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parts of the town, and the Design was again disclosed of 

 Burning the Hospital. "Preparation was thought on to 

 defend it," and the design was abandoned. The lives of 

 attendants who came ashore were threatened, and the 

 keys of the Proprietors' stores and warehouses were de- 

 manded. Thus matters stood on Jan'y 20. Meanwhile, 

 the first four victims of the tar-kettle had been secured, 

 and, says the Gazette for that day, " the most extraordinary 

 exhibition of the kind ever seen in North America was 

 drawn forth to public view." The procession formed 

 at the Town House in the morning. First came 

 one thousand people, mostly in uniform, among whom 

 were four drummers. Next rode the " four objects of 

 resentment" in a cart facing each other, each wearing a 

 coat of tar and feathers ; a fifer and one drummer being 

 placed in the front of the carriage, from which a large 

 white flag was displayed. In this manner they marched 

 to Salem, and entered the town about twelve o'clock. 

 Here, forming a junction with a numerous body of the 

 inhabitants, they paraded the principal streets, drums 

 beating, fife playing, and flag flying from the cart, 

 "which, with the exquisitely droll and grotesque appear- 

 ance of the four tarred and feathered Objects of Derision, 

 exhibited a laughable and truly comic scene." They left 

 Salem for Marblehead before one o'clock, and dispersed 

 there on their arrival. By this treatment, the petition 

 asseits, the lives of two of their victims were put in 

 peril. The next evening, Jan'y 21, a body of seven or 

 eight hundred persons assembled, tarred and feathered 

 another " object of resentment," and carted him through 

 town, proclaiming that "they had the Laws in their own 

 hands," and threatening all who should exhibit fire-arms, 

 thus " depriving such as apprehended themselves in dan- 



