wrath of Bostonians; if he had won the cases, he would have incurred the wrath of the Crown administrators, and the king too, no doubt. Copying the flyer word-for-word in a letter to his friend and co-counsel Robert Treat Paine, he added a note at the top: “Tribunitial, / unsuccessful / unrecompensed / Fellow-Labourer / Pro Rege & Grege!”34 Underpaid, unsuccessful, but doing all for for king and country: Samuel would struggle to stay true to both.

  Josiah Quincy Jr. was the only one who left the courthouse that day feeling satisfied. He was certain of his duty going forward and confident for his colony. When he spoke of his duty to John Adams, he used language that was sweeping and sure: “When a whole people present a criminal at the bar of justice, the sword must not linger in the hand of the executioner.”35 Josiah was referring to the entire colonial administration as that “criminal at the bar of justice.” As he would argue again and again in the months to come, the dedicated guardians of the colony had to be ready to wield the sword to protect their liberty.

  The sword proposed by Josiah was a metaphor only. John Adams understood that his friend was not advocating violence but rather “vigilance against encroachments” of colonial rights.36 John took the message to heart. Vigilance must be kept and ambition tamed. One for the colony and the other for the man. And all for the good of his family. Of that, John was certain.

  By the end of the year, what everyone in Massachusetts had anticipated now came to fruition: King George of England appointed Thomas Hutchinson both “Captain General, and Governor in Chief, of Massachusetts.”37 Hutchinson would not give up his seat on the Superior Court but would also continue to act as chief justice of the colony. A mingling of roles and a consolidation of power.

  Power enough to crush John Hancock, John Adams, and Josiah Quincy Jr.—or just the kind of power that would propel the three men further along toward rebellion? Even as the clouds over Massachusetts darkened, the answer to that question would become clear.

  15

  Retreat to Braintree

  How easily people change,

  and give up their friends and their interest.

  —JOHN ADAMS

  In the early months of 1771, Josiah Quincy Jr. spoke to a gathering of selectmen from Boston. The group had convened at the home of John Hancock. Tea was served—“from Holland I hope,” noted John Adams in his diary—and a discussion was held over how best to commemorate the Boston Massacre of the year before.1 Josiah urged that a full-scale commemoration be instituted as an annual event to mark “the melancholy tragedy” and that the day also be used to condemn British encroachment on colonists’ rights.2

  “Vigilance must be maintained,” he warned. Parliament had not relinquished its power over the colonies: a tea tax was still in full effect, and the troops had only been withdrawn from the city of Boston, not from the colony of Massachusetts. Quincy then shared a quotation from Edmund Burke: “‘Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps on his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.’”3

  “‘Arms and laws do not flourish together’” was another quotation he’d copied into his Commonplace book, and he meant to drive the lesson home not only to the elite of the colony gathered together in Hancock’s mansion but to all the colonists of Massachusetts. A vigorous commemoration of the bloody massacre, held annually, would get the message across of the “fatal effects of the policy of standing armies, and the … quartering regular troops in populous cities in time of peace.”4

  “‘By a numerous standing army … you may, indeed, prevent mobs and riots among the people,’” he thundered, quoting again from his beloved maxims. “‘But if this method be continued for any long time, you will make your ministers tyrants and your people slaves.’”5

  Writing in the Boston Gazette under the name of “Mentor,” Quincy urged all colonists of Massachusetts to support the holding of “a decent, manly, and instructive commemoration of the melancholy tragedy of the 5th of March, 1770.” With the support of the people behind him, the Boston town committee acted quickly to approve the event.6

  As part of the commemoration, Paul Revere got to work creating a series of tableaux, to be displayed in his shop windows, that would bring back to vivid life the horrors of the massacre. In the first window, Revere presented Christopher Seider, dying from his wounds and surrounded by weeping boys; accompanying text read, “Seider’s pale Ghost fresh-bleeding stands / And Vengeance for his Death demands.” In the second window, the night of March 5, 1770, was illustrated in all its bloody violence, with British soldiers firing upon a crowd of cringing citizens; overhead, a banner proclaimed “FOUL PLAY.”7 And in the third window, Revere’s display presented a woman pointing to a band of large and fierce soldiers as they charged toward a cowering group of unarmed men, women, and children.

  Katy and Dolly Quincy accompanied their father to see the exhibition, stopping at the final window to stand awhile. The pointing woman, meant to represent America, was dressed in a fine gown and black cape, with her long skirt swaying back as if she were striding deliberately through a storm; she was dressed both for prayer and for battle. Her body was lithe and strong, but her face betrayed an agony beyond bearing as she anticipated the mowing down of her fellow Americans by the brutal British troops.

  As the Boston Gazette reported, Revere’s “well-executed” display, viewed by “many thousands,” left all who saw it “struck with solemn Silence, and their Countenances covered with a Melancholy gloom.”8 The images were powerful, and they were understood. To remember the tragedy was to recall its causes; and with British troops still present in the city, although largely housed on Castle Island, the rancor ran deep.

  On the night of March 5, 1771, Dr. Thomas Young, son of Irish immigrants and a vocal critic of parliamentary overreach, delivered the first memorial oration of the Boston Massacre at Factory Hall, also known as Manufactory House. The old linen factory on Long Acre Street had been one of the buildings Governor Bernard sought to requisition for troops in 1768 but the colonists had fought so hard against the takeover that Bernard had been forced to back down. As the site of such a successful rebuttal to British overreach, Factory Hall was seen as the perfect location for Dr. Young’s address. Following his oration, the hall from then on b
ecame known as Liberty Assembly Hall.9

  Thomas Hutchinson was enraged by the evening’s commemorations, and by the citizens’ insistence on calling the events of March 5, 1770, a massacre. (Even John Adams agreed with Hutchinson on that point, complaining that even after the acquittals of Preston and the soldiers, the people of Boston continued to speak of it “as a massacre, a bloody massacre, and the like.”10)

  Hutchinson was becoming fed up with his fellow colonists, and especially with those who filled the newspapers with increasingly critical diatribes against himself and his administration. Articles condemning Hutchinson now appeared regularly in the Boston Gazette and other pro-colonist newspapers, including the Massachusetts Spy, which began publishing in 1770.

  In an attempt to shut down unwanted press coverage, Hutchinson instituted legal proceedings against Isaiah Thomas, publisher of the Massachusetts Spy, for a piece written by Joseph Greenleaf, justice of the peace for Plymouth County and a member of the Sons of Liberty (and cousin of Sarah Quincy Greenleaf’s husband, William). Hutchinson claimed that publication of Greenleaf’s essay constituted seditious libel. The case was presented to the grand jury, but the jurors refused to indict Thomas, on the grounds that nothing in Greenleaf’s piece could be proved false. Hutchinson’s defeat was widely publicized, and jurors celebrated for their “great integrity and spirited behavior.”11

  Josiah Quincy Jr. watched Hutchinson’s failure to suppress freedom of the colonial press with deep satisfaction, noting that “a free Press can never hurt an honest man.”12 Newly installed in law offices on Queen Street (adjacent to Benjamin Edes’ and John Gill’s Boston Gazette empire), Josiah felt more empowered than ever to write what he wished in the letters and essays he published not only in the Boston Gazette but also in other local papers. Although he had over two hundred legal cases on the dockets of the Boston courts, Josiah devoted hours to his political writing, and one of his favorite targets was Thomas Hutchinson, whom Quincy described as “the serpent, subtlest beast of all the field.”13