Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/776

652 prisoners that they had better go into the prisons, for they would be charged upon directly. This, of course, occasioned considerable alarm among them. In this moment of uncertainty they were running in different directions, inquiring of each other what was the cause of the alarm, some towards their respective prisons, and some towards the Market Square. When about one hundred were collected in the Market Square, Captain Shortland ordered the soldiers to charge upon them; which orders the soldiers were reluctant in obeying, as the prisoners were using no violence; but on the order being repeated, they made a charge, and the prisoners retreated out of the square into their respective prison yards, and shut the gates after them. Captain Shortland himself opened the gates, and ordered the soldiers himself to fire in among the prisoners, who were all retreating in different directions towards their respective prisons. It appears that there was some hesitation in the minds of the officers whether or not it was proper to fire upon the prisoners in that situation; on which Shortland seized a musket out of the hands of a soldier, which he fired. Immediately after the firing became general, and many of the prisoners were either killed or wounded; the remainder were endeavouring to get into the prisons, when, going towards the lower doors, the soldiers on the walls commenced firing on them from that quarter, which killed some and wounded others. After much difficulty (all the doors being closed in the interim, but one in each prison), the survivors succeeded in gaining the prisons. Immediately after which parties of soldiers came to the doors of Nos. 3 and 4 prisons, fired several volleys into them, through the windows and doors, killed one man in each prison, and wounded severely several others. It likewise appears that the preceding butchery was followed up with a disposition of peculiar inveteracy and barbarity.