the colonies except New York and Georgia. The only purpose of this
Act was punitive. Every step was fought by the Whig opposition, now
thoroughly committed to the cause of the colonists, but their arguments
had the inherent weakness of offering only a surrender to the
colonists' position which the parliamentary majority was in no mood to
consider. In fact it was only with great difficulty and after a stormy
scene that North induced his party to vote a so-called conciliatory
proposition offering to abstain from taxing any colony which should
make such a fixed provision for civil and judicial officers as would
satisfy Parliament.

It was only a few days after the passage of the restraining Acts by
Parliament that the long-threatened civil war actually broke out in
Massachusetts. General Gage, aware of the steady gathering of powder
and war material by the revolutionary committee of safety, finally came
to the conclusion that his position required him to break up these
threatening bases of supplies. On April 19, 1775, he sent out a force
of 800 men to {62} Lexington and Concord--towns a few miles from
Boston--with orders to seize or destroy provisions and arms. They
accomplished their purpose, after dispersing with musketry a squad of
farmers at Lexington, but were hunted back to Boston by many times
their number of excited "minute men," who from behind fences and at
every crossroad harassed their retreat. A reinforcement of 1500 men
enabled the raiding party to escape, but they lost over 800 men, and
inflicted a total loss of only 90 in their flight.

Thus began the American Revolution, for the news of this day of bloody
skirmishing, as it spread, started into flame the excitement of the
colonial Whigs. From the other New England colonies men sprang to
arms, and companies marched to Boston, where they remained in rude
blockade outside the town, unprovided with artillery or military
organization, but unwilling to return to their homes. From the
hill-towns, a band of men surprised Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain,
taking the cannon for use around Boston. In every other colony militia
were organized, officers chosen and arms collected, and almost
everywhere, except in Quaker Pennsylvania and in proprietary Maryland,
the governors and royal officials fled to the seacoast to take refuge
in royal ships of war, or resigned their positions at the command {63}
of crowds of armed "minute men." Conventions and congres