was gazing with admiration on the then com- CHAP. "mercial grandeur of England the Genius should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible "in the mass of the national interest, a small "seminal principle rather than a formed body, "and should tell him: Young man, there is "America, which at this day serves for little "more than to amuse you with stories of savage "men and uncouth manners, yet shall before you taste of death show itself equal to the • whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has "been growing to by a progressive increase of "improvement, brought in by varieties of peo 66 6 66 66 ple, by succession of civilizing conquests and "civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen 'hundred years, you shall see as much added "to her by America in the course of a single 66 • life !'—If this state of his country had been "foretold to him would it not require all the "sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make him believe it? "Fortunate man, he has lived to see it! Fortu"nate indeed if he lives to see nothing that "shall vary the prospect and cloud the setting of "his day!"* Speech of Burke, March 22. 1775. On the 16th of September following, and at ninety-one years of age, Lord Bathurst died. LI. 1775. LII. 1775. CHAPTER LII. CHAP. THE winter in Massachusetts had passed gloomily, amidst the din of controversies and the preparations for strife; the scene resembling two adverse camps in presence far rather than one united colony. At Boston the Governor and the Governor's principal adherents maintained their station surrounded by the Royal troops. At Cambridge, on the other side of the bay, and afterwards at Watertown, an opposite authority, a new Provincial Congress, had assembled, with the popular feeling in their favour, and with several thousands of Militia or Minute-men under their command. No pains were spared by them both to increase and discipline this force. They passed Resolutions for the providing or making of fire-arms and bayonets ; they decreed an issue of bills of credit; they formed a provincial arsenal at Concord, about eighteen miles inland; they exhorted the Militia to perfect themselves as speedily as possible in military exercises, and denounced all those who should presume to supply the troops of their Sovereign with building or military stores. But LII. 1775. the most determined of all their measures was to CHAP. enlist in their service a company of Minute-men from among the Stockbridge Indians residing in their province. Further still, they directed the writing of a secret letter,-and secret it has been kept for more than fifty years,-to a Missionary much esteemed by the Indians in the western parts of New York, entreating "that you will use your "influence with them to join with us in the de"fence of our rights ;"-in other words, to assail and scalp the British soldiers!* It is worthy of remark that the Massachusetts delegates, the framers of this very letter, were among those who expressed the highest astonishment and indignation when at a later period a similar policy was adopted on the British side. About a fortnight from the date of this letter, and towards the middle of April, General Gage determined to attempt the destruction of the stores collected at Concord. With this view he sent out a detachment of several hundred light troops under the command of Major Pitcairn and LieutenantColonel Smith. In the night of the 18th these troops were conveyed in boats to the opposite shore. The utmost pains had been taken to keep * This letter, dated Concord, April 4. 1775, and derived from the MS. Journals of the Massachusetts Congress, may be seen at length in the Appendix to Mr. Sparks's edition of Washington's Writings, vol. iii. p. 495. The pretext assigned for the application was a rumour "that those who are inimical "to us in Canada have been tampering with these nations,"an assertion very easy to make. 1775. CHAP. the expedition secret, nevertheless the men had LII. advanced only a few miles inland when it was perceived from the firing of guns and the ringing of bells that their purpose was known, and that the country was alarmed. In fact Dr. Warren, a physician and patriot at Boston, had succeeded in sending out messengers with early information. Marching all night, the first ranks about five o'clock in the morning of the 19th reached Lexington, a small town about fifteen miles from Boston. Here they found a body of militia belonging to the town and neighbourhood, amounting to seventy men, drawn out on the parade and under arms. It afterwards appeared that these arms, or some of them at least, were loaded. Major Pitcairn, who led the van, galloped up to inquire the cause of their assemblage. It is stated by the one side, but not acknowledged by the other, that he addressed them as "you rebels!" Certain it is that he bade them lay down their arms and disperse. The Americans showed no disposition to relinquish their arms, but they did begin to break their ranks and retire from the ground. Then it was that some firing occurred. According to the accounts of the British several muskets were discharged at them from behind a stone wall and from some adjoining houses, which wounded one man and shot Major Pitcairn's horse in two places; upon which they returned the fire. The Americans state, on the contrary, that the British fired first and without provocation. Be that fact as it may, several of the LII. Americans were now killed and wounded; and CHA P. such was the first encounter, the first bloodshed, in this unhappy civil war. The British detachment now pressed forward to Concord. Here they had leisure to spike three cannon, and to cast into the river five hundred pounds of ball and sixty barrels of flour, but they found that the greater part of the stores was already removed. Having thus, so far as they could, fulfilled their mission, they commenced their retreat. But by this time the whole country was in arms; militia-men pouring in from all directions hung on their flank and rear, and galled them by an irregular but incessant fire. The number of such assailants continually increased; and before the British, now exhausted with long marching, could again reach Lexington their retreat had grown into a rout. into a rout. Their utter destruction would have ensued had not General Gage, to guard against any adverse turn of fortune, sent forward that very morning another detachment under Lord Percy to support them. That new force they found just arrived at Lexington. Here Lord Percy's men formed a hollow square, into which the British of the first detachment flung themselves at full length, utterly spent with fatigue, says one of their own Commissaries, and "their tongues "hanging out of their mouths like those of dogs "after a chase!"* After some brief interval for rest * Stedman's History of the American War, vol. i. p. 118. 1775. |