"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.