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customhouse and the town house. The lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, rushed to the scene and appeared on a balcony overlooking the crowd at about 10 P.M. He urged townspeople not to give in to angry passions and to trust that justice would prevail through legal means. He asked the British officers to send their troops back to the barracks. "The law," he pleaded, "should have its course." He said that he "would live and die by the law."
    Magistrates then arrived, looking for witnesses to the shooting. Knox told them that he had seen the tragedy unfold. He gave an affidavit in which he stated that he had warned both White and Preston against firing and that by the time he arrived, no one was throwing snowballs or anything else at thesentry. Statements were taken until 3 A.M. , and Preston and the other soldiers who fired their muskets were later arrested.
    Knox was most likely among the 1,200 people who attended a town meeting at Faneuil Hall on Tuesday morning. There townspeople approved a statement demanding the removal of troops from Boston's borders. A committee of fifteen was chosen, led by Samuel Adams, who met with the lieutenant governor and Colonel William Dalrymple. They agreed to remove the Twenty-ninth Regiment, in which the accused soldiers served, but said the other regiment in town, the Fourteenth, would remain.
    Knox watched as thousands of residents from the surrounding towns of Roxbury, Charlestown, Braintree, Dorchester, and Cambridge showed up in Boston, muskets in hand, ready to defend the town. The two regiments consisted of a mere 600 soldiers. By nightfall, it was likely that they would be surrounded by 10,000 colonists.
    As tensions mounted, an afternoon town meeting was held. To accommodate the overflow crowd, the meeting was moved from Faneuil Hall to the Old South meetinghouse. The townspeople found the solution offered by royal officials of removing one regiment and maintaining another in Boston unacceptable. The cry went up, "Both regiments or none, both regiments or none." Another committee was chosen to issue the demand for the troops to vacate the town before the royally appointed lieutenant governor and Colonel Dalrymple. They agreed to withdraw the troops and station the soldiers in the barracks of Castle William Island in Boston Harbor. The evacuation would take two weeks. Knox took his part in a guard detail to stand watch over the town until the evacuation was complete.
    On Thursday, March 8, Knox attended the funeral of four of the slain townsmen. Shops were closed and bells tolled in slow, solemn cadence not only in Boston but in neighboring towns. At 4 P.M. , several hearses formed a procession on King Street at the scene of the tragedy. They proceeded up Main Street followed by 15,000 to 20,000 mourners, who marched four and six abreast through the narrow lanes. The
Boston Gazette
reported, "The distress and sorrow visible on every countenance, together with the peculiar solemnity with which the whole funeral was conducted, surpass description.“ 9 The bodies were placed in a vault at the Granary Burial Ground, to be held until the spring thaw allowed for burial. Paul Revere was commissioned to produce an engraving showing a line of British soldiers firing on the inhabitants, which was widely distributed.
    With the troops confined to Castle William Island, a sense of normalcy returned to Boston. When passions subsided, many residents realized that war had been narrowly averted, and Whigs and Tories tried to ease strained relations.
    On April 12 in London, Parliament acknowledged the success of the boycott and repealed all the duties on imports to America except for tea. When news of the repeal reached the colonies, merchants began to relax the prohibition on British goods. By May, the tactic was abandoned in Albany, Providence, and Newport, followed by New York businessmen in July and by Philadelphia importers in September. By October 12, Boston merchants decided