Meantime sixty or seventy of the militia had collected, and about forty spectators, a few of whom had arms. Captain Parker ordered his men not to fire unless they were fired upon. A part of his company had time to form in a military position facing the regulars; but while some were joining the ranks and others were dispersing, the British troops rushed on, shouting and firing, and their officers--among whom was Major Pitcairn--exclaiming, "Ye villains! ye rebels! disperse!" "Lay down your arms!" "Why don't you lay down your arms?" The militia did not instantly disperse nor did they proceed to lay down their arms. The first guns, few in number, did no execution. A general discharge followed, with fatal results. A few of the militia who had been wounded, or who saw others killed or wounded by their side, no longer hesitated, but returned the fire of the regulars. Jonas Parker, John Monroe, and Ebenezer Monroe, Jr., and others, fired before leaving the line; Solomon Brown and James Brown fired from behind a stone wall; one other person fired from the back door of Buckman's house; Nathan Monroe, Lieutenant Benjamin Tidd and others retreated a short distance and fired. Meantime the regulars continued their fire as long as the militia remained in sight, killing eight and wounding ten. Jonas Parker, who repeatedly said he never would run from the British, was wounded at the second fire, but he still discharged his gun, and was killed by a bayonet. "A truer heart did not bleed at Thermopylæ." Isaac Muzzy, Jonathan Harrington, and Robert Monroe were also killed on or near the place where the line was formed. "Harrington's was a cruel fate. He fell in front of his own house, on the north of the Common. His wife at the window saw him fall and then start up, the blood gushing from his breast. He stretched out his hands toward her as if for assistance, and fell again. Rising once more on his hands and knees, he crawled across the road toward his dwelling. She ran to meet him at the door, but it was to see him expire at her feet." Monroe was the standard-bearer of his company at the capture of Louisburg. Caleb Harrington was killed as he was running from the meeting-house after replenishing his stock of powder; Samuel Hadley and John Brown, after they had left the Common; Asahel Porter, of Woburn, who had been taken prisoner by the British as he was endeavoring to effect his escape.