turned to their barrack, and in a few minutes
appeared again in the rope-walk with a stronger
party, making now about thirty or forty, armed
with clubs and cutlasses, and headed by a tall
negroe drummer. This party fell upon the
rope-makers near the tar-kettle; but, nine or
ten more of the rope-makers coming up to the
assistance of their companions, the soldiers were
again beat off with considerable bruises, and fol-
lowed by the rope-makers as far as Green's-lane,
when a corporal came and ordered the soldiers
into their barracks; and Mr. John Hill, an elder-
ly gentlemen of the town, who seems to have
been a magistrate, persuaded the rope-makers to
go back, and they readily obeyed him.
Hitherto we see no footsteps of a massacre, or
intended massacre, of the inhabitants. Some
soldiers, having been affronted by the rope-ma-
kers, go out to take revenge on them without
their military weapons, armed only with clubs,
in order to give them a beating. The occasion
of the quarrel was sudden, and the duration of
it short. No officers, not even the serjeants
and
corporals, appear to have been concerned in it;
and a single corporal had influence enough to put
an end to it.
On the next day, Saturday the 3d of March,
there happened another fray in Mr. MacNeil's
rope-wall between three grenadiers and six or
seven rope-makers, in which the rope-makers
had again the advantage.