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A Narrative of the Late Massacres – 25

the Murder, or since it was committed, to justify it; and believed only by the Weak and Credulous. I call thus publickly on the Makers and Venders of these Accusations to Produce their Evidence. Let them satisfy the Public that even Will Soc, the most obnoxious of all that Tribe, was really guilty of those Offences against us which they lay to his Charge. But if he was ought he not to have been fairly tried? He lived under our Laws’ and was subject to them; he was in our Hands, and might easily have been prosecuted; was it English Justice to condemn and execute him unheard? Conscious of his own Innocence, he did not endeavour to hide himself when the Door of the Work-house, Ins Sanctuary, was breaking open; I will meet them, says he, for they are my Brothers. These Brothers of his shot him down at, the Door, while the Word Brothers was still between his Teeth!— But if Will Soc was a bad Man, what had poor old Shehaes done? what could he or the other poor old Men and Women do? What had little Boys and Girls done; what could Children of a Year old. Babes at the Breast, what could they do, that they too must be shot and hatcheted? —Horrid to relate!—and in their Parents Arms! This is done by no civilized Nation in Europe. Do we come to America to learn and practise the Manners of Barbarian? But this, Barbarians as they are, they practise against their Enemies only, not against their Friends.—
 
These poor People have been always our Friends. Their Fathers received ours, when

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