Were there not more than three persons in Dock Square? Did they not
agree to go to King Street, and attack the main guard? Where, then,
is the reason for hesitation at calling it a riot? If we cannot
speak the law as it is, where is our liberty? And this is law, that
wherever more than three persons are gathered together to accomplish
anything with force, it is a riot.

(1 Hawkins, ch. 65, section 2): "Wherever more than three persons use
force and violence, all who are concerned therein are rioters. But
in some cases wherein the law authorizes force, it is lawful and
commendable to use it. As for a sheriff [2 And. 67 Poph. 121], or
constable [3 H. 7, 10, 6], or perhaps even for a private person
[Poph. 121, Moore 656], to assemble a competent number of people, in
order with force to oppose rebels or enemies or rioters, and
afterwards, with such force actually to suppress them."

I do not mean to apply the word rebel on this occasion; I have no
reason to suppose that ever there was one in Boston, at least among
the natives of the country; but rioters are in the same situation,
as far as my argument is concerned, and proper officers may suppress
rioters, and so may even private persons.

If we strip ourselves free from all military laws, mutiny acts,
articles of war and soldiers' oaths, and consider these prisoners as
neighbors, if any of their neighbors were attacked in King Street,
they had a right to collect together to suppress this riot and
combination. If any number of persons meet together at a fair or
market, and happen to fall together by the ears, they are not guilty
of a riot, but of a sudden affray. Here is another paragraph, which