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WILLIAM WEMMS AND SEVEN OTHERS. 443

the fervor of our zeal, reason is in hazard of being lost ;* for,
as was elegantly expressed by a Jearned gentleman at the
late trial, ‘‘the passions of man, nay, his very imaginations,
are contagions.”? The pomp of funeral and the horrors of
death have been ao delineated, as to give a spring to our ideas
and inspire a glow incompatible with sound deliberative judg-
ment. In this situation, every passion has been alternately
predominant. They have each in its turn subsided in degree,
and then have sometimes given place to despondence, grief
and sorrow. How careful should we be, that we do not
mistake the impressions of gloom end melancholy for the
dictates of reason and truth. How careful, lest, borne away
by a torrent of passion, we make shipwreck of conscience.

Perhaps you may be told, gentlemen, as I remember it
was said, at the late trial, that passions were like the flux
and reflux of the sea, the highest tides always producing
the lowest ebbs. But let it be noticed, that the tide, in our
political ocean, has yet never turned; certainly the current
has never set towards the opposite quarter. However
similes may illustrate, they never go for proof; though, I
believe it will be found, that if the tide of resentment has
not risen of late, it has been because it had already reached
the summit. In the same mode of phraseology, if so homely
an expression may be used, perhaps, as the seamen say, it
has been high-water slack; but I am satisfied that the cur-
rent has not yet altered its course, in favor of the prisoners
at the bar.

Many things yet exist sufficient to keep alive the glow
of indignation. I have aimed at securing you against the
catching fleme. I have endeavored to discharge my duty

cImmediately after the occurrence, a print was published by
Paul Revere, which was circulated through the country. It was
very famons in that day, and there were few houses in which it was
not an ornament. It gives a somewhat false ides of the seane it
purporta to represent. The soldiers are represented as drawn up
in a line before the custom house (on which is a large sign contain-
ing the fancy title of Butchers’ Hall), and et the bidding of their

commander, deliberately Sring at the inhabitants, several of whom
fall dead in the street. (See Bibliography, ante, p. 418.)

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