Everett , idward
.Aji Oration Delivered at Concord,
Boston, 1325.

YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

AN

ORATION

APRIL THE NINETEENTH,

1825.

BY EDWARD EVERETT.

#

BOSTON :
PUBLISHED BY CUMMINGS, HILLIARD, AND COMPANY.
1825.

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT:
District Clerk's Office.
Be it remembered, that on the twenty-first day of May, A. D. 1825,
in the forty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of Amer
ica, Cummings, Hilliard, &. Co. of the said district, have deposited in this
office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors,
in the words following, to wit :
" An Oration delivered at Concord, April the nineteenth, 1825. By
Edward Everett."
In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, enti
tled, " An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies
of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such cop
ies, during the times therein mentioned:" and also to an Act, entitled,
" An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled, ' An Act for the encourage
ment of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to
the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein
mentioned ;' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of design
ing, engraving, and etching historical, and other prints.''
JNO. W. DAVIS,
Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

University Press — Hilliard fy Metcalf.

Concord, April 19, 1825.
Hon. Edward Everett,
Dear Sir,
The Committee of Arrangements have Instructed me
to express their thanks to you, for the very interesting ad
dress delivered by you this day, and to request you to fa
vor them with a copy for the press.
Your obedient servant,

(Signed) N. BROOKS, j^tee

ORATION.

Fellow Citizens,
The voice of patriotic and filial duty has
called us together, to celebrate the fiftieth anniver
sary of an ever memorable day. The subject,
which this occasion presents to our consideration,
almost exceeds the grasp of the human mind.
The appearance of a new state in the great family
of nations is one of the most important topics of
reflection, that can ever be addressed to us. In
the case of America, the interest, the magnitude,
and the difficulty of this subject are immeasurably
increased. Our progress has been so rapid, the
interval has been so short between the first planta
tions in the wilderness and the full development
of our political institutions ; there has been such a
visible agency of single characters in affecting the
1

2
condition of the country, such an almost instanta
neous expansion of single events into consequences
of incalculable importance, that we find ourselves
deserted by almost all the principles and precedents,
drawn from the analogy of other states. Men
have here seen, felt, and acted themselves, what
in most other countries has been the growth of
centuries. Take your station for instance on Connecticut
river. Every thing about you, whatsoever you
behold or approach, bears witness,, that you are a
citizen of a' powerful and prosperous state. It is
just seventy years, since the towns, which you now
contemplate with admiration as the abodes of a
numerous, increasing, refined, enterprising popula
tion, safe in the enjoyment of life's best bles
sings, were wasted and burned by the savages
of the wilderness ; and their inhabitants by hun
dreds, — the old and the young, the minister of
the gospel, and the mother with her new born
babe,--were wakened at midnight by the warhoop,
dragged from their beds, and marched with bleeding
feet across the snow-clad mountains, — to be sold as
slaves into the cornfields and kitchens of the
French in Canada. Go back eighty years farther •
and the same barbarous foe is on the skirts of your

oldest settlements, at your own doors. As late as
1676, ten or twelve citizens of Concord were
slain or carried into captivity, who had gone to
meet the savage hordes in their attack on Sudbury,
in which the brave Captain Wadsworth and his
companions fell.
These contrasts regard the political strength of
our country ; the growth in national resources
presents a case of increase still more astonishing,
though less adapted to move the feelings. By
the last valuation, the aggregate property of Mas
sachusetts is estimated at something less than
three hundred millions. By the valuation made
in 1780, the property of Massachusetts and Maine
was estimated at eleven millions.
This unexampled rapidity of our national
growth, while it gives to our history more than
the interest of romance, leaves us often in doubt,
what is to be ascribed to the cooperation of a
train of incidents and characters, following in long
succession upon each other ; and what is to be
referred to the vast influence of single important
events. On the one hand, we think we trace a
series of causes and effects, running back into the
history of the dark ages in Europe, and visibly
exerting an influence on the American colonies ;

and on the other, we witness a rapidity, an ener
gy, a precision in the movements of the nation
toward improvement and power, which seem to
characterize the agency of individual events and
men. In the first view, we feel constrained to
surrender up the fortunes of our country, as a por
tion of the chain of events, which lengthens
onward, by blind fatality, from the creation of the
world, and brings about, in each successive age,
the same routine of rise, progress, and decay.
In the other view, we behold the action of a new
and original political life, a fresh and hopeful
national existence ; nourished, strengthened, and
matured under the operation of peculiar causes
of unexampled energy.
That great, that astonishing incident in human
affairs, the Revolution of America, as seen on the
day of its portentous, or rather let me say, of its
auspicious commencement, is the theme of our
present consideration. To what shall we direct
our thoughts ? On the one hand, we behold a
connexion of events ; the time and circumstances
of the original discovery ; the system of coloniza
tion ; the settlements of the pilgrims ; their con
dition, temper, and institutions ; their singular
political relation with the mother country ; their

long and doubtful struggle with the savage tribes ;
their collisions with the royal governors ; their co
operation in the British wars ; with all the influ
ences of their geographical and physical condition ;
uniting to constitute what I may call the political
national education of America, by forming the
public mind, nerving the arm, and firing the heart
for the events of that day, which we now com
memorate. When we take this survey, we feel
that we ought to divide the honors of the Revo
lution with the great men of the colony in every
generation ; with the Winslows and the Pepperells,
the Cookes and the Mathers, the Winthrops and
the Bradfords, and all who labored and acted hi
the cabinet, the desk, or the field, for the one
great cause. On the other hand, when we dwell
upon the1 day itself, every thing else seems lost in
the comparison. Had our forefathers failed, on
that day of trial, which we now celebrate ; had
their votes and their resolves (as was taunt
ingly predicted on both sides of the Atlantic)
ended in the breath, in which they began ; had the
rebels laid down their arms, as they were command
ed ; and the military stores, which had been fru
gally treasured up for this crisis, been, without re
sistance, destroyed; —then the Revolution had been

6
at an end, or rather never had been begun ; the heads
of Hancock and Adams and their brave colleagues
would have been exposed in ghastly triumph on
Temple-bar ; a military despotism would have been
firmly fixed in the colonies ; the patriots of Mas
sachusetts would have been doubly despised, the
scorn of their enemies, the scorn of their deluded
countrymen ; the cry of liberty, which they had
raised from the shore to the mountains, would
have been turned back in a cry of disdain ; and the
heart of this great people, then beating and almost
bursting for freedom, would have been struck
cold and dead, and, for aught we can now reason,
forever. There are those, who object to such a celebra
tion as this, as tending to keep up or to awaken a
hostile sentiment toward England. But I do not
feel the force of this scruple. In the first place,
it was not England, but the English ministerial
party of the day, and a small circle in that party,
which projected the measures that resulted in our
Revolution. The rights of America found steady
and powerful asserters in England. Lord Chat
ham declared to the House of Peers that he was
glad America had resisted, and alluding to the
fact that he had a son in the British army, he

added, " that none of his blood should serve in
k this detested cause." Nay, even the ministers
that imposed the stamp duty, the measure which
hastened the spirit of America to a crisis, which
it might not have reached in a century, Lord
Mansfield, the Duke of Grafton, the Earl of Shel-
burne, Lord Camden, rose, one after another, and
asserted in the House of Lords, that they had no
share in the measures which were proposed by the
very cabinet, of which they were leading mem
bers. But I must go further. Did faithful history
compel us to cast on all England united the
reproach of those measures, which drove our
fathers to arms ; and were it, in consequence, the
unavoidable effect of these celebrations to revive
the feelings of revolutionary times in the bosoms
of the aged ; to kindle those feelings anew, in the
susceptible hearts of the young ; it would still be
our duty, on every becoming occasion, in the
strongest colors, and in the boldest lines we can
command, to retrace the picture of the times that
tried men's souls. We owe it to our fathers, we
owe it to our children. A pacific and friendly
feeling towards England is the duty of this nation ;
but it is not our only duty, it is not our first duty.

America owes an earlier and a higher duty to the
great and good men, who caused her to be a
nation ; who, at an expense of treasure, a con
tempt of peril, a prodigality of blood — the purest
and noblest that ever flowed, — of which we can
now hardly conceive, vindicated to this continent
a place among the nations of the earth. I can
not consent, out of tenderness to the memory of
the Gages, the Hutchinsons, the Grenvilles and
Norths, the Dartmouths and Hillsboroughs, to
cast a veil over the labors and the sacrifices of the
Quincys, the Adamses, the Hancocks, and the
Warrens. I am not willing to give up to the
ploughshare the soil wet with our fathers' blood ;
no ! not even to plant the olive of peace in the
furrow. There is not a people on earth so abject, as to
think that national courtesy requires them to hush
up the tale of the glorious exploits of their fathers
and countrymen. France is at peace with Austria
and Prussia; but she does not demolish her beau
tiful bridges, baptized with the names of the bat
tle fields, where Napoleon annihilated their armies ;
nor tear down the columns, moulten out of the
accumulated heaps of their captive artillery.
England is at peace with France and Spain, but

9
does she suppress the names of Trafalgar and the
Nile ; does she overthrow the towers of Blenheim
castle, eternal monuments of the disasters of
France ; does she tear down from the rafters of
her chapels, where they have for ages, waved
in triumph, consecrated to the God of battles, the
banners of Cressy and Agincourt ? — No ; she is
wiser ; wiser, did I say ? she is truer, juster to the
memory of her fathers and the spirit of her child
ren. The national character, in some of its most
important elements, must be formed, elevated,
and strengthened from the materials which history
presents. The great objection which has been
urged, and urged at the point of the bayonet and
at the mouth of the cannon, by the partisans of
arbitrary power in Europe, against revolutionary
and popular governments, is, that they want a
historical basis, which alone, they say, can im
part stability and legality to public institutions.
But certainly the historical basis is of much greater
moment to the spirit, than to the institutions of a
people ; and for the reason, that the spirit itself of
a nation is far more important than its institutions
at any moment. Let the spirit be sound and true,
and it will sooner or later find or make a remedy
for defective institutions. But though the insti-
2

10
tutions should surpass, in theoretic beauty, the
fabled perfection of Utopia or Atlantis, without a
free spirit, the people will be slaves ; they will be
slaves of the most despicable kind, — pretended
freemen. And how is the spirit of a people to be formed
and animated and cheered, but out of the store
house of its historic recollections ? Are we to be
eternally ringing the changes upon Marathon and
Thermopylae ; and going back to read in obscure
texts of Greek and Latin of the great examplars
of patriotic virtue ? I thank God, that we can
find them nearer home, in our own country, on
our own soil ; — that strains of the noblest sen
timent, that ever swelled in the breast of man, are
breathing to us out of every page of our country's
history, in the native eloquence of our mother
tongue ; — that the colonial and the provincial coun
cils of America, exhibit to us models of the spirit
and character, which gave Greece and Rome their
name and their praise among the nations. Here
we ought to go for our instruction ; — the lesson
is plain, it is clear, it is applicable. When
we go to ancient history, we are bewildered
with the difference of manners and institutions.

11
We are willing to pay our tribute of applause
to the memory of Leonidas, who fell nobly for his
country, in the face of the foe. But when we
trace him to his home, we are confounded at the
reflection, that the same Spartan heroism to
which he sacrificed himself at Thermopylae, would
have led him to tear his only child, if it happened
to be a sickly babe — the very object for which all
that is kind and good in man rises up to plead —
from the bosom of its mother, and carry it out to
be eaten by the wolves of Taygetus. We feel a
glow of admiration at the heroism displayed at
Marathon, by the ten thousand champions of in
vaded Greece ; but we cannot forget that the tenth
part of the number were slaves, unchained from
the workshops and door-posts of their masters, to
go and fight the battles of freedom. I do not
mean that these examples are to destroy the inter
est with which we read the history of ancient
times ; they possibly increase that interest, by the
singular contrast they exhibit. But they do warn
us, if we need the warning, to seek our great
practical lessons of patriotism at home ; out of
the exploits and sacrifices, of which our own coun
try is the theatre ; out of the characters of our
own fathers. Them we know, the high-souled,

12
natural, unaffected, the citizen heroes. We
know what happy firesides they left for the
cheerless camp. We know with what pacific
habits they dared the perils of the field. There is
no mystery, no romance, no madness, under the
name of chivalry, about them. It is all resolute,
manly resistance, for conscience' and liberty's sake,
not merely of an overwhelming power, but of all
the force of long-rooted habits, and native love of
order and peace.
Above all, their blood calls to us from the soil
which we tread ; it beats in our veins ; it cries to
us, not merely in the thrilling words of one of the
first victims in this cause, — " My sons, scorn to be
slaves;" — but it cries with a still more moving
eloquence — " My sons, forget not your fathers."
Fast, oh, too fast, with all our efforts to pre
vent it, their precious memories are dying away.
Notwithstanding our numerous written memorials,
much of what is known of those eventful times
dwells but in the recollection of a few revered
survivors, and with them is rapidly perishing,
unrecorded and irretrievable. How many pru
dent counsels, conceived in perplexed times ; how
many heart-stirring words, uttered when liberty
was treason ; how many brave and heroic deeds,

13
performed when the halter, not the laurel, was
the promised meed of patriotic daring,— are already
lost and forgotten in the graves of their authors.
How little do we, — although we have been permit
ted to hold converse with the venerable remnants
of that day, — how little do we know of their dark
and anxious hours ; of their secret meditations ;
of the hurried and perilous events of the moment
ous struggle. And while they are dropping round
us like the leaves of autumn, while scarce a
week passes that does not call away some member
of the veteran ranks, already so sadly thinned,
shall we make no effort to hand down the tradi
tions of their day to our children ; to pass the
torch of liberty, which we received in all the
splendour of its first enkindling, bright and flam
ing to those who stand next us in the line ; so
that when we shall come to be gathered to the
dust where our fathers are laid, we may say to
our sons and our grandsons, " If we did not amass,
we have not squandered your inheritance of glory ? "
Let us then faithfully go back to those all-im
portant days. Let us commemorate the events,
with which the momentous revolutionary crisis
was brought on ; let us gather up the traditions
which still exist ; let us show the world, that if

14
we are not called to follow the example of our
fathers, we are at least not insensible to the worth
of their characters ; not indifferent to the sacrifices
and trials, by which they purchased our prosper
ity. Time would fail us to recount the measures by
which the way was prepared for the revolution ; —
the stamp act ; its repeal, with the declaration of
the right to tax America ; the landing of troops
in Boston, beneath the batteries of fourteen vessels
of war, lying broadside to the town, with springs
on their cables, their guns loaded, and matches
smoking ; the repeated insults, and finally the
massacre of the fifth of March, resulting from this
military occupation ; and the Boston Port-Bill,
by which the final catastrophe was hurried on.
Nor can we dwell upon the appointment at Salem,
on the seventeenth of June 1774, of the delegates
to the continental congress ; of the formation at
Salem, in the following October, of the provincial
congress ; of the decided measures, which were
taken by that noble assembly, at Concord and at
Cambridge ; of the preparations they made against
the worst, by organizing the militia, providing
stores, and appointing commanders. All this was
done by the close of the year 1774.

15
At length the memorable year of 1775 arrived.
The plunder of the provincial stores at Medford,
and the attempt to seize the cannon at Salem, had
produced a highly irritated state of the public
mind. The friends of our rights in England made
a vigorous effort, in the month of March, to avert
the tremendous crisis that impended. On the
twenty-second of that month, Mr Burke spoke the
last wrord of conciliation and peace. He spoke it
in a tone and with a power befitting the occasion and
the man ; — he spoke it to the northwest wind.
Eight days after, at that season of the year when
the prudent New England husbandman repairs the
inclosures of his field, for the protection of the
fruits of nature's bounty which ere long will cov
er them, General Gage sent out a party of eleven
hundred men to overthrow the stone walls in the
neighbourhood of Boston, by way of opening
and levelling the arena for the bloody contest he
designed to bring on. With the same view, in
the months of February and March, his officers
were sent in disguise to traverse the country, to
make military surveys and sketches of its roads
and passes, to obtain accounts of the stores at
Concord and Worcester, and to communicate with
the small number of disaffected Americans. These

16
disguised -officers were here at Concord, on the
twentieth of March ; and received treacherous or
unsuspecting information of the places, where the
provincial stores were concealed. I mention this
only to show, that our fathers, in their arduous
contest, had every thing to contend with ; secret as
well as open foes ; treachery in the cabinet, as
well as power in the field. But I need not add,
that they possessed not only the courage and the
resolution, but the vigilance and care, demanded for
the crisis. In November 1774, a society had
been formed in Boston, principally of the mechan
ics of that town, — a class of men to whom the
revolutionary cause was as deeply indebted, as to
any other in America, — for the express purpose of
closely watching the movements of the open and
secret foes of the country. In the long and dreary
nights of a New England winter, they patrolled
the streets ; and not a movement, which concerned
the cause, escaped their vigilance. Not a measure
of the royal governor, but was in their possession,
in a few hours after it was communicated to his
confidential officers. Nor was it manly patriotism
alone, whose spirit was thus aroused in the cause.
The daughters of America were inspired with the
same noble temper, that animated their fathers,

17
their husbands, and their brethren. The historian
tells us, that the first intimation communicated to the
patriots of the impending commencement of hos
tilities, came from a daughter of liberty, unequally
yoked with an enemy of her country's rights.
With all these warnings, and all the vigilance
with which the royal troops were watched, none
supposed the fatal moment was hurrying so rapid
ly on. On Saturday, April fifteenth, the Provin
cial Congress adjourned their session in this place,
to meet on the tenth of May. On the very same
day, Saturday the fifteenth of April, the companies
of grenadiers and light infantry in Boston, the
flower not merely of the royal garrison, but of the
British army, were taken off their regular duty,
under the pretence of learning a new military
exercise. At the midnight following, the boats of
the transport ships, which had been previously
repaired, were launched, and moored for safety
under the sterns of the vessels of war. Not one
of these movements, — least of all, that which took
place beneath the shades of midnight, — was un
observed by the vigilant sons of liberty. The
next morning, Colonel Paul Revere, a very active
member of the patriotic society just mentioned,
was despatched by Dr Joseph Warren to John
3

18
Hancock and Samuel Adams, then at Lexington,
whose seizure was threatened by the royal gover
nor. So early did these distinguished patriots re
ceive the intelligence, that preparations for an
important movement were on foot. Justly con
sidering, however, that some object besides the
seizure of two individuals was probably designed,
in the movement of so large a force, they counsel
led the Committee of Safety to order the distribu
tion into the neighbouring towns, of the stores
collected at Concord. Colonel Revere, on his
return from this excursion on the sixteenth
of April, in order to guard against any ac
cident, which might make it impossible at the
last moment to give information from Boston of
the departure of the troops, concerted with his
friends in Charlestown, that whenever the British
forces should embark in their boats to cross into
the country, two lanterns should be shown in
North Church steeple, and one, should they march
out by Roxbury.
Thus was the meditated blow prepared for be
fore it was struck ; and we almost smile at the
tardy prudence of the British commander, who,
on Tuesday the eighteenth of April, despatched ten
sergeants, who were to dine at Cambridge, and at

19
nightfall scatter themselves on the roads from
Boston to Concord, to prevent notice of the pro
jected expedition from reaching the country.
At length the momentous hour arrives, as
big with consequences to man, as any that ever
struck in his history. The darkness of night is
still to shroud the rash and fatal measures, with
which the liberty of America is hastened on.
The highest officers in the British army are as
yet ignorant of the nature of the meditated blow.
At nine o'clock in the evening of the eighteenth,
Lord Percy is sent for by the governor to receive
the information of the design. On his way back
to his lodgings, he finds the very movements,
which had been just communicated to him in con
fidence by the commander in chief, a subject of
conversation in a group of patriotic citizens in the
street. He hastens back to General Gage and
tells him he is betrayed ; and orders are instantly
given to permit no American to leave the town.
But the order is five minutes too late. Dr War
ren, the President of the Committee of Safety,
though he had returned at nightfall from the meet
ing at West Cambridge, was already in possession
of the whole design ; and instantly despatched
two messengers to Lexington, Mr William Dawes,

20
who went out by Roxbury, and Colonel Paul
Revere, Who crossed to Charlestown. The CoN
onel received this summons, at ten o'clock on
Tuesday night ; the lanterns were immediately
lighted up in North Church steeple ; and in this
way, before a man of the soldiery was embarked
in the boats, the news of their coming was trav
elling with the rapidity of light, through the
country.* Having accomplished this precautionary meas
ure, Colonel Revere repaired to the north part of
the town, where he constantly kept a boat in read
iness, in which he was now rowed by two friends
across the river, a little to the eastward of the
spot where the Somerset man-of-war Was moored,
between Boston and Charlestown. It was then
young flood, the ship was swinging round upon
the tide, and the moon was just rising upon
this midnight scene of solemn anticipation.
Colonel Revere Was safely landed in Charles
town, Where his signals had already been ob
served. He procured a horse from Deacon Lar-
kin for the further pursuit of his errand. That
he would not be permitted to accomplish it, with
out risk of interruption, was evident from the in-
* See note A.

21
formation which he received from Mr Richard
Devens, a member of the Committee of Safety,
that on his way from West Cambridge, where the
committee sat, he had encountered several British
officers, well armed and mounted, going up the road.
At eleven o'clock, Colonel Revere started upon
his eventful errand. After passing Charlestown
neck, he saw two men on horseback under a tree.
On approaching them he perceived them by the
light of the moon to be British officers. One of
them immediately tried to intercept, and the other
to seize him. The Colonel instantly turned back
toward Charlestown, and then struck into the
Medford road. The officer in pursuit of him,
endeavouring to cut him off, plunged into a clay-
pond, in the corner between the two roads, and
the Colonel escaped. He accordingly pursued
his way to Medford, awoke the captain of the
minute men there, and giving the alarm at every
•house on the road, passed on through West Cam
bridge to Lexington. There he delivered his
message to Messrs Hancock and Adams,* and
there also he was shortly after joined by Mr
William Dawes, the messenger who had gone out
by Roxbury. * See note B.

22
After staying a short time at Lexington, Messrs
Revere and Dawes, at about one o'clock of the
morning of the nineteenth of April, started for
Concord, to communicate the intelligence there.
They were soon overtaken on the way by Dr
Samuel Prescott of Concord, who joined them in
giving the alarm at every house on the road.
About half way from Lexington to Concord, while
Dawes and Prescott were alarming a house on
the road, Revere, being about one hundred rods in
advance, saw two officers in the road, of the same
appearance as those he had escaped in Charles
town. He called to his companions to assist him
in forcing his way through them, but was himself
instantly surrounded by four officers. These officers
had previously thrown down the wall into an
adjoining field, and the Americans, prevented from
forcing their way onward, passed into the field.
Dr Prescott, although the reins of his horse had
been cut in the struggle with the officers, succeed
ed, by leaping a stone wall, in making his escape
from the field and reaching Concord. Revere
aimed at a wood, but was there encountered by
six more officers, and was with his companion
made prisoner. The British officers, who had
already seized three other Americans, having

23
learned from their prisoners that the whole coun
try was alarmed, thought it best for their own
safety to hasten back, taking their prisoners with
them. Near Lexington meetinghouse, on their
return, the British officers heard the militia, who
were on parade, firing a volley of guns. Terrified
at this, they compelled Revere to give up his horse,
and then pushing forward at full gallop, escaped
down the road.
The morning was now advanced to about
four o'clock, nor was it then known at Lexing
ton that the British were so near at hand. Col
onel Revere again sought Messrs Hancock and
Adams at the house of the Reverend Mr Clark,
and it was thought expedient by their friends,
who had kept watch there during the night, that
these eminent patriots should remove toward Wo-
burn. Having attended them to a house on the
Woburn road, where they proposed to stop,
Colonel Revere returned to Lexington to watch
the progress of events. He soon met a person at
full gallop, who informed him that the British
troops were coming up the road. Hastening now
to the public house, to secure some papers of
Messrs Hancock and Adams, Colonel Revere saw
the British troops pressing forward in full array.

24
It was now seven hours, since these troops
were put in motion. They were mustered at ten
o'clock of the night preceding, on the Boston,
Common, and embarked, to the number of eight
hundred grenadiers and light infantry, in the boats
of the British squadron. They landed at Phipps'
Farm, a little to the south of Leehmere's Point,
and on disembarking, a day's provision was dealt
out to them. Pursuing the path across the
marshes, they emerged into the old Charlestown
and West Cambridge road.
And here let us pause a moment in the narra
tion, to ask, who are the men and what is the
cause ? Is it an army of Frenchmen and Cana
dians, who in earlier days had often run the line
between them and us, with havock and fire, and
who have now come to pay back the debt of
defeat and subjugation ? Or is it their ancient
ally of the woods, the stealthy savage, — borne in
his light canoe, with muffled oars, over the mid
night waters,— creeping like the felon wolf
trough our villages, that he may start up at dawn,
to wage a war of surprise, of plunder, and of hor
ror against the slumbering cradle and the defence^
less fireside ? O no I It is the disciplined armies
of a brave, a christian, a kindred people ; led by

25
gallant officers, the choice sons of England ; and
they are going to seize, and secure for the halter,
men whose crime is, that they have dared to utter
in the English tongue, on this side of the ocean,
the principles which gave, and give England her
standing among the nations ; they are going to
plunge their swords in the breasts of men, who
fifteen years before, on the plains of Abraham,
stood, and fought, and conquered by their side. But
they go not unobserved ; the tidings of their
approach are travelling before them ; the faithful
messengers have aroused the citizens from their
slumbers ; alarm guns are answering to each other,
and spreading the news from village to village ;
the tocsin is heard, at this unnatural hour, from_
steeples, that never before rung with any other
summons than that of the gospel of peace ; the
sacred tranquillity of the hour is startled with all
the mingled sounds of preparation, — of gathering
bands, and resolute though unorganized resistance.
The Committee of Safety, as has been observed,
had set, the preceding day, at West Cambridge ;
and three of its respected members, Gerry, Lee, and
Orne, had retired to sleep, in the public house,
where the session of the committee was held. So
difficult was it, notwithstanding all that had passed,
4

26
to realize that a state of things could exist, be
tween England and America, in which American
citizens should be liablg to be torn from their beds
by an armed force at midnight, that the members of
the Committee of Safety, though forewarned of the
approach of the British troops, did not even think
it necessary to retire from their lodgings. On the
contrary, they rose from their beds and went to
their windows to gaze on the unwonted sight, the
midnight march of armies through the peaceful
hamlets of New England. Half the column had
already passed, when a flank guard was promptly
detached to search the public house, no doubt in the
design of arresting the members of the Committee
of Safety, who might be there. It was only at
this last critical moment, that Mr Gerry and his
friends bethought themselves of flight, and without
time even to clothe themselves, escaped naked into
the fields.
By this time Colonel Smith, who commanded
the expedition, appears to have been alarmed at
the indications of a general rising throughout the
country. The light infantry companies were now
detached and placed under the command of Major
Pitcairne, for the purpose of hastening forward, to
secure the bridges at Concord ; and thus cut off

27
the communication between this place and the
towns north and west of it. Before these com
panies could reach Lexington, the officers already
mentioned, who had arrested Colonel Revere,
joined their advancing countrymen, and reported
that five hundred men were drawn up in Lexing
ton, to resist the king's troops. On receiving this
exaggerated account, the British light infantry was
halted, to give time for the grenadiers to come
up, that the whole together might move forward
to the work of death.
The company assembled on Lexington Green,
which the British officers, in their report, had
swelled to five hundred, consisted of sixty or seven
ty of the militia of the place. Information had
been received about nightfall, both by private
means and by communications from the Commit
tee of Safety, that a strong party of officers had
been seen on the road, directing their course to
ward Lexington. In consequence of this intelli
gence, a body of about thirty of the militia, well
armed, assembled early in the evening ; a guard of
eight men under Colonel William Munroe, then a
sergeant in the company, was stationed at Mr
Clark's ; and three men were sent off to give the
alarm at Concord. These three messengers were

28
however stopped on their way, as has been mention
ed, by the British officers, who had already passed
onward. One of their number, Elijah Sanderson,
has lately died at Salem at an advanced age. A
little after midnight, as has been observed, Messrs
Revere and Dawes arrived with the certain inform
ation, that a very large body of the royal troops
was in motion. The alarm was now generally
given to the inhabitants of Lexington, messengers
were sent down the road to ascertain the move
ments of the troops, and the militia company under
Captain John Parker appeared on the green to
the number of one hundred and thirty. The roll
was duly called at this perilous midnight muster,
and some answered to their names for the last time
on earth. The company was now ordered to load
with powder and ball, and awaited in anxious ex
pectation the return of those who had been sent
to reconnoitre the enemy. One of them, in con
sequence of some misinformation, returned and re
ported that there was no appearance of troops on
the road from Boston. Under this harassing
uncertainty and contradiction, the militia were
dismissed, to await the return of the other expresses
and with orders to be in readiness at the beat of
the drum. One of these messengers was made pris-

29
oner by the British, whose march was so cautious,
that they remained undiscovered till within a mile
and a half of Lexington meetinghouse, and time was
scarce left for the last messenger to return with
the tidings of their approach.
The new alarm was now given ; the bell rings,
alarm guns are fired, the drum beats to arms.
Some of the militia had gone home, when dismiss
ed ; but the greater part were in the neighbouring
houses, and instantly obeyed the summons. Sixty or
seventy appeared on the green and were drawn up
in double ranks. At this moment the British col
umn of eight hundred gleaming bayonets appears,
headed by their mounted commanders, their banners
flying and drums beating a charge. To engage
them with a handful of militia of course was mad
ness, — to fly at the sight of them, they disdained.
The British troops rush furiously on ; their com
manders, with mingled threats and execrations,
bid the Americans lay down their arms and disperse,
and their own troops to fire. A moment's delay,
as of compunction, follows. The order with vehe
ment imprecations is repeated, and they fire. No
one falls, and the band of self-devoted heroes, most
of whom had never seen such a body of troops
before, stand firm in the front of an army, outnum-

30
bering them ten to one. Another volley succeeds ;
the killed and wounded drop, and it was not till
they had returned the fire of the overwhelming
force, that the militia were driven from the field.
A scattered fire now succeeded on both sides while
the Americans remained in sight ; and the British
troops were then drawn up on the green to fire a
volley and give a shout in honor of the victory.*
While these incidents were taking place, and
every moment then came charged with events which
were to give a character to centuries, Hancock
and Adams, though removed by their friends from
the immediate vicinity of the force sent to appre
hend them, were apprized, too faithfully, that the
work of death was begun. The heavy and quick
repeated vollies told them a tale, that needed no
exposition, — which proclaimed that Great Britain
had renounced that strong invisible tie which bound
the descendants of England to the land of their
fathers, and had appealed to the right of the strong
est. The inevitable train of consequences burst
in prophetic fulness upon their minds ; and the
patriot Adams, forgetting the scenes of tribulation
through which America must pass to realize thepros-
* See note C.

31
pect, and heedless that the ministers of vengeance,
in overwhelming strength, were in close pursuit of
his own life, uttered that memorable exclamation,
than which nothing more generous, nothing more
sublime can be found in the records of Grecian or
Roman heroism, — " O, what a glorious morning is
this ! "
Elated with its success, the British army took
up its march toward Concord. The intelligence
of the projected expedition had been communicated
to this town by Dr Samuel Prescott, in the man
ner already described ; and from Concord had
travelled onward in every direction. The interval
was employed in removing a portion of the public
stores to the neighbouring towns, while the aged
and infirm, the women and children, sought refuge
in the surrounding woods. About seven o'clock
in the morning, the glittering arms of the British
column were seen advancing on the Lincoln road.
A body of militia from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred men, who had taken post for obser
vation on the heights above the entrance to the
town, retire at the approach of the army of the
enemy, first to the hill a little farther north,
and then beyond the bridge. The British troops
press forward into the town, and are drawn

32
up in front of the courthouse. Parties are then
ordered out to the various spots where the public
stores and arms were supposed to be deposited.
Much had been removed to places of safety, and
something was saved by the prompt and innocent
artifices of individuals. The destruction of prop
erty and of arms was hasty and incomplete, and
considered as the object of an enterprise of such
fatal consequences, it stands in shocking contrast
with the waste of blood by which it was effected.
I am relating events, which, though they can
never be repeated more frequently than they de
serve, are yet familiar to all who hear me. I need
not therefore attempt, nor would it be practicable
did I attempt it, to recall the numerous interesting
occurrences of that ever memorable day. The
reasonable limits of a public discourse must con
fine us to a selection of the more prominent inci
dents. It was the first care of the British commander
to cut off the approach of the Americans from the
neighbouring towns, by destroying or occupying the
bridges. A party was immediately sent to the
south bridge and tore it up. A force of six com
panies, under Captains Parsons and Lowrie, was
sent to the north bridge. Three companies under

33
Captain Lowrie were left to guard it, and three
under Captain Parsons proceeded to Colonel Bar
rett's house, in search of provincial stores. While
they were engaged on that errand, the militia of
Concord, joined by their brave brethren from the
neighbouring towns, gathered on the hill opposite the
north bridge, under the command of Colonel Rob
inson and Major Buttrick. The British companies
at the bridge were now apparently bewildered
with the perils of their situation, and began to
tear up the planks of the bridge ; not remembering
that this would expose their own party, then at
Colonel Barrett's, to certain and entire destruction.
The Americans, on the other hand, resolved to
keep open the communication with the town, and
perceiving the attempt which was made to destroy
the bridge, were immediately put in motion, with
orders not to give the first fire. They draw near to
the bridge, the Acton company in front, led on by
the gallant Davis. Three alarm guns were fired
into the water, by the British, without arresting
the march of our citizens. The signal for a gene
ral discharge is then made ; — a British soldier steps
from the ranks and fires at Major Buttrick. The
ball passed between his arm and his side, and
slightly wounded Mr Luther Blanchard, who stood
5

34
near him. A volley instantly followed, and Cap
tain Davis was shot through the heart, gallantly
marching at the head of the Acton militia against
the choice troops of the British line. A private of
his company, Mr Hosmer of Acton, also fell at
his side. A general action now ensued, which
terminated in the retreat of the British party, after
the loss of several killed and wounded, toward the
centre of the town, followed by the brave band
who had driven them from their post. The ad
vance party of British at Colonel Barrett's was
thus left to its fate ; and nothing would have been
more easy than to effect its entire destruction.
But the idea of a declared war had yet scarcely
forced itself, with all its consequences, into the
minds of our countrymen ; and these advanced
companies were allowed to return unmolested to
the main band.
It was now twelve hours since the first alarm
had been given, the evening before, of the medi
tated expedition. The swift watches of that
eventful night had scattered the tidings far and
wide ; and widely as they spread, the people rose
in their strength. The genius of America, on this
the morning of her emancipation, had sounded her
horn over the plains and upon the mountains ; and the

35
indignant yeomanry of the land, armed with the
weapons which had done service in their fathers'
hands, poured to the spot where this new and
strange tragedy was aeting. The old New Eng
land drums, that had beat at Louisburgh, at Quebec,
at Martinique, at the Havana, were now sounding
on all the roads to Concord. There were officers
in the British line, that knew the sound ; — they
had heard it, in the deadly breach, beneath the
black, deep-throated engines of the French and
Spanish castles. With the British it was a ques
tion no longer of protracted hostility, nor even of
halting long enough to rest their exhausted troops,
after a weary night's march, and all the labor,
confusion, and distress of the day's efforts. Their
dead were hastily buried in the publie square;
their wounded placed in the vehicles which the
town afforded ; and a flight commenced, to which
the annals of British warfare will hardly afford a
parallel. On all the neighbouring hills were mul
titudes from the surrounding country, of the unarm
ed and infirm, of women and of children, who had
fled from the terrors and the perils of the plunder
and conflagration of their homes ; or were collect
ed, with fearful curiosity, to mark the progress of
this storm of war. The panic fears of a calamitous

36
flight, on the part of the British, transformed this
inoffensive, timid throng into a threatening ar
ray of armed men ; and there was too much
reason for the misconception. Every height of
ground, within reach of the line of march, was
covered with the indignant avengers of their
slaughtered brethren. The British light companies
were sent out to great distances as flanking par
ties ; but who was to flank the flankers ? Every
patch of trees > every rock, every stream of water,
every building, every stone wall, was lined (I use
the words of a British officer in the battle), was
lined with an unintermitted fire. Every cross
road opened a new avenue to the assailants.
Through one of these the gallant Brooks lead up
the minute men of Reading. At another defile, they
were encountered by the Lexington militia, under
Captain Parker, who, undismayed at the loss of
more than a tenth of their number in killed and
wounded in the morning, had returned to the con
flict. At first the contest was kept up by the
British, with all the skill and valor of veteran
troops. To a military eye it was not an unequal
contest. The commander was not, or ought not
to have been, taken by surprise. Eight hundred
picked men, grenadiers and light infantry, from

37
the English army, were no^loubt considered by
General Gage a very ample detachment to march
eighteen or twenty miles through an open country ;
and a very fair match for all the resistance which
could be made by unprepared husbandmen, without
concert, discipline, or leaders. With about ten
times their number, the Grecian commander had
forced a march out of the wrecks of a field of
battle and defeat? through the barbarous nations
of Asia, for thirteen long months, from the plains
of Babylon to the Black sea, through forests,
defiles, and deserts, which the foot of civilized
man had never trod. It was the American cause, —
its holy foundation in truth and right, its strength
and life in the hearts of the people, that converted
what would naturally have been the undisturbed
march of a strong, well provided army, into a rab
ble rout of terror and death. It was this, which
sowed the fields of our pacific villages with drag
on's teeth ; which nerved the arm of age ; called
the ministers and servants of the church into the
hot fire ; and even filled with strange passion and
manly strength the heart and the arm of the strip
ling. A British historian, to paint the terrific
aspect of things that presented itself to his coun
trymen, declares that the rebels swarmed upon the

38
hills, as if they dropped from the clouds. Before
the flying troops had reached Lexington, their
rout was entire. Some of the officers had been
made prisoners, some had been killed, and several
wounded, and among them the commander in chief,
Colonel Smith. The ordinary means of preserv
ing discipline failed ; the wounded, in chaises and
wagons, pressed to the front and obstructed the
road ; wherever the flanking parties, from the
nature of the ground, were forced to come in, the
line of march was crowded and broken ; the ammu
nition began to fail ; and at length the entire body
was on a full run. " We attempted," says a
British officer already quoted, " to stop the men
and form them two deep, but to no purpose ; the
confusion rather increased than lessened." An
English historian says, the British soldiers were
driven before the Americans like sheep ; till, by a
last desperate effort, the officers succeeded in forc
ing their way to the front, " when they presented
their swords and bayonets against the breasts of
their own men, and told them if they advanced they
should die." Upon this they began to form, under
what the same British officer pronounces " a very
heavy fire," which must soon have led to the de
struction or capture of the whole corps. At this

39
critical moment, it pleased Providence that a rein
forcement should arrive. Colonel Smith had sent
back a messenger from Lexington to apprize Gen
eral Gage of the check he had there received, and
of the alarm which was running through the coun
try. Three regiments of infantry and two divis
ions of marines with two fieldpieces, under the
command of Brigadier General Lord Percy, were
accordingly detached. They marched out of
Boston, through Roxbury and Cambridge,* and
came up with the flying party, in the hour of their
extreme peril. While their fieldpieces kept the
Americans at bay, the reinforcement drew up in
a hollow square, into which, says the British histori
an, they received the exhausted fugitives, " who lay
down on the ground, with their tongues hanging
from their mouths, like dogs after a chase."
A half an hour was given to rest ; the march
was then resumed ; and under cover of the field-
pieces, every house in Lexington, and on the road
downwards, was plundered and set on fire. Though
the flames in most cases were speedily extinguished,
several houses were destroyed. Notwithstanding
the attention of a great part of the Americans was
thus drawn off; and although the British force
* See note D.

40
was now more than doubled, their retreat still
wore the aspect of a flight. The Americans filled
the heights that overhung the road, and at every
defile, the struggle was sharp and bloody. At
West Cambridge, the gallant Warren, never dis
tant when danger was to be braved, appeared in
the field, and a musket ball soon cut off a lock of
hair from his temple. General Heath was with him,
nor does there appear till this moment, to have
been any effective command among the American
forces. Below West Cambridge, the militia from Dor
chester, Roxbury, and Brookline came up. The
British fieldpieces began to lose their terror. A
sharp skirmish followed, and many fell on both
sides. Indignation and outraged humanity strug
gled on the one hand, veteran discipline and des
peration on the other ; and the contest, in more
than one instance, was man to man, and bayonet
to bayonet.
The, British officers had been compelled to de
scend from their horses to escape the certain destruc
tion, which attended their exposed situation. The
wounded, to the number of two hundred, now pre
sented the most distressing and constantly increasr
ing obstruction to the progress of the march.

41
Near one hundred brave men had fallen in this
disastrous flight ; a considerable number had been
made prisoners ; a round or two of ammunition
only remained ; and it was not till late in the
evening, nearly twenty-four hours from the time
when the first detachment was put in motion, that
the exhausted remnant reached the heights of
Charlestown. The boats of the vessels of war
were immediately employed to transport the
wounded ; the remaining British troops in Boston
came over to Charlestown to protect their weary
countrymen during the night ; and before the close
of the next day the royal army was formally be
sieged in Boston.
Such, fellow citizens, imperfectly sketched in
their outline, were the events of the day we cele
brate ; a day as important as any recorded in the
history of man. Such were the first of a series of
actions, that have extensively changed and are
every day more extensively changing the condition
and prospects of the human race. Such were the
perils, such the sufferings of our fathers, which it
has pleased Providence to crown with a blessing
beyond the most sanguine hopes of those who
then ventured their all in the cause.
6

42
It is a proud anniversary for our neighbourhood.
We have cause for honest complacency, that when
the distant citizen of our own republic, when the
stranger from foreign lands, inquires for the spots
where the noble blood of the revolution began to
flow, where the first battle of that great and glori
ous contest was fought, he is guided through the
villages of Middlesex, to the plains of Lexington
and Concord. It is a commemoration of our soil,
to which ages, as they pass, will add dignity and
interest ; till the names of Lexington and Concord,
in the annals of freedom, will stand by the side of
the most honourable names in Roman or Grecian
story. It was one of those great days, one of those
elemental occasions in the world's affairs, when
the people rise, and act for themselves. Some
organization and preparation had been made ; but,
from the nature of the case, with scarce any effect
on the events of that day. It may be doubted,
whether there was an efficient order given the
whole day to any- body of men, as large as a regi
ment. It was the people, in their first capacity,
as citizens and as freemen, starting from their beds
at midnight, from their firesides, and from their
fields, to take their own cause into their own

43
hands. Such a spectacle is the height of the moral
sublime ; when the want of every thing is fully
made up by the spirit of the cause ; and the soul
within stands in place of discipline, organization,
resources. In the prodigious efforts of a veteran
army, beneath the dazzling splendor of their
array, there is something revolting to the reflective
mind. The ranks are filled with the desperate,
the mercenary, the depraved ; an iron slavery, by
the name of subordination, merges the free will of
one hundred thousand men, in the unqualified des
potism of one ; the humanity, mercy, and remorse,
which scarce ever desert the individual bosom, are
sounds without a meaning to that fearful, ravenous,
irrational monster of prey, a mercenary army.
It is hard to say who are most to be commiserat
ed," the wretched people on whom it is let loose,
or the still more wretched people whose substance
has been sucked out, to nourish it into strength
and fury. But in the efforts of the people, of
the people struggling for their rights, moving not
in organized, disciplined masses, but in their spon
taneous action, man for man, and heart for heart, —
though I like not war nor any of its works, —
thsre is something glorious. They can then move
forward without orders, act together without combi-

44
nation, and brave the flaming lines of battle, with
out entrenchments to cover, or walls to shield
them- No dissolute camp has worn off from the
feelings of the youthful soldier the freshness of
that home, where his mother and his sisters sit
waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to
hear good news from the wars ; no long service in
the ranks of a conqueror has turned the veteran's
heart into marble ; their valor springs not from
recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the
preservation of a life, knit by no pledges to the life
of others. But in the strength and spirit of the
cause alone they act, they contend, they bleed. In
this, they conquer. The people always conquer.
They always must conquer. Armies may be de
feated ; kings may be overthrown, and new
dynasties imposed by foreign arms on an ignorant
and slavish race, that care not in what language
the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in
whose name the deed of their barter and sale is
made out. But the people never invade ; and
when they rise against the invader, are never sub
dued. If they are driven from the plains, they fly
to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting
hills are their castles ; the tangled, pathless thicket
their palisado, and nature, — God, is their ally.

45
Now he overwhelms the hosts of their enemies
beneath his drifting mountains of sand ; now he
buries them beneath a fallihg atmosphere of polar
snows ; he lets loose his tempests on their fleets ;
he puts a folly into their counsels, a madness into
the hearts of their leaders ; and never gave and
and never will give a full and final triumph over a
virtuous, gallant people, resolved to be free.
There is another reflection, which deserves to
be made, while we dwell on the events of the
nineteenth of April. It was the work of the
country* The cities of America, particularly the
metropolis of our own state, bore their part nobly
in the revolutionary contest. It is not unjust to
say, that much of the spirit which animated Amer
ica, particularly before the great appeal to arms,
grew out of the comparison of opinions and concert
of feeling, which might not have existed, without
the convenience of assembling which our large
towns afford. But if we must look to the*eity for
a part of the impulse, we must look to the country
at large, for the heart to be moved, — for the strength
and vigor to persevere in the motion. It was the
great happiness of America, that her cities were no
larger, no more numerous, no nearer to each other ;
that the strength, the intelligence, the spirit of the

46
people were diffused over plains, and encamped
on the hills.
In most of the old and powerful states of Europe,
the nation is identified with the capital, and the cap
ital with the court. France must fall with the cit
izens of Paris, and the citizens of Paris with a few
courtiers, cabinet ministers, and princes. No doubt
the English ministry thought that by holding Bos
ton, they held New England ; that the country
was conquered in advance, by the military occu
pation of the great towns. They did not know
that every town and village in America had discuss
ed the great questions at issue for itself; and in
its town-meetings, and committees of correspond
ence and safety, had come to the resolution, that
America must not be taxed by England. The Eng
lish government did not understand, — we hardly
understood, ourselves, till we saw it in action, —
the operation of a state of society, where every man
is or may be a freeholder, a voter for every elec
tive office, a candidate for every one ; where the
means of a good education are universally accessi
ble ; where the artificial distinctions of society are
known but in a slight degree ; where glaring con
trasts of condition are rarely met with ; where few
are raised by the extreme of wealth above their

47
fellow-men, and fewer sunk by the extreme of
poverty beneath it. The English ministry had
not reasoned upon the natural growth of such a
soil ; that it could not permanently bear either a
colonial, or a monarchical government ; that the
only true and native growth of such a soil was a
perfect independence and an intelligent republican
ism. Independence, because such a country must
disdain to go over the water to find another to
protect it ; Republicanism, because the people of
such a country must disdain to look up for protec
tion to any one class among themselves. The entire
action of these principles was unfolded to the world
on the nineteenth of April, 1 775. Without waiting
to take an impulse from any thing but their own
breasts, and in defiance of the whole exerted powers
of the British empire, the yeomanry of the country
rose as a man, and set their lives on this dear stake
of liberty.
When we look back on the condition in which
America stood on the 19th of April, 1775; and
compare it with that in which it stands this day,
we can find no language of gratitude with which
to do justice to those, who took the lead in the
revolutionary cause. The best gratitude, the best

thanks, will be an imitation of their example. It
would he an exceedingly narrow view of the part
assigned to this country on the stage of the na
tions, to consider the erection of an independent
and representative government as the only political
object at which the revolution aimed, and the
only political improvement which our duty re
quires. These are two all-important steps, indeed,
in the work of meliorating the state of society.
The first gives the people of America the sovereign
power of carrying its will into execution ; the
second furnishes an equitable and convenient mode
of ascertaining what the will of the people is,
But shall we stop here ? shall we make no use of
these two engines, by whose combined action
every individual mind enjoys a share in the sove
reign power of this great nation ? Most of the
civil and social institutions which still exist in
the country, were brought by our fathers, from the
old world, and are strongly impressed with- the
character of the state of society which there prevails.
Under the influence of necessity, these institu
tions have been partially reformed, and rendered,
to a certain degree, harmonious with the nature of
a popular government. But much remains to be
done, to make the work of revolution complete.

49
The whole business of public instruction, of the
administration of justice, of military defence in
time of peace, needs to be revolutionized ; that is,
to be revised and made entirely conformable to the
interests and wishes of the great mass. It is time,
in short, to act upon the maxim in which the wis
dom of all ages is wrapped up, the voice of the
people is the voice of god. Apart from in
spired revelation, there is no way, in which the
will of heaven is made known, but by the sound,
collective sense of the majority of men. It is
given to no privileged family, to no hereditary
ruler ; it is given to no commanding genius ; it is
given to no learned sage ; it is given to no circle
of men to pronounce this sacred voice. It must
be uttered by the people, in their own capacity ;
and whensoever it is uttered, I say not it ought
to be, but that it will be obeyed.
But it is time to relieve your patience. I need
not labor to impress you with a sense of the duty,
which devolves on those, whose sires achieved the
ever memorable exploits of this day. The lesson,
I know, has not been lost upon you. Nowhere
have the spirit and principles of the revolution
preserved themselves in greater purity; nowhere
have the institutions, to which the revolution led,
7

50
been more firmly cherished. The toils and suffer
ings of that day were shared by a glorious band
of patriots, whose name was yotir boast while
living ; whose memory you will never cease to
cherish. The day we commemorate called the
noble farmer of Middlesex — the heroic Prescott — to
the field, and impelled him, not to accept, but to
solicit the post of honor and danger, on the 17th
of June : — noble I call him, for when did coronet
or diadem ever confer distinction, like the glory
which rests on that man's name. In the perils of
this day, the venerable Gerry bore his part. This
was the day, which called the lamented Brooks
and Eustis to their country's service ; which en
listed them, blooming in the freshness and beauty
of youth, in that sacred cause, to which the
strength of their manhood and the grey hairs of
their age were devoted. The soil which holds
their honored dust shall never be unworthy of
them. What pride did you not justly feel in that soil,
when you lately welcomed the nation's guest — the
venerable champion of America — to the spot, where
that first note of struggling freedom was uttered,
which sounded across the the Atlantic, and drew
him from all the delights of life, to enlist in our

51
cause. Here, you could tell him, our fathers
fought and fell, before they knew whether another
arm would be raised to second them. — No Wash
ington had appeared to lead, no Lafayette had
hastened to assist, no charter of independence had
yet breathed the breath of life into the cause, when
the 19th of April called our fathers to the field.
What remains, then, but to guard the precious
birthright of our liberties ; to draw from the soil
which we inhabit, a consistency in the principles
so nobly vindicated, so sacredly sealed thereon.
It shall never be said, while distant regions,
wheresoever the temples of freedom are reared,
are sending back their hearts to the plains of Lex
ington and Concord, for their brighest and purest
examples of patriotic daring, that we whose lives
are cast on these favoured spots, can become in
different to the exhortation, which breathes to us
from every sod of the valley. Those principles,
which others may adopt on the colder ground of
their reason and their truth, we are bound to sup
port by the dearest and deepest feelings. Where
soever the torch of liberty shall expire, where
soever the manly simplicity of our land shall perish
beneath the poison of luxury, wheresoever the cause
which called our fathers this day to arms, and the

52
principles which sustained their hearts in that stern
encounter, may be deserted or betrayed, — it shall
not, fellow citizens, it shall not be, oh the soil
which was moistened with their blood. The names
of Marathon and Thermopylae, after ages of sub
jection, still nerve the arm of the Grecian patriot ;
and should the foot of a tyrant, or of a slave, ap
proach these venerated spots, the noble hearts that
bled at Lexington and Concord, " all dust as they
are," * would beat beneath the sod with indigna
tion. Honor, this day, to the venerable survivors of
that momentous clay, which tried men's souls.
Great is the happiness they are permitted to enjoy,
in uniting, within the compass of their own expe
rience, the doubtful struggles and the full blown
prosperity of our happy land. May they share the
welfare they witness around them ; it is the work
of their hands, the fruit of their toils, the price of
their lives freely hazarded that their children
might live free. Bravely they dared ; patiently,
aye more than patiently, — heroically, piously,
they suffered ; largely, richly, may they enjoy.
Most of their companions are already departed ;
* Bossuet ; Oraison funebre de la Reine d' Angleterre.

53
let us renew our tribute of respect this day to their
honored memory. Numbers present will recol
lect the affecting solemnities, with which you ac
companied to his last home, the brave, the lament
ed Buttrick. With trailing banners, and mournful
music, and all the touching ensigns of military
sorrow, you followed the bier of the fallen soldier,
over the ground where he led the determined band
of patriots on the morn of the revolution.
But chiefly to those who fell ; to those who stood
in the breach, at the breaking of that day of blood
at Lexington ; to those who joined in battle and
died honorably, facing the foe at Concord ; to
those who fell in the gallant pursuit of the flying
enemy ; — let us this day pay a tribute of grateful
admiration. The old and the young ; the grey-
haired veteran, the stripling in the flower of youth ;
husbands, fathers, brethren, sons ; — they stood side
by side, and fell together, like the beauty of Israel
on their high places.
We have founded this day a monument to their
memory. When the hands that rear it are motion
less, when the feeble voice is silent, which speaks
our fathers' praise, the engraven stone shall bear
witness to other ages, of our gratitude and their
worth. And ages still farther on, when the mon-

54
ument itself, like those who build it, shall have
crumbled to dust, the happy aspect of the land
which our fathers redeemed, the liberty they
achieved, the institutions they founded, shall re
main one common, eternal monument to their
precious memory.

NOTES.

Note A, page 20.
That the lanterns were observed in Charlestown, we are
informed by Colonel Revere, in the interesting communication
in the Collections of the Historical Society, from which this
part of the narrative is chiefly taken. A tradition by private
channels has descended, that these lanterns in the North Church
were quickly noticed by the officers of the British army, on
duty on the evening of the 18th. To prevent the alarm being
communicated by these signals into the country, the British
officers, who had noticed them, hastened to the church to ex
tinguish them. Their steps were heard on the stairs in the
tower of the church, by the sexton, who had lighted the lanterns.
To escape discovery, he himself extinguished the lanterns, and
passing by the officers on the stairs, concealed himself in the
vaults of the church. He was, a day or two after, arrested,
while discharging the duties of his office at a funeral, tried, and
condemned to death ; but respited on a threat of retaliation
from Gen. Washington, and finally exchanged. This anecdote

56
was related to me, with many circumstances of particularity,
by one who had often heard it from the sexton himself.

Note B,page 21.
The manner in which Colonel Revere was received at Lex
ington, which is not related in his own letter, will appear from
the following extract from the deposition of Colonel William
Munroe, which, with several other similar interesting docu
ments, forms a part of the Appendix to the pamphlet alluded
to in the next note.
" About midnight, Colonel Paul Revere rode up and request
ed admittance. I told him the family had just retired, and re
quested they might not be disturbed by any noise about the
house. ' Noise !' said he, ' you '11 have noise enough before
long. The regulars are coming out.' We then permitted him
to pass." p. 33.

Note C,page 30.
It will be perceived, that, in drawing up the account of the
transactions at Lexington, reference has been had to the testi
mony contained in the pamphlet lately published, entitled,
" History of the Battle at Lexington, on the morning of the 19th
of April, 1775. By Elias Phinney." While in this pamphlet

57
several interesting facts are added, on the strength of the de
positions of surviving actors in the scene, to the accounts pre
viously existing ; there is nothing, perhaps, in them, which
may not be reconciled with those previously existing accounts,
if due allowance be made for the sole object for which the lat
ter were originally published — to show that the British were the
aggressors ; — for the hurry and confusion of the moment ; and
for the different aspect of the scene as witnessed by different
persons, from different points of view. It has, however, been
my aim not to pronounce on questions in controversy ; but to
state the impression left on my own mind after an attentive
examination of all the evidence.

Note D,page 39.
An interesting anecdote relative to this march of Lord Percy
has been communicated to me by a veteran of the Revolution,
who bore his part in the events of the day. Intelligence hav
ing been promptly received of Lord Percy's being detached, the
Selectmen of Cambridge, by order of the Committee of Safety,
caused the planks of the Old Bridge to be taken up. Had this
been effectually done, it would have arrested the progress of
Lord Percy. But the planks, though all taken up, instead of
being thrown into the river or removed to a distance, were
piled up on the causeway, at the Cambridge end of the bridge.
8

58
But little time was therefore lost by Lord Percy, in sending
over men upon the string-pieces of the bridge, who replaced
the planks, so as to admit the passage of the troops. This was,
however, so hastily and insecurely done, that when a convoy
of provision wagons, with a sergeant's guard, which had follow
ed in the rear of the reinforcement, reached the bridge, the
planks were found to be too loosely laid to admit a safe pas
sage ; and a good deal of time was consumed in adjusting them.
The convoy at length passed ; but after such a delay, that Lord
Percy's army was out of sight. The officer who commanded
the convoy was unacquainted with the roads, and was misdi
rected by the inhabitants at Cambridge. Having at last, after
much lost time, been put into the right road, the body of troops
under Lord Percy was so far advanced, as to afford the convoy
no protection. A plan was accordingly laid and executed by
the citizens of West Cambridge (then Menotomy) to arrest this
convoy. The alarum-list, or body of exempts, under Captain
Frost, by whom this exploit was effected, acted under the di
rection of a negro, who had served in the French war ; and
who, on this occasion, displayed the utmost skill and spirit.
The history of Gordon, and the other accounts which follow
him, attribute the capture of the convoy to the Rev. Dr Payson
of Chelsea. Those who have farther information alone can
judge between the two accounts. The Rev. Mr Thaxter, of
Edgartown, in a letter lately published in the United States
Literary Gazette, has ascribed the same exploit to the Rev.
Edward Brooks of Medford. Mr Brooks early hastened to the

59
field as a volunteer that day ; and is said to have preserved the
life of Lieut. Gould of the 18th regiment, who was made
prisoner at Concord Bridge ; but there is, I believe, no
ground for ascribing to him the conduct of the affair in ques
tion.

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