1. The evening of the fifth came on. The young moon was shining brightly in a cloudless winter sky, and its light was increased by a new-fallen snow. Parties of soldiers were driving about the streets, making a parade of valor, challenging resistance, and striking the inhabitants indiscriminately with sticks or sheathed cutlasses.
2. A band, which poured out from Murray's barracks, in Brattle Street, armed with clubs, cutlasses, and bayonets, provoked resistance, and a fray ensued. Ensign Maul, at the gate of the barrack yard, cried to the soldiers: "Turn out, and I will stand by you; kill them; stick them; knock them down; run your bayonets through them." One soldier after another leveled a firelock, and threatened to "make a lane" through the crowd.
3. Just before nine, as an officer crossed King Street, now State Street, a barber's lad cried after him: "There goes a mean fellow who hath not paid my father for dressing his hair;" on which, the sentinel stationed at the westerly end of the customhouse, on the corner of King Street and Exchange Lane, left his post, and with his musket gave the boy a stroke on the head, that made him stagger and cry for pain.
4. The street soon became clear, and nobody troubled the sentry, when a party of soldiers issued violently from the main guard, their arms glittering in the moonlight, and passed on, hallooing: "Where are they? where are they? Let them come."
5. Presently twelve or fifteen more, uttering the same cries, rushed from the south into King Street, and so by the way of Cornhill towards Murray's barracks. "Pray, soldiers, spare my life," cried a boy of twelve, whom they met. "No, no, I'll kill you all," answered one of them, and knocked him down with his cutlass. They abused and insulted several persons at their doors and others in the street; "running about like madmen in a fury," crying, "Fire!" which seemed their watchword, and, "Where are they? Knock them down." Their outrageous behavior occasioned the ringing of the bell at the head of King Street.
6. The citizens, whom the alarm set in motion, came out with canes and clubs; and, partly by the interference of well-disposed officers, partly by the courage of Crispus Attucks, a mulatto, and some others, the fray at the barracks was soon over. Of the citizens, the prudent shouted, "Home! home!" others, it is said, cried out, "Huzza for the main guard! there is the nest;" but the main guard was not molested the whole evening.
7. A body of soldiers came up Royal Exchange Lane, crying, "Where are the cowards?" and, brandishing their arms, passed through King Street. From ten to twenty boys came after them, asking, "Where are they? where are they?" "There is the soldier who knocked me down," said the barber's boy; and they began pushing one another towards the sentinel. He loaded and primed his musket. "The lobster is going to fire," cried a boy. Waving his piece about, the sentinel pulled the trigger.
8. "If you fire you must die for it," said Henry Knox, who was passing by. "I don't care," replied the sentry, "if they touch me, I'll fire." "Fire!" shouted the boys, for they were persuaded he could not do it without leave from a civil officer; and a young fellow spoke out, "We will knock him down for snapping," while they whistled through their fingers and huzzaed. "Stand off !" said the sentry, and shouted aloud, "Turn out, main guard!" "They are killing the sentinel," reported a servant from the customhouse, running to the main guard. "Turn out! why don't you turn cut?" cried Preston, who was captain of the day, to the guard.
9. A party of six, two of whom, Kilroi and Montgomery, had been worsted at the ropewalk, formed, with a corporal in front and Preston following. With bayonets fixed, they "rushed through the people" upon the trot, cursing them, and pushing them as they went along. They found about ten persons round the sentry, while about fifty or sixty came down with them. "For God's sake," said Knox! holding Preston by the coat, "take your men back again; if they fire, your life must answer for the consequences." "I know what I am about," said he hastily, and much agitated.
10. None pressed on them or provoked them till they began loading, when a party of about twelve in number, with sticks in their hands, moved from the middle of the street where they had been standing, gave three cheers, and passed along the front of the soldiers, whose muskets some of them struck as they went by. "You are cowardly rascals," they said, "for bringing arms against naked men." "Lay aside your guns, and we are ready for you." "Are the soldiers loaded?" inquired Palmes of Preston. "Yes," he answered, "with powder and ball." "Are they going to fire upon the inhabitants?" asked Theodore Bliss. "They can not, without my orders," replied Preston; while "the town-born" called out, "Come on, you rascals, you bloody backs, you lobster scoundrels, fire, if you dare. We know you dare not."