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CHAPTER XXVII.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION.

The Spirit of the People.-Gage alarmed.-The People seize Guns and Ammunition. The Massachusetts Provincial Congress; its Measures.-Parliament passes the Restraining Bill.-Conflicts at Lexington and Concord.-Volunteers fly to Arms, and beleaguer Boston.-Stark.— Putnam.-Benedict Arnold.-Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys.-Capture of Ticonderoga.-Lord Dunmore in Virginia.-Patrick Henry and the Independent Companies.-The News from Lexington rouses a Spirit of Resistance. The second Continental Congress; it takes decisive Measures; adopts the Army before Boston, and appoints Washington Commander-in-chief.

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XXVII

WHILE Congress was yet in session, affairs began to wear a serious aspect in and around Boston. The people were practising military exercises. Every village and district 1771. had its company of minute-men-men pledged to each other to be ready for action at a minute's warning. England soon furnished them an occasion. The ministry prohibited the exportation of military stores to America, and sent secret orders to the royal governors, to seize all the arms and gunpowder in the magazines. Gage complied with these orders. When it became known that he had secretly sent a company of soldiers by night, who had seized the powder in the arsenal at Charlestown, and conveyed it to Castle William, the minute-men assembled at once. Their eagerness to go to the governor and compel him to restore it to the arsenal could scarcely be restrained.

Ere long various rumors were rife in the country-that Boston was to be attacked; that the fleet was bombarding

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CHAP, it; that the soldiers were shooting down the citizens in its streets. Thousands of the sturdy yeomanry of Massa1774. chusetts and Connecticut credited these rumors; they left their farms and their shops, and hastened to the rescue. Before they had advanced far they learned that the reports were untrue. General Gage was alarmed by this significant movement; he did not apprehend its full import, neither did he rightly discern the signs of the times, nor read the spirit of the people; he was a soldier, and understood the power that lies in soldiers and fortifications, but knew nothing of the power of free principles. He determined to fortify the neck which connects Boston with the mainland, and place there a regiment, to cut off all communication between the people in the country and those in the town.

1774.

13.

Intelligence of these proceedings spread rapidly through Dec. the land. The people took possession of the arsenal at Charlestown, from which the powder had been removed. At Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, a company, led by John Sullivan, afterward a major-general, captured the fort, and carried off one hundred barrels of powder and some cannon. At Newport, in the absence of the men-ofwar, forty-four pieces of artillery were seized and conveyed to Providence. In Connecticut, the Assembly enjoined upon the towns to lay in a double supply of ammunition, to mount their cannon, and to train the militia frequently. This spirit was not confined to New England, but prevailed in the middle and southern colonies, where the people took energetic measures to put themselves in a posture of defence.

Oct.

5.

In the midst of this commotion, Gage, thinking to conciliate, summoned the Massachusetts Assembly to meet at Salem; but, alarmed at the spirit manifested at the town meetings in the province, he countermanded the order. The Assembly, however, met; and as no one appeared to administer the oaths, and open the session, the

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MASSACHUSETTS ADOPTS DECIDED MEASURES.

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members adjourned to Concord, and there organized as a CHAP Provincial Congress. They elected John Hancock President, and Benjamin Lincoln Secretary. Lincoln was a 1774. farmer, and afterward became an efficient major-general in the revolutionary army. This was the first provincial Assembly organized independently of royal authority.

They sent an address to Gage, in which they complained of the recent acts of Parliament; of his own highhanded measures; of his fortifying Boston Neck, and requested him to desist; at the same time they protested their loyalty to the king, and their desire for peace and order. Gage replied that he was acting in self-defence, and admonished them to desist from their own unlawful proceedings.

The Assembly disregarded the admonition, went quietly to work, appointed two committees, one of safety, and the other of supplies, the former was empowered to call out the minute-men, when it was necessary, and the latter to supply them with provisions of all kinds. They then appointed two general officers-Artemas Ward, one of the judges of the court, and Seth Pomeroy, a veteran of threescore and ten, who had seen service in the French war. They resolved to enlist twelve thousand minutemen, and invited the other New England colonies to increase the number to twenty thousand. The note of alarm was everywhere heard; preparations for defence were everywhere apparent. In Virginia the militia companies burnished their arms and practised their exercises. Washington, their highest military authority, was invited, and often visited different parts of the country, to inspect these volunteers on their review days.

Jan.

20.

The attention of all was now turned to the new Par- 1775. liament about to assemble. To some extent, a change had come over the minds of many of the English people; the religious sympathies of the Dissenters were specially enlisted in favor of the colonists. The papers issued by

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CHAP. the Continental Congress had been published and circulated extensively in England, by the exertions of Franklin 1775. and others. Their plain, unvarnished statements of facts, and their claim for the colonists to enjoy British as well as natural rights, had elicited sympathy.

Mar.

Chatham, though much enfeebled, hurried up to London to plead once more for American rights. He brought in a bill, which he hoped would remove the difficulties; but the House spurned every scheme of reconciliation short of absolute submission on the part of the colonists. Lord North, urged on by his colleagues in the ministry, whom he had not strength of will to resist, went further than ever. The Boston Port Bill had not accomplished its design; and now he introduced what was termed the New England Restraining Bill, which deprived the people of those colonies of the privilege of fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. He declared Massachusetts was in rebellion, and the other colonies, by their associations, were aiding and abetting her. Parliament pledged itself to aid the king in maintaining his authority.

The next month came intelligence to England, that the Colonial Assemblies had not only approved the resolutions of the Continental Congress, but had determined to support them. To punish them for this audacity, Parliament passed a second Restraining Act, to apply to all the colonies except New York, Delaware, and North Carolina. The object of this mark of favor signally failed; these colonies could not be bribed to desert their sisters.

General Gage had learned, by means of spies, that at Concord, eighteen miles from Boston, the patriots had collected ammunition and military stores. These he determined to destroy. His preparations were made with the greatest secrecy; but the Sons of Liberty were vigilant. Dr. Warren, one of the committee of safety, noticed the unusual stir; the collection of boats at certain points;

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April

18.

that the light infantry and grenadiers were taken off duty. CHAP. He sent information of what he had seen and suspected to John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were at Lex- 1775. ington. It was rightly surmised that Concord was the object of the intended expedition. It was to leave Boston on the night of the eighteenth of April; on that day Gage issued orders forbidding any one to leave the town after dark. Again the vigilance of Warren had anticipated him. Before his order could go into effect, Paul Revere and William Dawes, two swift and trusty messengers, were on the way to the country, by different routes. A lantern held out from the steeple of the North Church— the concerted signal to the patriots in Charlestownwarned them that something unusual was going on. Messengers from that place hurried to rouse the country.

About ten o'clock, under cover of the darkness, eight or nine hundred men, light infantry and grenadiers, embarked and crossed to Cambridge, and thence, with as little noise as possible, took up their line of march. To their surprise they heard in advance of them the tolling of bells, and the firing of alarm guns; evidently they were discovered. Lieutenant-colonel Smith sent back to Gage for reinforcements, and also ordered Major Pitcairn to press forward, and seize the two bridges at Concord. Pitcairn advanced rapidly and arrested every person he met or overtook, but a countryman, who evaded him, spurred on to Lexington, and gave the alarm. At dawn. of day Pitcairn's division reached that place. Seventy or eighty minute-men, with some other persons, were on the green. They were uncertain as to the object of the British. It was thought they wished to arrest Hancock and Adams, both of whom had left the place. Pitcairn ordered his men to halt and load their muskets; then riding up he cried out,-" Disperse, you rebels." "Down with your arms, you villains, and disperse," was echoed by his officers. Confusion ensued; random shots were

April

19.

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