wenty young ladies" in the studies which occupied
their brothers at a later hour.

He was thus engaged in the year 1774. The whole country was alive
with the movements and discussions which came to a crisis in the
battle of Lexington the next year. Hale, though not of age, was
enrolled in the militia and was active in the military organization
of the town.

So soon as the news of Lexington and Concord reached New London, a
town-meeting was called. At this meeting, this young man, not yet of
age, was one of the speakers. "Let us march immediately," he said,
"and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence." He
assembled his school as usual the next day, but only to take leave
of his scholars. "He gave them earnest counsel, prayed with them,
shook each by the hand," and bade them farewell.

It is said that there is no other record so early as this in which
the word "independence" was publicly spoken. It would seem as if the
uncalculating courage of a boy of twenty were needed to break the
spell which still gave dignity to colonial submission.

He was commissioned as First Lieutenant in the Seventh Connecticut
regiment, and resigned his place as teacher. The first duty assigned
to the regiment was in the neighborhood of New London, where,
probably, they were perfecting their discipline. On September 14,
1775, they were ordered by Washington to Cambridge. There they were
placed on the left wing of his army, and made their camp at the foot
of Winter Hill. This was the post which commanded the passage from
Charlestown, one of the only two roads by which the English could
march out from Boston. Here they remained until the next spring.
Hale himself gives the most interesting details of that great
victory by which Washington and his officers changed that force of
minute-men, by which they had overawed Boston in 1775, into a
regular army. Hale re-enlisted as many of the old men as possible,
and then went back to Coventry to engage, from his old school
companions, soldiers for the war. After a month of such effort at
home, he came back with a body of recruits to Roxbury.

On January 30th his regiment was removed to the right wing in
Roxbury. Here they joined in the successful night enterprise of
March 4th and 5th, by which the English troops were driven from
Boston.

So soon as the English army had left the country, Washington knew
that their next point of attack would be New York. Most of his army
was, ther