back parts of the province. Such was the tem-
per of the people with respect to the King's
troops for some time before the late accident;
and it seems to have occasioned a pretty strong
degree of resentment in the latter, and perhaps
made them not unwilling to embrace any oppor-
tunity that chance might offer, consistently with
their duty and the law, to take some revenge on
those who had so long ill-treated them. That
it should have such an effect, is probable in itself
from the natural passions of mankind; and that
it did produce this natural resentment, may be
collected from some of the depositions in the
Boston Narrative, particularly those of Mary
Thayer and Bartholomew Broaders, Nos. 11 and
38 of the Appendix, supposing those testimonies,
which carry in them strong marks of a party
bias, deserve in this particular to be believed:
but I do not think it can be inferred from their
conduct on the 5th of March, or, as the
Boston
Narrative calls it, the horrid Massacre. The
natural desire of defending themselves, and the
sense of the duty incumbent upon them in that
unhappy moment to repel force by force in order
to defend a centinel's post which they were call-
ed upon to guard, and which was then attacked
by at least an hundred people, armed with blud-
geons, sticks, and cutlasses, will be sufficient to
account for their firing on the assailants on that
occasion without any mixture of revenge. The
circumstances of this unfortunate affair, and of
the previous quarrel with the rope-makers, which