He was prominent in the colonial militia and tried to keep the Boston crowd and the British soldiers from the clash known as the Boston massacre (1770).
The Old South church has many associations; it was, for instance, the meeting-place of the people after the " Boston Massacre " of 1770, when they demanded the removal of the British troops from the city; and here, too, were held the meetings that led up to the " Boston Tea Party " of 1773.
In 1768 he was a delegate to the provincial convention which was called to meet in Boston, and conducted the prosecution of Captain Thomas Preston and his men for their share in the famous " Boston Massacre of the 5th of March 1770., He served in the Massachusetts General Court in 1773-1774, in the Provincial Congress in 177 4-1775, and in the Continental Congress in 1 7741778, and was speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1777, a member of the executive council in 1779, a member of the committee which drafted the constitution of 1780, attorney-general of the state from 1777 to 1790, and a judge of the state supreme court from 1790 to 1804.
