the commander of the land force, Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, went ashore privately, at about eleven o’clock, and sauntered over the town.  He met no local militia; he saw nor horns nor hoofs of insurrection; he saw not even the royal Governor, for he had retired to Jamaica Plain; and instead of a cordial Executive greeting and proper directions as to what to do, he found that everything was left to himself.  He knew that neither the Council nor the Governor had provided quarters for his command; but from the doings or non-doings of this day he conceived feelings towards the runaway official which he expressed by words, at the time, “full as plain as pleasant,” and afterwards officially in writing to his superiors.  Bernard met Dalrymple’s intimations of cowardice by the truthful allegation that there was not the least danger of insurrection, and of want of attention by the mean allegation that the Colonel was chagrined because he was not complimented with a dinner.

An hour after the Commander made his reconnoissance, about noon, the boats moved in fine order towards the Long Wharf, so termed as being a noble commercial pier running far out into the Bay.  Here the Fourteenth Regiment, under Colonel Dalrymple, landed, and, having formed, marched, in the words of the time, with drums beating, fifes playing, and colors flying, up King Street (now State Street) to the Town-House, where it halted.  It is not said that the troops were complimented by the presence of the people, who, on holidays then as on holidays now, usually appeared, having an air of self-respect, well-dressed, well-behaved, with nothing moving among them more threatening than the baton of the police as the sign of law and authority, but respecting that as the symbol of their own law.  What Tory writers and officials say warrants the inference that the Patriots kept away.  Dalrymple said that the Convention was planet-stricken; “Sagittarius,” a Tory scribbler, says the Convention ran, and tells how they ran:—­“The courage of the faithful only consisted in blustering, for the morning that the troops landed they broke up, and rushed out of town like a herd of scalded hogs.”  If the Patriots generally were absent, it was from design.  The Fourteenth Regiment remained near the Town-House until the Twenty-Ninth joined it, when the column marched to the Common.  About four o’clock these troops were joined by the Fifty-Ninth Regiment, and a train of artillery with two field-pieces.  This made a force of a thousand fine-appearing and well-disciplined regulars.

Colonel Dalrymple ordered the Twenty-Ninth Regiment to encamp immediately, which, as it had field-equipage, it was enabled to do, and pitched its tents on the Common; but he had no cover for the Fourteenth Regiment, and he now endeavored to obtain quarters for it.  He was directed to the Manufactory House, a large building owned by the Province, in what is now Hamilton Place, near the Common, which was hired by a zealous