8

Supplement to the Newport Mercury, describing the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

Newport, RI, 22 March 1773
2 pages, 13½ x 8½ inches; several closed tears with skillful tape repairs.

The main article recounts the 5 March commemoration of the Boston Massacre in Boston, featuring an oration by Benjamin Church in the Old South Meeting House. "The capacious house was so thronged . . . that the orator, and the honorable John Hancock, Esq., a moderator of the meeting, were obliged to be taken in at a window." At the massacre site, a display of transparent paintings demonstrated "The Fatal Effects of a Standing Army, Posted in a Free City," with a monument to the 5 martyrs including Crispus Attucks "who were barbarously murdered." One large frame displayed a long poem which began "Canst thou, spectator, view this crimson'd scene / And not reflect what these sad portraits mean? . . . Ask not where Preston or his butchers are / But ask, who bro't those bloody villains here?"

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