d for. It also
voted to hold no intercourse with Great Britain, and decided not to
visit Shakespeare's grave unless the mother-country should apologize.

[Illustration: BOSTON TEA PARTY, 1893.]

In 1775, on the 19th of April, General Gage sent out troops to see about
some military stores at Concord, but at Lexington he met with a company
of minute-men gathering on the village green. Major Pitcairn, who was in
command of the Tommies, rode up to the minute-men, and, drawing his
bright new Sheffield sword, exclaimed, "Disperse, you rebels! throw down
your arms and disperse!" or some such remark as that.

The Americans hated to do that, so they did not. In the skirmish that
ensued, seven of their number were killed.

Thus opened the Revolutionary War,--a contest which but for the
earnestness and irritability of the Americans would have been extremely
brief. It showed the relative difference between the fighting qualities
of soldiers who fight for two pounds ten shillings per month and those
who fight because they have lost their temper.

The regulars destroyed the stores, but on the way home they found every
rock-pile hid an old-fashioned gun and minute-man. This shows that there
must have been an enormous number of minute-men then. All the English
who got back to Boston were those who went out to reinforce the original
command.

The news went over the country like wildfire. These are the words of the
historian. Really, that is a poor comparison, for wildfire doesn't jump
rivers and bays, or get up and eat breakfast by candle-light in order to
be on the road and spread the news.

General Putnam left a pair of tired steers standing in the furrow, and
rode one hundred miles without feed or water to Boston.

Twenty thousand men were soon at work building intrenchments around
Boston, so that the English troops could not get out to the suburbs
where many of them resided.

[Illustration: GENERAL PUTNAM LEAVING A PAIR OF TIRED STEERS.]

I will now speak of the battle of Bunker Hill.

This battle occurred June 17. The Americans heard that their enemy
intended to fortify Bunker Hill, and so they determined to do it
themselves, in order to have it done in a way that would be a credit to
the town.

A body of men under Colonel Prescott, after prayer by the President of
Harvard University, marched to Charlestown Neck. They decided to fortify
Breed's Hill, as it was more commanding, and all night long they kept on
fortifyi