ing under the insult and sting given them by the British soldiery:

"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 the heaving
bosom cause to burn with a manly indignation at the
barbarous story, through the long tracts of future time; let
every parent tell the shameful story to his listening
children 'til tears of pity glisten in their eyes, and
boiling passions shake their tender frames; and whilst the
anniversary of that ill-fated night is kept a jubilee in the
grim court of pandemonium, let all America join in one
common prayer to Heaven, that the inhuman, unprovoked
murders of the 5th of March, 1770, planned by Hillsborough
and a knot of treacherous knaves in Boston, and executed by
the cruel hand of Preston and his sanguinary coadjutors, may
ever stand in history without a parallel. But what, my
countrymen, withheld the ready arm of vengeance from
executing instant justice on the vile assassins? Perhaps you
feared promiscuous carnage might ensue, and that the
innocent might share the fate of those who had performed the
infernal deed. But were not all guilty? Were you not too
tender of the lives of those who came to fix a yoke on your
necks? But I must not too severely blame you for a fault
which great souls only can commit. May that magnificence of
spirit which scorns the low pursuit of malice; may that
generous compassion which often preserves from ruin, even a
guilty villain, forever actuate the noble bosoms of
Americans! But let not the miscreant host vainly imagine
that we feared their arms. No, those we despised; we dread
nothing but slavery. Death is the creature of a poltroon's
brains; 'tis immortality to sacrifice ourselves for the
salvation of our country. We fear not death. That gloomy
night, the pale-face moon, and the affrighted stars that
hurried through the sky, can witness that we fear not death.
Our