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Ministers were alarmed, and concerted measures to counteract the effects produced by these itinerant republicans. Adam Smith, the author of "The Wealth of Nations," Wedderburne, the solicitor general, and other friends of the ministry, wielded their pens vigorously; and, at their solicitation, Dr. Roebuck, of Birmingham, a very popular man among the manufacturing population, followed in the wake of Franklin and his friends, and endeavored to apply a ministerial antidote to their republican poison. In this he was measurably successful, and the districts were quieted.
Parliament assembled on the 30th of November. The king informed them that America was on the verge of open rebellion. When the usual address to the king was proposed in the House of Commons, the opposition offered an amendment, asking his majesty to lay before Parliament all letters, orders, and instructions relating to American affairs, as well as all the intelligence received from the colonies. Lord North opposed the amendment, because it made the first advances toward a reconciliation, and therefore was inconsistent with the dignity of the government! The address was replete with assurances of support for the king and ministers in all measures deemed necessary to maintain government in the colonics, or, in other words, in drawing the sword, if necessary, to bring the Americans to the feet of royal authority. A debate, characterized by considerable bitterness, ensued, but the amendment was rejected, and the loyal address was adopted by a vote of two hundred and sixty-four against seventy-three. Similar action was had in the House of Lords, and an address was carried by a vote of sixty-three to thirteen. Nine peers signed a sensible protest, which concluded with these words: "Whatever may be the mischievous designs or inconsiderate temerity which leads others to this desperate course, we wish to be known as persons who have ever disapproved of measures so pernicious in their past effects and future tendencies; and who are not in haste, without inquiry and information, to commit ourselves in declarations which may precipitate our country into all the calamities of a civil war."
Franklin and his associates caused strong remonstrances and petitions to be sent in from the northern manufacturing districts; and respectful petitions were also sent in from London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, and other large towns, praying for a just and conciliatory course toward America. These petitions were referred to an inactive committee—"a committee of oblivion," Burke called it—while a few counter petitions, procured by Roebuck, were acted upon immediately. Petitions from Americans, and even one from Ja-
* Adam Smith was born at Kirkaldy, in Scotland, in 1723. At the age of three years he was carried off by some gipsies, but soon afterward was recovered. He was educated at Oxford, and was designed for the Church. He became an infidel in religious views, and of course turned his attention to other than clerical duties. He was the friend of Hume, Gibbon, and several of the most distinguished infidel writers of France. He wrote much, but the work on which his reputation rests is his "Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations," published in 1771. It was for a long time the ablest work on political economy in the English language. He died in 1790, as he had lived, a contemner of Christianity.
Appearance of Pitt in Parliament.—His Speech on American Affairs.—His conciliatory Proposition.
maica, in favor of the colonies, were treated with disdain, and the Americans had every reason to believe that government was anxious to light up the flame of war, with the expectation of at once crushing the spirit of independence in the West by a single tread of its iron heel of power.
Parliament, which adjourned until after the Christmas holidays, reassembled on the177520th of January. Greatly to the astonishment of every one, Lord Chatham (Pitt) was in his place in the Upper House on the following day. It was understood that he had washed his hands of American affairs, and that he would probably not be seen in Parliament during the session. It was a mistake, and the great statesman opened the business of the session by proposing an address to the king, asking him to "immediately dispatch orders to General Gage to remove his forces from Boston as soon as the rigors of the season would permit."
"I wish, my lords," he said, "not to lose a day in this urgent, pressing crisis. An hour now lost may produce years of calamity. For my part, I will not desert, for a single moment, the conduct of this weighty business. Unless nailed to my bed by extremity of sickness, I will give it my unremitted attention. I will knock at the door of this sleeping and confounded ministry, and will rouse them to a sense of their impending danger. When I state the importance of the colonies to this country, and the magnitude of danger from the present plan of misadministration practiced against them, I desire not to be understood to argue for a reciprocity of indulgence between England and America. I contend not for indulgence, but justice to America; and I shall ever contend that the Americans owe obedience to us in a limited degree." After stating the points on which the supremacy of the mother country was justly predicated, the great orator continued: "Resistance to your acts was necessary as it was just; and your vain declarations of the omnipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally incompetent to convince or to enslave your fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether ambitioned by an individual part of the Legislature or the bodies who compose it, is equally intolerable to British subjects." He then drew a picture of the condition of the troops in Boston, suffering from the inclemencies of winter, insulted by the inhabitants, wasting away with sickness and pining for action; and finally, after alluding to the wisdom of the late Congress and the approval of their acts by the people, he exclaimed, "I trust it is obvious to your lordships that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain—must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must.... To conclude, my lords, if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say that theycanalienate the affections of his subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not say that the king is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone."
Chatham's motion was negatived by a vote of sixty-eight to eighteen. Not at all discouraged, he immediately presented a bill, in which it was proposed to renounce the power of taxation, demand of the Americans an acknowledgment of the supreme authority of Great Britain, and invite them to contribute, voluntarily, a specified sum annually, to be employed in meeting the charge on the national debt. This accomplished, it proposed an immediate repeal of all the objectionable acts of Parliament passed during the current reign, and then in force. * This, of course, ministers regarded as a concession to the colonies quite as injurious to national honor as any thing yet proposed, and more humiliating, even, than Dr. Tucker's propositions, then attracting much attention, that Parliament should, by solemn act, separate the colonies from the parent government, and disallow any application for restoration to the rights and privileges of British subjects, until, by humble petition, they should
* These were ten in number: the Sugar Act, the two Quartering Acts, the Tea Act, the Act suspending the New York Legislature (hereafter to be noticed), the two Acts for the Trial in Great Britain of Offenses committed in America, the Boston Port Bill, the Act for Regulating the General Government of Massachusetts, and the Quebec Act
Virtual Declaration of War against the Colonists.—Warm Debates in Parliament—Chatham and Franklin.—Gibbon and Fox.
ask for pardon and reinstatement. * Chatham's proposition received very little favor in the House of Lords, though loudly applauded by the more intelligent people without, ** and it was negatived, on the motion of the Earl of Sandwich to "reject the bill now and forever," by a vote of sixty-one against thirty-two.
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The ministry, governed by the ethics of the lion (without his magnanimity), "might makes right," followed up their foolish rejection of the olive branch, by proposing measures tantamount to an actual declaration of war upon the American colonists, as rebels. On the 2d of February, North proposed the first of a series of coercive measures. He moved, in the Commons, for an address to the king, affirming that the province of Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion; that Great Britain would not relinquish an iota of her sovereign rule in the colonies, and urging his majesty to take effectual measures for enforcing obedience to the laws. The address concluded with the usual resolution to support him with their "lives and fortunes."
On introducing the motion, North intimated that a part of his plan was to materially increase the military forces in America, and to restrain the entire commerce of New England with Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies. Fox moved an amendment, censuring the ministry and praying for their removal. Dunning and the great Thurlow engaged in the debate on the side of the opposition, which became very warm. Fox's amendment was negatived by a vote of three hundred and four against one hundred and five, and North's motion prevailed by a majority of two hundred and ninety-six to one hundred and six in the Commons, and in the Upper House by eighty-seven to twenty-seven; nine peers protesting. ***
* Josiah Tucker, D.D., dean of Gloucester, was an able English divine, and son of Abraham Tucker, author of The Light of Nature Pursued, a work in nine octavo volumes. Dr. Tucker was a famous pamphleteer at the time of our Revolution. He was the only friend of the British ministry who wrote in favor of the independence of the colonics.
** The corporation of the city of London passed a vote of thanks to him, and Franklin (to whom Chatham submitted the bill before offering it in the Senate) sent forth an address to the people of England, and to his own countrymen there, in which he portrayed the wickedness of rejecting this plan of reconciliation, the only feasible one that had been offered for years. Franklin and other agents asked to be examined at the bar of the House of Commons touching the demands of the general Congress; but even this courtesy, for it could be called nothing more, was roughly denied.
*** Gibbon the historian, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, who had then a seat in Parliament, writing to his friend Sheffield, said, "We voted an address of 'lives and fortunes,' declaring Massachusetts Bay in a state of rebellion; more troops, but, I fear, not enough, to go to America, to make an army of ten thousand men at Boston; three generals, Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne! In a few days we stop the ports of New England. I can not write volumes, but I am more and more convinced that, with firmness, all may go well; yet I something doubt.'"
*** Gibbon was very much disposed to take sides with the Americans, and it is said that he publicly declared at Brooke's Coffee-house, that "there was no salvation for England, unless six of the heads of the cabinet council were cut off and laid upon the tables of the houses of Parliament as examples." Gibbon had his price, and, within a fortnight after the above expression was uttered, took office under that same cabinet council, with a liberal salary and promise of a pension. His mouth was thus stopped by the sugar-plums of patronage. So says Bailey, author of "Records of Patriotism and Love of Country," page 169. Bailey also gives the following poem, which he asserts was written by Fox:
"King George, in a fright, lestGibbon should writeThe story of Britain's disgrace,Thought no means more sure his pen to secureThan to give the historian a place.But his caution is vain, 'tis the curse of his reignThat his projects should never succeed.Though he write not a line, yet a cause of declineIn the author's example we read.His book well describes, how corruption and bribesOverthrew the great empire of Rome;And his writings declare a degen'racy there,Which his conduct exhibits at home."
The first volume of Gibbon's Rome was published in 1776, and the sixth and last on his fifty-first birthday, in 1788. His bookseller, Mr. Cadell, on that day gave him forty thousand dollars. Gibbon died in January, 1794.
John Wilkes in Parliament His Character and Career.—Bill for destroying the New England Fisheries.—A conciliatory Bill
In the debate on this bill the celebrated John Wilkes, then a member of Parliament, fora radical paper, who had given the government a world of trouble during a portion of the first eight years of the reign of George III., took a conspicuous part in favor of the Americans.
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He declared that a proper resistance to wrong wasrevolution, and notrebellion,and intimated that if the Americans were successful, they might, in after times, celebrate the revolution of 1775 as the English did that of 1688. Earnest recommendations to pursue milder measures were offered by the opposition, but without effect. It was voted that two thousand additional sea men and one thousand four hundred soldiers should be sent to America.
A few days afterward Lord North broughtFebruary 10, 1775forth another bill, providing for the destruction of the entire trade of the New England colonies, and of their fisheries. ** It had a clause, excepting those individuals from the curse who should produce a certificate from their respective governors testifying to their general good conduct, and who should acknowledge the supremacy of the British Parliament. In addition to the opposition which the bill received in the Commons, the merchants of London presented an earnest remonstrance against it, *** and so did the Quakers in behalf of their brethren in Nantucket, but without effect. It passed by a majority of one hundred and eighty to fifty-eight. Fresh intelligence from America, represent-March 8,adhesion to the Continental Congress, arrived at this juncture, and another bill was speedily passed, in the form of an amendment, including all the colonies in the Restraining Act, except New York and North Carolina, where loyalty seemed to predominate.
While the Restraining Act was under consideration, North astonished all parties by offering what he pretended to be a conciliatory bill. It proposed that when the proper authorities, in any colony, should offer, besides maintaining its own civil government, to raise
* This fearless political writer was born in 1727. He became a member of Parliament in 1757. In the forty-fifth number of the "North Briton," published in 1763, he made a severe attack on government, for which he was sent to the Tower. On account of a licentious essay on woman he was afterward expelled from the House of Commons. Acquitted of the charge for which he was committed to the Tower, he prosecuted Mr. Wood, the Under Secretary, received five thousand dollars damages, and then went to Paris. He returned to England in 1768, sent a letter of submission to the king, and was soon afterward elected to a seat in Parliament for Middlesex. The seat was successfully contested by another. He was then elected alderman of London, and the same year obtained a verdict of twenty thousand dollars against the Secretary of State for seizing his papers. He was sheriff in 1771, and in 1774 was elected lord mayor, and took his seat in Parliament for Middlesex. He was made Chamberlain of London in 1779, and soon afterward retired from the field of party polities. He died at his scat in the Isle of Wight in 1797, aged seventy years. The likeness here given is copied from a medal struck in his honor. The obverse side has a pyramid upon a pedestal, beside which stands a figure of Time inscribing upon the pyramid the number 45. On the pedestal are the words Magna Charta, and beneath, In memory of the year MDCCLXVIII. Wilkes had a most forbidding countenance, but his manners were pleasing. In his private character he was licentious, yet his talents and energy employed upon the popular side made him the idol of the people.
** According to testimony produced in Parliament, about 400 ships, 2000 fishing shallops, and 20,000 men were thus employed in the British Newfoundland fisheries.
*** The people of New England were, at that time, indebted to the merchants of London nearly five million dollars. With the destruction of the trade of the colonists, all hope of collecting even a small share of this sum would be lost.
Singular Position of Lord North.—His Triumph.—Action of the London Merchants.—The moral Spectacle in the Colony
a certain revenue and place it at the disposition of Parliament, it would be proper to forbear imposing any tax, except for the regulation of commerce. The ministerial party opposed it because it was conciliatory, and the opposition were dissatisfied with it because it proposed to abate but a single grievance, and was not specific. To his great astonishment, the minister found himself in the midst of a cross-fire from both parties; yet he stood his ground well, and adroitly carried the proposition through. Although he acknowledged that it was really a cheat with a fair exterior of honesty, and intended to sow division in the councils of the colonies, heedless members of Parliament gave it support, and the bill was passed by a vote of two hundred and seventy-four to eighty-eight
On the heel of this bill Burke proposed a conciliatory plan, and five days afterward Mr. Hartley offered a mild scheme, similar to Chatham's; but they wereMarch 22negatived by large majorities. The "lord mayor, aldermen, and livery of London," urged by the merchants, who were smarting under the effects of the lash applied to the Americans, addressed the king in condemnation of the late measures toward the colonies.April 10, 1775They were sternly rebuked by his majesty, who expressed his astonishment that any of his subjects presumed to be abettors of the rebels. It was obvious that
"King, Commons, and Lords were uniting amain
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 throughoutMarch, 1775the 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
* On the 18th of March the discovery was made, and the guard at the Neck seized 13,425 musket cartridges and a quantity of balls. In doing this, a teamster was severely handled. This circumstance, the oration of Dr. Joseph Warren, in the "Old South," on the anniversary of the Massacre (March 5th), the tarring and feathering of a citizen of Billerica, charged with tempting a soldier to desert, and an assault upon the house of John Hancock, greatly excited the people.
** "A daughter of liberty, unequally yoked in point of politics, sent word by a trusty hand to Mr. Samuel Adams, residing, in company with Mr. Hancock, at Lexington, that the troops were coming out in a few days. Upon this, their friends in Boston were advised to move out their plate, &e., and the Committee of Safety voted that all the ammunition be deposited in nine different towns, and that other articles be lodged, some in one place and some in another; so, as to the 15 medicine-chests, 2000 iron pots, 2000 bowls, 15,000 canteens, and 1000 tents; and that the six companies of matrosses be stationed in different towns."—Gordon, i., 309.
British Expedition to Concord.—Its Discovery by the Americans.—Lexington aroused.—Midnight March of the Enemy.
1775city. Fortunately, they were persuaded to remain at Lexington, at the house of the Reverend Jonas Clark.
On Tuesday night, the 18th of April, Gage sent eight hundred British troops, light infantry and grenadiers, under Lieutenant-colonel Smith, aided by Major Pitcairn, to destroy the stores at Concord. They embarked at the Common, and, landing at Phipps's Farm, marched with great secrecy, arresting every person they met on the way, to prevent intelligence of their expedition being given.
They left Boston at about midnight, Gage supposing the movement to be a profound secret; but the patriots had become aware of the expedition early in the evening. As Lord Percy was crossing the Common, about nine o'clock, he joined a group of persons, one of whom said, "The British troops will miss their aim."
"What aim?" inquired Percy, who was Gage's confidant in the matter. "The cannon at Concord," replied the man.
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Percy hastened to inform Gage, and guards were immediately set at every avenue leading from the town, to prevent persons from leaving it. Warren and his friends had anticipated this, and left. Paul Revere and William Dawes had just rowed across the river to Charlestown, with a message from Warren to Hancock and Adams at Lexington. They were almost captured at Charlestown Neck by the guard, but escaped, and reached Lexington, thirteen miles northward of Boston, a little after midnight. A guard of eight minute men was placed around Mr. Clark's house to protect Adams and Hancock. The messengers made themselves known to these, but were refused admission to the house, as orders had been not to allow the inmates to be disturbed by noise. Noise!" said Revere; "you'll have noise enough before long; the regulars are coming!" Hancock and Adams were aroused, and their safety being regarded as of the utmost importance, they were persuaded to retire to Woburn. Revere and Dawes pushed on toward Concord to give the alarm there. One hundred and thirty of the Lexington militia were collected at the meeting-house upon the green by two o'clock in the morning, when the roll was called, and, the air being chilly, they were dismissed with orders to remain within drum-beat.
The midnight march of the British regulars was performed in silence, and, as they supposed, in secret. But vigilant eyes were upon them. Messrs. Gerry, Orne, and Lee, members of the Provincial Congress, were at Menotomy (West Cambridge), and saw them passing; and, as they approached Lexington, the sound of bells and guns warned them that their expedition was known. **
Colonel Smith detached six companies under Major Pitcairn, with orders to press on to
* This building was standing when I visited Lexington in 1848. It was built by Thomas Hancock, Esq., of Boston, as a parsonage for his father, the Reverend John Hancock, of Lexington, about 130 years ago. Mr. Hancock was a minister at Lexington fifty-two years, and was succeeded by the Reverend Jonas Clark, the occupant of the house at the time of the skirmish at Lexington. Mr. Clark lived in the house fifty-two years. The room in which the two patriots, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, were sleeping on the night before the skirmish at Lexington, is retained in its original condition. The wainscoting is of Carolina pine, and the sides of the room are covered with a heavy paper, with dark figures, pasted upon the boards in rectangular pieces about fourteen inches square. In an adjoining room is one of those ancient fire-places, ornamented with pictorial tiles, so rarely found in New England.
*** These three patriots had a narrow escape. They saw the head of the column pass by. Just before the rear-guard had come up, a detachment was sent to search the house where they were staying. They escaped to the fields by a back door, where they kept in concealment until the house was searched and the troops moved on.
The British Troops and Minute Men at Lexington.—Conduct of Major Pitcairn.—Battle on Lexington Common
Concord and secure the two bridges; at the same time he sent a messenger to Boston for re-enforcements. Pitcairn advanced rapidly toward Lexington by the light of a waning moon, capturing several persons on the way. One, named Bowman, escaped, and, hasten ing on horseback to Lexington, notified Captain Parker, commander of the minute men, of the approach of the enemy. It was now between four and five o'clock in the morning. The bells were rung, guns were fired, and the drums were beaten. About one hundred of the militia were speedily collected upon the green, armed with loaded muskets, but in much confusion and alarm, for the number of the approaching regulars was unknown.
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In the gray of the early morning the scarlet uniforms of the troops appeared, and an overwhelming force halted, within a few rods of the meeting-house, and loaded their pieces. The militia, undismayed, stood firm. They had been ordered not to draw a trigger until fired upon by the enemy, and for a moment silence and hesitation prevailed, for neither party seemed willing to become the aggressor. The parley with judgment was but for a moment. Pitcairn and other officers galloped forward, waving their swords over their heads, and followed by their troops in double-quick time. They shouted, "Disperse, you villains! lay down your arms! Why don't you disperse, you rebels? disperse!" In rushing forward the troops became confused. As the patriots did not instantly obey the command to lay down their arms, Pitcairn wheeled his horse, and, waving his sword, gave orders to press forward and surround the militia. At the same moment some random shots were fired by the British, but without effect, which were promptly returned by the Americans. Pitcairn then drew his pistol and discharged it, at the same moment giving the wordfire!A general discharge of musketry ensued; four patriots were killed, and the remainder were dispersed. Finding themselves fired upon while retreating, several of them halted, and returned the shots, and then secured themselves behind stone walls and buildings. Three British soldiers, and Pitcairn's horse, were wounded, while eight Americans were killed: four on the
* This is the picture alluded to on page 421, from the one drawn by Earl, and engraved hy Doolittle in 1775. The largest building in the picture is the meeting-house, and the officer on horseback in front of it is Major Pitcairn. The figures in the foreground are the provincial militia. The dwelling with the two chimneys, on the left (which is still standing), was Buckman's Tavern. The position of the monument since erected upon Lexington Green, is about where the provincials on the left are seen dispersing. The merit of this picture consists in its truthfulness in depicting the appearance of the spot at the time of the engagement.
The Concord People aroused.—Assembling of the Militia.—Concord taken Possession of by the Enemy.—Colonel Barrett.
ground, near the spot where the monument stands, and four others while escaping over the fences. *
As soon as the patriots dispersed, the detachment of regulars, joined by Colonel Smith and his party, pushed on toward Concord, six miles distant. Confident of success, the whole party were in high spirits. But Concord had been aroused, and a formidable body of militia had collected to receive the invaders. We have noticed that Revere and Dawes started from Lexington to alarm the country toward Concord. They met Dr. Samuel Prescott, and, while in conference with him, some British officers came upon them. Revere and Dawes were made prisoners, but Prescott escaped over a wall, and reached Concord about two in the morning. The bells were rung, and before daylight the people were under arms.
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When the guns at Lexington were heard in the morning, the Committee of Safety, and the principal citizens of Concord, had assembled, and arranged a plan of reception for the British troops. The military operations were under the able management of
Colonel James Barrett, ** while the whole male population, and some women, aided in removing the stores to a place of safety in distant woods The militia of Lincoln and other places hastened to join those of Concord, and the whole paraded on the Common. Guards were stationed at the North and South Bridges, and in the center of the town, all under the command of Captain Jonathan Farrar.
At about seven o'clock the British column was seen advancing on the Lexington Road Some companies of militia that had marched down that road returned in haste and reported the number of the British as three times that of the Americans. These companies, with those in the town, fell back to an eminence some eighty rods from the center of the village, where they were joined by Colonel Barrett, and were formed into two battalions. They had hardly formed, before the glittering of the bayonets and flashing of the red uniforms of the British in the bright morning sun were seen, but a quarter of a mile distant, rapidly advancing. A short consultation was held. Some were for making a desperate stand upon the spot, while others proposed a present retreat, until reenforced by the neighboring militia. The latter council prevailed, and the provincials retired to the high ground over the North Bridge, about a mile from the Common.
The British troops entered Concord in two divisions one by the main road, the other on the hill north of it. Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, who had immediate command of the grenadiers and light infantry, remained in the town, but detached six companies under Captain Parsons to secure the bridges, prevent the militia from crossing them, and to ferret out and destroy the secreted stores, information concerning which had been given by Captain Beeman of Petersham, and other Tories. Captain Lawrie, with three companies, was stationed on the North Bridge, while Parsons, with the other three companies, marched to destroy the stores at the residence of Colonel Barrett. Captain Pole, with a party, took post at the South Bridge, and destroyed what few stores were found in that vicinity; but so
* The names of the slain are recorded on the monument erected to their memory on the green at Lexington. A picture of the monument and a copy of the inscription may be found on page 553. Captain Jonas Parker was among the slain. He had repeatedly said that he never would run from the British. He was wounded at the first fire, but, continuing to discharge his gun without retreating, was killed by a bayonet.
** Colonel Barrett had been a captain in the provincial army during the French and Indian war. He was with Shirley at Oswego, and afterward accompanied Abercrombie to Ticonderoga and Amherst to Crown Point. Becoming aged, he resigned his commission. When the Massachusetts militia were organized at the beginning of 1775, Captain Barrett was solicited to take command of a regiment, but declined on account of his age. "We don't want active service, we want your advice," said his earnest townsmen. Thus urged, and actuated by patriotic zeal, he took the command. Colonel Barrett died at about the close of the war. These facts I obtained from his grandson, Major Barrett, eighty-seven years old when I visited him in 1848.
Destruction of Property in Concord.—Rapid Augmentation of the Militia.—Preparations for Battle.—March toward the Bridge.
diligently had the people worked in concealing the stores that the object of the expedition was almost frustrated. The British broke open about sixty barrels of flour in the center of the town, but nearly half of that was subsequently saved.
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They knocked off the trunnions of three iron twenty-four pound cannons, burned sixteen new carriage wheels, and a few barrels of wooden trenchers and spoons, cut down the liberty-pole and set the court-house on fire. The flames were extinguished by a Mrs. Moulton, before much damage was done. About five hundred pounds of balls were thrown into the mill-pond and wells.
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While the British were thus engaged, the number of the militia was rapidly increasing by accessions of minute men from Carlisle, Chelmsford, Weston, Littleton, and Acton, neighboring towns, and before ten o'clock the force amounted to nearly four hundred men Joseph Hosmer, acting as adjutant, formed them into proper line as fast as they arrived on the field, westerly of the house since owned by Joseph Buttrick. Most of the operations of the British, within the town, could be seen from this point, and when the fires in the center of the village were lighted the people were greatly excited. Many of the prominent citizens, and the Committee of Safety, were with the militia, and, after a brief consultation, and a stirring appeal from the brave Hosmer, it was resolved to dislodge the enemy at the North Bridge. "I haven't a man that's afraid to go," said the intrepid Captain Isaac Davis; and, wheeling into marching order, they were joined by other companies, and push ed forward toward the bridge, under the command of Major John Buttrick, of Concord.
* This sketch is from the road leading to the village of Concord by the way of the North Bridge. The house was erected about eighty years ago, by Colonel Barrett, and is now owned by his kinsman, Prescott Barrett.
** This view, looking southeast, is from the road leading to the village by the way of the North Bridge.
Battle at Concord Bridge.—Retreat of the British to the Village.—The Scalping Story explained
The Acton company, under Davis, was in front, followed by those of Captains Brown, Miles, and Nathan Barrett, and by others whose commanders' names are not recorded, in all nearly three hundred effective men. They marched in double file, with trailed arms. The British guard were on the west side of the river, but, on seeing the Americans approaching, they crossed over, and commenced taking up the planks of the bridge. Major Buttrick called to them to desist, and urged his men forward to arrest the destruction of the bridge.