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expressions, which men more promptly resent than real injuries, the parties did not long abstain from acts of violence and outrage.

On the evening of the fifth of March, 1770, a small party of the British soldiers parading in King street, were assailed with balls o snow and other accidental weapons by a tumultuary assemblage of citizens, who, by order of the commanding officer, were repelled with a discharge of musketry. Upon which occasion several of the crowd were wounded and a few were killed. This affray, which is usually termed "the massacre of Boston," although originating in the provocations of the people, was regarded as an act of atrocious iniquity, which required an immediate and signal revenge. The alarm was spread through the town by the clamours of the inhabitants and tolling of bells, and multitudes, with whatever arms their fury administered, flocked in from all sides. But during the confusion and stupefaction occasioned by so unusual and sanguinary a spectacle-for this was the first effusion of blood since the origin of their contentionsthe offenders were withdrawn; and by this interception of their rage, by the intervention of individuals of the popular party, and by the assurances of the governor that the guilty would be arrested for the punishment of the laws, all further acts of violence were prevented.

An assembly of the citizens was convened on the succeeding day, principally by the instigation of Mr. S. Adams, in which Mr. Hancock, with some others, was appointed to request of the governor, a removal of the British troops from the town. This, the governor, by interposing the plea of insufficient authority, endeavoured to evade. A second committee was then selected, of which Hancock was chairman, who voted the excuse inadmissible, and in a more spirited and peremptory tone urged and obtained their removal. The

.prominence of Mr. Hancock, during these transactions, affords a sufficient evidence of the high estimation in which he was, at that period, held by his countrymen.

The bodies of the slain being, a few days after their decease, borne to the place of burial, were deposited in the same tomb. Their obsequies were consecrated by many melancholy ceremonies, by the tolling of bells in Boston, and in the neighbouring towns; by funeral processions, and by various other emblematic demonstrations of mourning which awoke the compassion or roused the indignation of the people. From a speech of Mr. Hancock, in commemoration of this event, we shall here offer a few desultory extracts. It was pronounced during the fiercest rage of the revolutionary contention and furnishing an evidence of the spirit and principles of the orator, as well as of his capacity for eloquence, cannot be considered as a digression from the purpose of his biography.

"I have, from the earliest recollections of youth, rejoiced in the felicity of my fellow men; and have considered it as the indispensable duty of every member of society to promote as far as in him lies, the general prosperity of his species, but more especially that of the community to which he belongs; and also, as a faithful subject of the state, to use his endeavours to detect, and defeat whatever traitorous plot its enemies may devise for its destruction.

"Security to the persons and property of the governed, is so obviously the design and end of civil government, that to attempt a logical demonstration of it would be like burning a taper at noon-day, to assist the sun in enlightening the world. It cannot be either virtuous or honourable, to attempt to support institutions, of which this is not the great and principal basis.

"Some boast of being friends to government; I also am

a friend to government, to a righteous government, founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny; and here suffer me to ask what tenderness, what regard, have the rulers of Great Britain manifested in their late transactions, for the security of the persons or property of the inhabitants of these colonies? or rather, what have they omitted doing to weaken and destroy that security? they have usurped the right of ruling us, in all cases whatever, by arbitrary laws; they have exercised this pretended right by imposing a tax upon us without our consent; and lest we should show a reluctance at parting with our property, their fleets and armies are sent to enforce their mad and tyrannical pretensions. The town of Boston, ever faithful to the British crown, has been invested by a British fleet; the troops of George the third have crossed the Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of traitors in trampling on the rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects; those rights and liberties, which, as a father, he ought ever to regard, and as a king, he is bound, in honour, to defend from violations, even at the risk of his own life.

"These troops, upon their first arrival, took possession of our senate house, pointed their cannon against the judgment hall, and even continued them there whilst the supreme court of the province was actually sitting to decide upon the lives and fortunes of the king's subjects. Our streets nightly resounded with the noise of their riot and debauchery; our peaceful citizens were hourly exposed to shameful insults, and often felt the effects of their violence and outrage. But this was not all; as though they thought it not enough to violate our civil rights, they endeavoured to deprive us of the enjoyment of our religious privileges; to vitiate our morals, and thereby render us deserving of destruction.

Hence, the rude din of arms which broke in upon your solemn devotions in your temples, on that day hallowed by heaven, and set apart by God himself for his peculiar worship. Hence, impious oaths and blasphemies so often tortured your unaccustomed ear. Hence, all the arts which idleness and luxury could invent were used, to betray our youth of one sex into extravagance and effeminacy, and of the other to infamy and ruin; and have they not succeeded but too well? has not a reverence for religion sensibly decayed? have not our infants almost learned to lisp curses before they knew their horrid import? have not our youth forgotten they were Americans, and regardless of the admonitions of the wise and aged, copied, with a servile imitation, the frivolity and vices of their tyrants? and must I be compelled to acknowledge, that even the noblest, fairest part of all creation have not entirely escaped their cursed snares?--or why have I seen an honest father clothed with shame; why a virtuous mother drowned in tears?

"But I forbear, and come reluctantly to the transactions of that dismal night, when in such quick succession we felt. the extremes of grief, astonishment, and rage; when heaven in anger, for a dreadful moment suffered hell to take the reins; when Satan, with his chosen band, opened the sluices of New England's blood, and sacrilegiously polluted our land with the dead bodies of her guiltless sons.

"Let this sad tale of death never be told without a tear; let not the heaving bosom cease to burn with a manly indignation at the relation of it, through the long tracts of future time; let every parent tell the shameful story to his listening children, till tears of pity glisten in their eyes, or boiling passion shakes their tender frames.

"Dark and designing knaves, murderers, parricides! how dare you tread upon the earth, which has drunk the VOL. I.-B

blood of slaughtered innocence shed by your hands? how dare you breathe that air which wafted to the ear of heaven, the groans of those who fell a sacrifice to your accursed ambition?-but if the labouring earth doth not expand her jaws; if the air you breathe is not commissioned to be the minister of death; yet, hear it, and tremble! the eye of heaven penetrates the darkest chambers of the soul; and you, though screened from human observation, must be arraigned, must lift your hands, red with the blood of those whose death you have procured, at the tremendous bar of God.

"But I gladly quit this theme of death-I would not dwell too long upon the horrid effects which have already followed from quartering regular troops in this town; let our misfortunes instruct posterity to guard against these evils. Standing armies are sometimes (I would by no means say generally, much less universally) composed of persons who have rendered themselves unfit to live in civil society; who are equally indifferent to the glory of a George or a Louis; who for the addition of one penny a day to their wages, would desert from the Christian cross, and fight under the crescent of the Turkish Sultan; from such men as these, what has not a state to fear? with such as these usurping Cæsar passed the Rubicon; with such as these he humbled mighty Rome, and forced the mistress of the world to own a master in a traitor. These are the men whom sceptred robbers now employ to frustrate the designs of God, and render vain the bounties which his gracious hand pours indiscriminately upon his creatures."

By the sentiments of this latter paragraph, Hancock gave great offence to the British officers, who went in numbers, the succeeding year, to the old South Church, whilst an oration was repeated on the same occasion, by Doctor Warren,

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