hoping to attract the attention of someone within the compound. As he punched the steps, he shouted, "Bring out the main guard." At this point, Captain Thomas Preston and his men headed towards Private White at the Common House and took up a defensive position with Private White facing the rioting crowd. According to his deposition of 12 March 1770, Captain Preston stated: "I allowed my troops to go to the place where the unfortunate event occurred without loading any pieces, nor did I ever give orders to load them". Captain Preston and his men at this point had moved towards White with fixed bayonets and from all accounts only Private White had a weapon loaded and ready to fire. While the British soldiers remained in place, several eyewitnesses report that bells tolled and a call for "fire" was given. In this period, fire was an enemy fought by an entire country. As the bells rang, many Boston residents came out of their homes on King St, asking where the fire was. Of course, when they arrived, they were told that there was no fire, but that they had been summoned because British soldiers were harassing some local citizens. When the citizens realized what was happening they joined the already growing crowd and continued to taunt and mock the British soldiers. However, most of those who came to fight the fires brought with them buckets, sticks and clubs to knock down and attempt to put out the fire according to Thomas Knight who was questioned during the trial. Here now, with no fire to fight, was a frustrated and angry crowd of about two hundred people armed with sticks and clubs facing Captain Preston and his soldiers. The crowd not only began to shout at that… middle of paper… colonist, but referred to a respected British lawyer whose reputation was neither ruined nor tainted by the Revolution. The first thing Adam did was mention four ideas or foundations that Chief Justice Hale based his decisions on when it came to someone's life. 1) “it is always safer to err in absolving, than to punish on the part of mercy, than on the part of justice”. 2) “it is safer to sin on the milder side, that of mercy”. 3) “the best rule in doubtful cases is to lean towards acquittal rather than conviction and 4) “it is better for five guilty people to go unpunished than for one innocent person to die”. From the beginning, the seed of doubt was planted in the minds of each of those who evaluated the outcome of these eight soldiers. They had listened to the testimony of almost sixty people who told them, one after another, that the soldiers had fired on the crowd