 Greetings. I am General Thomas Gage. I address you now in my capacity as Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty George III's Armed Forces in North America. I initially came to this country in 1755 as part of General Braddock's expeditionary forces during what's known here as the French and Indian War. Taking part in several campaigns, I was wounded twice, promoted to Brigadier General, met, courted and married Margaret Campbell and ended up after the French surrender as military governor of Montreal. I never really cared for the job or the climate, and was grateful to be chosen to replace General Amherst as Commander-in-Chief for British America and to relocate to New York City. Many people in England are under the impression that America is some vast wilderness populated by either primitive savages or rough rebellious uncultured paupers scratching a meagre living out of rocky soil or infested swampland. Nothing could be further from the truth. Visitors to New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Charleston are amazed to find a populace that are in fact extremely prosperous and surprisingly well-cultured, engaging in much the same pastimes one might find in London. Musical evenings and theatre are quite popular as are parties featuring dancing in large city taverns, in the manor houses of well-to-do plantation owners, or even in barns in farm country. The populace is quite well-fed. Market day in the city features a cornucopia of foodstuffs by the wagon mode from the very fertile farmlands and the bounty of the rivers and ocean. Ladies and gentlemen copy the latest fashions in clothing of the finest materials and trimmings, and local tailors produce very respectable clothing for tradesmen and their families. There is no lack of employment in the numerous trades, especially the building trades in the ever-expanding cities which continue to absorb the flood of immigrants from the British Isles in Europe who come to this country seeking the opportunities denied them in their homelands. The people are reasonably well educated. There are academies and colleges in most of the larger cities and the wealthiest send their sons to study abroad. Newspapers flourish throughout the colonies and print shops produce a steady stream of books and pamphlets, so the people of the colonies are as well-fed, well-dressed, well-entertained, and well-informed as any population in Europe. The majority are loyal to their king and proud of their heritage as British subjects, even in Boston, which has a reputation for stubborn resistance to crown policy. British officers and royal officials enjoy the hospitality and pastimes of that city's first families. However, the so-called loyalist population find themselves in an unfortunate and unfair position. Descendants of the first settlers, they have traditionally considered themselves proper British subjects and have maintained a cordial and prosperous relationship with the mother country. They do not object to paying their share to defray crown expenses, and if there are particular grievances they trust that their objections will be given a fair hearing by Parliament and the Crown. They are appalled by the violent and destructive behaviour of the so-called patriots and look to the Crown to guarantee their safety in the face of growing political and civil unrest. As Commander-in-Chief in North America, it has been my duty to maintain order and enforce parliamentary authority. Unfortunately, resistance to Parliament's efforts to impose taxes to raise money is necessary to support the British army and crown officials in this colony has grown significantly, especially in Massachusetts, since the end of the late war. The rallying cry of the resistances, no taxation without representation, as there are no representatives in Parliament from the colonies. The Sugar Act and the Standback failed and were succeeded by the Townsend Acts of 1767, which fixed taxes on many goods that could not be manufactured in the colonies and had to be imported from England. These and other acts were aimed at curtailing smuggling and permitted authorities to search houses and businesses for smuggled goods and increased the number of vice-admiralty courts for prosecuting smugglers. Though these acts were eventually repealed by Parliament, they served to increase resentment against the Crown. I have warned London that efforts to pass legislation which appears punitive or weighted against colonial subjects would miscarry. My name is John Adams. Imagine hearing an alarm for a fire, but then finding no fire, then discovering that things were much worse. By March of 1770 the situation in Boston had indeed gone from bad to worse, the Stamp Act, the repeal of said Stamp Act, the near-immediate passage of the Declaratory Act, Charles Townsend and his slate of odious acts. And when the good people of Boston dared to complain that these taxes and enforcements were passed without any colonial representation in Parliament, England sent regiments of soldiers to enforce the laws and subjugate the protesters. Any efforts on our part to enforce the law or punish offenders usually results in mob retaliation in the form of attacks on officials homes and the taunting of soldiers in the streets or on guard duty. These mobs are usually fuelled by rum and emboldened by the knowledge that British soldiers cannot fire on rioters until a magistrate has read the riot act, but there is not a magistrate in Boston who would risk his house and personal safety by doing such a thing. Admittedly the protesters held one customs official hostage in order to keep from collecting duties on a ship possibly filled with smuggled wine. They also rioted and tarred and feathered customs officials, but nevertheless, soldiers enough for one quarter of the town's population were sent to occupy Boston. Soldiers that quartered at the edges of our city held the city itself captive, even took warehouse jobs during their off-duty hours. I had previously informed Lord Hysbra, the colonial secretary in London, that my troops were in constant danger of assault and could not retaliate without suffering by law. And though one half of our troops had been removed from the city, incidents of confrontation between the people of Boston and His Majesty's soldiers have increased in frequency and violence to the point of armed response, as was demonstrated by the so-called massacre, which took place on March the 5th. This massacre was preceded by an unfortunate incident on the 22nd of February. On that day, an 11-year-old boy by the name of Christopher Sider was shot and killed by one Ebenezer Richardson, a customs official, who was defending his home from a mob that was throwing stones, one of which broke a window and struck his wife. Richardson fired into the crowd, wounding the boy who died that evening. Richardson was convicted of murder, but was granted a royal pardon on the grounds that he had acted in self-defense. As you can imagine, the situation in Boston had gone from bad to worse. Insults from workmen led to fights in the streets with soldiers. It was the dead of winter, yet a burning fire was raging. After that, it was only a matter of time before something more desperate would occur. Ironically, on March the 5th, the day the disputed towns and acts were repealed by Parliament in London, a large and belligerent crowd harassed and assaulted British guards at a custom house in Boston. Fearing for their lives and without orders from their officer, Captain Preston, to do so, the soldiers fired into the crowd, killing five and injuring 11 more. This incident has been labeled the Boston Massacre. And on the 5th of March, 1770, as I was dining with friends on the southern side of town, the alarm bell rang out. That bell sounded to call every able-bodied man in aid to put out a fire. What I did not realise was that this fire could not be doused with water. It was raging in the hearts of men. And by the time my friends and I arrived at the customs house on King Street, there was no sign of a fire, not even of a dispute. What I did not know was that supposedly some argument over a soldier not paying his barber led to a bit of violence, which led to more people gathering, which led to more argument, which led to more violence. A group of angry Bostonians made their way to the custom house, where soldiers were gathering to fortify their numbers. It all culminated with eight soldiers and the day's officer, Captain Thomas Preston, attempting to find peace with or fend off an angry mob of over 200. Between the shouting and the scuffling, the word fire was shouted out. Now, whether or not the words do not were placed before that word fire were painfully unclear. It was also uncertain who shouted the words. But in a moment of anger, confusion, desperation, shot were fired. And five men died on that night. And a sixth soon after. None of this was clear to me as I walked to my house in Boston along a stone faced regiment of soldiers standing in formation. I was unaware of this when I assured my restless wife that all would be well. I knew none of this when I entered the law office the next morning mere steps away from that exactly confrontation. Soon I became all too aware. A man named James Forrest ran into my office. He was known as the Irish infant. And he was living up to his title tears were streaming down his pink swollen cheeks as he unleashed his plea to me. I am come with a very solemn message from a most unfortunate man, Captain Preston in prison. He wishes for counsel but can get none. I have waited on Mr. Quincy, who says he will engage if you will give him your assistance. Without it positively, he will not. Even Mr. Archmute declines unless you will engage. Now I will say I had no hesitation in answering that counsel ought to be the very last thing that an accused person should want for in a free country. He must be sensible, however, that this would be as important a cause as ever was tried in any court or country of the world. And that he should not expect from me art or address sophistry or prevarication in any such cause, nor anything more than fact, evidence and law would justify. A Captain Preston, he said, he requested and desired no more that he had heard such an opinion from all parties of me that he could cheerfully trust his life with me upon those principles. And he said, as God is my judge, I believe Preston to be an innocent man. I said to forest that must be ascertained by his trial. However, if he thinks he cannot have a fair trial of that issue without my assistance, without hesitation, he shall have it. That may have been a bit of an exanderation. I had many reasons for hesitation. My wife, my children, Naby and John Quincy, young Charles only a few months away. If I were to represent British soldiers in a city occupied by the British filled with people angry at the British and those who would sympathize with them, what would become of them? What danger was I putting them in if I agreed to serve? What would become of my career as a lawyer? Would I be able to practice the law in Boston, in Massachusetts, in any of the colonies? What was the danger if I were to be seen as a defender of these, the most hated men in all of Boston? Yet, while I knew the danger was great, I could not deny the further danger if I did not defend these men. Every man deserves a fair trial, even those most hated of men, those lobster backs. The world was looking on at this group of rebellious colonists wondering if we were a people of justice or a people of chaos. Even I did not want those soldiers in Boston. Yet, I feared if I did not defend them, their trial would end in mob justice at the end of a hangman's noose. And that would be a stain upon this country as foul as the executions of Quakers or witches in years past. Am I agreeing to defend Captain Preston and his men did not mean we were assured and acquittal? There was a great deal in the streets and in the papers that made a fair trial seem impossible. For instance, a pamphlet was being printed, purportedly with the assistance of my cousin Samuel in the Sons of Liberty, with a rather blatant intent to sway a penion. A short narrative of the horrid massacre in Boston perpetrated in the evening of the fifth day of March 1770 by soldiers of the 29th Regiment, with some observations on the state of things prior to that catastrophe. Almost as soon as the soldiers were arrested, a rather prejudiced engraving entitled The Bloody Massacre was being sold by Paul Revere, who had made a copy of Henry Pelham's engraving and simply put it to market sooner. It was a very one-sided depiction of the scene of March 5th. The men of Boston were conveniently absent any snowballs, ice balls or cudgels in their hands, seeming innocents being attacked by the British for no reason whatsoever. Certainly not because they had been accosting or insulting or threatening those soldiers that night or numerous times before. After Captain Preston had been arrested and imprisoned for his trial, he sent a letter to the Boston Gazette, giving his gratitude to the inhabitants of this town, who, throwing aside all party and prejudice, have with the utmost humanity and freedom stepped forth advocates for truth in defense of my injured innocence. Of course, he also wrote a letter to London that was intercepted and printed in the same Gazette, where Preston swore his innocence and fretted that so bitter and inveterate are many of the malcontents here that they are industriously using every method to fish out evidence to prove it was a concerted scheme to murder the inhabitants. None of these gave great courage to a lawyer attempting to defend already hated men. Rumours were circulating that the Bostonians were going to seize the soldiers from jail anyway and judge them on their own. There were rumours that even if the men were convicted at trial, that Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson was going to pardon the soldiers. Judges were unconvinced that justice would even be met. Fortunately, I had two good things on my side. The first was time. The Sons of Liberty were pressing for an immediate trial, but time for heated passions to cool would prove most beneficial. And shifting and reconvening court schedules delayed the captain and the soldiers' trials from March to August to October. The second was the facts themselves. As I told Captain Preston, I would not offer anything more than fact evidence and law would justify. And I dare say I stood by that assurance. As Captain Preston testified, his words were, don't fire, stop your firing. But in short, it was scarce possible for the soldiers to know who said fire, or don't fire, or stop your firing. And others heard the word fire, but whether fire or don't fire, or if it came from Preston at all, they could not say. And Preston's certainty against dozens of witnesses' uncertainty allowed the law and justice to prevail. Naturally, the soldiers were put on trial. The jurors were chosen men living outside of Massachusetts in an effort to make the trial as fair as possible and avoid intimidation and retaliation against local citizens. It took some time to find a civilian lawyer willing to defend the soldiers, and the man who eventually accepted the case turned out to be John Adams, the cousin of Sam Adams. Sam Adams is one of the most notorious rabble-rousers in Boston. In spite of that connection, Mr. John Adams was able enough to have six of the soldiers acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Two more soldiers had their sentences reduced to manslaughter. Captain Preston was given a separate trial and acquitted, since there was no evidence that he had ordered his men to fire upon the mob. Although the results of these trials were looked upon favorably by the Crown and Parliament, there is some concern in the colonies that it sets a precedent where British soldiers may shoot American colonists and not be punished. This may lead to more organized resistance in the future, especially in Boston. Illustrations of the so-called Boston massacre are already circulating throughout the colonies, and as the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words. These lurid scenes will surely serve to increase the already combative nature of the so-called Patriots. In my opinion, America is a mere bully from one end to the other, and the Bostonians are by far the greatest bullies. I would say I would be happy that the response to our efforts was well met and the people of Boston understood, dare I say, celebrated our devotion to the law. I would be happy, but mistaken. It is impossible to realize the excitement of the populace and the abuse, a heaped upon Mr Quincy and myself for our defense of the British captain and his soldiers. We heard our names executed in the streets in the most terrible terms whenever we appeared on the streets of Boston. And I fervently believed that, as the evidence was, the verdict of the jury was absolutely right. I also believe that the people of Boston will never rest, as long as their rights for representation are ignored, that the streets and homes of Bostonians may be occupied by soldiers in order to keep the peace. The trials of Captain Preston and his soldiers were a victory for justice, but they were not the end of the battle.