felicity of my fellow men; and have ever confidered it as the indifpenfable duty of every member of fociety to promote, as far as in him lies, the profperity of every individual, but more efpecially of the community to which he belongs; and also, as a faithful fubject of the ftate, to ufe his utmoft endeavors to detect, and having detected, ftrenuously to oppofe every trai torous plot, which its enemies may devife for its deftruction.

4. Security to the perfons and properties of the governed, is fo obviously the defign and end of civil government, that to attempt a logical proof of it, would be like burning tapers at noon day, to affift the fun in enlightening the world. It cannot be either virtuous or honorable, to attempt to support a government, of which this is not the great and principal bafis ; and it is to the last degree vicious and infamous to attempt to fupport a government, which manifeftly tends to render the perfons and properties of the governed infecure,

5. Some boat of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reafon and juftice; but I glory in publicly avow, ing my eternal enmity to tyranny. Is the prefent fyftem which the British adminiftration have adopted for the government of the colonies, a righteous government ?-Or is it tyranny ? Here fuffer me to afk (and would to Heaven there could be an anfwer) what tenderness, what regard, respect, or confideration has Great Britain fhewn, in their late transactions, for the fecurity of the perfons or properties of the inhabitants of the colonies or rather, what have they omitted doing to deftroy that fecurity?

6. They have declared that they have, ever had, and of right ought ever to have, full power to make laws of fufficient validity to bind the colonies in all cafes whatever: They have exercifed this pretended right, by impofing a tax upon us without our confent; and left we fhould fhew fome reluctance at parting with our property, her fleets and armies are fent to fupport their mad pretenfions,

7. The town of Bofton, ever faithful to the British crown, has been invefted by a British fleet: The troops of George the IIId. have coffed the wide Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to affift a band of traitors, in trampling on the rights and liberties of his moft loyal fubjects in America-thofe rights and liberties which as a father, he ought ever to regard, and as a king, he is bound, in honor, to defend from violation, even at the risk of his own life.

8. Let not the history of the illuftrious houfe of Brunswick inform pofterity, that a King, defcended from that glorious monarch George the IId. once fent his British fubjects to con quer and enflave his fubjects in America; but be perpetual infa my entailed upon that villain who dared to advise his mafter to fuch execrable measures; for it was eafy to foresee the confe quences which fo naturally followed upon fending troops into America, to enforce obedience to acts of the British parliament, which neither God nor man ever empowered them to make.

9. It was reafonable to expect that troops, who knew the errand they were fent upon, would treat the people whom they were to fubjugate, with cruelty and haughtiness, which too often buries the honorable character of a soldier, in the difgraceful name of an unfeeling ruffian. The troops, upon their first arrival took poffeffion of our fenate houfe, and pointed their cannon against the judgment hall, and even continued them there, whilst the fupreme court of judicature for this province was actually fitting to decide upon the lives and fortunes of the king's fubjects.

10. Our treets nightly refounded with the noife of riot and debauchery; our peaceful citizens were hourly exposed to fhameful infults, and often felt the effects of their violence and outrage. But this was not all; as though they thought it not enough to violate our civil rights, they endeavored to deprive us of the enjoyment of our religious privileges; viciate our mor als, and thereby render us deferving of destruction. Hence the rude din of arms, which broke in upon your folemn devotions in your temples, on that day hallowed by Heaven and fet apart by God himself for his peculiar worship.

11. Hence, impious oaths and blafphemies so often tortured your unaccustomed ear. Hence, all the arts which idleness and luxury could invent, were used to betray our youth of one fex, into extravagance and effeminacy-and of the other, into infamy and ruin; and did they not but fucceed too well? Did not a reverence for religion fentibly decay? Did not our infants almost learn to lifp our curfes before they knew their horrid import? Did not our youth forget they were Americans, and, regardless of the admonitions of the wife and aged fervilely copy from their tyrants, vices which finally muft overthrow the empire of Great-Britain? and must I be impelled to acknowledge, that even the nobleft, fairelt part of all the lower creation, did not entirely escape the curfed fnare? When virtue has once

erected her throne within the female breaft, it is upon fo folid a bafis that nothing is able to expel the heavenly inhabitant.

12. But have there not been fome, few indeed, I hope, whofe youth and inexperience have rendered them a prey to wretches, whom upon the leaft reflection, they would have defpifed and hated, as foes to God and their country? I fear there have been forme fuch unhappy inftances; or why have I feen an hoaeft father clothed with thame; or why a virtuous mother drowne ed in tears!

13. But I forbear, and some reluctantly to the tranfactions of that dismal night, when in fuch quick fucceffion we felt the extremes of grief, aftonishment and rage; when Heaven in anger for a dreadful moment, fuffered hell to take the reins; when fatan with his chofen band, opened the fluices of New-England's blood and facriligiously polluted our land with the dead bodies of her guiltlefs fons.

14. Let this fad tale of death never be told without a tear = Let not the heaving bofom cease to burn with a manly indignation at the barbarous ftory, thro the long track of future time: Let every parent tell the fhamely ftory to his liftening children till tears of pity gliften in their eyes, and boiling paffion fhake their tender frames ; and whilft 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 fifth of March, 1770, plan ned by Hillsborough, and a knot of treacherous knaves in Bofton, and executed by the cruel band of Prefton and his fanguinary coadjutors, may ever stand on hiftory without a parallel.

15. But what, my countrymen, withheld the ready arm of vengeance from executing inftant juftice on the vile affaffins? perhaps you feared promifcuous carnage might enfue, and that the innocent might share the fate of thofe who had performed the infernal deed. But were not all guilty? were you not too tender of the lives of thofe who came to fix a yoke on your neck! but I must not too feverely blame a fault, which great fouls only can commit.

16. May that magnificence of fpirit which feorns the low purfuits of malice; may that generous compaffion which often preferves from ruin, even a guilty villain, forever actuate the noble bofoms of Americans ! But let not the mifcreant hoft vainly imagine that we feared their arms. No, them we

defpifed; we dread nothing but flavery. Death is the crea ture of a poltroon's brain; 'tis immortality to facrifice our felves for the falvation of our country. We fear not death.

17. That gloomy night, the pale faced moon, and the af frighted ftars that hurried thro the fky, can witnefs that we fear not death. Our hearts, which at the recollection glow with a rage that four revolving years have fcarcely taught us to restrain, can witness that we fear not death; and happy it is for those who dared to infult, that their naked bones are not now piled up an everlasting monument of Maffachusetts* bravery. But they retired, they fled, and in that flight they found their only fafety.

18. We then expected that the hand of public juftice would loon inflict that punishment upon the murderers, which by the laws of God, and man, they had merited. But let the unbiaffed pen of a Robertfon, or perhaps of fome equally famed American, conduct this trial before the great tribunal of fucceeding generations; and tho the murderers may efcape the just refentment of an enraged people; tho drowly juftice, in toxicated by the poisonous draught prepared for her cup, ftill nods upon her rotten feat, yet be affured, fuch complicated crimes will meet their just reward.

19. 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 ftings of confcious guilt, pierce thro your favage bofoms? Tho fome of you may think yourselves exalted to a height that bids defiance to the arm of human juftice, and others fhroud yourselves beneath the mask of hypocrify, and build your hopes of fafety on the low arts of cunning, chicanery and falfehood; yet do you not fometimes feel the gnawing of that worm which never dies? Do not the injured fhades of Maverick, Gray, Caldwell, Attucks, and Car, attend you in your folitary walks, arreft you even in the midst of you debaucheries, and fill even your dreams with terror?

*

20. But if the unappeafed manes of the dead should not disturb their murderers, yet furely your obdurate hearts must fhrink, and your guilty blood muft chill within your rigid veins when you behold the miferable Monk, the wretched victim of your favage cruelty. Obferve his tottering knees,

Persons slain on the fifth of March, 1770,

which fearce fuftain his wafted body; look on his haggard eyes mark well the deathlike palenefs of his fallen cheek, and tell me, does not the fight plant daggers in your fouls?

21. Unhappy Monk! cut off in the gay morn of manhood from all the joys which fweeten life, doomed to drag on a pitiful existence, without even a hope to taste the pleasures of 're. turning health! yet Monk thou livett not in vain; thon livest a warning to thy country, which fympathizes with thee in thy fufferings; thou liveft an affecting, an alarming inftance of the unbounded violence which luft of power, affifted by a fanding army, can lead a traitor to commit.

22. For us be bled, and now languishes. The wounds by which he is tortured to a lingering death, were aimed at our country! Surely meek eyed charity can never behold fuch fuf. ferings with indifference. Nor can her lenient hand forbear to pour oil and wine into thefe wounds; and to affuage at leaft what it cannot heal,

23. Patriotifm is ever united with humanity and compaffion. This noble affection, which impels us to facrifice every thing.. dear, even life itfelf, to our country, involves in it a common fympathy and tenderness for every citizen, and must ever have a particular feeling for one who fuffers in a public caufe. Thor. oughly perfuaded of this, I need not add a word to engage your compaffion and bounty toward a fellow-citizen, who with long protracted anguifh, falls a victim to the relentlefa rage of our common enemy.

24. Ye dark defiguing knaves, ye murderers, parricides ! how dare you tread upon the earth, which has drank in the blood of flaughtered innocence fhed by your wicked hands! How dare you breathe that air which wafted to the ear of Hea→ ven, the groans of thofe who fell a facrific to your curfed ambition. But if the laboring earth doth not expand her jaws; if the air you breathe is not commiffioned to be the minifter of death; yet hear it and tremble!

25. The eye of Heaven penetrates the darkeft chambers of the foul, traces the leading clue thro all the labyrinths which your induftrious follies had devifed! and you, however you might have fereened yourselves from human eyes, muft be arraigned, mut lift your bands red with the blood of those whofe death you have procured, at the tremendous bar of God.