[1] This Oration was delivered on the 6th of March, and not on the 5th,
being 103 days before his death on Bunker Hill.
[2] This Oration is placed at the end of this work.
[3] At the battle of Lexington, the British had but 4000 men in Boston.
Before the battle of Bunker Hill, they had been reinforced.
[4] After Mr. Gray had been shot through the body, and had fallen dead
on the ground, a bayonet was pushed through his skull; a part of the
bone being broken, his brains fell out upon the pavement.
[5] The patience with which this people have borne the repeated injuries
which have been heaped upon them, and their unwillingness to take any
sanguinary measures, has, very injudiciously, been ascribed to
cowardice, by persons both here and in Great Britain. I most heartily
wish, that an opinion, so erroneous in itself, and so fatal in its
consequences, might be utterly removed before it be too late; and I
think, nothing further necessary to convince every intelligent man, that
the conduct of this people is owing to the tender regard which they have
for their fellow men, and an utter abhorrence to the shedding of human
blood, than a little attention to their general temper and disposition,
discovered when they cannot be supposed to be under any apprehension of
danger to themselves. I will only mention the universal detestation
which they shew to every act of cruelty, by whom and upon whomsoever
committed, the mild spirit of their laws; the very few crimes to which
capital penalties were annexed; and the very great backwardness which
both courts and juries discover, in condemning persons charged with
capital crimes. But if any should think this observation not to the
purpose, I readily appeal to those gentlemen of the army who have been
in the camp, or in the field, with the Americans.