How does paragraph 2 of Passage 1 best contribute to the development of the passage? Group of answer choices:

a. It poses an argument that the conflict was carefully planned

b. It explains the conditions that allowed a minor conflict to escalate so quickly.

c. It describes why the colonists were upset about soldiers from England being in Boston

d. It suggests that the colonists believed the soldiers from England has started a fire in Boston that night.

passage: Passage 1: The Boston Massacre
1) Boston in 1770 had no street lamps. Monday, March 5th, was a cold and moonlit night. Snow
covered the ground. Private Hugh White was the lone sentry on guard at the Custom House on
King Street. What began as taunting between White and several young apprentices soon escalated
to violence. After striking one of the young boys on the head with his musket, White found himself
surrounded, pelted with curses, snowballs, and chunks of ice.
2) At about the same time, bells began to ring throughout the town. Bells at night meant fire, a
disaster for the wooden-built town. Men and boys poured into the streets as shouts of “Fire” were
heard. As more colonists gathered on King Street, taunting the sentry and daring him to fight,
White began to fear for his life and called for the main guard in the barracks beside the Town
House (Old State House). Although the troops could not forcefully disperse the gathered
townspeople without civilian authority, they could defend themselves. Captain Thomas Preston
marched out a party of seven Grenadiers, the biggest men in the Regiment.
3) Preston, Corporal William Wemms, and six privates – Carroll, Kilroy, Warren, Montgomery,
Hartigan, and McCauley – marched to the sentry box with fixed bayonets. White joined the ranks.
Preston was unable to march the eight soldiers back to the barracks because of the threatening
crowd, armed with sticks, swords, rocks, ice, and snow. The troops formed a defensive semi-circle
in front of the Custom House stairs. While some among the crowd pleaded with Captain Preston to
keep his soldiers calm and not to fire, others dared the soldiers to fire. Sticks and bayonets dueled.
The taunting colonists thought the soldiers would not fire.
4) Private Hugh Montgomery was hit with a stick and fell; on rising he fired his musket. Someone
shouted, “Fire,” and more shots rang out in an uncontrolled volley. Private Kilroy fired and hit
ropemaker Samuel Gray in the head. Crispus Attucks, a former slave of mixed African and Native
American descent, was shot in the chest. Sailor James Caldwell was killed in the middle of King
5
Street. Samuel Maverick, an apprentice to an ivory turner, was near the Town House when he
caught a ricocheting bullet; he would die several hours later. Patrick Carr, an Irishman and maker
of leather breeches, was shot in the hip. He would die on March 14th, the fifth person to die as a
result of the Massacre. Six other colonists were wounded.
5) Rushing from his North End home, acting Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson arrived and
addressed the crowd from the balcony of the Town House. He urged everyone to go home, stating,
“The law shall have its course; I will live and die by the law.”