talking with some well behaved persons, who had asked him whether he intended to order the men to fire": Some of the witnesses mention'd the people's pressing in, and more naturally accounted for it, viz, from a curiosity "to know what was said ". Capt. Preston adds, "while I was thus speaking (with the well behaved persons, and in all likelihood at the very instant, when Andrew testified it was said, they were going to fire) one of the soldiers having received a severe blow with a stick, stepped a little on one side and instantly fired." Upon this, says Capt. Preston, "a general attack was made upon the men": So that there was no general attack, according to his account, till after the firing; which agrees with Mr. Bridgham and other unexceptionable witnesses in court, who declared, that "there was no danger to the soldiers from any thing they saw " -- " no molestation, nor any thing which they thought could produce firing": Indeed, one of the witnesses for the prisoners, Mr. Nath. Russell testified, that "the soldiers were in a trembling situation, and seemed to apprehend themselves in immediate danger of death"; but being interrogated, whether their trembling might not be the effect of rage, he replied, perhaps it might proceed both from fear and rage. If there had been such a general attack as Capt. Preston mentions, after one of the soldiers had actually fired, and the others appear'd to be just ready to fire (for they all discharg'd their guns in a few minutes afterwards) it would have been such an appearance as might naturally have been expected; and therefore Capt. Preston, who, as he says, "followed" the party for that very purpose, should have taken more effectual care than he did to have "prevented so rash an act " - There was time enough for him to have at least prevented the continuance of the firing after the first gun was discharg'd, and consequently to have saved the lives of some of his Majesty's subjects ; for Mr. Bridgham testified, that there was half a minute between the first and the second gun.