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488 X,. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

tants; this was to prove that Killroy had preconceived malice
in his heart, not indeed against the unhappy persons who
were killed, but against the inhabitants in general; that he
had the spirit not only of a Turk or an Arab, but of the devil.
But admitting that thia testimony was literally true, and that
he had all the malice they would wish to prove, yet, if he was
assaulted thet night, and his life in danger, he had a right to
defend himself as well as another man; if he had malice
before, it did not take away from him the right of defending
himself against any aggressor. But it was not at all improb-
able, that there was some misunderstanding about these loose
expressions; perhaps the man had no thoughts of what his
words might imply; many a man in his cups, or in anger,
which was a short fit of madness, uttered the rashest expres-
sions, who had no such savage disposition in general; go that
there was but little weight in expressions uttered at a kitchen
fire, before a maid and a coachman, where he might think him-
self at liberty to talk as much like a bully, a fool, or a mad-
man as he pleased, and that no evil would come of it.

In regard to Montgomery, the evidence was clear that he
was personally assaulted and knocked down before he fired.
‘When the multitude was shouting and huzzaing, and threat-
ening life, the belis ringing, the mob whistling, sereaming, and
rending like an Indian yell; the people from all quarters
throwing every species of rubbish they could pick up in the
street, and some who were quite on the other side of the street
throwing clubs at the whole party; Montgomery in particular
smitten with a club and knocked down, and as soon as he could
tise and take up his firelock, struck on his breast or shoulder
by another club from afar, what could he do? Did the jury
expect he should behave like a stoic philosopher lost in apa-
thy—patient as Epictetus, while his master was breaking his
legs with a eudgel? It was impossible they should find him
guilty of murder. They must suppose him divested of all
human passions, if they did not think him at the least pro-
yoked, thrown off his guard, and into the furor brevis, by such
treatment as this.

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