the judges, as you are of every other; if you | do not believe him, there are many others who swear to circumstances in favor of the prisoners. It should seem impossible you should disbelieve so great a number, and of Crown witnesses, too, who swear to such variety of circumstances that fall in with one another so naturally to form our defence. This witness swears positively there were a dozen of persons with clubs, surrounded the party. Twelve sailors with clubs were by much an overmatch to eight soldiers, chained there by the order and command of their officer, to stand in defence of the sentry. Not only so, but under an oath to stand there, i. e. to obey the lawful command of their officer, as much, gentlemen of the jury, as you are under oath to determine this cause by law and evidence. Clubs they had not, and they could not defend themselves with their bayonets against so many people. It was in the power of the sailors to kill one half or the whole of the party, if they had been so disposed. What had the soldiers to expect, when twelve persons, armed with clubs, (sailors too, between whom and soldiers there is such an antipathy that they fight as naturally, when they meet, as the elephant and rhinoceros,) were daring enough, even at the time when they were loading their guns, to come up with their clubs and smite on their guns. What had eight soldiers to expect from such a set of people? Would it have been a prudent resolution in them, or in any body in their situation, to have stood still and see if the sailors would knock their brains out or not? Had they not all the reason in the world to think, that as they had done so much, they would proceed further? Their clubs were as capable of killing as a ball. A hedge stake is known in the law books as a weapon of death as much as a sword, bayonet or musket. He says the soldiers were loading their guns, when the twelve surrounded them. The people went up to them within the length of their guns, and before the firing. Besides all this, he swears they were called cowardly rascals, and dared to fire. He says these people were all dressed like sailors, and I believe that by and by you will find evidence enough to satisfy you these were some of the persons that came out of Dock Square, after making the attack on Murray's barracks, and who had been arming themselves with sticks from the butchers' stalls and cord wood piles, and marched up round Cornhill under the command of Attucks. All the bells in town were ringing; the rattling of the blows upon the guns he heard, and swears it was violent. This corroborates the testimony of James Bailey, which will be considered presently. Some witnesses swear a club struck a soldier's gun; Bailey swears a man struck a soldier and knocked him down, before he fired; "the last man that fired levelled at a lad, and moved his gun as the lad ran." You will consider that an intention to kill is not murder. If a man lays poison in the way of another, and with an ex press intention that he should take it up and die of it, it is not murder. Suppose that soldier had malice in his heart, and was determined to murder that boy if he could; yet the evidence clears him of killing the boy. I say, admit he had malice in his heart, yet it is plain he did not kill him, or any body else, and if you believe one part of the evidence, you must believe the other, and if he had malice, that malice was ineffectual. I do not recollect any evidence that ascertains who it was that stood the last man but one upon the left. Admitting he discovered a temper ever so wicked, cruel and malicious, you are to consider his ill temper is not imputable to another. No other had any intention of this deliberate kind; the whole transaction was sudden. There was but a very short space of time between the first gun and the last. When the first gun was fired, the people fell in upon the soldiers and laid on with their weapons with more violence, and this served to increase the provocation, and raised such a violent spirit of revenge in the soldiers as the law takes notice of, and makes some allowance for, and in that fit of fury and madness I suppose he aimed at the boy. The next witness is Dodge. He says there were fifty people near the soldiers pushing at them. Now the witness before says there were twelve sailors with clubs; but now here are fifty more aiding and abetting of them, ready to relieve them in case of need. Now what could the people expect? It was their business to have taken themselves out of the way. Some prudent people by the Town House told them not to meddle with the guard; but you hear nothing of this from these fifty people. No; instead of that, they were huzzaing and whistling, crying-damn you, fire! why don't you fire? So that they were actually assisting these twelve sailors that made the attack. He says the soldiers were pushing at the people to keep them off; ice and snow were thrown, and "I heard ice rattle on their guns." There were some clubs thrown from a considerable distance across the street. This witness swears he saw snowballs thrown close before the party, and he took them to be thrown on purpose. He saw oyster-shells likewise thrown. Mr. Langford, the watchman, is more particular in his testimony, and deserves a very particular consideration, because it is intended by the counsel for the Crown that his testimony shall distinguish Killroy from the rest of the prisoners, and exempt him from those pleas of justification, excuse or extenuation, which we rely upon for the whole party; because he had previous malice, and they would from hence conclude he aimed at a particular person. You will consider all the evidence with regard to that by itself. Hemmingway, the sheriff's coachman, swears he knew Killroy, and that he heard him say he would never miss an opportunity of firing upon the inhabitants. This is to prove that Killroy had preconceived malice in his heart, not, in deed, against the unhappy persons who were killed, but against the inhabitants in general -that he had the spirit, not only of a Turk or an Arab, but of the devil. But admitting that this testimony is literally true, and that he had all the malice they would wish to prove, yet, if he was assaulted that night, and his life in danger, he had a right to defend himself, as well as another man. If he had malice before, it does not take away from him the right of defending himself against any unjust aggressor. But it is not at all improbable that there was some misunderstanding about these loose expressions. Perhaps the man had no thoughts of what his words might import. Many a man In his cups or in anger, which is a short fit of madness, hath uttered the rashest expressions, who had no such savage disposition in genera】 ¦ So that there is but little weight in expressions uttered at a kitchen fire, before a maid and a coachman, where he might think himself at liberty to talk as much like a bully, a fool, and a madman as he pleased, and that no evil would come of it. Strictly speaking, he might mean no more than this: that he would not miss an opportunity of firing on the inhabitants if he was attacked by them in such a manner as to justify it. Soldiers have sometimes avoided opportunities of firing, when they would have been justified if they had fired. I would recommend to them to be tender, by all means—nay, let them be cautious, at their peril. But still what he said amounts in strictness to no more than this:-" If the inhabitants make an attack on me, I will not bear from them what I have done already;" or "I will bear no more than what I am obliged by law to bear." No doubt it was under the fret of his spirits, the indignation, mortification, grief, and shame, that he had suffered a defeat at the Rope-walks. It was just after an account of an affray was published here, betwixt the soldiers and inhabitants at New York. There was, a little before the 5th of March, much noise in this town, and a pompous account in the newspapers of a victory obtained by the inhabitants there over the soldiers, which, doubtless, excited the resentment of the soldiers here, as well as exultations among some sorts of the inhabitants. And the ringing of the bells here was, probably, copied from New York-a wretched example, in this and in two other instances, at least. The defeat of the soldiers at the Rope-walks was about that time, too; and if he did after that use such expressions, it ought not to weigh too much in this case. It can scarcely amount to proof that he harbored any settled malice against the people in general. Other witnesses are introduced, to show that Killroy had, besides his general ill-will against every body, particular malice against Mr. Gray, whom he killed, as Langford swears. roy, in King street, on the 5th of March, in the night, knew Gray, whom he had seen at the Rope-walks before, and took that opportunity to gratify his preconceived malice. But if this is all true, it will not take away from him his justification, excuse, or extenuation, if he had any. The rule of the law is, if there has been malice between two, and at a distant time afterwards they meet, and one of them assaults the other's life, or only assaults him, and he kills in consequence of it, the law presumes the killing was in self-defence, or upon the provocation, not on account of the antecedent malice. If, therefore, the assault upon Killroy was so violent as to endanger his life, he had as good a right to defend himself, as much as if he never had before conceived any malice against the people in general, or Mr. Gray in particular. If the assault upon him was such as to amount only to a provocation, not to a justification, his crime will be manslaughter only. However, it does not appear that he knew Mr. Gray; none of the witnesses pretend to say that he knew him, or that he ever saw him. It is true they were both at the Rope-walks at one time, but there were so many combatants on each side, that it is not even probable that Killroy should know them all; and no witness says there was any rencontre there between them two. Indeed, to return to Mr. Langford's testimony, he says he did not perceive Killroy to aim at Gray more than at him, but he says expressly he did not aim at Gray. Langford says, Gray had no stick; was standing with his arms folded up." This witness is, however, most probably mistaken in this matter, and confounds one time with another-a mistake which has been made by many witnesses in this case, and considering the confusion and terror of the scene, is not to be wondered at. Witnesses have sworn to the condition of Killroy's bayonet-that it was bloody the morning after the 5th of March. The blood they saw, if any, might be occasioned by a wound given by some of the bayonets in the affray-possibly in Mr. Fosdick's arm—or it might happen in the manner mentioned by my brother before. One bayonet, at least, was struck off, and it might fall where the blood of some person slain afterwards flowed. It would be doing violence to every rule of law and evidence, as well as to common sense and the feelings of humanity, to infer from the blood on the bayonet, that it had been stabbed into the brains of Mr. Gray, after he was dead, and that by Killroy himself, who had killed him. Young Mr. Davis swears that he saw Gray that evening, a little before the firing; that he had a stick under his arm, and said he would go to the riot. "I am glad of it (that is, that there was a rumpus), I will go and have a slap at them, if I lose my life." And when he was Some of the witnesses have sworn that Gray upon the spot, some witnesses swear he did not was active in the battle at the Rope-walks, and act that peaceable, inoffensive part which Langthat Killlroy was once there; from whence the ford thinks he did. They swear they thought counsel for the Crown would infer that Kill-him in liquor; that he ran about, clapping several people on the shoulders, saying, "Don't | them had they followed it; but it seems all ad run away-they dare not fire!" Langford vice was lost on these persons. They would goes on:-"I saw twenty or five and twenty hearken to none that was given them in Dock boys about the sentinel, and I spoke to him, Square, Royal Exchange lane, or King street. and bid him not be afraid." How came They were bent on making this assault and on the watchman Langford to tell him not to their own destruction. be afraid? Does not this circumstance prove that he thought there was danger, or, at least, that the sentinel, in fact, was terrified, and did think himself in danger? Langford goes on: -"I saw about twenty or five and twenty boys-that is, young shavers." We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases, to avoid calling this sort of people a mob. Some call them shavers, some call them geniuses. The plain English is, gentlemen, most probably, a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish Teagues, and outlandish jacktars. And why we should scruple to call such a set of people a mob I cannot conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them. The sun is not about to stand still or go out, nor the rivers to dry up, because there was a mob in Boston, on the 5th of March, that attacked a party of soldiers. Such things are not new in the world, nor in the British dominions, though they are comparatively rarities and novelties in this town. Carr, a native of Ireland, had often been concerned in such attacks; and indeed, from the nature of things, soldiers quartered in a populous town will always occasion two mobs, where they prevent one. They are wretched conservators of the peace. Langford "heard the rattling against the guns, but saw nothing thrown." This rattling must have been very remarkable, as so many witnesses heard it, who were not in a situation to see what caused it. Those things which hit the guns made a noise; those which hit the soldiers' persons did not. But when so many things were thrown, and so many hit their guns, to suppose that none struck their persons is incredible. Langford goes on: "Gray struck me on the shoulder, and asked me, What is to pay? I answered, I don't know, but I believe something will come of it by and by." Whence could this apprehension of mischief arise, if Langford did not think the assault, the squabble, the affray, was such as would provoke the soldiers to fire? "A bayonet went through my great coat and jacket.' Yet the soldier did not step out of his place. This looks as if Langford was nearer to the party than became a watchman. Forty or fifty people around the soldiers, and more coming from Quaker lane as well as the other lanes. The soldiers heard all the bells ringing, and saw people coming from every point of the compass to the assistance of those who were insulting, assaulting, beating, and abusing of them. What had they to expect but destruction, if they had not thus early taken measures to defend themselves? Brewer saw Killroy, &c., saw Dr. Young, &c. "He said the people had better go home." It was an excellent advice. Happy for some of The next witness that knows any thing was James Bailey. He saw Carrol, Montgomery, and White; he saw some around the sentry, heaving pieces of ice large and hard enough to hurt any man-as big as your fist. One question is, whether the sentinel was attacked or not. If you want evidence of an attack upon him, there is enough of it. Here is a witness. an inhabitant of the town-surely no friend tc the soldiers, for he was engaged against them at the rope-walk. He says he saw twenty or thirty around the sentry, pelting with cakes of ice as big as one's fist. Certainly, cakes of ice of this size may kill a man, if they happen to hit some part of the head. So that here was an attack upon the sentinel, the consequence of which he had reason to dread, and it was prudent in him to call for the main guard. He retreated as far as he could. He attempted to get into the Custom House, but could not. Then he called to the guard, and he had a good right to call for their assistance. "He did not know, he told the witness, what was the matter, but he was afraid there would be mischief by and by;" and well he might, with so many shavers and geniuses around him, capable of throwing such dangerous things. Bailey swears Montgomery fired the first gun, and that he stood at the right, "the next man to me; I stood behind him," &c. This witness certainly is not prejudiced in favor of the soldiers. He swears he saw a man come up to Montgomery with a club and knock him down before he fired, and that he not only fell himself, but his gun flew out of his hand, and as soon as he rose he took it up and fired. If he was knocked down on his station, had he not reason to think his life in danger? or did it not raise his passions and put him off his guard, so that it cannot be any more than manslaughter? When the multitude was shouting and huzzaing, and threatening life, the bells all ringing, the mob whistling, screaming, and rending like an Indian yell, the people from all quarters throwing every species of rubbish they could pick up in the streets, and some who were quite on the other side of the street throwing clubs at the whole party, Montgomery in particular, smote with a club and knocked down, and as soon as he could rise and take up his firelock, another club from afar struck his breast or shoulder, what could he do? Do you expect he should behave like a stoic philosopher, lost in apathy? Patient as Epictetus while his master was breaking his legs with a cudgel? It is impossible you should find him guilty of murder. You must suppose him divested of all human passions, if you don't think him, at the least, provoked, thrown off his guard, and inte the furor brevis by such treatment as this. Bailey "saw the mulatto, seven or eight | ed to consider the testimonies of the witnesses minutes before the firing, at the head of twenty for the prisoners, and concluded: or thirty sailors in Cornhill, and he had a large cord-wood stick." So that this Attucks, by I will enlarge no more on the evidence, but this testimony of Bailey, compared with that submit it to you. Facts are stubborn things, of Andrew and some others, appears to have and whatever may be our wishes, our inclina undertaken to be the hero of the night, and to tions, or the dictates of our passions, they canlead this army with banners. To form them in not alter the state of facts and evidence; nor the first place in Dock Square, and march them is the law less stable than the fact. If an asup to King street with their clubs. They sault was made to endanger their lives, the law passed through the main street up to the main is clear: they had a right to kill in their own guard in order to make the attack. If this defence. If it was not so severe as to endanger was not an unlawful assembly, there never was their lives, yet if they were assaulted at all, one in the world. Attucks, with his myrmi-struck and abused by blows of any sort-by dons, comes around Jackson's corner and down snowballs, oyster-shells, cinders, clubs, or sticks to the party by the sentry-box. When the of any kind-this was a provocation for which soldiers pushed the people off, this man, with the law reduces the offence of killing down to his party, cried, Do not be afraid of them; manslaughter, in consideration of those passions they dare not fire; kill them! kill them! in our nature which cannot be eradicated. To knock them over! And he tried to knock your candor and justice I submit the prisoners their brains out. It is plain, the soldiers did and their cause. not leave their station, but cried to the people, Stand off! Now, to have this reinforcement coming down, under the command of a stout mulatto fellow, whose very looks was enough to terrify any person, what had not the soldiers then to fear? He had hardiness enough to fall in upon them, and with one hand took hold of a bayonet, and with the other knocked the man down. This was the behavior of Attucks, to whose mad behavior, in all probability, the dreadful carnage of that night is chiefly to be ascribed. And it is in this manner this town has been often treated. A Carr from Ireland, and an Attucks from Framingham, happening to be here, shall sally out upon their thoughtless enterprises at the head of such a rabble of negroes, &c., as they can collect together, and then there are not wanting persons to ascribe all their doings to the good people of the town. The law in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations of the passions, or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a steady, undeviating course; it will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations, and wanton tempers of men. To use the words of a great and worthy man, a patriot and a hero, an enlightened friend of inankind, and a martyr to liberty-I mean Algernon Sidney, who, from his earliest infancy, sought a tranquil retirement under the shadow of the tree of liberty, with his tongue, his pen, and his sword. "The law (says he) no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu; written reason; retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low. 'Tis deaf, inexorable, inflexible." On the one hand, it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other, it is deaf, deaf as an adder, to the clamors of the populace.* After Mr. Adams had concluded, the cause was finished M ADAMS proceeded to a minute consideration of every witness produced on the Crown side, and endeavored to show, from the evidence on that side, which could not be contested by the counsel for the Crown, that the assault upon the party was sufficiently dangerous to justify the prisoners; at least, that it was sufficiently provoking to reduce to manslaughter the crime, even of the two who were supposed to be proved to have killed. He ther proceed- | Adams' Speech. by Robert Treat Paine, on the part of the Crown. "In his argument, he endeavored to settle the principal facts, by comparing the evidence, as well on the part of the Crown as of the prisoners; and also to show that the many undeniabio rules of law which had been produced, did not apply to the cause at bar," &c. No report of Mr. Paine's speech was taken at the time of the trial.-Note appended to Mr. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Inis address was delivered by Mr. Adams, | sense, presence of mind, resolution, or integrity before both Houses of Congress, on assuming the Presidency of the United States, on the 4th of March, 1797: Measures were pursued to concert a plan te form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations is sued in the present happy constitution of gov ernment. When it was first perceived, in early times, that no middle course for America remained, between unlimited submission to a foreign legislature and a total independence of its Employed in the service of my country claims, men of reflection were less apprehensive abroad during the whole course of these transof danger from the formidable power of fleets actions, I first saw the constitution of the and armies they must determine to resist, than United States in a foreign country. Irritated from those contests and dissensions which by no literary altercation, animated by no would certainly arise concerning the forms of public debate, heated by no party animosity, I government to be instituted over the whole, read it with great satisfaction, as the result of and over the parts, of this extensive country. good heads, prompted by good hearts; as an Relying, however, on the purity of their inten- experiment better adapted to the genius, chations, the justice of their cause, and the in-racter, situation, and relations of this nation tegrity and intelligence of the people, under an and country than any which had ever been overruling Providence, which had so signally proposed or suggested. In its general principrotected this country from the first; the rep-ples and great outlines, it was conformable to resentatives of this nation, then consisting of little more than half its present numbers, not only broke to pieces the chains which were forging, and the rod of iron that was lifted up, but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched into an ocean of uncertainty. such a system of government as I had ever most esteemed; and in some States, my own native State in particular, had contributed to establish. Claiming a right of suffrage in common with my fellow-citizens in the adoption or rejection of a constitution, which was to rule me and my posterity, as well as them and theirs, I did not hesitate to express my gov-approbation of it on all occasions, in public and in private. It was not then nor has been since any objection to it, in my mind, that the Execu tive and Senate were not more permanent. Nor have I entertained a thought of promoting any alteration in it, but such as the people themselves, in the course of their experience, should see and feel to be necessary or expedient, and by their representatives in Congress and the State Legislatures, according to the constitution itself, adopt and ordain. The zeal and ardor of the people during the revolutionary war, supplying the place of ernment, commanded a degree of order, sufficient, at least, for the temporary preservation of society. The confederation, which was early felt to be necessary, was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain, with any detail and precision, in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. But, reflecting on the striking difference, in so many particulars, between this country and those, where a courier may go from the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was then certainly foreseen by some, who assisted in Congress at the formation of it, that it could not be durable. ces. Returning to the bosom of my country, after a painful separation from it for ten years, I had the honor to be elected to a station under the new order of things; and I have repeatedly laid myself under the most serious obligations to support the constitution. The operation of it has equalled the most sanguine expectations of its friends; and from an habitual attention to it, satisfaction in its administration, and delight in its effects upon the peace, order, pros perity, and happiness of the nation, I have acquired an habitual attachment to it, and veneration for it. Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations, if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals, but in States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequenUniversal languor, jealousies, rivalries of States, decline of navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures, universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, What other form of government, indeed, can contempt of public and private faith, loss of so well deserve our esteem and love? consideration and credit with foreign nations; There may be little solidity in an ancient and, at length, in discontents, animosities, com-idea that congregations of men into cities and binations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening some great national calamity. | In this dangerous crisis, the people of America were not abandoned by their usual good nations are the most pleasing objects in the sight of superior intelligences; but this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation |