All this time the cannon, shotted and primed, lay silent on their
carriages, while the soldiers from the ramparts looked wonderingly, idly
on. General Gage did not dare to fire on the people, fearing they would
sweep like an inundation over the ramparts, when he knew a general
massacre would follow.

The mob now tore down, the wooden fence that surrounded Bowling Green, and
piling pickets and boards together, set them on fire. As the flames
crackled and roared in the darkness, they pitched on the Governor's coach,
with the scaffold and effigies; then hastening to his carriage-house
again, and dragging out a one-horse chaise, two sleighs, and other
vehicles, hauled them to the fire, and threw them on, making a
conflagration that illumined the waters of the bay and the ships riding at
anchor. This was a galling spectacle to the old Governor and the British
officers, but they dared not interfere.

What was the particular animosity against those carriages does not appear,
though it was the only property of the Governor they destroyed, unless
they were a sign of that aristocratic pride which sought to enslave them.
There were, at this time, not a half-dozen coaches in the city, and they
naturally became the symbols of bloated pride. It is said the feeling was
so strong against them, that a wealthy Quaker named Murray, who lived out
of town, near where the distributing reservoir now is, kept one to ride
down town in, yet dared not call it a coach, but a "_leathern
convenience_."

Although Sears and other leaders of the Sons of Liberty tried to restrain
the mob, their blood was now up, and they were bent on destruction. Having
witnessed the conflagration of the Governor's carriages, they again