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WILLIAM WEMHS AND SEVEN OTHERS. 479

the law to act upon unavoidable necessity; but also he who
being assaulted in such a manner, and in such a place, that
he cannot go back without manifestly endangering his life,
Kills the other without retreating at all.’’ See. 16. ‘(And
an officer who kills one that insults him in the exeeution of
his office, and where a private person, that kills one who
felonionsly assaults him in the high way may justify the fact
without ever giving back at all.’’

Tn the case before you, I suppose you will be satisfied when
you come to examine the witnesses, and compare it with the
rules of common law, abstracted from all mutiny acts and
articles of war, that these soldiers were in such a situation,
that they could not help themselves; people were coming
from Royal Exchange jane, and other parts of the town, with
clubs, and cord-wood sticks; the soldiers were planted by the
wall of the custom-house; they could not retreat, they were
surrounded on all sides, for there were peeple behind them
as well as before them; there were a number of people in
Royal Exchange lane; the soldiers were so near to the cus
tom-house, that they could not retreat, unless they had gone
into the brick wall of it. I shall show yon presently, that all
the party concerned in this unlawful design, were guilty of
what any one of them did; if any body threw a snow ball, it
was the act of the whole party; if any struck with a club,
or threw a club, and the elub had killed any body, the whole
party would have been guilty of murder in law.

Rules of law should be universally known, whatever effect
they may have on policies. They are rules of common law,
the law of the land; and it is certainly true, that, wherever
there is an unlawful assembly, let it consist of many persons
or a few, every man in it is guilty of every unlawful act com-
mitted by any one of the whole party, be they more or be
they less, in pursuance of their unlawful design. This is the
policy of the law, to discourage and prevent riots, insarree-
tions, turbulence and tumults, .

In the continual vicissitudes of human things, amidst the
shocks of fortune and the whirls of passion, that take place

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