tled in Virginia; the opposition, tumultuous and popular in
the North, parliamentary and political in the South, was everywhere
animated by the same spirit and the same zeal. "I do not pretend to
indicate precisely what line must be drawn between Great Britain and the
colonies," wrote Washington to one of his friends, "but it is most
decidedly my opinion that one must be drawn, and our rights definitively
secured." He had but lately said: "Nobody ought to hesitate a moment to
employ arms in defence of interests so precious, so sacred, but arms
ought to be our last resource."

The day had come when this was the only resource henceforth remaining to
the Americans. Stubborn and irritated, George III. and his government
heaped vexatious measures one upon another, feeling sure of crushing down
the resistance of the colonists by the ruin of their commerce as well as
of their liberties. "We must fight," exclaimed Patrick Henry at the
Virginia Convention, "I repeat it, we must fight; an appeal to arms and
to the God of Hosts, that is all we have left." Armed resistance was
already being organized, in the teeth of many obstacles and
notwithstanding active or tacit opposition on the part of a considerable
portion of the people.

It was time to act. On the 18th of April, 1775, at night, a picked body
of the English garrison of Boston left the town by order of General Gage,
governor of Massachusetts. The soldiers were as yet in ignorance of
their destination, but the American patriots had divined it. The
governor had ordered the gates to be closed; some of the inhabitants,
however, having found means of escaping, had spread the alarm in the
country; already men were repairing in silence to posts assigned in
anticipation. When the king's troops, on approaching Lexington, expected
to lay hands upon two of the principal movers, Samuel Adams and John
Hancock, they came into collision, in the night, with a corps of militia
blocking the way. The Americans taking no notice of the order given them
to retire, the English troops, at the instigation of their officers,
fired; a few men fell; war was begun between England and America. That
very evening, Colonel Smith, whilst proceeding to seize the ammunition
depot at Concord, found himself successively attacked by detachments
hastily formed in all the villages; he fell back in disorder beneath the
guns of Boston.

Some few days later the town was besieged by an American army, and