Today we continue to set the scene for the Boston Massacre and the rising tensions between the British soldiers and townspeople. Specifically, let’s look at the issues when soldiers committed crimes against the local population.
The townspeople clearly didn’t trust the British military to handle it via court-martials. And the British military didn’t want to subject its soldiers to the local jurisdiction’s definitions of justice. Fairly, the British pointed out that, broadly speaking, people who had slaves and indentured servants but spouted about liberty had mixed moral principles that didn’t engender trust. Also fairly, the Bostonians pointed out that if the occupying military, broadly speaking, clearly had such immense disdain for them, they couldn’t trust the military to safeguard any of their interests.
What was also of concern is that the British military paid abysmally. Most soldiers had to take up second jobs on the side. Hence, debt was a genuine reality for many of them, and debt could result in a term in debtor’s prison for laypeople and in desperation for soldiers.
Theft, too, became a concern. If a thief could not pay the fine, the person they’d stolen from could have the thief indentured as a servant (essentially a slave but with a contracted end date) until their fine was paid off. This actually happened to several soldiers, to which General Gage himself responded by recommending that officers hurry any soldiers facing such a sentence out of the country.
One of these soldiers was named John Moyse, of the 14th Regiment of Foot, who was arrested for breaking and entering. He was sold for a term of three years. This outraged the British command… though, amusingly enough, it turns out that Moyse actually planned the whole thing, and the indenture was a roundabout way for him to desert without technically deserting and thereby leave the army. Which he did. Moyse was actually indentured to a man who later became George Washington’s first spy during the Siege. For his part, Moyse married a Bostonian and stayed in Boston after the Revolution.
All of this forms the background for the case of John Riley.
John Riley was a private soldier in the 14th Regiment of Foot’s grenadier company. After punching a townsperson during a fight, he failed to pay his fine. It is possible he refused to pay on principle, but as we’ve established, it is also possible that he could not pay.
Whatever the reason, Constable Balfour made to arrest him. Only, the 14th’s grenadiers and one Lieutenant Alexander Ross essentially said “not on my watch.”
They then staged a jailbreak and forced Riley out of custody, into the street, and back to his barracks, a direct challenge to the civilian court’s authority.
These “rioting” soldiers were eventually fined 7 pounds. Lieutenant Ross’s trial kept getting delayed until March 1770, when, to loosely quote Hiller B. Zobel, the judges had weightier matters on their minds. He ended up being fined 20 pounds.
Fun fact: Alexander Ross would go on to become a close friend of Francis, Lord Rawdon. We’ll meet him in Volume 7.
Up next is the tale of another soldier accused of a crime in pre-Massacre Boston… who turned out to have been definitively framed.
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