I am, truly and affectionately, your son,
JOSIAH QUINCY, Jr. [Footnote: _Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Jr._ pp. 26, 27.]
* * * * *
Many of the most respected citizens asserted and believed that the
soldiers had fired with premeditated malice, for the purpose of revenge;
and popular indignation was so deep and strong that even the judges were
inclined to shrink. As Hutchinson was acting governor at the time, the
chief responsibility fell on Benjamin Lynde, the senior associate, who was
by good fortune tolerably competent. He was the son of the elder Lynde,
who, with the exception of Paul Dudley, was the only provincial chief
justice worthy to be called a lawyer.
The juries were of course drawn from among those men who afterward fought
at Lexington and Bunker Hill, and, like the presiding judge and the
counsel, they sympathized with the Revolutionary cause. Yet the prisoners
were patiently tried according to the law and the evidence; all that
skill, learning, and courage could do for them was done, the court charged
impartially, and the verdicts were, Not guilty.
CHAPTER XI.
THE REVOLUTION.
Status appears to be that stage of civilisation whence advancing
communities emerge into the era of individual liberty. In its most perfect
development it takes the form of caste, and the presumption is the
movement toward caste begins upon the abandonment of a wandering life, and
varies in intensity with the environment and temperament of each race, the
feebler sinking into a state of equilibrium, when change by spontaneous
growth ceases to be perceptible.
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