erend Jonas Clark, where Hancock and Adams were sleeping under a
guard of the militia. Revere asked admittance, and the sergeant informed
him that the family had requested that no noise be made.

"Noise!" replied Revere in the phrase familiar to every schoolboy,
"you'll have noise enough before long--the regulars are coming out!"[60]
The family was accordingly at once aroused.

Meanwhile the troops had actually started. "Between 10 and 11 o'clock,"
says Lieutenant Barker, "all the Grenadiers and Light Infantry of the
Army, making about 600 Men, (under command of Lt. Coll. Smith of the
10th and Major Pitcairn of the Marines,) embarked and were landed on the
opposite shore of Cambridge Marsh." This phrasing is not immediately
clear to one of to-day. In those days every regiment had two special
companies, the heavy-armed grenadiers, so called because they originally
carried hand-grenades, and the light-infantry company. These were
frequently detached for special duty, as the present, when the Light
Infantry would be used for flanking purposes. Thus every regiment in
Boston was represented in the expedition--and we may add in the list of
killed and wounded on the following day. The number is generally
estimated at eight hundred. They were commanded by the colonel who had
been longest on duty in New England. Smith was in character too much
like Gage himself. The general would have done better to send one of
his brigadiers.

One at least of the brigadiers was reasonably alert. According to
Stedman, Lord Percy was crossing the Common after learning from the
general that a secret expedition had just started. Perceiving a group of
men talking together, the nobleman joined them in time to hear one say,
"The British troops have marched, but have missed their aim."

"What aim?" asked Lord Percy.

The reply was, "The cannon at Concord." Percy, in much perturbation, at
once returned to the general and told him that his secret was known.
Poor Gage complained that his confidence had been betrayed, "for that he
had communicated his design to one person only besides his lordship."

The student of the time sees in this story a side-thrust at Mrs. Gage,
on whom, as an American, the officers were ready to blame the knowledge
of secrets which were gained by Yankee shrewdness alone. In this case we
have seen that it was Gage that betrayed himself to the eyes of
Revere's volunteer watch. The general hastily sent to order the guard at
the