Such a condition of affairs could not last long. The feeling was intense against the king and his all-powerful friends. Arguments were useless. The royal authority was boldly and stubbornly defied. The sword and the bayonet must now decide whether king or people were to rule in America.
"The contest may be severe, but the end will be glorious," said the martyr-patriot Warren, who soon after fell at Bunker Hill.
CHAPTER XI.
LEXINGTON AND CONCORD.
149. The Patriots prepare for War.—When General Gage began to increase slowly the number of troops in Boston, and especially when he began to fortify Boston Neck, it was plain enough that this meant war. The people on their part began to prepare anxiously for the coming struggle. Every one felt that desperate times were near at hand. The patriots quickly collected arms and ammunition and, having packed them in loads of hay and similar disguises to deceive the British spies, sent them for safe keeping to Concord, about sixteen miles northwest of Boston.
150. Gage forms Plans to capture Military Stores.—General Gage soon learned this, and made secret preparations to capture these supplies. Inasmuch as in previous expeditions of this kind he had met with failure, the advantage of a surprise was this time to be increased by the presence of a large force. The Americans, however, were quite as keen of sight and hearing as their enemies, and had even more reason to keep a sharp lookout.
About midnight on the 18th of April, 1775, Gage quietly sent out from Boston nearly eight hundred soldiers. He had two objects in view; to seize the military stores at Concord, and to arrest Samuel Adams and "his ready and willing tool," that "terrible desperado," John Hancock.
Gage thought the start of his midnight soldiers was quite unknown to the Americans. He never suspected that Warren and other vigilant patriots had been watching every movement, and were determined to thwart his plans. At about ten or eleven o'clock, two hours before the British soldiers embarked, a signal lantern hung out of the belfry of the Old North Church in Boston, and in a few minutes another by its side—"One, if by land, and two, if by sea"—flashed the tidings of the coming expedition.
151. The Country about Boston aroused.—An hour or two before the British troops began to cross in boats to Charlestown, two horsemen, who had been watching for the lantern lights in the steeple, dashed out on swift steeds by different roads towards Lexington and Concord: William Dawes went like an arrow over Boston Neck, and then through Roxbury and Watertown, while Paul Revere across the water sped as if on wings from Charlestown. Their swift horses' hoofs clattered sharply in the quiet of this beautiful night, striking fire from the stones in the darkness. But at almost every house they paused a moment to arouse the sleepers. "Wake up!" they shouted. Windows flew open.