[364] As early as Jan. 28, instructions to Gage to apprehend the leaders of Congress had been signed. P. O. Hutchinson, p. 416.
[365] Gage had married her in 1758. She died in 1824, aged 90.
[366] Mem. Hist. Boston, iii. 70.
[367] Gen. Wm. H. Sumner (New Eng. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., viii. 188) records some recollections of the opening of the fight as narrated to him by Dorothy Quincy, later Mrs. John Hancock, who saw it begin.
[368] Hudson's Lexington, 200.
[369] The night had been chilly; but the day grew rapidly warm. The season was a month early. Cf. Geo. Dexter's note in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xix. 377.
[370] John Howe was sent towards Lexington to meet and hurry Percy along. Journal of John Howe.
[371] Cf. Everett's Orations, i. p. 102.
[372] These were under the command of Col. Timothy Pickering, who was then and has been since charged with dilatoriness in coming up. Bancroft (United States) and W. V. Wells (Sam. Adams) so assert. Bancroft was controverted by Samuel Swett in a pamphlet in 1859, and Octavius Pickering, in his Life of T. Pickering (ch. 5 and App.), makes a full defence of his father.
[373] Andrews' letters (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., July, 1865) show the rumors which reached Gage in Boston during the day. There were some among the provincials who thought the news, when received in England, would stir up civil war (Proceedings, vol. v. p. 3); but Washington records, respecting its influence there, that it was "far from making the impression generally expected here." Sparks' Washington, iii. 43.