w to arm
himself for the purposes aforesaid."

Here every private person is authorized to arm himself; and on the
strength of this authority I do not deny the inhabitants had a right
to arm themselves at that time for their defense, not for
offense. That distinction is material, and must be attended to.

(Hawkins, p. 75, section 14): "And not only he who on an assault retreats
to the wall, or some such strait, beyond which he can go no further
before he kills the other, is judged by the law to act upon
unavoidable necessity; but also he who being assaulted in such a
manner and in such a place that he cannot go back without manifestly
endangering his life, kills the other without retreating at all."

(Section 16); "And an officer who kills one that insults him in the
execution of his office, and where a private person that kills one
who feloniously assaults him in the highway, may justify the fact
without ever giving back at all."

There is no occasion for the magistrate to read the riot act. In the
case before you, I suppose you will be satisfied when you come to
examine the witnesses and compare it with the rules of the common
law, abstracted from all mutiny acts and articles of war, that these
soldiers were in such a situation that they could not help
themselves. People were coming from Royal Exchange Lane, and other
parts of the town, with clubs and cord-wood sticks; the soldiers
were planted by the wail of the Customhouse; they could not retreat;
they were surrounded on all sides, for there were people behind them
as well as before them; there were a number of people in the Royal
Exchange Lane; the soldiers were so near to the Customhouse that
they could not retreat, unless they had gone into the brick wall of
it. I shall show you presently that all the party concerned in this
unlawful design were guilty of what any one of them did; if anybody
threw a snowball it was the act of the whole party; if any struck
with a club or threw a club, and the club had killed anybody, the
whole party would have been guilty of murder in the law. Lord
Chief-Justice Holt, in Mawgrige's case (Keyling, 128), says:--

"Now, it has been held, that if A of his malice prepense assaults B
to kill him, and B draws his sword and attacks A and pursues him,
then A, for his safety, gives back and retreats to a wall, and B
still pursuing him with his drawn sword, A in his defense kills B;
this is murder in A. For A having malice agains