’The wretches dare not fire!’ Firing succeeds.  Attucks is slain.  Two other discharges follow.  Three were killed, five severely wounded, and several others slightly.”  Attucks was killed by Montgomery, one of Captain Preston’s soldiers.  He had been foremost in resisting, and was first slain; as proof of front and close engagement, received two balls, one in each breast.”  “John Adams, counsel for the soldier, admitted that Attucks appeared to have undertaken to be the hero of the night, and to lead the army with banners.  John Hancock, in 1774, invokes the injured shades of Maverick, Gray, Caldwell, Attucks and Carr.” Nell’s Wars, 1776 and 1812, pp. 5, 6.—­RHODE ISLAND also contributes largely to the capital stock of citizenship.  “In Rhode Island, the blacks formed an entire regiment, and they discharged their duty with zeal and fidelity.  The gallant defence of Red Bank, in which the black regiment bore a part, is among the proofs of their valor.”  In this contest it will be recollected, that four hundred men met and repulsed, after a terrible sanguinary struggle, fifteen hundred Hessian troops, headed by count Donop.” Ibid., p. 10.  CONNECTICUT next claims to be heard and given credit on the nation’s books.  In speaking of the patriots who bore the standard of their country’s glory, Judge Goddard, who held the office of commissioner of pensions for nineteen colored soldiers, says, “I cannot refrain from mentioning one aged black man, Primus Babcock, who proudly presented to me an honorable discharge from service during the war, dated at the close of it, wholly in the hand-writing of GEORGE WASHINGTON.  Nor can I forget the expression of his feelings, when informed that, after his discharge had been sent to the department, that it could not be returned.  At his request it was written for, as he seemed to spurn the pension and reclaim the discharge.”  It is related of Babcock, that when the British in a successful charge took a number of the Americans prisoners, they were ordered to deliver up their arms by the British officer of the detachment, which demand was readily conceded to by all the prisoners except Babcock, who looking at the officer sternly—­at the margin of a mud pond foot of Bunker Hill—­turned his musket bayonet downwards, thrusting it into the mire up to the armpit, drawing out his muddy arm, turned to the British officer, and said, “Now dirty your silk glove, and take it—­you red coat!” The officer raised his sword as if to cut him down for the impertinence, then replied, “You are too brave a soldier to be killed, you black devil!” A few years since, a musket evidently a relic of the Revolution, was found near the same spot in the singular position of that thrust down by Babcock, no doubt being the same, which was deposited among the relics in the archives at Washington.  Babcock died but a few years ago, aged we believe 101 years.