ABSTRACT
Despite the criticism of Thomas Hutchinson’s political skills, the lieutenant governor was astute enough to realize that the court of public opinion could be as powerful as a court of law, and that he could not leave that arena to his opponents. James Murray, a justice of the peace in sympathy with him, began taking depositions on the same day as others acting for the town. Hutchinson hoped those statements, brought together as A Fair Account, could somehow neutralize the effects of what became A Short Narrative. Whoever wrote the preface to A Fair Account concurred with the townsmen behind A Short Narrative that the March 2 fight at Gray’s ropewalk led to the confrontation on King Street the following Monday night.
