509 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Here is the translated text as follows:

WILLIAM WEMMS AND SEVEN OTHERS. 477

Consider that the people around you thought you came to dragoon them into obedience to statutes, instructions, mandates, and edicts, which they thoroughly detested. Many of these people were thoughtless and inconsiderate, old and young, sailors and landmen, negroes and mulattos. The soldiers had no friends among them; the rest were in opposition to them. With all the bells ringing to call the town together to assist the people in King Street, for they knew by that time that there was no fire, the people were shouting, huzzaing, and making the mob whistle, as they call it. When a boy makes this sound in the street, it is no formidable thing, but when made by a multitude, it is a most hideous shriek, almost as terrible as an Indian's yell. The people were crying, "Kill them," "Knock them over!" while heaving snowballs, oyster shells, clubs, and white birch sticks three inches and a half in diameter.

Consider yourselves in this situation, and then judge whether a reasonable man in the soldiers' situation would not have concluded they were going to kill him. I believe that if I were to reverse the scene, I should bring it home to our own bosoms. Suppose Colonel Marshall, when he came out of his own door and saw these grenadiers coming down with swords, had thought it proper to have appointed a military watch. Suppose he had assembled Gray and Attucks, who were killed, or any other persons in town, and had planted them in that station as a military watch. If there had come from Murray's barracks thirty or forty soldiers, with no other arms than snowballs, cakes of ice, oyster shells, cinders, and clubs, and attacked this military watch in this manner, what do you suppose would have been the feelings and reasonings of any of our householders?

I confess I believe they would not have borne the one-half of what the witnesses have sworn the soldiers bore until they had shot down as many as were necessary to intimidate and disperse the rest. This is because the law does not oblige us to bear insults to the danger of our lives, to stand still with such a number of people around us, throwing such things at us, and threatening our lives, until we are disabled to defend ourselves.