John Hancock.
As soon as General Gage ordered that the Massachusetts Assembly should hold no more meetings, the colonists made up their minds they would not be put down in this manner. They said: “The King has broken up the assembly. Very well. We will form a new governing body and give it a new name, the Provincial Congress.”
And what do you suppose the chief business of this Congress was? To make ready for war! An army was called for, and provision made that a certain number of the men enlisted should be prepared to leave their homes at a minute’s notice. These men were called “minute-men.”
Even while the patriots, for so the rebellious subjects of King George called themselves, were making these preparations, General Gage, who was in command of the British troops in Boston, had received orders from England to seize as traitors Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were the most active leaders.
John Hancock’s Home, Boston.
Of Samuel Adams you already know. John Hancock was president of the newly made Provincial Congress.
General Gage knew that Adams and Hancock were staying for a while with a friend in Lexington. He had learned also through spies that minutemen had collected some cannon and military stores in Concord, twenty miles from Boston, and only eight miles beyond Lexington.
The British general planned, therefore, to send a body of troops to arrest the two leaders at Lexington, and then to push on and capture or destroy the stores at Concord.
