rom all the
towns came the militia leaders, who, gathering their companies into
regiments, began the loose organization and crude subordination which
should make of the crowd an army.

In all this convergence of the militia toward Boston, there was one side
current. This set toward Marshfield, where for some weeks had been a
detachment of regulars. During this time there had been peace in the
town but strong feeling on both sides--Marshfield had already produced
a general for the king, and now was about to give one to the
provincials. There had been one or two threatening demonstrations from
neighboring towns, which now were repeated in earnest. On hearing the
news from Lexington and Concord, the militia of the neighborhood
gathered for an attack on the regulars. But they came too late. The
British were embarking at Brant Rock, hastened by the signal guns of the
Marshfield men from a neighboring hill. Yet though the regulars got
safely away, they left behind them the three hundred muskets with which
the Tory militia had drilled, and which presently formed a part of the
equipment of the Whigs before Boston. That equipment, while most
irregular, was not to be despised. By the 22d a strong army covered all
land approach to Gage, who began to consider himself between two fires.

"The regulars encamped," says one British account of the Concord
expedition, "on a place called Bunker's Hill."[75] There, under the
guns of the fleet, the tired troops found safety; and there, for all
that any one can see, it would have been wise of Gage to leave them.
With Bunker Hill at his command, and with Dorchester Heights once
occupied by his forces, Boston would be safe from all attack by the
Americans--and not till then.

But on the next morning Gage withdrew the troops to Boston. As a matter
of fact, he doubted his own strength, and greatly exaggerated the power
of the rebels, since his first sensation was a dread lest the town
should rise at his back, and his army be destroyed. Of this there was no
real chance at any time. Yet he drew in his men in order to make himself
secure, and began with the selectmen negotiations looking to his safety.

There were many in the town who were eager to leave it, and many outside
anxious to come in. The governor made the rule that for the purpose of
taking out family effects but thirty wagons might enter the town at a
time. The ruling drew from Warren the following very characteristic
letter.