Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/488

460 counties, to recant and resign their military commissions. Thomas Foster, Esq., an ancient gentleman, was obliged to run into the woods, and had like to have been lost, and the mob, although the justices, with Mr. Foster, were sitting in the town, ransacked his house, and damaged his furniture. He was obnoxious as a friend to government, and for that reason they endeavored to deprive him of his business, and to prevent even his taking the acknowledgment of a deed. Richard Clark, Esq., a consignee of the tea, was obliged to retire from Salem to Boston, as an asylum ; and his son Isaac went to Plymouth to collect debts, but in the night was assaulted by a mob and obliged to get out of town at midnight. Jesse Dunbar, of Halifax, in Plymouth county, bought some fat cattle of Mr. Thomas the counsellor, and drove them to Plymouth for sale ; one of the oxen being skinned and hung up, the committee came to him, and finding he bought it of Mr. Thomas, they put the ox into a cart, and fixing Dunbar in his belly, carted him four miles, and there made him pay a dollar, after taking three more cattle and a horse from him. The Plymouth mob delivered him to the Kingston mob, which carted him four miles further, and forced from him another dollar, then delivered him to the Duxborough mob, who abused him by throwing the tripe in his face, and endeavoring to cover him with it to the endangering his life. They then threw dirt at him, and after other abuses carried him to said Thomas s house, and made him pay another sum of money, and he not taking the beef, they flung it in the road and quitted him. Daniel Dunbar, of Halifax, an ensign of militia there, had his colors demanded by the mob, some of the selectmen being the chief actors. He refused ; they broke into his house, took him out, forced him upon a rail, and after keeping him for two or three hours in such abuses, he was forced to give his colors up to save his life. A constable of Hardwick, for refusing to pay his collections, directly contrary to the oath of his office, was bound and confined six and thirty hours, and threatened with being sent to Simsbury mines. His wife being dangerously ill, he was released after signing a something which one of the mob had prepared for him. The mob committee of the county of York, ordered that no one should hire any of Sir William Pepperell's estates, buy no wood of him, or pay any debts due to him. In February, at Plymouth, a number of ladies attempted to divert themselves at their assembly room, but the mob collected, (the committee having met previous thereto,) and flung stones which broke the shutters and windows, and endangered their lives. They were forced to get out