ABSTRACT
If any British official could have been expected to understand the colonists, it was General Thomas Gage. A seasoned army officer, he fought at Culloden and on the Continent before arriving in the colonies, where he survived Braddock’s disastrous 1755 campaign and went on to distinguish himself later in the French and Indian War. When Francis Bernard began hinting that he needed troops to bolster his authority, Gage expressed sympathy but made no promises. He told the customs commissioners, whose pleas for intervention were far more direct, the same thing. When Hillsborough finally ordered troops to Boston, Gage pledged a decisive response should there be resistance. Contrast Gage’s tough talk in the letter, as he prepared to send the troops into Boston, with the letter written after the massacre, where Gage writes like a mere observer of, rather than a participant in, events.
