The trials did not take place immediately. Thomas Gage, the commander of British troops in America, urged Thomas Hutchinson to delay the trials until feelings against the soldiers had cooled. Seven months passed between the Boston Massacre and the start of the trials on October 24, 1770. During this time a propaganda war broke out trying to seize upon the hearts and minds of the public and affecting public opinion in the colony as well as in the mother country.
The town of Boston appointed a committee that included James Bowdoin, Joseph Warren and Samuel Pemberton who were in charge of submitting an official account of the Boston Massacre entitled “A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston”. In addition to a rambling narrative it contained an appendix of 95 depositions that told the Town’s side of the story. (But only about one-third of the deponents testified at any of the ensuing trials.) Perhaps the most influential propaganda was Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre which contained inflammatory details such as Captain Preston ordering his men to fire and the customs office shown as “Butcher’s Hall.
Thomas Preston’s trial took place from October 24th to the 30th, 1770 in Boston’s new courthouse, just a few dozen yards from the site of the massacre. A six-day trial was unusual in Massachusetts. Preston pleaded not guilty but did not testify. (Defendants did not testify in their own behalf back then.) The defense argued that Preston had not ordered the shooting. The prosecution called fifteen witnesses to but on cross-examination their testimony appeared contradictory. The defense produced twenty-three witnesses who testified that soldiers were intimidated and provoked by the crowd. Much of the cross-examination by the defense was centered on who shouted the word “fire”.
The court took the unusual step of sequestering the jury (keep them away from family and friends) in the town jail. After much deliberation the jury acquitted Preston on the basis of “reasonable doubt.”.