jostle and tease some British regulars stationed in the town. Things
went from bad to worse until some "boys and young fellows" began to
throw snowballs and stones. Then the exasperated soldiers fired into the
crowd, killing five and wounding half a dozen more. The day after the
"massacre," a mass meeting was held in the town and Samuel Adams was
sent to demand the withdrawal of the soldiers. The governor hesitated
and tried to compromise. Finding Adams relentless, the governor yielded
and ordered the regulars away.

The Boston Massacre stirred the country from New Hampshire to Georgia.
Popular passions ran high. The guilty soldiers were charged with murder.
Their defense was undertaken, in spite of the wrath of the populace, by
John Adams and Josiah Quincy, who as lawyers thought even the worst
offenders entitled to their full rights in law. In his speech to the
jury, however, Adams warned the British government against its course,
saying, that "from the nature of things soldiers quartered in a populous
town will always occasion two mobs where they will prevent one." Two of
the soldiers were convicted and lightly punished.

=Resistance in the South.=--The year following the Boston Massacre some
citizens of North Carolina, goaded by the conduct of the royal governor,
openly resisted his authority. Many were killed as a result and seven
who were taken prisoners were hanged as traitors. A little later royal
troops and local militia met in a pitched battle near Alamance River,
called the "Lexington of the South."

=The _Gaspee_ Affair and the Virginia Resolutions of 1773.=--On sea as
well as on land, friction between the royal officers and the colonists
broke out into overt acts. While patrolling Narragansett Bay looking for
smugglers one day in 1772, the armed ship, _Gaspee_, ran ashore and was