Old Boston Days & Ways. Mary Caroline Crawford
opposite end of the neck from Boston; & one at Cambridge wh' is about 6m distant, & wh' last place is to be Headquarters.
"It was for a long time debated in their councils whether they shd not form an encampment immediately, on some high ground just above Roxbury, & within random shot of our lines: but as the season was so far advanced the other plan was thot more advisable. As they only came to this resolution on the 29th of last month, they have not as yet assembled. If they really shd do so, I take it for granted the Genl will think it necessary to deprive them of part of their quarters, at least by burning Charlestown and Roxbury directly.
"These resols they have kept private, for pretty good and substantial reasons, tho' those they have ventured to publish are not very moderate, as you may see by the enclosed newspaper. . . . Gen. Gage (by some conversation I have lately had with him on that subject) will, I fancy, be very earnest in his solicitations for more troops, & indeed, they will be absolutely wanted if we are to move into the country next spring to enforce the New Acts. For as this place is the fountain from whence spring all their mad & treasonable resolves & actions, it will be nec'y to leave a large corps here, to keep the town in order & protect the friends of Govt."
Obviously, Earl Percy and his superior officer had been deceived, just as it was meant they should be, into thinking the American force much larger than it really was at this time.
A letter of Percy's written about Christmas time, 1774, is interesting for its mention of "Mr. Paul Revere, a person who is employed by the Committee of Correspondence here as a messenger." Little did the writer think that Revere would soon, by his intrepidity and skill, defeat one of his own expeditions. The last Percy letter before the affair of April 19 is dated "Boston Apl 8. 1775," and begins: "Things now every day grow more & more serious; A Vessel has arrived by accident here that has brought us a newspaper in which we have the joint address of the two Houses of Parliament to His Majesty; this has convinced the Rebels (for we may now legally call them so) that there is no hopes for them but by submitting to Parliament; they have therefore begun seriously to form their army & have already appointed all the Staff. They are every day in greater number evacuating this Town & have proposed in Congress, either to set it on Fire & attack the troops before a reinforcement comes, or to endeavor to starve us. Which they mean to adopt time only can show. The Genl however, has received no Acct whatever from Europe, so that, on our side no steps of any kind can be taken as yet. The Weather here for the last three weeks has been cold & disagreeable, a kind of second Winter. ... I still continue to enjoy my Health perfectly & have very much surprised the Inhabitants here by going constantly all winter with my bosom open without a Great Coat. They own however that this was a remarkably mild winter."
To the Americans the mildness of the winter had been a great advantage, for it had enabled them to push their plans for resistance faster and farther than would otherwise have been possible. The Suffolk Resolves had been adopted in September; on the fifth of October the members of the Massachusetts Assembly appeared at the Court House in Salem with the intention of holding their meeting there. But they were refused recognition by Gage, whereupon they resolved themselves into a Provincial Congress and adjourned to Concord.
There on October 11, 1774, two hundred and sixty members, representing over two hundred towns, took their seats and elected John Hancock president and Benjamin Lincoln secretary.
To Gage they promptly sent a message remonstrating against his hostile attitude. That personage responded by thundering recriminations at them. Shortly afterward, he issued a proclamation denouncing the Congress as "an unlawful assembly whose proceeding tended to ensnare the inhabitants of the Province and draw them into perjuries, riots, sedition, treason and rebellion."
Then the Congress adjourned to Cambridge, and appointed a committee of public safety, of which Hancock, Warren and Church were the Boston members. Even now, though, there was no intention to attack the British troops, only to make preparations for self-defense should that become necessary. In the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News Letter of February 23, 1775, is published a resolution passed at the Provincial Congress in Cambridge on February 17, and recommending that the militia drill as much as possible and that " such persons as are skilled in the Manufacturing of firearms & bayonets be encouraged diligently to apply themselves thereto for supplying such of the inhabitants as shall be deficient."
This is signed by John Hancock as president.
From this time on events crowd. The fifth of March was at hand and Dr. Warren craved the privilege of delivering the customary address, in the Old South Meeting-House, in commemoration of the Boston Massacre. The actual date having fallen on Sunday, a warrant was issued for a town meeting to be held on March sixth. The trifling difficulty that town meetings were no longer permissible was got over by the announcement that this was an adjournment of the Port Bill Meeting of the June 17 preceding!
It required considerable nerve to speak in a patriotic strain just then, for Gage had now under his command eleven regiments of infantry and four companies of artillery. He had come to the point of using them, too, at least for threatening purposes. Some accounts tell us that the aisles of the church were so blocked by soldiers when the hour for Warren's "Massacre" speech arrived, that the orator of the occasion had to enter through a window back of the pulpit. It was known indeed that some attempt was to be made to interrupt the meeting. But Samuel Adams had resolved to keep the peace if it were possible and so, when forty British officers entered, he asked the civilians occupying the front seats to yield their places to the visitors.
At one point in the address an officer thus seated held up a few pistol bullets in his open palm, but Warren, nothing daunted, dropped his handkerchief upon them and went on with his address. Yet he alluded feelingly to the "ruin " all around, and exclaimed in the course of his remarks: "Does some fiend, fierce from the depths of hell, with all the rancorous malice that the apostate damned can feel, twang her destructive bow, and hurl her deadly arrows at our breast? No, none of these; but how astonishing! It is the hand of Britain that inflicts the wound. The arms of George, our rightful king, have been employed to shed that blood which freely should have flowed at his command, when justice or the honor of his crown had called his subjects to the field."
Pretty fiery words these, and it seems strange, looking back, that the peace was not disturbed by them. It was afterwards learned that an attempt was to have been made to seize the persons of Adams, Hancock and Warren, and that a certain ensign had been appointed to give the signal for the others by throwing an egg at Dr. Warren in the pulpit. But the young fellow had a fall on the way to the meeting, which dislocated his knee and broke the egg, — on which account the scheme failed.
The time for blows was not yet quite ripe.
From the newspapers of the day, it would appear indeed, that, outside of a certain limited circle, life in Boston was going on much as usual. Thomas Turner, a dancing master, advertises for pupils quite as if no such thing as war was at hand, and the public entertainments of the day seem to have been well attended. One advertisement relative to a performance at a certain concert room is of interest. No checking system for wraps had then been devised, and as a result we come on such a notice as: "Exchanged, At Concert Hall, Thursday evening, the 16th of March, a long new blue Bath coating Surtout, which has a velvet Collar of the same Colour: Whoever is possessed of the above is requested the Favor to deliver yt to Joe at the British Coffee House, or leave it at the Concert Hall, where an old short blue surtout remains." Yet this calm was only that which precedes the storm. Before March had blown itself out, a number of drunken British officers were hacking the fence before Hancock's house opposite the Common, and making it necessary for that gentleman to apply for a guard. The time was now close at hand when Hancock himself became the admitted object of a certain military manoeuvre still remembered by British soldiers.
To describe the Battle of Lexington from an American standpoint would not fit well into the scope of this chapter, but let us see how Earl Percy regarded it. The official account sent by him to General Gage, the next day, was written at Boston and runs as follows: "In obedience to your Excells orders I marched yesterday morning at 9 o'clk, with the first Brigade and 2 field pieces, in order to cover the retreat of the Grenadiers & Light Infy, on their return from the Expedition to Concord.
"As