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Captain Thomas Preston: Necessary Or Justified?

1400 Words6 Pages

In the early 1760’s, the tension between the people in Boston and the British soldiers started to grow until in early 1770, when the two groups reached their breaking point. On March 5, 1770, a group of men started intimidating a British soldier; he soon called for assistance but eventually the crowd had grown to practically one hundred people. Captain Thomas Preston and seven other soldiers arrived, trying to calm the situation down, but to no avail. A soldier fired into the crowd followed by the other soldiers firing soon after, resulting in five people being killed. Captain Thomas Preston happened to be arrested and charged with murder. The reality of what truly happened that night are ambiguous; some witnesses claim that Captain Thomas Preston ordered the soldiers to fire into the crowd while others say that he did not. After reviewing the testimonies given by witnesses, it is unquestionable that Captain Thomas Preston was innocent since witnesses place the Captain in the front of the soldiers, one of the soldiers is observed being hit by an object resulting in his firing of the first shot and …show more content…

The facts of the case are that the Captain had been standing in front of the soldiers talking to someone at the time when the first gun went off, which would make giving an order to fire very senseless, considering that the Captain himself could have been shot. While he spoke with another person, another soldier was hit with an object causing him to unwittingly fire into the crowd and at that instant or immediately after, a man was seen talking to the soldiers from behind advising them to fire. Therefore, the tragic events that occurred that night was at first a terrible accident leading to a foolish act made by a man who had no right to tell any soldier to fire. This shows that Captain Thomas Preston had no part in this shooting other than being at the

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