OF THE BOSTON TEA PARTY 185 
and all that time their mere presence there was in 
gross violation of an act of Parliament. Our modern 
Tories, who hold up their hands in pious horror at 
every infraction of British-made law on the part of 
our forefathers, seem quite oblivious of the fact that 
according to British law these soldiers were mere 
trespassers in Boston. Their only legal abode was 
the Castle, on a small island in the harbour. They 
were kept in town under pretext of preserving order, 
but really to aid in enforcing the Revenue Act. That 
after seventeen months a slight scrimmage should have 
occurred, with the loss of half a dozen lives, was rather 
less than might have been expected. Next day the 
town-meeting ordered Hutchinson, who was then lieu- 
tenant-governor acting as governor, to remove all sol- 
diery to the Castle, and Hutchinson promptly obeyed ; 
he knew perfectly well that the law was on the side 
of the townspeople. I can imagine how that great 
Tory lawyer would have smiled at modern accounts 
of the King Street affray, in which a crowd of ruffians 
are depicted as wantonly assaulting the military guar- 
dians of law and order. Undoubtedly it was an affair 
of a mob; but it was such a scrimmage as indicated 
no special criminality on the part of either soldiers or 
citizens, and thus was a very different sort of thing 
from the wicked destruction of Hutchinson’s house. 
I may add that the perfectly calm and honourable 
way in which the affair was handled by the courts is 
a sufficient comment upon the ludicrous notion that 
Boston was a disorderly town requiring an armed 
soldiery to keep the peace. 
The sacking of Hutchinson’s house, I say, and the 
chance affray on King Street were both cases of 
