THE BATTLE AT CONCORD.

257

The men of the village had retired, and there was no resistance until after nine o'clock, when a force of about four hundred had gathered north of the bridge.* When the British arrived and found their progress impeded, they fired at the Americans, killing one and wounding four.

The volley was returned. Two of

the British were killed, several wounded, and the battle of Concord was over, for the British began a promiscuous retreat, which did not stop until the By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.

-R. W. Emerson.

tired and disheartened regulars found shelter in Boston, though a rest was made at Lexington, where the reënforcements under Lord Percy, met them, but only to turn and join in the hopeless flight. As they advanced, they became more weary, while they were attacked from every angle in the road, and every protecting wall, by the malitiamen of the surrounding towns, who came up fresh and cool to revenge the murder of their brethren.* Percy marched thirty miles in ten hours, and the first body retreated twenty miles in six hours. Their loss was nearly three hundred killed, wounded and missing. The Americans lost forty-nine killed, and thirty-nine wounded and missing.

The next day the Committee of Safety, which had adjourned to Menotomy (afterwards West Cambridge, and now Arlington) before the battles, now established its headquarters in the house of Mr. Hastings, on the edge of Cambridge Common, and issued a call to the Colonies, urging them to send volunteers immediately, and saying, "Our all is at stake. Death and devastation are the certain consequences of delay. Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge your country in blood and entail perpetual slavery upon the few of your posterity that may survive the carnage." The proclamation was needed only to give official direction to the movements, however, for it seemed as if the whole country were turning out to protect its rights. Almost before the British had arrived at their Boston barracks,

The Americans had not forgotten the capture of Louisburg, and had great confidence in their powers. "The drum that beat along the road to Lexington, had been at Louisburg," said Edward Everett.

THE GENERAL RISING.

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General Ward found himself at the head of an army of determined freemen. Orders were given that the college should be removed to Concord; the library was taken to Andover, and the college buildings were appropriated as barracks for the soldiers. "The news of this scene of blood [the battles of Lexington and Concord] roused the spirit of the patriots throughout the Colonies. John Stark in New Hampshire, Israel Put

nam in Connecticut, the military oracles of their neighborhoods, leaving unfinished the work on their farms, and mounting their horses to join their brethren in peril- the Committee of Orange County [Virginia], James Madison one of the number, pronouncing the blow struck in Massachu

Jereal Putnum

setts an attack on Virginia and every other Colonythe patriots of the Carolinas entering into associations pledging their lives and fortunes to defend an injured. country are illustrations of the general uprising to support at every hazard a common cause.

The day after the retreat from Concord, Boston was in a state of siege. The Tories deserted their "The Rise of the American Republic," Frothingham, p. 415.

elegant dwellings in Cambridge, and in a few days large numbers of patriots left Boston, first depositing their arms in Faneuil Hall. The number was so great that the Tories urged Gage to rescind his permission that they should withdraw, and he was forced to accede to the request.

Many other Tories left their homes in New England. Among them was Samuel Curwen of Salem, who kept a journal that has been published. In it he says, that finding the spirit of the people to rise on every fresh alarm ("which has been almost hourly "), and their tempers to get more and more sour and malevolent against "moderate men," he thought it his duty to "withdraw for a while from the storm." Accordingly, he says, "I left my late peaceful home in search of personal security and those rights which, by the laws of God, I ought to have enjoyed there.” He sailed at first for Philadelphia, "hoping to find an asylum amongst Quakers and Dutchmen," whom he vainly thought to "have too great a regard for ease and property to sacrifice either on the altar of an unknown goddess." He soon found that “Quakers and Dutchmen" were also patriots, and was fain to sail for England, where he remained nine years.

The British government appropriated large sums towards the support of these self-expatriated persons. They were, however, in constant fear lest the pension should be discontinued. When a list of persons banished by the Massachusetts government arrived in England, and contained but four of the thirteen from Salem, the nine not mentioned probably sympathized in the record made by one of them in his diary: "The omission of my name affords me no comfort,

THE TORY REFUGEES.

261

fearing it may operate disadvantageously here, being dependent on the bounty of the court.

In 1782 Mr. Curwen heard that the government had actually determined to withdraw all support from the refugees, and his feelings rose so high that he wrote to Samuel Sewall, who was one of them, “So shameless and unexampled an act of barbarity you probably may think cannot be perpetrated in a civilized State." Later in the same year the refugees seem to have become subjects for jest in England, and The Public Advertiser, of June 29. said, speaking of the withdrawal of pensions from them, "Next year we may hope for more haymakers than we are able to get for the present harvest."

The first information that reached England of the affairs at Lexington and Concord came from the Provincial Congress, of which Dr. Joseph Warren was president, and it produced an impression favorable to the Americans, which increased every day that information from British sources was delayed, as it was thought that the delay was intended to keep

*In 1783 the appropriation for this object were reduced more than half. Mr. Curwen went to the treasury February 14th, and found that his allowance had not been diminished, but, he adds, "A few are raised, some struck off, more lessened. Of those that have come to my knowledge, Governor Oliver's is lessened £100 out of £300; Mr. Williams, who has married a fortune here, is struck off; Harrison Gray, with a wife and two children, struck off; his brother Lewis, lessened to £50; D. Ingersoll, reduced from 200 to £100; Samuel H. Sparkhawk, from £150 to £80; Benjamin Gridley from £150 to £100; Thomas Danforth's, Samuel Sewall's, Samuel Porter's, Peter Johonnot's, G. Brinley's, Edward Oxnard's and mine continue as at first; Chandler's raised £50; Samuel Fitch's, £20; Col. Morrow's, £50; one whose name I forget is sunk from £100 to £30." These facts show that the refugees did not have in all respects an agreeable life in England.