satisfied that the people, whoever they were, made that assault with
a design to kill or maim the soldiers, this was such an assault as
will justify the soldiers killing in their own defense. Further, it
seems to me, we may make another question, whether you are satisfied
that their real intention was to kill or maim, or not? If any
reasonable man in the situation of one of these soldiers would have
had reason to believe in the time of it, that the people came with
an intention to kill him, whether you have this satisfaction now or
not in your own minds, they were justifiable, at least excusable, in
firing. You and I may be suspicious that the people who made this
assault on the soldiers did it to put them to flight, on purpose
that they might go exulting about the town afterwards in triumph;
but this will not do. You must place yourselves in the situation of
Weems and Killroy--consider yourselves as knowing that the prejudice
of the world about you thought you came to dragoon them into
obedience, to statutes, instructions, mandates, and edicts, which
they thoroughly detested--that many of these people were
thoughtless and inconsiderate, old and young, sailors and landsmen,
negroes and mulattoes--that they, the soldiers, had no friends
about them, the rest were in opposition to them; with all the bells
ringing to call the town together to assist the people in King
Street, for they knew by that time that there was no fire; the
people shouting, huzzaing, and making the mob whistle, as they call
it, which, when a boy makes it in the street is no formidable thing,
but when made by a multitude is a most hideous shriek, almost as
terrible as an Indian yell; the people crying, "Kill them, kill
them. Knock them over," heaving snowballs, oyster shells, clubs,
white-birch sticks three inches and a half in diameter; consider
yourselves in this situation, and then judge whether a reasonable
man in the soldiers' situation would not have concluded they were