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troops. Soon after the firing commenced, a woman was brought into my office, supposed to be wounded; but it appeared that she had fainted from fright. At that time the firing ceased, but soon after commenced again, after an interval of about ten or fifteen minutes. Soon after the firing began the second time, a man came into my office, slightly wounded in the knee from a musket shot; but it was a slight wound, and I did not dress it. I did not know the person, and cannot name him; I was standing at the front window of my office, with a view to see or hear what was transpiring at the bridge. The distance from the bridge was about twenty rods, on Main Street, leading from the bridge. While standing in this position, a musket ball passed through two panes of glass in the two sashes forming the show window of the shop, passing near my head, and lodging in the shelf, which it penetrated about four inches from the edge where it entered. [The witness produces the ball, which he says he took from its lodgment, and it appears to be a musket ball of the size used for United States muskets, and not a rifle ball.] A few minutes after this, I was called on to go and see a man, Alexander Kelby, who was reported to have been shot. I directed them to bring him directly to the office, as it was no place for an examination there. They went away for that purpose; but immediately information came that he was dead. I was well acquainted with Alexander Kelby, and had generally been his family physician. He had a wife and five or six children, and had resided in Pawtucket, on the Massachusetts side, for some nine or ten years. He worked in the factory, and was rather an intellectual man, and read a great deal. I often loaned him books. He was a man of good character, and always peaceable and inoffensive. Other buildings, not in the direction of my office, on another street leading from the bridge, were fired into, as appears from the marks of the balls lodged therein, or having bounded from the brick walls. The bridge is the most central part of the village, and the two streets leading from it the most populous on this side.

DRAPER CARPENTER.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, Bristol, ss.
PAWTUCKET, May 2, 1844.

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Then the said Draper Carpenter, being duly cautioned and sworn, made and subscribed the foregoing, reduced to writing in his presence, by and before me,

B. F. HALLETT, Commissioner, and Justice of the Peace

through the Commonwealth.

It appears from the testimony of the widow of Alexander Kelby that her murdered husband was a dresser tender, was about forty years of age, and worked in a manufactory on the Massachusetts side, and that by his death she was left a widow with eight small children, and without sufficient means for their support. It should be recollected that all the wicked and revolting deeds which have been mentioned, and hundreds more of the same kind, were committed under the banner of "law and order," and under the direction and in open view of a class of men professedly scrupulous about nice points of law - a class of men who claimed nearly all the piety, talent, and morality in the state, in which were found most of the public officers and a large number of the clergy; and yet this same party, with shameless impunity, trampled upon all laws, human and divine. By turning to the constitution of the United States it will be seen that Article I. of the Amendments was violated and broken by "abridging the free

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dom of speech and the press; Article II. by "infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms;" Article III. by "quartering soldiers in houses without the consent of the owners; " and Article IV., which declares that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated," was wholly disregarded. If the president of the United States had been as desirous to guard its constitution from violation as he was to protect a repudiated charter aristocracy, instead of aiding and abetting in these nefarious violations, he would have hindered and suppressed them.

If the height to which he had been, by accident, so suddenly raised had not made him giddy, and if he had not forgotten his own official oath, he would not at the same time have violated the rights of the people of a sovereign state and the constitution of the nation.

It is impossible to describe the scenes of more than savage barbarity which were of almost daily occurrence during this reign of terror. When the whole community is given up to the tender mercies of a lawless soldiery, no bounds can be set to their criminalities. When the father of a family finds that his house is no longer his castle, that his own sacred fireside is no protection against the violent encroachments of armed men - when he sees his home desecrated and plundered, his property destroyed, and his books and papers scattered in the street - when his wife and daughters are dragged from their beds or closets, with scarcely a garment upon them, submitted to the taunts and jeers of vile men, driven about their own house with the muzzle of the musket or pistol, and the merciless bayonet is made to penetrate the bosom of the innocent female - when the husband and father is plunged into the dungeon or driven into exile, and his home and his family left without support or protection - when the young mother, as she clasps the tender infant to her bosom, trembles lest some brutish soldier should violate her sacred retirement - when the chamber of the sick or dying is no security against sacrilegious intrusion, and when magistrates and clergymen justify and approve of all these things, - a tragedy is enacted which no language can describe or pencil paint. It crushes the resolutions of the brave and the hopes of the true. We stand aghast at the spectacle; it is the triumph of malice, and carnival of devils.

CHAPTER X.

MR. DORR'S RETURN.

PROCLAMATION.

DISMISSES HIS

PROCEEDINGS OF

MEN, AND LEAVES THE STATE.
CHARTER TROOPS. ARRESTS AND IMPRISONMENT OF
SUFFRAGE MEN.

LEAVING, for the present, this part of the history, we return to Mr. Dorr. His proclamation for convening the people's legislature at Chepatchet on the ensuing 4th of July was issued on the 25th of June. He had been absent from the state since the 18th instant, and had given no orders or advice concerning the fortifications at Acote's Hill; and before he decided that it was his duty to give the people another opportunity to rally in support of their constitution, he was assured, by a deputation sent him, that a large number of people had already collected at that place, who were determined, notwithstanding all their reverses, and all that threatened them at home and abroad, to persist in support of their own constitutional government. With these renewed assurances of fidelity, Mr. Dorr came to the conclusion that it was his duty to aid them in a further effort to accomplish that object, and therefore issued the afore-mentioned proclamation. It was evident that the people's legislature could not now be con

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