hearts, which, at the recollection, glow with rage that
four revolving years have scarcely taught us to restrain,
can witness that we fear not death; and happy it is for
those who dared to insult us, that their naked bones are not
now piled up an ever-lasting monument of Massachusetts
bravery. But they retired; they fled, and in that flight
they found their only safety. We then expected that the hand
of public justice would soon inflict that punishment upon
the murderers, which, by the laws of God and man, they had
incurred. But let the unbiassed pen of a Robertson, or
perhaps of some equally famed American, conduct this trial
before the great tribunal of succeeding generations. And
though the murderers may escape the just resentment of an
enraged people; though drowsy justice, intoxicated by the
poisonous draft prepared for her cup, still nods upon her
rotten seat, yet be assured, such complicated crimes will
meet their due reward. Tell me, ye bloody butchers! ye
villains high and low! ye wretches who contrived, as well as
you who executed the inhuman deed! do you not feel the goads
and stings of conscious guilt pierce through your savage
bosoms? Though some of you may think yourselves exalted to a
height that bids defiance to human justice, and others
shroud yourselves beneath the mask of hypocrisy, and build
your hopes of safety on the low arts of cunning, chicanery
and falsehood; yet do you not sometimes feel the gnawings of
that worm which never dies; do not the injured shades of
Maverick, Gray, Cadwell, Attucks and Carr, attend you in
your solitary walks; arrest you in the midst of your
debaucheries and fill even your dreams with terror?"

The orators of New England poured out upon this once slave,--now hero
and martyr,--their unstinted praise. We have but to recall the
recollection of the earliest conflicts which the colonist had with the
British, in order to see the negro occupying a place in the ranks of the
patriot army. Their white fellow-citizens were only too glad to take
ground to the left, in order that they could fall in on their colors.
And they did good service whenever they fought, as the record shows.

The Committee of safety upon reviewing the situation and the army,
before the first great battle of the Revolution had been fought, adopted
the following resolu