Mercy Leroux

Warning for a brief description of torture.

The above is an actual post in the pro-independence newspaper the Boston Gazette, taken out a mere five days after the Massacre by the captain accused of masterminding the bloodshed. At the time of writing this, Captain Thomas Preston was sitting in gaol under the threat of a noose while the general populace seethed. So why did he write such a post when it was so obviously a lie?

Hiller B. Zobel, author of the seminal modern historical work on the topic (aptly titled The Boston Massacre), suggests that the potential reason Preston took out this newspaper card was to dissuade the crowd from making him a second John Porteous. While Zobel is speculating here and doesn’t cite a specific source, there likely wouldn’t be one for this kind of logic, and there is circumstantial evidence to support it. For example, Justice Peter Oliver, when writing about the trial of Ebenezer Richardson (who killed Christopher Seider in a riot weeks prior to the Massacre), seemed to reference this possibility as well. Oliver stated that:

had a Trial been refused, it was rather more than an equal chance that the Prisoners would have been murdered by the Rabble; and the Judges been exposed to Assassinations.

While Oliver is generally quite sardonic in his writings (he basically comes across as completely done with all of the shenanigans), Porteous’s case does provide a solid reason for this fear.

You see, back in 1736, three smugglers were condemned to death in Edinburgh, Scotland. One was pardoned, but the other two, Andrew Wilson and George Robertson, failed in their attempt to escape. They were then hung. The crowds weren’t thrilled, and one person attempted to cut down Wilson’s body. A guard fired at that person… but he missed and hit an innocent bystander.

The bystander died.

Seeing how enraged the crowd was, Captain John Porteous then ordered the rest of the guards to fire above the heads of the crowd. This resulted in hitting the people in the nearby buildings who were looking out the windows, which only infuriated the crowd more.

Then he ordered the guards to open fire on the crowd. The guards and hangman hid in the Guardhouse as a full-scale riot broke out. In total, six people died (the same number as the Boston Massacre, although Kit Monk wouldn’t die of his wounds until 10 years later).

After the riot calmed, Porteous was arrested, charged with murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. An appeal was made to Queen Caroline, wife of George II (grandfather of the George III, who was king during the Revolution), and she ordered a stay of execution for six weeks to investigate the matter further.

Unfortunately, as rumors are wont to do, the “stay of execution” snowballed into “pardoned” in the ears of the city people. They responded by storming the jail and dragging Porteous out for a vigilante execution that was far more gruesome than it would have otherwise been. He was hung… and then the mob decided that was too easy for him, so they cut him down to be humiliated and tortured before he died. The crowd stripped him nude, blindfolded him with his own clothes, tried to light him on fire, broke his arm and shoulder when he struggled, and then finally hung him again.

And again.

And again, when he finally died.

Those who lynched him were never brought to justice. One doesn’t have to think well of Porteous’s actions or character, or even to think that his circumstances were actually all that similar to Preston’s and the soldiers, to be horrified by this.

Anyways, considering there was precedent for a captain to be extrajudicially tortured and murdered for a similar incident, it makes sense Preston would have been terrified of this happening to him.

Next week, we’ll briefly return to Bunker Hill (as it approaches the 251st anniversary) and discuss the real life mystery of David Kemp, Josiah’s cellmate. And, of course, in two days, Abijah and Matthew’s story hits shelves!