To cut down this guardian of ours,"
and Franklin, abandoning all hope of reconciliation, sailed for America.
For more than ten years the colonies had complained of wrongs, petitioned for redress, and suffered insults. Forbearance was no longer a virtue, and, turning their backs upon Great Britain, they prepared for war. In this movement Massachusetts took the lead. The Provincial Congress ordered the purchase of ammunition and stores for an army of fifteen thousand men. They called upon the Congregational clergy to preach liberty from their pulpits, and hearty responses were given. "The towns, which had done so fearlessly and so thoroughly the preparatory work of forming and concentrating political sentiment, came forward now to complete their patriotic actions by voting money freely to arm, equip, and discipline 'Alarm List Companies;' citizens of every calling appeared in their ranks, to be a private in them was proclaimed by the journals an honor; to be chosen to office in them, a mark of the highest distinction. In Danvers, the deacon of the parish was elected captain of the minute men, and the minister his lieutenant. The minute men were trained often, the towns paying the expense; and the company, after its field exercises, would sometimes repair to the meeting-house to hear a patriotic sermon, or partake of an entertainment at the town-house, where zealous sons of liberty would exhort them to prepare to fight bravely for God and their country. Such was the discipline—so free from a mercenary spirit, so full of inspiring influences—of the early American soldiery. And thus an army, in fact, was in existence, ready at a moment's call, for defensive purposes, to wheel its isolated platoons into solid phalanxes, while it presented to an enemy only opportunity for an inglorious foray upon its stores." *
Had the counsels of inflamed zeal and passion—inflamed by the most cruel and insulting oppression—prevailed, blood would have been shed before the close of 1774. Troops continued to arrive at Boston, ** and the insolence of the soldiery increased with their numbers
* Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 42.
** In November, 1774, there were eleven regiments of British troops, besides the artillery, in Boston. In December, 500 marines landed from the Asia man-of-war, and, at the close of the month, all the troops ordered from the Jerseys, New York, and Quebec had arrived. A guard of 150 men was stationed at the lines upon the Neck. The army was brigaded. The first brigadier general was Earl Percy, Moncrief his brigade major; the second general was Pigott, his major, Small; third general, Jones, his major, Hutchinson, son of the late governor. The soldiers were in high spirits, and the officers looked with contempt upon the martial preparations of the people. "As to what you hear of their taking arms to resist the force of England," wrote an officer, in November, 1774, "it is mere bullying, and will go no further than words, whenever it comes to blows, he that can run the fastest will think himself best off". Believe me, any two regiments here ought to be decimated, if they did not beat, in the field, the whole force of the Massachusetts province."
Carrying Ammunition out of the City.—Detection.—Hostile Movements of Gage.—Counteraction of the Whigs
and strength; but the Americans were determined that when collision, which was inevitable, should take place, the first blow should be struck by the British troops, and thus make government the aggressor. The occasion was not long delayed. General Gage discovered that the patriots were secretly conveying arms and ammunition out of Boston. In carts, beneath loads of manure, cannon balls and muskets were carried out; and powder, concealed in the panniers of the market-women, and cartridges in candle-boxes, passed unsuspected by the guard upon the Neck. * On discovering these movements, and learning that some brass cannon and field-pieces were at Salem, Gage sent a detachment of troops to seize them. They were repelled by the people under Colonel Timothy Pickering, without bloodshed, as we have noticed on page 374. This movement aroused the utmost vigilance throughout March, 1775 the country. At a special session of the Connecticut Assembly, Colonel Wooster was commissioned a major general, and Joseph Spencer and Israel Putnam were appointed brigadiers. Elbridge Gerry, a merchant of Marblehead, and afterward a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was at the head of the Massachusetts Committee of Supply, and under his directions munitions of war were rapidly accumulated, the chief deposit of which was at Concord, about twenty miles from Boston. Meanwhile, Sewall, the attorney general of the province, wrote a series of powerful articles, calling upon the people to cease resistance; and, greatly to the alarm of the patriots lest there should be defection in their strong-hold, Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, soon afterward offered to mediate between General Gage and the people of Boston, for the sake of preventing hostilities. Timothy Ruggles, president of the "Stamp Act Congress," got up counter associations against those of the patriots, and a small number at Marshfield and other places signed the agreement, calling themselves the "Associated Loyalists." But John Adams promptly replied to Judge Sewall; Governor Trumbull's apparent conservatism was soon understood to be but a testimony against government, to prove that offers of reconciliation had been made and rejected; the patriots made the "Associated Loyalists" recant, and the republicans assumed a bolder tone than ever of defiance and contempt.
When spring opened, Gage's force amounted to about three thousand five hundred effective men. He determined, with this force, to nip the rebellion in the bud, and his first active movement was an attempt to seize or destroy the stores of the patriots at Concord, which were under the charge of Colonel James Barrett. Officers in disguise were sent to make sketches of the roads, and to ascertain the state of the towns. Bodies of troops were occasionally marched into the country, and a general system of reconnoissance around Boston was established. The ever-vigilant patriots were awake to all these movements. A night-watch was established at Concord, and every where the minute men were ready with burnished muskets, fixed bayonets, and filled cartouches.
Early in April, many who had taken a prominent part in the revolutionary proceedings at Boston, apprehending arrest, and probable transportation to England for trial, left the town. ** Among those who remained was Dr. Joseph Warren, and he kept the patriots continually advised of the movements of Gage and his troops. Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were members of the Provincial Congress, were particularly obnoxious to General Gage, and, as it appeared afterward, he had resolved to arrest them on their return to the