YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1941

'ORATION

V

ROBERT RANTOUL, JR.

A N t>

Irattrat tf t^f^um C.leknte,

i i

AT CONCORD,

NINETEENTH APRIL, 1850.

* 4 BOSTON:
DtlTTON AND WENTWORTH, PKINTBRS,
.'» No. 37, Congress Street,
18 50.

&P&GL 89> 1175*

O RATI O N

ROBERT RANTOITL, JR.

ACCOUNT OF THE UNION CELEBRATION,

AT CONCORD,

NINETEENTH APRIL, 1850.

AN

ORATION

DELIVERED AT CONCORD,

Crfetatara tf tjj? Itowty-^iftjr ItmterMtj

EVENTS OP APRIL 19, 1775,

ROBERT RANTOUL, Jk.

DELIVERED BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, AND PUBLISHED
BY THEIR ORDER.

BOSTON: »
DUTTON & WENTWORTH, STATE PEINTEES.
1850.

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. IN SENATE, April 22, 1850.
Ordered, '.fhat Messrs. Dawes and Thompson, with such as the House may
join, be a Committee to, request of the Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr., a copy of the
Historical Address, delivered by him at Concord, on the seventy -fifth anniversary of
the first battle of the American Revolution, that the same may be printed by the
Legislature, with a brief account of the other exercises upon that occasion.
Sent down for concurrence. CHAS. CALHOUN, Clerk.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, April 22, 1850.
Concurred: and Messrs. Hoar, of Concord, Leeds, of Boston, Boutwell.
of Groton, Smith, of Enfield, and Stone, of Charlestown, are joined.
C. W. STOREY, Clerk.

To the Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr.
Sir, — The subscribers, the Joint Committee of tlie Legislature, having enjoyed
the high pleasure of listening to the Address delivered by you, before the members
of the several branches of the Government, at Concord, on the 19th of April, instant,
gladly obey the above order in presenting to you their request.
We trust, sir, that, by a compliance with the wishes of the Legislature, you will
afford to those, who had not the privilege of hearing the Address, an opportunity of
learning its historical and literary value. HENRY L. DAWES,
CHARLES THOMPSON,
SAMUEL HOAR,
SAMUEL LEEDS,
ALVIN SMITH,
GEO. S. BOUTWELL,
JAMES M. STONE.

Gentlemen, —
I am honored by your communication, this day received, and would readily for
ward a copy of the Oration, delivered by me at Concord, in compliance with the vote
of the. Legislature of the Commonwealth, were it not that I have already furnished
Ihe manuscript to the Committee of Associated Towns, who, I doubt not, will acqui
esce in the arrangement contemplated by the order of the Hon. Senate and House.
Accept my thanks for the very obliging terms in which you have been pleased to
express the views of the Legislature. I am, most respectfully,
Your obt. servt.,
Hon. Henry L. Dawes, Charles Thomp- R. RANTOUL, Jr.
son, Samuel Hoar, Samuel Leeds,
Alvin Smith, Geo. S. Boutwell, James
M. Stone, Committee of the Legisla
ture of Massachusetts.

CONCORD, April 22, 1850.
Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr.
Dear Sir, — Pursuant to the unanimous vote of the Committee of Arrangements
for the Union Celebration of tlie events of the 19th of April, 1T75, we tender to yo»
the thanks of the towns engaged in tlie celebration, for the able and interesting Ad
dress, delivered by you in this place, on the 19th instant, in commemoration of that
glorious birth-day of American Liberty, and request, in their behalf, a copy for pub
lication. Trusting that you will gratify the earnest desire felt for a perusal of sentiments so
worthy and appropriate to the occasion on which they were uttered,
We are, with the highest regard,
Your obliged friends a_d fellow-citizens,
JOHN S. KEYES, Chairman.
W. W. WHEILDON, Secretai-y.

BOSTON, April 23, 1850.
Gentlemen, —
I place at your disposal, the manuscript of my Address on the 19th instant, agree
ably to tlie request of the Committee of the Associated Towns, before whose
inhabitants it was delivered, with my thanks for the kindness expressed in your
communication. And have the honor to be,
Most respectfully, Your obt. setv't, R. RANTOUL, Jr.
Messrs. John S. Keyes, Chairman,
W. W. Wheildon, Secretary,
of Committee of Arrangements.

ORATION

The law by which God governs the universe is a
law of progress. The undeveloped capacities of the
human intellect, the aspirations of the soul after a
higher and better moral state of being, even in the
present life, the feeling of dissatisfaction and unrest,
sad, but not without hope, which ever urges on the
wise and good, after an infinite succession of de
feats, to new efforts to remove out of our path the
chief evils that continually beset us, all indicate
that, in its pilgrimage through weary ages of vicis
situdes, the human family has, as yet, no abiding
place ; that its course is, and must be, onward to
wards the true destiny in which its faculties are
fitted to expand themselves, in their free action, and
full enjoyment. The infancy of our race was pass
ed in struggling to escape from physical suffering,
while groping in ignorance, groaning under oppres
sion, and shuddering at superstitious terrors. But
the stern teachings of this long adversity hardened
and confirmed the vigor which they did not crush,
so that courage and strength gradually grew out of
2

10
the contest, if it did not result in complete victory.
We are now in the period of immature youth, and
the wisdom above which guides us, and which has
led us through many grievous trials, from evil still
educing good, has doubtless further, and perhaps
greater trials in store for us. As the Apostle Paul
declared the heavier yoke of the Mosaic dispensa
tion to be designed for the office of a schoolmaster,
to bring its pupils worthily, in the fulness of time,
into the light and liberty of the gospel ; so the toils,
and hardships, aiid reverses of many thousand years,
are educating mankind for a nobler exercise of God
given powers, and the more perfect fruition of the
purposes of a nature, created but a little lower than
the angels.
There is. nothing in the universe that is not sub
ject to change. The stars in their courses have no
appointed goal, where they may pause, but in secu
lar, and as yet unmeasured revolutions, steadily
wheel, obedient to the original law of their nature.
Great moral changes are like the motions of these
enormous masses of matter; slow, and guided by
unalterable laws: but not like them steady and
uniform in their phenomena. Moral advancement
proceeds by impulse following impulse, like the
several waves of a swelling tide. Between the
waves, wide spaces intervene, but no impulse is lost
in the sum of contributions to the general flood.

11
To know what point we have reached, to know
whither we are tending, are the two great problems
of absorbing interest. To understand and solve
them, we investigate the past. No eye can pierce
the darkness of the future, except by the aid of
those rays which the lamp of experience casts for
ward to reveal its mysteries.
So inexhaustible is the abundance of the lessons
Avhich history affords to the observer, that we are
not so much embarrassed to find subjects which
deserve and reward careful examination and pro
tracted meditation, as to choose among those which
obviously present themselves. The most interesting
and instructive epochs of history are those when
controlling influences, which have governed, or
seemed likely to govern, for a considerable period,
the affairs of millions, suddenly terminate, and a
new order of things begins. Whether it be the
catastrophe of some ancient dynasty, as the Persian
before Alexander, or the Bourbon before awakened
France ; or the downfall of some extensive empire,
as of Assyria, or of Kome; or the death agony of
national independence, rushing to ruin in a single
day of blood, as at Babylon, or Carthage, or Con
stantinople, or Warsaw ; or the struggle of con
flicting parties, or systems, decided in the shock of
some great . battle, and determining for awhile the
political aspect of the world, as at Pharsalia, or

12
Actium, or Marengo, or Waterloo ; or if it be the
introduction of some agent, working effects unper-
ceived at first, but afterwards apparent in their
magnitude, as gunpowder, the press, the compass,
the cotton gin, the use of coal for fuel, or of steam
for motive power ; we are irresistibly impelled to
inquire into all the circumstances of the change, its
causes, how it might have been hastened or post
poned, its consequences, how far it was unforeseen
and inevitable, or long expected, and the result of
genius and energy on the one hand, or folly and
imbecility on the other. But when the fortunes of
civilization or of liberty hang doubtful in the bal
ance, how inconceivably grand is such an issue.
How immeasurably does it transcend all ordinary
debate, whether of the academy, the forum, or the
battle field. How does such a spectacle rivet the
attention of contemporaries ; and excite the curiosi
ty, and command the admiration, of posterity. The
poet and the philosopher, the patriot and the phi
lanthropist, the warrior and the statesman, all turn
with common enthusiasm towards the spot and the
hour, on which the peril passed away, and the sal
vation of all that is dearest to humanity was secured.
When we hang delighted over the pictured pages
of the father of story, and drink in the charm of
that old Ionic melody which will never cease to fas
cinate ingenuous youth, what is the scene at which

13
we pause and linger with the intensest sympathy,
feeling that the Greek cause is indeed our cause I
It is when we see that the soldiers of the city states
are our champions ; that in their discomfiture our
liberty, and all true life, must have been struck
down forever ; and that the achievement of the all-
daring few who stood at Marathon, not only brought,
for them, glory out of danger, but wrought out also
our deliverance.
The great king, Darius, the compeller, as his
name in his own language signified, had mustered
his myrmidons like a locust cloud : the Ionian colo
nies were overrun : Delos, the abode of the prophet
Deity, shook with an ominous trembling. An em
pire, that, from the rising to the setting sun, over
shadowed with its greatness all the nations of the
earth, launched its whole power upon the little dis
united democracies of the Greek peninsula. In
vengeance for the flames of Sardis, shrines were pil
laged and temples burned ; havoc swept the land,
and the fettered captives were consigned to Persian
slavery, far from the native soil they loved so well.
Eretria had fallen; Marathon was not far from
Eretria, on the invader's way to Athens. Then was
manifested the amazing transformation which self-
government works when once gained ; for while the
Greeks were subject to tyrants, they excelled not
their neighbors in renown, but when they were

14
delivered from oppression, they surpassed them all.*
Then first the Greeks beheld, without dismay, the
dress and armor of the Medes ; for before that time,
in Greece, the very name of a Mede was a terror, j-
But now, Datis, with the hordes of Parthia, Baby
lon, and Egypt, swelling his array, is checked in his
career of desolation, by a few Athenians, without
archers or cavalry. Freedom had made them heroes.
They ran to the charge against the barbarians, and
victory flew with them. The astonished satrap
thought them mad ; but the Athenian and Platean
wings closed on his host, and drove them with
slaughter to the sea. The city of Minerva, exult
ing in tumultuous triumph, received her returning
Miltiades, radiant with glory, like a god. Not to
her alone had he given freedom, and strength, and
prosperity, and dominion; he had vindicated for
countless coming ages the possibility of a higher
and purer civilization. Where would have been
architecture and sculpture, the miracles of genius of
the age of Pericles and Phidias, and all that their
divine simplicity has since inspired of the true and
the beautiful, if Asia on that day had prevailed over
Europe] Where oratory, and the drama ] Where
history, and philosophy, and the spirit of freedom
that pervaded Greek letters, and from them informed
the whole body of Eoman literature, and again at
* Herodotus. Terpsichore, 78. f Herodotus. Erato, 112.

15
the revival of learning kindled in the heart of the
modern world the long-forgotten love of liberty %
This is but an imperfect inventory of the richest
bequest ever left by any people to the race ; yet
this, the heavy levelling wheel of Oriental despot
ism, if it had once passed over it, would have crushed
and buried in oblivion.
Twelve hundred years rolled away after that
golden day at Marathon, and again Asia pours
into Europe another and fiercer barbaric invasion.
Again she threatens to extinguish the flickering
torch of science, which, choked by the deadly ex
halations of that more than Egyptian midnight that
had settled on the world, threw but a gloomy and
uncertain gleam over the ruins, broken and scatter
ed by the destroyers " who had swarmed from the
northern hive. The disciples of the Arabian proph
et had propagated his religion, and extended the
Moslem empire farther in the first century after his
decease, than the Roman vultures had flown in the
space of eight hundred years. The Koran, the
tribute, or the sword, was the alternative which
they offered to the vanquished, after their uncount
ed victories. From Damascus, the centre of their
power, the Crescent shed disastrous twilight over
the nations, for two thousand miles, to Benares and
the Ganges, in the east ; as far as across the breadth
of Africa, to the pillars of Hercules and the waves of

16
the Atlantic in the west. On the 30th of April, 7 1 1 ,
Tariff Ben Zeyad crossed from Ceuta to the coast'
of Spain, and fortified the rock ever since called,
from his name, Gibraltar. So strange was the cos
tume and the bearing of his Mauritanian followers,
that they seemed like beings dropped from another
world. Tariff burned his ships, and with his scimi
tar opened his way towards Toledo, through a three
days sanguinary battle, at Xeres, in which Roderic
his royal antagonist was slain ; the degenerate de
scendants of the warriors of the great Euric were
routed, and the Gothic monarchy fell, as indeed it
deserved to fall. The fanaticism which made the
Saracens invincible, had not yet spent its force.
Mohammed had promised to . the faithful the king
doms of the earth for a possession, and they delay
ed not to enter upon their inheritance. In about
twenty years they had subdued all Spain, and half
of Gaul, advancing from the rock of Gibraltar, one
thousand miles, to the Loire, up the valley of the
Rhone and Saone as far as Besancon, dilapidating
churches and monasteries, whose ruins still bear
witness to their progress, putting to the sword all
who could bear arms, but sparing non-combatants,
except the " sworn children of the Devil," as they
called the monks, on whom they wreaked the fren
zied hatred of their new born faith. If the Franks
should succumb, neither the Lombards, nor the

17
Greeks, nor any Teutonic or Sclavonic people could
hope to present a more effectual resistance. It
would then be easy in comparison with what had
already been accomplished, to conquer Germany,
Italy, and the Greek empire, and return by Avay of
Constantinople to the Euphrates, thus uniting Eu
rope with Asia and Africa under a sceptre mightier
than that of Sesostris, or Alexander, or Trajan, or
in after times, Napoleon.
This stupendous enterprise Abdalrahman, Emir
of Cordova, had conceived. He gathered the tribes
of Yemen and Damascus, Moors, Berbers from be
yond Mount Atlas, on their coursers fleet as the
wind, and all the Moslem force of Spain. Un
quenchable was the zeal raging in the breasts of
these miscreants, to wash out their sins in the blood
of the Christians, and to win a seat among the
Houries, by chrystal fountains, in the gardens of
everlasting bliss. The sWord is the key of heaven
and hell, said the prophet ; battle is the gate of par
adise. The feet that are covered with dust in the
holy war shall never burn in the eternal fire. Say
not they die who fall in the holy war : Allah re
ceives them to himself. Their wounds shall bloom
resplendent as vermillion, redolent with the fra
grance of musk in the day of judgment. These
were the promises that lifted their souls above dan
ger, pain, and death ; while the dogmas of a religion
3

18
breathing 'fire and carnage, urged them on perpet
ually to more distant conquests. They who fall in
the holy war at home, says one of their sublime
doctors, feel no keener pang in death than the sting
of a common ant ; but to them who fall in the holy
war over the sea, death has a sensation like cold
water mingled with fresh honey, to a traveller per
ishing with thirst, in the middle of a burning desert.
Abdalrahman led the soldiers of the crescent
across the Pyrenees, took and pillaged Bordeaux,
and on the banks of the Dordogne encountered
Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine, whom he overthrew with
a loss so terrible, that in the language of the chron
icler, God alone could reckon the number of the
slain. Aquitaine and Burgundy were ravaged with
out resistance, and the devastating torrent reached
the environs of Tours. The genius and the battle-
axe of one man, Karl, Duke of Austrasia, rescued
Christendom in this her hour of extreme peril.
With his Franks and Gallo-Romans, Karl met the
enemies of the cross between Tours and Poictiers,
and there decided the eventful controversy between
the religion of the Koran and the faith taught in
the gospels.
It was in the month of October, in the year 732,
a century complete after the death of Mohammed.
The two^armies skirmished and manoeuvred seven
days, before the signal for the deadly strife was

19
given ; for each knew the strength of his adversary,
and felt that no ordinary interests were staked upon
the issue. The Austrasian warriors were drawn up
in compact ranks ; their formidable stature, covered
with breastplates, and bucklers glittering in the sun,
presented as it were a wall of steel, impenetrable to
the charge. They awaited with admiration the on
set of that brilliant oriental cavalry; wild Berbers,
shaggy nomades of the desert, and turbanned Arabs,
whose polished cuirasses and bright scimitars
flashed fire as they pranced over the field. They
joined battle early on the morning of Saturday.
The column who formed that day the last bulwark
of Christendom, stood like a rock of adamant against
which the troops of Moslem horse, like successive
billows, dashed themselves and were hurled back in
confusion. The long and serried pikes resisted ev
ery attack, and the ponderous battle axe of the Ger
mans, the Francisque, shivered the Moorish cui
rasses, and hewed-down squadrons. The earth
trembled as, with impetuous valor, the Moorish
horse thundered on the Christian phalanx, and Were
as often repulsed. So all day the doubtful war
ebbed and flowed till the shades of night suspended
the contest; but not till Abdalrahman and his
bravest comrades had fallen beneath the death deal
ing battle-axe. At daylight, on Sunday, the Franks
formed, and cautiously approached the Moslem

20
tents, to complete the ruin of their enemies ; but
they found the camp deserted. The survivors- of
that hard-fought field had fled during the night.
Shouts of joy welcomed the discovery. The robbers
left behind them the spoils of the cities of the South,
and of half the monasteries of France, and the- plain
so strewed with the dead, that Arab writers call it
the pavement of the martyrs. They abandoned
Aquitaine forever. Karl and his successors drove
them beyond the Pyrenees ; and this was the last
attempt to make the Mediterranean a lake for the
internal intercourse of the all absorbing Saracen
Caliphate. Karl was called Martel, or the hammer,
after the victory, because he smote the unbelievers,
as Thor the.God of his heathen ancestors, smites the
rebellious deities with that hammer which is the
symbol of the Scandinavian Jove.
What would have been the fate of France, of Eu
rope, of Christendom, had the keen scimitar of
Abdalrahman cloven the head of Karl Martel in
the battle of Tours'? We may judge, perhaps, by
measuring the degradation and the slavery of Egypt,
Persia, Syria, and Turkey. Without a special and
miraculous interposition, Christianity would have
given place to Mohammedanism. No Italian repub
lics would have sprung, into life beneath the iron
yoke of Caliphs and Emirs. The genius of Italian
literature was cradled on the stormy sea of liberty.

21
The fine arts, through the whole period of their
perfection, were the exponents of Christianity.
Where are the Dante> the Ariosto, or the Milton of
the Moslem faith 1 Where is the Michael Angelo,
or the Raphael, of Bagdad, or of Teheran *? Where
the Handel of Cairo, or Aleppo ] Poetry is dumb,
and music soulless, and painting hath no charm
under the brutalizing superstition, into which the
doctrine of the Koran, after its first outburst of
frantic ferocity, has finally subsided. Strike with
such a paralysis the mind of Europe, and the starry
Galileo would have lived to other woes than those
of too much science. No . Vasco would have ex
plored the adventurous passage to the realms of fab
ulous wealth in India or Cathay. No Columbus
would have given a new world to Castile and Leon,
a refuge for the oppressed, room for disenthralled
man to grow to the full stature of intellectual and
moral greatness. No Guttemberg would have given
to truth the thunder tones with which she shakes
the world. The genius of mechanical invention
would not have fettered the most potent of the de
mons, steam, chaining him to the wheel, to toil at
the task work of many millions, under the super
vision of a few trusty sentinels. Commerce would
not have spread her white wings, like an angel of
peace, over every ocean; enriching, enlightening,
blessing, wherever she smiles, and brightening daily

22
every link in the golden chain of universal brother
hood. 'Abdalrahman had planted himself like a
hungry lion in the path of human progress. Karl
Martel lifted his stalwart arm, and smote the grim
Paynim with his heavy Francisque. The way is
open : humanity passes on.
I have described a crisis, imminent, passing away,
and again recurring, in which the mother country
of certain new systems of thought waged an exter
minating war against the ideas that were her own
offspring. The South Western peninsula of Asia,
enclosed by the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the
Euxine, and the Caspian, with a slight auxiliary in
fluence from Egypt, is the source whence flowed
into Europe all the notions, social, political, relig
ious, which she has received from abroad 'for more
than three thousand years. The seeds of Greek
science were confessed by the Greeks to have been
imported, but they germinated rapidly and flourished
more luxuriantly than in their native soil. When
the Great King ordered his satraps to root out the
plant, all the nations of the mother country of
science followed in their tram to enforce the sen
tence. God be thanked that sooner or later comes
a day of emancipation from mother countries. The
mind of Greece was free, and had been from her in
fancy. A few reluctant states yielded the tribute
demanded ; but the little republics scattered along

23
the coast, who, " with sunny scorn," flung defiance
at the feet of the monarch, were strong enough to
withstand and ultimately to shatter the great em
pire of the age.
Greek freedom thus secured, Greek civilization
soon culminated. It did a great work ; but, in its
best estate, it was far from sufficing for the wants of
man. There was needed a system less selfish, more
spiritual ; rules and principles of action for a loftier
standard of human duty than even the sublimest
morality of the Greek philosophers ; affections more
comprehensive than the narrow patriotism of a
Greek city.
The same Asiatic peninsula supplied these wants.
It sent forth into a world benighted in idolatry, the
sacred volume of Hebrew literature, impressed on
every page, blazing in characters of living light,
with the great central truth' of all later faiths and
revelations, the Unity of the Divine Being.
This idea informed thinking minds, and penetrated
the frame work of society, to a much greater depth
than is commonly supposed, before the Christian
era. But it is not to be found in Europe until it
has circulated for some centuries in Asia. The
laws and records of Moses, himself of an Asiatic
race, educated in Egypt, were reduced to writing
in the Arabian desert, and promulgated among the
inhabitants of a corner of Syria, ages before the light

24
of this truth' shone on Europe ; and though the
Jewish local and ritual laws made but few converts
beyond their own tribes, yet the transforming fact,
that there is one Creator, Preserver and Judge, must
have disseminated itself among candid inquirers
wherever the genius of emigration impelled that
restless people. Then issued- from Palestine that
mission of mercy which taught men that they were
children of one father, and heirs of one destiny.
Through the broad Roman empire it vindicated its
triumphant progress, consoling the slaves of the
Neros and Caracallas, breathing life into the bosom
of despair, cheering with immortal hope the habita
tions of the dark places of the earth, which were
full of cruelty.
After six hundred years the mother country of
the Jewish and Christian religions had apostatized
from the worship of the Prince of Peace, and obeyed
the apostles of that prophet who was called the Son
of the Sword.. Then rushed the frenzied fanatics of
Arabia, Persia, Syria, what is now Turkey, and
Egypt, across Christian Africa, blotting out from
her history thenceforth the faith, and the very name
of Christ, and with the same fell purpose upon Eu
rope, hurried on that terrible irruption which pen
etrated a thousand miles, to be wrecked upon the
heavy shields and firm set pikes of the Franks be
fore Tours.

25
Another thousand years rolled on, and again
transplanted principles have taken deep root, and
blossomed luxuriantly, and again the arm that
planted is stretched forth to eradicate them. Of
these, one is democratic freedom ; which, nourished
in a propitious soil, had shot up vigorously. Its
boughs spread wide, and made a goodly shadow ;
its leaves were for the healing of the nations. The
inhabitants of the land rejoiced in its shelter and
fruit. The inhabitants of other lands hailed its
glorious promise, and longed for that blessed shelter
to reach their borders. Britain, fair mother of a
hundred states, — -filia pulchrior, — is the mother of
one far excelling her own matronly beauty ; and the
anticipated rivalry of the daughter, with all the light
and life of youth to witch a wondering world, could
not fail to arouse the jealousy of a parent unwilling
to fancy that she must ever cease to reign supreme
in the admiration of all beholders.
Great Britain had elaborated, through wars of
barons against the crown, and matured and per
fected, through the reciprocating motion of rebellion
on one side, and the headsman's axe on the other, a
superior form of aristocratic liberty. When she
had done this, she had accomplished her mission.
The incubus of Conservatism palsied her endeavors
after anything better. A regenerating revolution
convulsed one whole generation of the people of
4

26
that island. It tantalized them with rainbow prom
ises ; yielded nothing but the bitterness of hope de
ferred, and at last turned and went backward : thick
brooding darkness settled on the prospects of pop
ular freedom. The fellow-patriots of Hampden,
and the fellow-soldiers of Cromwell, who gave to
England all the liberty she yet enjoys, beyond mere
feudal privileges, disappointed in the reformation of
church and state for which they had risked their
lives, left behind them, not their mother country
only, but abuses too inveterate to be redressed ; her
institutions incurably vicious, which sacrificed the
general welfare to the interest or caprice of the few.
They followed into this new world wilderness the
pilgrim pioneers, never doubting that they should
realize here the beatific vision which still reigned
in their hearts, though it had mocked so often their
fond, impatient expectations, the Christian Com
monwealth, — " the holy city coming down from God
out of heaven, beautiful as a bride adorned forlier
husband."1 They brought with them the doctrines
that the people are the source of power, and cannot
be taxed without their own consent, and that the
private Christian is amenable only to his own con?
science, and his Maker, for his worship and his
faith. They brought with them equality, self-re
spect, self-control, fraternity ; and that which guar-
1 Dr. Cooper's sermon on the commencement of the Constitution Oct. 25th, 1780.

27
anteed all these, courage hardened in adversity,
and the. Puritan spirit of resistance against every*
encroachment on their rights.
For more than a century and a half after the ar
rival of the Mayflower, the little democratic com
munities, the towns of New England, had been
schools of mutual instruction in individual freedom
and local independence. Long and desperate strug
gles with the savages and the French had made the
colonists self-reliant. The management of their
common colonial affairs, and the discussions in their
representative assemblies, had given them adminis
trative experience, and developed the instinct of or
ganization, and legislative capacity. Upon the dis
solution of the political bands which united them
to Great Britain, they could trust confidently not to
fall into anarchy, but to enter upon a new career of
regulated liberty as free and independent states.
To this however they did not aspire, until the usur
pation, by the mother country, of their acknowledged
rights as Englishmen, forced upon them the alterna
tive of political slavery, or national independence.
France had been driven from the North American
continent, and the Indians on this side of the Al
leghanies had ceased to be formidable, before Great
Britain began to regard the colonies as a magnifi
cent field whence to reap a future harvest of re
venue. The opportunity was too tempting, the an-

28
ticipated plunder too vast for ministerial*, virtue,
when Boston could truly boast that its own trade
had done much to raise the British empire to its ex
isting height of opulence and splendor,1 and when
Burke could demonstrate to the commons of the
realm, that the colonies furnished already a full
moiety of the wealth which commerce poured into the
coffers of the haughty mistress of the seas.2 It is
no wonder then that the British government, feeling
power and forgetting right, would not relinquish
without a struggle her attempt to impose the bur
den of unconstitutional taxation upon the Colonies.
Nor is it extraordinary, when we consider the ma
terial out of which the rising states were built up,
that the attempt should have met every where re
newed and obstinate resistance, and should have ul
timately miscarried. The rash financial empiricism
of Lord North and his besotted master, the arbitrary
coercive acts of parliament, and the bayonets of
Gage had encountered the indomitable steadfastness
of the Puritan stock, too stubborn to bend under
the heaviest pressure of tyranny.
The lofty and vehement eloquence of James Otis,
vivid as that electric fire which summoned his
troubled soul to its final peace, had kindled in every
breast the genial flame of liberty. The Junius Bru-
1 Vote of Boston, May 18, 1774
2 Speech on Conciliation, March 22, 1775.

29
tus of bur histbTy, that sturdy and incorruptible
Puritan, Samuel Adams, not over well supplied with
funds, but richer than king George and all his min
ions, — for there was not gold enough in the British
empire to buy him, — had awakened the great heart
of the democracy of this continent, and made it
throb responsive to his own. For his transparent
integrity and self-denying virtue, for his sound
judgment and manly energy, they loved and trusted,
respected and followed him. The merchant prince,
John Hancock, rallied the classes, whose pursuits
depended on commerce, fiercely indignant at the
shackles which the genius of monopoly, stretching
her leaden sceptre three thousand miles across the
ocean, had imposed upon their industry. The ma
jestic dignity and lion port with which John Adams
confronted power, wielding in his country's cause
the weapons of an oratory like that, which
" Shook the arsenal and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne,"
riving, with the thunderbolts of his genius, the mis
erable sophistries of the apologists of tyranny, in
spired with his own confidence, and firm resolve, his
admiring countrymen. The chivalrous Warren, the
most illustrious of the proto-martyrs, whose souls
cried from beneath the altar, how long! until
America had declared, and consummated,- and se-

30
cured her Independence ; he who watered with his
blood the monumental heights where yonder shaft
bears eternal witness to the high tragedy enacted at
its base, was instant in season and out of season, to
rouse, inform, combine, confirm the patriots on
whom devolved the giant work of revolution. His
fervid ardor awoke dormant enthusiasm, and breathed
new life into flagging zeal exhausted by efforts be
yond its nature to sustain, — " the fiery virtue roused,
from under ashes, into sudden flame," — and fanned ,
the rising conflagration, none more indefatigably,
none more successfully.
The determined posture which, under the gui
dance of these worthies, the country had assumed,
was not without well wishers on the other side of
the Atlantic. The oppressed of other lands watched
for the halting of the tyrant ; for they knew that
conquest over us would rivet their chains ; while
our successful repulse of -the impending invasion,
and vindication of our birthright from aggression,
would light up for them, as it were, a pillar of fire
by night, to lead them through darkness out of
bondage. Far-seeing men, themselves placed by
the accidents of rank or fortune above subjection
to the immediate and personal evils of misgovern-
ment, no less looked- anxiously for the triumph of
principles fraught with the redemption of humanity
from the* accumulated, wrongs and miseries of ages.

31
The philosophic monarch of Prussia, the great
Frederic, left behind him the record of his approba
tion of the first movement towards the extermina
tion of kingcraft ; a movement, all the ultimate
consequences of which, he probably had not esti
mated. Holland and France sympathized deeply
with us, as the event afterwards proved. Ireland,
from her rack of never-ending torture, sent up to
heaven in our behalf her heartfelt intercessions.
Even in England, philosophy and liberality, and
whatever elements of freedom the British constitu
tion contained, were all enlisted in the cause of the
colonies. In the Commons house of Parliament,
Burke, and Barre, and Fox, the wisdom, and wit,
and genius of that awful assemblage, waged inces
sant war, for us, against the creatures of executive
misrule ; and night after night, advanced, like a
forlorn hope, to storm the impregnable ministerial
benches. Even among the Lords, talent was on
our side. Chatham was not the only peer who re
joiced that America had resisted: x and the duke of
Grafton, abandoning the administration, wrote, to
Lord North, that, " the inclinations of the majority
of persons of respectability and property in England,
differed in little else than words, from the declara
tions of the Congress." After the sword was drawn,
and' the contest waxed hot, the. choicest spirits of
> January 14th, 1 766. Pitt in the House of Commons,

32
Europe rushed to engage in it. The soil which
they fought to emancipate, covers the bones of Pu
laski and De Kalb. Kosciusko served here his ap
prenticeship to freedom ; in whose name he defied -
death when slaughter revelled over the ruins of
Warsaw. The early friend of Washington, the
adopted child of America, the apostle of universal
liberty, the lamented of both worlds, the great and
good Lafayette, breaking from the lap of prosperity,
and deserting the home of domestic felicity, spurn
ing all obstacles, and breasting every danger, in
the bloom of youth devoted himself like Hannibal,
and swore upon the altar of human rights eternal
hatred to every form of tyranny.
With such leaders at home, and such friends
abroad, the disparity was still fearful between the
parties ranged in arms. Massachusetts, before the
colossal proportions of the parent state, showed like
the youthful champion of Israel arrayed against the
Philistine of Gath ; yet the stripling defied the
giant. It is the first collision between the hostile
powers, absolutism on the one side, liberty on the
other, the spirit of the past and the spirit of the
future, that we have this day met to commemo
rate, — a custom honored in the observance and de
serving to be perpetuated.
If those who live under governments in which
the subjects have, no share, can feel a patriotic in-

33
terest in the commemoration of the victories that
have illumined their annals, much more may we, a
self-governing, sovereign people, exult in our joint
inheritance of joy and pride. If the battles, in
which the selfish ambition of rivals for power has
deluged every corner of the earth in fraternal blood,
are held in everlasting remembrance by the pos
terity of the victors, to keep alive the national spirit
and to nourish that enthusiasm, which, blind and
preposterous as it may sometimes be, is yet the
strongest safeguard of a nation's honor, union, and
independence, how much rather should we embalm
in our hearts an act of self-sacrificing devotion, un
sullied with any mixture of sordid interest, — an act
which stands, and must forever stand, alone, in its
original, unapproachable sublimity ! The blasts
which have rung loudest and most frequent from
the trumpet of fame, have ever pealed in honor of
mere vulgar slaughters, — an unavailing and a lavish
waste of life, over which pure philanthropy could
only weep. How delightful is the contrast of our
American jubilees, when our grateful anthems as
cend in devout thanksgivings to Him who inspired
the founders of American independence to erect for
themselves that ever-during monument, — a work
which, as it had no model, though it may be often
imitated, will have no equal, forever peerless in its
solitary grandeur. 5

34
If there be any event in the history of the world,
that any nation is called upon to celebrate, the birth
day of a free and mighty empire presents the strong
est claim to this distinction. "Oh, what a glorious
morning is this !" was the memorable exclamation
of Samuel Adams, while, as himself, and his brother
in proscription as well as in patriotism, John Han
cock, in their concealment anxiously awaited the
event of the well known enterprise of British con
fidence, volley after volley of distant musketry
broke upon the ear, and told but too plainly that
the vengeance of the mightiest empire in the world
was let loose upon her feeble colony of Massa
chusetts Bay. It was the exclamation of more
than Roman patriotism ; it expressed the stern joy
springing from a higher feeling, — an unshaken trust
in that overruling Justice to which Pagan Rome
could only look up with dim and doubtful hope.
Was the dawn of the 19th of April, 1775, a glo
rious morning'? He, whose heart pronounced it
glorious, knew that it was the moment of a great
crime. British subjects were murdered by British
arms. Even while he spoke, the story was all too
audible, that the brother was imbruing his hands
in the blood of the brother. The first martyrs in a
holy cause, choice spirits of the youthful yeomanry
of Middlesex and Essex, on that day rendered in

35
their testimony. The deeds of that day gave earn
est, which the issue did not falsify, that
" British fury, rankling for revenge,
With Ate at her side, come hot from hell,
Should, in our confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war."
Not war only, oh my friends, with whose fell
visage they had grown familiar from their child
hood, threatened our fathers ; not French or Indian
hostilities, for which they could with composure
make ready preparation; but war in a new and
more fearful character, civil- war, the direst scourge
that ever tormented long-suffering humanity. Yes,
in the first shot fired at Lexington they recognized
the promise, hoW truly fulfilled, that British wrath,
in desolation, blood, and fire, should sweep the vast
continent from Maine to Georgia.
Why then was the morning of the first banquet
of civil slaughter a glorious morning ] What were
the omens that could brighten this gloomy future %
What rapturous vision of reward tempted them to
wade cheerfully through that sea of blood into
which they that day stepped exulting % Were they
courting fame, or power, or wealth, or popularity,
for themselves, and willing to pave the way to their
purpose with the myriads of heads that must be
laid in the dust? Were they conjuring up the
spirit of a terrible revolution, that they might ride

36
in the whirlwind and direct the storm it would
create 1 Nothing of all this found any place among
their motives. They did not belong to that class
of men concerning whom it is necessary to inquire
what profit recommends their acts of virtue.
They were never trained to pace in trammels^ nor
tempted by the sweets of preferment to sacrifice
freedom to the servile restraints of ambition, and,,
from this circumstance, could feel a comfort which
no external honors could bestow. Hancock and
Adams belonged to the class of Plutarch's men, —
the higher order of politicians described by Lord
Bacon ; their minds " endued with a true sense of
the frailty of their persons, the casualty of their for
tunes, and the dignity of their soul and vocation ;
so that it is impossible for them to esteem that any
greatness of their own fortune can be a true or
worthy end of their being and ordainment, and
therefore are desirous to give their account to God,.
and so likewise to their masters under God, the
states that they serve, not as unprofitable servants ;
whereas, the corrupter sort of mere politicians, that
have not their thoughts established in the love and
apprehension of duty, nor ever look abroad into
universality, do refer all things to themselves, and
thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as
if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes,
never caring, in all tempests, what becomes -of the

37
ship of state, so they may save themselves in the
cockboat of their own fortunes ; whereas, men that
feel the weight of duty, and know the limits of
self-love, use to make good their places and duties
though with peril."
The zeal of these two pioneers of the revolution
was disinterested, for the rebellion put all to hazard
that they had or might expect. A lucrative com
merce annihilated, the sources of Hancock's income
were largely cut off; in the defeat of the colonists,
the confiscation of his estates must have followed ;
and even to their success, his destruction seemed at
one time to be necessary. When it was contem
plated to bombard Boston during the seige, he
cheered on the attempt, though it would reduce his
property to ashes. Neutrality in the contest that
was coming on would have replenished the coffers
of Samuel Adams; but he was as inaccessible to
seduction as Phocion or Aristides, and lived and
died in honorable duty.
If popularity, fame, or influence, had charms for
these daring rebels, a safe and easy path was open
before them. The lavish munificence of Hancock's
private life, his hospitality, free as the air and lib
eral as the sun, his affability in social intercourse
and the urbanity of his carriage, fitted him to be
a universal favorite ; and, with his facility in busi
ness and knowledge of character, if joined to the

38
favor of the government, must have formed a most
powerful combination. The unostentatious habits,
unbending austerity, and indefatigable activity ¦ of
Samuel Adams, could not fail to command respect
and influence, upon different but no less certain
principles. Office was within his reach, if he had
deigned to accept it ; but Gov. Hutchinson, in a
letter, has told us why he was not silenced by
it : — " Such is the obstinacy and inflexible disposi
tion of the man," said his excellency, " that he
never can be conciliated by any office or gift what
ever,": — a tribute characteristic of him who had
maintained, on receiving his second degree at Har
vard, in 1743, that it was " lawful to resist the
supreme magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot
be otherwise preserved," with the same sincere zeal
with which he practiced the thesis. When Gen.
Gage, after the battle, offered a pardon to all the
other rebels, they had the honor to be the two sole
exceptions, their offences being " of too flagitious a
nature to admit of any other consideration than
that of condign punishment."
The prospect before Hancock and Adams, on the
ever-glorious nineteenth of April, was, to be soon
proclaimed traitors ; and if the giant despotism
they had provoked crushed the incipient rebellion,
as the world looking on expected, that then their
ghastly heads would frown from Temple bar, and

39
their blasted names be bequeathed to eternal in
famy, both in the old world and the new, — trium
phant tyranny having silenced the voice of truth,
justice, and patriotism. The " condign punishment"
denounced against these champions of the constitu
tional rights of Englishmen involved atrocities too
horrible to be alluded to here ;* it was an exhibi
tion from which a heathen spectator might natu
rally infer, that, not the dove, but the vulture, was
the emblem of Christianity. It had been first in
flicted on an unfortunate patriot guilty of the pre
cise crime of Hancock and Adams, David, Prince
of Wales, who, in the eleventh year of Edward I,
expiated, by a cruel death, his fidelity to the cause
of his country's independence. At a grand consul
tation of peers of the realm it was agreed that
London should be graced with his head, while York
and Winchester disputed for the honor of his right
shoulder. In a few years, other Welsh chiefs suf
fered the fate- of their prince. This unseemly pre
cedent, adopted in the flush and insolence of vic
tory, then assumed the venerable form of law, and
fell next upon the undaunted William Wallace,
who nobly died in defence of the liberties and inde
pendence of his country, exhibiting to the delighted
city of London a terrible example of Edward's ven-
i " Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown, e'er it ceases to beat,'
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale.''

40
geance. Such was the beginning of that law of
*
treason, which, originating in the year 1283, con
tinued in force for more than five centuries, as if to
warn mankind how easily the most execrable exam
ple may be introduced, and with what difficulty a
country is purified from its debasing influence.
Why should I single out illustrious victims of these
rites of Moloch1? The ever-hallowed names in
the perennial pages of British glory, you may read
them in the attainted catalogue of arrant traitors.
Long after the ashes of Welch independence were
quenched in the blood of a native. prince, ages. after
the spirit of Scottish liberty was roused, not crushed,
by the ignominious butchery of Wallace; More
and Fister, learning and piety, Russell and Sidney,
integrity and honor, were sacrificed upon the scaf
fold of treason, beneath the axe of arbitrary power.
These lessons of history might have taught our
Hancock and Adams, that the holy cause to which
they were devoted, purity of motive, and a charac
ter untouched by any shaft of calumny, were not
pleas in bar to a British indictment for treason.
Why, then, we may well ask again, was the pros
pect of coming perils glorious to the eye of far-
seeing patriotism % For the high prize that could
be# won by none but souls tempered to pass through
the intervening agony ; who, for the joy that was
set before them, could endure the cross and despise

41
the shame, — Liberty, the life of life, that gladdens
the barren hill-tops of Scotland and Switzerland,
and loved New England ; that makes the sun shine
brightly in our cold northern sky ; that makes the
valleys verdant in blithesome spring, and sober au
tumn laugh in her golden exuberance ; that nerves
the arm of labor, and blesses the couch of repose ;
that clothes with strength our sons, and our daugh
ters with beauty, — Liberty, in whose devotion they
were nursed ; which their fathers had bequeathed
to them, a legacy to be handed down unimpaired,
through ourselves, to their and our latest posterity ;
to which they clung through life, and which in
spired the patriotism that could freely testify, to die
for one's country is a joy and a glory.1
Young freedom had ever been consecrated by the
baptism of blood. Sparta and Athens, Holland
and the mountain-girt Swiss, proud Albion and re
generated France, bought at a cheap purchase, with
the lavish expense of their best lives, the rights
which they enjoyed. Adams and his compatriots,
on the day we have met to celebrate, knew that
liberty must be, as it ever had been, a life-bought
boon ; that only by a mortal struggle could it be
wrested from the grasp of power ; and that nothing
but perpetual vigilance, resolved to do, and dare,
and suffer all things, rather than surrender it, could
• " Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."— Warren in answer to Gerry.

42
guarantee the long possession of the blessing after^
wards. They had counted the cost, and chose the
purchase. Glorious, thrice glorious was the morning, then,
when the first shot fired at Lexington gave the
signal of separation, of a free and independent em
pire, from its parent state. The nineteenth of April,
and the seventeenth of June, both on the classic
ground of the world's freedom, this County of Mid
dlesex, cut out the work for the fourth of July, —
world-emancipating work, — which the achievements
of the heroes of the uprising of America, and the
Titanic labors of the transatlantic sons of revolution,
yet agitate and roll on towards its grand comple
tion. Middlesex possesses* this imperishable glory,
before which the lustre of the brightest victories,
won in battles between contending tyrants, turns
pale. Her children claim a common property in
the trophies of these two memorable days ; they
walk together in the light of these two glowing
beacon-fires, kindled on that stormy coast where
liberty has taken up her eternal abode, to illumi
nate, with the cheering radiance of hope, her be
nighted pilgrims, who can look nowhere else for
hope but to this western world.
In her affluence of glory, Middlesex can afford to
be generous. She would not monopolize with local
jealousy the fame of the great deeds that astonished

43
and startled the repose of the age of Hancock and
Adams, and ushered in the stupendous changes of
the era of Mirabeau and Napoleon. In that inheri
tance of glorious recollections, garnered up by our
revolutionary fathers, of which Massachusetts en
joys the undisputed possession, the three Northeast
ern Counties claim each a peculiar share.
It was Boston that thwarted the scheme of colo
nial taxation, under the guise of commercial regula
tions, when she hurled into the sea the intended
instrument of her slavery. It was Boston, whose
streets were stained with massacre, making every
ear that heard it, tingle, but never shaking her un
conquerable constancy. It was Boston that espe
cially provoked ministerial anger, and was early
marked out for signal retribution. It was the bugle-
blast of Boston patriotism that awoke the sympa
thies of the distant colonies, and was answered by
the thunders of British vengeance. While smart
ing under the blow aimed at her prosperity, not for
a moment did she cease to animate her friends and
her neighbors to resistance.
After the collision, which extinguished the last
lingering hope of a reconciliation, the County of
Essex, essentially maritime in her habits, launched
her thunderbolts over the deep, and trailed the flag,
that for a thousand years had braved the battle
and the breeze, ignominiously on many a conquered

44
deck, whence went up the pine-tree flag of the
rebels in token of victory.
The first flag, under the continental authority,
that ever floated at an American mast-head, in defi
ance of British supremacy, was hoisted on board
the Hannah, from Beverly. The first commander
who, under Washington's commission, threw down
the gauntlet of maritime warfare, was Capt. Manly,
of Marblehead. The first of our naval heroes, who,
with the words, " don't give up the ship !" upon his
dying lips, fell, not in defeat, but in the arms of
victory, was Capt. Mugford, of Marblehead.1 The
first highly valuable prize, of all the vast prey
snatched from the enemy by our cruisers, was the
ordnance Brig Nancy, carried into Gloucester, and
containing a most seasonable supply of arms and
ammunition. From this small beginning grew up
that formidable naval strength which wrestled with
the power hitherto deemed invincible on the ocean,
and came out of that desperate struggle not without
laurels. The harbors of Salem, Marblehead, and
Beverly, swarmed with private-armed vessels, and
were crowded with prizes. The same hardy fisher
men of the seaports of Essex, driven from the theatre
of their adventurous industry by the breaking out
of hostilities, trod the decks of these little wanderers
of the sea, who afterwards manned the Constitu- m.
i May 19th, 1775.

45
tion in the second war of independence, when St.
George's cross went down before the stars and
stripes. But it is to the County of Middlesex that the
tribes of our American Israel come up to keep holy
time. The Mecca and Medina of the advent of
freedom are within her borders. Lexington, whose
echoes answered to the signal gun that broke the
centennial slumbers of the Genius of revolution, to
sleep no more till he has trampled on the fetters
of the last slave, and wrapped in consuming flames
the last throne; to overturn, and overturn, and
overturn, until he shall make an end ; — Concord,
that saw the insulting foe driven back in dire con
fusion before the children of liberty, as the cloud
squadrons of some threatening thunder storm melt
and disperse when the full-orbed sun bursts through
and overpowers them ; — Acton, whose Spartan band
of minute-men withstood the onset, and returned
the fire of the minions of the tyrant ; whose gallant
Davis poured out his soul freely in his country's
cause, at the moment when the tide of foreign
aggression ebbed, at the moment when the begin
ning of the onward movement of his country's lib
erty, independence, greatness, and glory, by his
judgment, promptness, and valor, was secured; —
Charlestown, the smoke of whose sacrifice mingled
with the roar of the murderous artillery, while a

46
holocaust of victims and the apotheosis of Warren
consecrated her mount as the thrice holy spot of all
New England's hallowed soil; — Cambridge, the head
quarters of the hero, after whom the age of transi
tion from monarchies to republics will be called the
age of Washington ; — in these, your towns, are the
several peculiar shrines of the worship of constitu
tional liberty that have made the American conti
nent not barren of historical monumental scenes.
Where else, in the circuit of the revolving globe,
does the sun look on such a clustered group of
glories ?
Lexington, Concord, Acton, Charlestown, Cam
bridge, each has its blazoned page in the records
of fame ; but, gentlemen, we have gathered from
our several homes at the point which marks the
crisis in the immortal epos. It was here that re
publican energy said to foreign usurpation, thus
far shalt thou go, but no further, and here shall
thy proud waves be stayed. The site of the old
North Bridge at Concord, is the pivot on which the
history of the world turns. The volley fired for
freedom there, reverberated through a series of
revolutions. The rout which then begun, was but
the beginning of the disasters and retreats of des
potism not yet ended. Before the first shot had
been fired that morning to repulse the regulars,
self-government was a dream ; since that moment 'it

47
has grown to be a fact fixed as the everlasting hills.
The transactions of that day of destiny, three-quar
ters of a century ago, are too familiar to you all to
be rehearsed again on this occasion. You will par
don me, if I rather, after succinctly stating the
event, return to those general considerations which
seem to be appropriate to the place and day.
The Boston Port Bill took effect June 1st, 1774.
It prostrated the flourishing commerce of that town
and occasioned great distress. It was intended to
punish the destruction of the tea* and other mani
festations of the rebellious temper of the New Eng
land metropolis, and was followed by the landing
of several additional regiments to enforce the sub
mission of the colonies to the obnoxious acts of
parliament. Government hardly anticipated any
serious opposition after this demonstration. They
sadly underrated the persevering courage of our
countrymen. An officer wrote home from Boston,
in November, 1774, "Whenever it comes to blows,
he that can run the fastest will think himself best
off ; any two regiments here ought to be decimated,
if they did not beat, in the field, the whole force of
the Massachusetts province." As late as the six
teenth of March, 1775, Earl Sandwich told an
apochryphal story, in the house of lords, of the
cowardice of the Americans at Louisburg, and ad
ded, " They are raw, undisciplined, cowardly men.

48
I wish, instead of forty or fifty thousand of these
brave fellows, they would produce in the field at
least two hundred thousand ; the more the better,
the easier would be the conquest ; if they did not
run away, they would starve themselves into com
pliance with our measures." 1 When the test came,
the feats of running were upon the other side ; and
the nearest approach to starvation was experienced
within the lines of beleaguered Boston rather than
without. ,
Notwithstanding this overweening confidence of
the ministry, Gage, who had fought by the side of
provincial troops in Braddock's expedition, could
not disguise from himself that a " bloody crisis" was
at hand, and wrote home to his employers, that " a
very respectable force should take the field." The
possession of arms and ammunition was, of course,
essential to the plans of the colonists, and to de
prive them of the material of war was equally an
object of the first importance with Gen. Gage. On
the first of September, he caused to be carried off,
from the magazine at Quarry Hill, in Charlestown,
two hundred and fifty half barrels of powder, be
longing to the provincials, and two field-pieces from
Cambridge. This proceeding excited great indigna-*
tion. The patriots conveyed, secretly and by night,
1 Debate on the bill for restraining the trade and commerce of the New England
colonies.

49
muskets and cannon out of Boston, and from an
old battery at Charlestown, and made every effort
to secure their stores. Sunday, February twenty-
sixth, Col. Leslie was sent to Salem to seize some
brass cannon, but was thwarted by the hoisting of
the North Bridge, and the sudden assembling of
the people. On the eighteenth of March, the Bos
ton Neck Guard seized 13,425 cartridges, and a
quantity of ball, which the patriots were transport
ing into the country.
At Concord, where the provincial congress sat,
from the twenty-second of March to the fifteenth
of April, a large quantity of military stores had
been collected, which Gen. Gage, in pursuance of
his settled policy, determined to destroy. He sent
out officers to reconnoitre the roads, and endeavored
to intercept all information of his designs on its
way into the country; and, on the night of the
eighteenth of April, at half-past ten, despatched
eight hundred men, by way of Lechmere's Point,
through West Cambridge and Lexington, to Con
cord. A lanthorn in the North Church steeple
alarmed the country, and, by midnight, Col. Paul
Revere had carried the news to Hancock and Ad
ams at the Rev. Jonas Clark's house in Lexington.
The commanding officer learned, by the sound of
guns and bells, that his silent march had been be
trayed, and that the country was rising round him.
7

50
He sent back to Boston for a reinforcement, and
at the same time pushed forward six companies of
light infantry, under Major Pitcairn, to seize the
Concord Bridges. This detachment found at Lex
ington, a little before five in the morning, Capt.
Parker's company of militia, just to the north of
the meeting-house, numbering sixty or seventy.
Pitcairn ordered them to throw down their arms
and disperse ; but the order was not instantly
obeyed, and the king's troops rushed on them?
shouting and firing. Eight patriots were killed and
ten wounded. Jonas Parker, and some others, re
turned the fire; the militia retreated in disorder.
The British gave " three huzzas by way of triumph,
and as expressive of the joy of victory and the
glory of conquest," * and after about twenty min
utes' halt, during which the light infantry came up,
the whole force moved on to Concord, and reached
it at about seven o'clock. The militia collected
there, retired before their superior numbers ; the
grenadiers and part of the light infantry remained
in the centre of the town; a party secured the
South Bridge, and Capt. Laurie, with about a hun
dred light infantry, guarded the North Bridge, while
Capt. Parsons, with about the same number, passed
about two miles beyond it, to destroy the stores at
Col. Barrett's. A portion of these had been removed
•' Clark's Account, April 19lh, 1776.

51
and were saved. In the mean time, the tocsin
sounded far and wide, and the minute-men hurried
from all the towns around to the help of their
brethren in peril. By Col. Barrett's direction, they
were formed on the high grounds about a mile from
the North Bridge, by Adjutant Hosmer, to the
number of about four hundred and fifty. Concord,
Lincoln, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Bedford, Westford,
and Littleton, were numerously represented there,
and the Acton company marched up together.
Smoke began to rise from the centre of the town,
and the Americans must see their dwellings burned,
or occupy the bridge and pass over it to the rescue.
A short consultation was held among the officers.
Capt. William Smith, of Lincoln, volunteered to
dislodge the enemy from the bridge. Capt. Isaac
Davis, of Acton, with a knowledge of his company
which the event justified, remarked, " I haven't a
man in my company that is afraid to go." Col.
Barrett "ordered them to march to the North
Bridge and pass the same, but not to fire on the
king's troops unless they were fired upon." x They
advanced in double file, the Acton company under
Capt. Davis in front ; Captains Brown, Miles, Bar
rett, Smith, and some others, with their companies,
fell into the line; Major Buttrick, of Concord, had
the command, and Col. Robinson, of Westford,
» Col. Barrett's Deposition, April 23d, 1775.

52
marched beside him as a volunteer. The British,
when they saw them approach, began to take up
the planks of the bridge. Major Buttrick remon
strated, and hastened his march. When they were
within ten or fifteen rods, Laurie's party fired upon
them, first a few shots and then a volley, killing
Capt. Davis and Abner Hosmer, of the same com
pany, and wounding several others. The provin
cials returned the fire, killed one, and wounded
several; and the regulars immediately retreated,
" with great precipitation," x towards the main body.
This happened between nine and ten o'clock. The
party under Capt. Parsons soon after passed the
bridge unmolested, and joined the main body. The
troops remained in Concord till noon.
But now the country was indeed awake. The
cry of innocent blood sped over the hills, and kin
dled the brave New England hearts in every hamlet.
The spark struck out in that morning's collision
was fated to light up the flame of a general war,
and to burst into a second conflagration, the Euro
pean revolution, which the blood of three millions
of victims has not yet sufficed to quench. Already
it ran rapidly over this land like an autumn fire in
the prairies. The farmer, from the plough left
standing in the furrow, the smith, casting down his
hammer, up every valley, and along every pathway,
1 Dr. Langdon's Sermon before Congress, May 31 st, 1775.

53
the firm-nerved sons of toil, seizing the weapons
choked with the rust of a long peace, rushed to
arrest the progress of the destroyer, and to vindi
cate their outraged countrymen. The foe that,
" like evening wolves, greedy of prey, . . crept out
of Boston, through a by-way, in the dark and silent
night, that, unseen and unawares, they might lay
waste and destroy," •* saw their hidden counsels dis
covered, and their boasted victory turned to shame
ful flight. The accumulated wrongs of many years
crowded this hour of vengeance, and the wrath
nursed in colonial vassalage, finding sudden vent,
was poured without stint on the astonished heads
of invaders who had visited their quiet homes with
fire, havoc, and massacre. The guilt of the first
blood weighed heavily on the disheartened fugitives
as they entered on their rout of terror, and trans
formed the king's troops, in the view of the exas
perated patriots, into felons doomed and deserving
to be hunted down like wolves. Their hatred of
oppression merged in abhorrence of the unnatural
crime of murder, which elevated the thirst of ven
geance to a high and holy duty, " to execute the
divine law in cutting off men of blood."2 This
conviction of a divine warrant, a positive command
to cut off their enemies from the earth, took deep
root in the Puritan heart that day, and was assidu-
1 Mr. Cooke's Sermon at Lexington, April 19th, 1777.
2 Cooke's Sermon, April 19th, 1777.

54
ously cultivated by the clergy of New England
through the war, making it inveterate because it
was a war of conscience. " Choose out men ; go
fight with Amalek," thundered from the pulpits ;
" a curse is denounced against the man that with-
holdeth his hand from shedding blood, and even on
him that doeth this work of the Lord negligently." 1
Truly these were genuine descendants of those iron
Roundheads, who made inquisition for blood, who
went up to the help of the Lord against the mighty,
and smote them, hip and thigh ; who read the one
hundred and forty-ninth psalm before their battles,
and cursed Meroz bitterly ; who trusted in God
and kept their powder dry, and shared with Oliver
his crowning mercies. On that black and ever
memorable day, April nineteenth, a bloody line was
drawn across the scroll of history. British soldiers
were no longer fellow-subjects of their anointed
king, but bloody and deceitful men, whom God ab
horred and would repay ; sons of Amalek, who laid
wait for Israel in the way when he came up from
Egypt, and smote him when he was faint and
weary; against whom God was their succor and
defence, breaking the bows of the mighty, that they
who are girded with strength stumble and fall.
Hocfonte derivata clades, here first were " garments
rolled in blood, which, from this source, has awfully
' Cooke's Seimon, April 19th, 1777.

55
streamed through the land." 1 " The crimson fount
was opened ; God only knew when it would close." 2
About noon, Col. Smith and the regulars took up
their march for Boston. The outposts on their left,
on the high ground, had been disquieted with the
prospect of the husbandmen hastening along every
road that winds round the hills, bringing with them
the firelocks proved in the French war. Scant time
had they to divide the half-cooked contents of the
camp-kettles, and make what was to many their last
hurried meal. A strong flank guard kept the ridge
that runs by the road, and covered their left. Near
Merriam's corner, the Reading minute-men under
Major Brooks, and the militia from Billerica and
some from other towns came up, and made a stand.
The British called in their flanking party, faced
about, and fired a volley, which injured no one.
The fire was immediately returned, and two British
soldiers fell dead in the road near the brook.
After this, no vantage ground was unimproved.
From behind trees, rocks, fences, and buildings, the
quick, sharp report of the musket was heard, with
deadly aim. The flanking parties suffered terribly,
and whenever the nature of the ground brought
them in, the shot fell frequent in the ranks of the
main body. Near Hardy's Hill, the Sudbury com
pany poured in their fire. The woods of Lincoln
i Cooke's Sermon, April 19th, 1777.
s Letter to New York, quoted in Life of Hamilton, Vol. I.

56
swarmed with minute-men, posted in the Indian
style behind large trees. The stone walls were lined
with sharp shooters, and the quick repeated flashes
betrayed their numbers. Woburn had " turned out
extraordinary," one hundred and eighty strong, who
scattered behind walls and trees. The road is hilly
and crooked, with forests and thickets near. In
passing through these woody defiles, for three miles
or more, the British loss was heavy. They sus
tained a constant, galling, well-directed fire, and
could not return it with effect. Capt. Parker with
the Lexington company, smarting under the out
rage of the morning, met them, and turning aside
into the field, delivered a most deadly fire as they
passed. A bright sun had been shining all day,
and for so rapid and long-continued a movement,
the weather was oppressively warm. The pursuers
mustered in constantly increasing numbers. Am
munition began to fail the regulars. Worn out
with fatigue, and tortured with thirst, the restraints
of discipline could be endured no longer. They
came down the hills on the run, and scarcely by
threats of instant death could the oflicers retain
them in their decimated ranks.
Hasty, hasty rout is there ;
Fear to stop, and shame to fly,
There confusion, terror's child,
Conflict fierce, and ruin wild,
Agony that pants for breath.

57
Their situation was desperate, and the detach
ment must soon have surrendered, if they had not
been reinforced.
In pursuance of Col. Smith's request in the morn
ing, General Gage had ordered up eleven hundred
men to relieve him. They consisted of three regi
ments of infantry, and two divisions of marines,
with two field-pieces, and marched under Lord
Percy, through Roxbury and Cambridge, to the tune
of Yankee Doodle. They met the fugitives, about
two o'clock, within half a mile of Lexington meet
ing-house, " so much exhausted with fatigue," says
Stedman, " that they were obliged to lie down for
rest on the ground, their tongues hanging out of
their mouths, like those of dogs after a chase."
The field-pieces played from the high grounds be
low Munroe's tavern, and kept the Provincials at
bay. Awhile the battle paused; but devastation
filled the interval. Buildings were set on fire, and
others on the route plundered, and property wan
tonly destroyed. The British dressed their wounded;
the retreating party took some refreshment, and the
whole body rested about half an hour, a mile below
the meeting-house.
Lord Percy was a nobleman of talent, valor, and
skill; proud of the Northumberland honors. He
had with him eighteen hundred veterans schooled
in victory in the old world, finely officered, fur-
8

58
nished with well-served artillery, and goaded to re
venge by the spectacle of their discomfited and
bleeding comrades, driven like sheep before the rus
tic, undisciplined, and rudely-organized champions
of freedom. Yet he did not turn upon his assail
ants, and evidently considered that he was accom
plishing a most arduous achievement, and earning
for himself no mean military reputation, if he could
rescue his command, environed with peril, and con
duct it without serious loss to Boston. No sooner
were his troops in motion, than the minute-men and
militia, rallied from a still wider circle than before,
renewed the attack with unabated ardor. Wherever
the windings of the road enabled the pursuers to
bring the column in their Hne of fire, the dead and
wounded dropped from the ranks. Lord Percy
quickened his march. At West Cambridge, Hutch
inson's company, consisting of twenty-four minute-
men from Danvers, and Lieut. Ebenezer Francis,
and the same number of men from Beverly, with
Foster's minute-men, principally from Danvers, but
partly from Beverly, followed by Eppe's, Page's, and
Flint's companies of militia, mostly from Danvers,
and Capt. Caleb Dodge's company from Beverly,
reached the scene of action. They planted them
selves in the route of the retreat, and prepared to
receive the enemy, by throwing together a breast
work of bundles of shingles against the walls of an

59
enclosure, a little west of the meeting-house. They
probably had not heard of the reinforcement under
Lord Percy, and expected to encounter, and intended
to intercept, the jaded and harassed survivors of the
Concord fight. They were soon undeceived, for the
British, in solid column, descended the hill on their
right, while a large flanking party advanced at the
same moment, on their left.1 Surprised, outnum
bered, and surrounded, they made a gallant resist
ance ; some fell fighting and sold their lives dearly f
others surrendered and were basely butchered ; so
says the local tradition of their town. Captain Fos
ter and a part of his men, who had not entered the
enclosure, but had posted themselves behind trees
on the hillside, passed along the margin of the pond,
and crossed the road directly in front of the British
column, and fired from behind a ditch wall, as long
as their shot would tell.3 It is a fact, which cer
tainly should never be forgotten in the commemora
tion of the acts of daring patriotism of the citizens
of about thirty towns who took part in the pursuit
that afternoon, that Danvers, distant sixteen miles

1 Hanson's History of Danvers.
2 " The greatest slaughter of the British took place, it is said, while they were on
the retrograde, sweating with toil and blood, for three or four miles through the woody
defiles in Lincoln, and in the upper part of Lexington, and again when their flanking
parties were intercepted in Cambridge, by one or two companies from Danvers."
Lexington and the 19th of April, 1775, republished in the Boston News Letter.
3 For this, and some other incidents given above, I am indebted to the interesting
address, delivered by Hon. D. P. King, on laying the corner stone of the Danvers
monument.

60
from the spot where her children fell, lost a greater
number of killed than any other town after the re
treat from Concord Bridge, until the British entered
Boston; greater than any other town during the
day, with the single exception of Lexington. And
though a son of that ancient and sober town which
has waited patiently seventy-five years, for her due
meed of honor in the events of this great day, I
shall venture to remark, that though farther distant
from the line of the retreat, by several miles, than
any other town that sent a musket into service that
day, her ready zeal and self-sacrificing devotion are
evidenced by the four names that represent the town
of Beverly, on the list of killed and wounded.
The British had many struck at West Cambridge,
and the fire grew perhaps hotter, at the base of
Prospect Hill. The flight quickened to very near a
run down the old Cambridge road to Charlestown
neck, to gain a shelter under the guns of the ships
of war. At the close of the day, they ascended
Bunker's Hill. There was no time to be lost on the
road, for while the main body of the Provincials
hung closely on their rear, a strong force was ad
vancing upon them from Roxbury, Dorchester, and
Milton, and Col. Pickering, with seven hundred Es
sex militia, threatened to cut off their retreat from
Charlestown.1 Pickering's regiment reached Winter
1 Washington writes, May 31, 1775 : " If the retreat had not been as precipitate as
it was, — and God knows it could not well have been more so, — the ministerial troops

61
Hill, as the British passed down the Charlestown
road. General Heath, soon after, ordered the pur
suit to be stopped.1 The next day's sun shone on
the siege of Boston. The wolf was hounded to his
den, and never since that day has he troubled the
homes of the Massachusetts yeomanry. Bunker
Hill, that gave them the first rest, after thirty-six
miles' march of disaster and disgrace, was the only
spot of Massachusetts soil, outside the Boston lines,
recovered by the enemy after his retreat, and this at
the cost of more than a thousand killed and
wounded, and a victory more fatal than many de
feats. As the news of this day's slaughter, and its
great revenge, spread through Massachusetts, every
town sent up its contingent to the "American
Grand Army," extemporized upon this sudden call.
Putnam, to this day the hero of the popular heart,
from Connecticut; Stark, insensible to fear as the
granite mountains, from New Hampshire ; Greene,
who enjoyed and deserved the confidence of Wash
ington, from Rhode Island, with the generous vol
unteers of those colonies, joined the Bay State reg-

must have surrendered, or been totally cut off. For they had not arrived in Charles
town, (under cover of their ships,) half an hour, before a powerful body of men from
Marblehead and Salem was at their heels, and must, if they had happened to be up
one hour sooner, inevitably have intercepted their retreat to Charlestown." Sparks'
Washington, Vol. II, p. 407.
1 1 have made free use of Mr. Frothingham's well-digested account of the battle,
in his history of the siege of Boston, with the materials in his notes j Shattuck's
History of Concord ; Messrs. Ripley, Phinney, and Adams' pamphlets on the local
questions ; and Mr. Everett's magnificent oration in 1825.

62
iments under General Ward, and a force of sixteen
thousand men hemmed the veterans of Minden, suf
ficiently experienced on Middlesex battle grounds,
within a narrow circuit, until, on the 17th of March,
1776, Washington, from the heights of Dorchester,
beheld the embarkation and final flight of one of
Britain's haughtiest and best-appointed armies,
humbled and dismayed,1 and the consecrated bounds
of Massachusetts freed forever from the detested
presence of a foe.
From Concord Bridge, my friends, the rout be
gan. Bunker Hill, and Boston roads, Declaration
Hall at Philadelphia, Saratoga and Yorktown, and
the treaty bearing Franklin's signature, mark suc
cessive stages in the onward progress of America,
and the continual retrograde of her enemy. Upon
another element, where Britain reigned unrivalled
and secure, what Manly, Mugford, and Jones be
gun, was carried on by Perry, and McDonnough,
and Chauncey, Lawrence, Bainbridge, and Hull.
The account, which was opened here, was closed by
Jackson, at New Orleans. The account of blood
was closed, I say, and all arrears were fully paid.
There remains between the Great Empire of the
past, and the Greater Empire of the future, a friendly

1 " We have one consolation left. Neither Hell, Hull, nor Halifax, can afford
worse shelter than Boston." Letter of a British officer, from Nantasket Roads,
March 26th, 1776.

63
rivalship of beneficent influences, which we may con
template with unalloyed pleasure, and which is not
the less the legitimate product of the first revolu
tionary movement here commenced.
Time would fail me to enumerate even the names
of those who acted well their parts, that day. The
host, that started at their country's summons that
morning, has passed away from among us. The
places that knew them, and honored them, know
them no more. They have left the scene of their
toils and perils, and gone to that home " where
there are no wars nor fatiguing marches, no roar
ing cannon, .... but an eternity to spend in perfect
harmony, and undisturbed peace." x Where all
acted from a common impulse of duty, distinctions
may seem invidious ; but it is pardonable to recall,
especially, the memory of those who were spared for
other service to their country, in her councils, or in
arms. Eustis, and Brooks, and Pickering, and
Gerry, distinguished through long lives of useful
ness by the confidence of their fellow-citizens, dis
charged the duties of important stations both in the
State and in the nation, and affection and gratitude,
with reverend sorrow, paid their funeral obsequies, —
a fate how unlike that of the beginners of all other
revolutions ! The master spirit of the Common-
1 Seth Pomeroy's letter to his wife, from the siege of Louisbourg, May 8th, 1745.

64
wealth of England, holding with a steady hand the
helm of state, until death unloosed his grasp, was
scarcely laid in his grave, before the sanctity of his
tomb was violated, his ashes given to the winds, and
his bones gibbeted with infamy. France saw the
heads that inspired the councils of her liberty shorn
away, one after the other, by the remorseless guil
lotine. America appreciates and trusts her patriot
leaders, — her Adamses, her Franklin, Jefferson, and
Washington, — and guards their dust among her
choicest treasures. Thus she repudiates and falsi
fies that ancient maxim of patrician insolence, that
republics are ungrateful.
But there are other names to be remembered in
the list of those who drove the Percy in such hot
haste to shelter, and those who hastened to sur
round the foiled lion, and prevent a second egress :
among them are those that have resounded through
the world, and whose echoes will not yet be lost in
distant ages. General Heath, early in active ser
vice, took the command above West Cambridge,
and endeavored to rally and form the minute-men,
dispersed by Percy's artillery. Prescott, of Pep-
perell, took part in the council of war held before
Boston, the next day, and to him was intrusted the ..
most arduous and momentous duty ; deliberately to
invite and defy to battle the whole British force in
America, for the first time in the war — a duty how

65
nobly performed ! Never did scarred and laurelled
conqueror, from his triumphal car, look forward to
so bright an immortality, as he who marshalled the
elect of freedom, on the sod which Warren mois
tened with his blood. Warren himself, as ever
careless of his life, was in the field, and active there.1
At Lexington he encouraged the militia to disregard
the fire of the field-pieces : at West Cambridge, he
was in the hottest of the fight, and a musket ball
passed through his earlock. The name of the Pres
ident of the Provincial Congress belongs then, legit
imately, to the recollections to be passed in review
this day. The name of Warren, falling in his prime,
in a sad and sanguinary defeat ; sad, yet more glo
rious than any victory the muse of history had, ever
yet recorded, is and ever must be, embalmed in the
hearts of the whole people of the Republic. He
left a fame that is the nation's common property ;
priceless, for gold could not buy it ; secure, for no
reverse of arms can tear it from us. So long as
language shall be faithful to its trust ; so long as
tradition shall preserve the outline, after history has
forgotten the detail ; so long as one generous emo
tion shall warm the human heart ; after the monu
ment shall have crumbled, but while Bunker Hill
1 Dr. Eliot remarks Of Dr. Warren,—" At the battle of Lexington he was, per
haps, the most active man in the field. His soul beat to arms, as soon as he learned
the intention of the British troops."
9

66
shall stand, Warren shall be the watchword in the
armies of liberty.
But the generation of that heroic age, their work
done, all done, well done, have passed from the, land
which they redeemed, and are gone. All gonel
Oh no ! It has pleased the Almighty Father of
mercies, in his sovereign Providence, to continue to
us two time-honored worthies of the veteran band,
beyond the ordinary lot of humanity, sole lingerers
on the verge of life, to witness the seventy-fifth year
of freedom by God's blessing, and their good right
arms, secured. Living mementos of the glorious
past ! Long may yOur valued presence remind us
of our duty to the future, by showing what the past
has done for us, by carrying back our thoughts to
the times that tried men's souls. These are of the
number that took their lives in their hand, and
walked fearless among the death-shafts ; counting
all things earthly but as dross, that surviving they
might point out to us, or dying might bequeath to
us, a more excellent way, a career of pure unshackled
liberty. Alas ! they are but two, out of so many
thousands ; sentries, waiting to be called in, of the
rear guard of the grand army which has gone before
them. Like the precious spices of the East, the
rarer they grow, the more highly do we value them.
Like the mystic books of the Sybil, these that re
main represent to us the worth of those that are
lost.

67
Favorites of Time, who has dealt so gently with
you, what a contrast do your eyes behold when you
compare the mighty empire which you helped to
found with the feeble colony that gave you birth.
The period of your life has been contemporaneous
with the work of many ages : never before have a
thousand years done for any nation under heaven
what the last three fourths of, a century have done
for us. A thousand years constructed and confirmed
the majestic fabric of the Roman empire ; sages and
warriors, through a thousand years of fixed pur
pose, iron resolution and all-enduring fortitude, es
tablished the dominion of the eternal city, unshaken
by the burthen of the world, and not to be destroyed,
save in the wreck of the old heathen world passing
away forever. But you, wonderful men, preceded
by many years this empire ; in the purple ripeness
of maturely-developed youth, you stood by the cra
dle of this empire, when the young Alcides strangled
the monsters sent by his step-mother; when our
home was a strip of land between the ocean and the
Alleghanies, which scattered settlers, with no wealth
but the labor of their hands, disputed with the sav
ages. You have lived to be citizens of an empire
broader than1 Rome, mightier than Rome, wealthier
than Rome, wiser than Rome, holier than Rome.
Machinery, the creation of the free mind, does more
for us, ten-fold more, than all the arms of her many

68
million subjects did for her. Look around you ; all
that you see, and all that your and our posterity
shall see, is the fruit of liberty ; and of that liberty,
it is for you to say truly, we and our comrades, on
the nineteenth day of April, planted the fructifying
seed. Look around you and survey your work. It is
not enough that we proclaim, that a small one has
become a great people ; that day by day new nations
rise up to call you blessed ; that even now, states,
infant in years, but giants in vigor and proportions,
press at your portals, asking admission as coordinate
sovereignties, "demanding life, impatient for the
skies." Look around you ; measure the improve
ment of the condition of the individual denizens
of all our towns and villages, and see if it tend
not onward and upward in an accelerated ratio,
equal, at least, to that of our political greatness.
The hardy colonist extracted from the soil with infi
nite labor a frugal subsistence, uncertain how long
he should hold even his earnings, for the mother
country claimed the right to bind the colonies in all
cases whatsoever, collecting few comforts, desiring
no luxuries, without machinery, without capital, al
most without intercourse, scarcely recovered from
the exhaustion of ruinous French and Indian wars.
The fair enchantress Liberty has waved her potent
wand ; prosperity and happiness crown all the hills,

69
and cover the plains ; on every waterfall, a city rises
like an exhalation ; the iron horse, the missionary
which science despatches to lead the van of advanc
ing refinement, snorts over the prairies scarcely
abandoned by the disappearing buffalo ; the electric
nerve throbs with the impulse of intelligence from
Halifax to New Orleans ; internal commerce dips
her silver oar in every lake ; the birchen canoe of
the native hunter is transformed to a waterborne
palace, gorgeous with the adornments of high art,
and steadying her upright keel against the wind,
with the miraculous energy of imprisoned fire. Of
the rich exuberance of our plenty we may impart
with a world-wide charity; and ocean smiles to
transport upon her bosom the messengers freighted
with salvation to the famine-stricken millions of sla
very-blasted Ireland.
I have inquired what consequences would have
followed, if the Mede had trodden out Hellenic lib
erty, and an Achcemenian despot reckoned Greece
among his provinces ; what would have been the
effect of a Saracenic conquest of Europe 1 I might
go on to imagine our own situation, if Great Britain
had reduced her colonies to abject submission. Re
verse the result at Marathon ; should we have been
here ? Would the old world have known the exis
tence of the continent of which Plato dreamed ?
Reverse the result at Tours, and where would have

70
been the faith and hopes of Christendom X Reverse
what was done at Concord Bridge, and all that has
followed out of what was there done, and I need
not ask, should we have been free 1 How much of
the freedom, well-being and progress of Europe
would the world yet wait for 1 Where would have
been the miracles of the first half of the nineteenth
century, and the loftier anticipations of the portion
yet to come of that century 1
I might answer, mind moves the world, informs
and agitates the mass, and fashions the future, be
fore the wheels of time deliver it into being. All
the elements of progress exist in thought, before
they are moulded in reality. The provincial mind
is blasted with barrenness. The degree of freedom
which our fathers enjoyed, at the time of the Con
cord fight, had become a paradoxical impracticabil
ity : it must either complete itself, or disappear. It
was necessary that we should throw off the yoke of
colonial vassalage, or sink to the level and wear
the livery of that vassalage. It was the electricity
developed in our revolutionary atmosphere that
burst, in thunder, on slumbering France. Awak
ing France awoke the world.
Starting from these principles, I might work out
the problem propounded ; but it will be equally in
structive, and far more satisfactory, to examine what
has been, rather than to ask what might have been ;

71
to measure the strides of living liberty, rather than
calculate the tracks of some fossil megatherium of
extinct tyranny. Over what distance has the good
Goddess led us, since the young days of these our
venerable friends ; and how does our ^progress com
pare with that of other nations, and of other times ]
Upon the threshold of this ample theme, I pause ;
for the hours rush swiftly by, and _o do justness to
its vastness, would delay you too long. There is no
time to-day to survey the field. I will barely indi
cate a few of the land-marks.
Our present population is nine times that of the
day of Concord fight, and a continuance of the same
ratio for the same period, to the year nineteen hun
dred and twenty-five, will extend the blessings of
this Union over more than two hundred millions of
souls. Then the orator who shall stand upon this
spot, will show that all these are not crowded, but
that there is room for more. There is no probabil
ity that this aggregate will be less than double the
whole population of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, together with the French Re
pubUc. Our present wealth is more than forty times that
of the colonies seventy-five years ago. The annual
income of the nation is at least twenty-five times as
great as it was then. Our annual income was then
about one-tenth part that of France ; now, it is

72
nearly equal to that of France, and is gaining very
rapidly upon that of the British Empire. Of the
great element* of power over physical nature, coal,
our production is now greater than that of the world
seventy-five years ago. Of iron, the chief instru
ment with which man subdues nature to his pur
poses, our product is greater than that of all the
world seventy-five years ago. Of gold, the other
main sinew of war, and the negotiator of the ex
changes of peace, we produce more than the rest
of the world now does. Our cotton manufactures
exceed those of the whole world seventy-five years
ago. Our tonnage exceeds that of the world seventy-
five years since. It will soon surpass that of the
British empire, and in a few years, much short of
three quarters of a century, it will far surpass that
of the rest of the world. We have more printing
presses in operation, and more printed volumes in
the hands of our people, than the whole world had
on the day of the Concord fight. More newspapers
are printed in the city of Boston every day than the
whole world then produced. Since that day, Amer
ica has produced the steamboat and adopted the loco
motive, and there are more steam engines employed
in Massachusetts than were then used in the world.
It would be gratifying to know how far these
means of physical comfort, ease, and improvement,
have been employed, it is our imperative duty to in-

73
quire how far they may be and ought to be em
ployed, for the moral and intellectual advancement
of a people so highly favored of heaven. The proper
limits of this occasion forbid me to enter upon a
new investigation ; I can only express the hope that
we should have no reason to blush at the results, if
we had time to pursue it.
Over how broad a portion of the world have we
extended the advantages we ourselves enjoy ! Our
domain unites the noblest valley on the surface of
the globe, competent to grow food for human beings
many more than now dwell on the face of the
earth, with an eastern wing, fitted for the site of the
principal manufacturing and commercial power of
existing Christendom, and a western flank well sit
uated to hold the same position on the Pacific, when
Asia shall renew her youth, and Australia shall
have risen to the level of Europe. Bewildering al
most is the suddenness of our expansion to fill these
limits, and astounding are the phenomena that ac
company this development. This day there stands
before the councils of the nation, deputed to par
ticipate in their deliberations, a young man born
within sight of old Concord Bridge, and educated
under the institutions which Concord fight secured,
who, when he revisits the old homestead, claims to
represent a territory larger than France and the
United British kingdom ; capable of containing, if
settled to the present density of Great Britain, more
10

74
than a hundred millions of souls ; a territory lately
the joint inheritance of the Indian and the grisly
bear, now outstripping, in its instant greatness, all
recorded colonies ; the Ophir of our age, richer than
Solomon's ; richer than the wildest vision that ever
dazzled Arabian fancy.
Occupying such a continent, receiving it conse
crated by the toils, and sufferings, and outpouring
of ancestral blood, which, on the day we now com
memorate, began, how delightful is the duty which
devolves on us to guard the beacon-fire of liberty
whose flames our fathers kindled. Suffer it not, my
friends ! suffer it not, posterity that shall come af
ter us ! to be clouded by domestic dissension, or ob
scured by the dank, mephitic vapors of faction.
Until now, its pure irradiance dispels doubt and
fear, and revivifies the fainting hopes of downcast
patriotism. Forever may it shine brightly as now,
for as yet its pristine lustre fades not, but still flashes
out the ancient, clear, and steady illumination, joy-
giving as the blaze that, leaping from promontory
to promontory,, told the triumph of Agamemnon
over fated Troy. It towers and glows, refulgent
and beautiful, far seen by the tempest-tost on the
sea of revolution; darting, into the dungeons of
gaunt despair, beams whose benignant glory no
lapse of time shall dim ; the wanderers in the chill
darkness of slavery, it guides, and cheers, and warms;
it fills the universe with its splendor.

BRIEF ACCOUNT

CELEBRATION OF THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL,

AT CONCOKD.

1850.

PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS.

November, 12, 1849.
" The inhabitants of Concord, in town meeting assembled, voted,
that the next anniversary of Concord Fight be celebrated by the
town, and that the following persons constitute a Committee of
Arrangements, and that they have authority, according to their
judgment, to expend for this purpose any moneys in the treasury
not otherwise appropriated, viz. :

Feancis K. Gouegas,
Sheeman Barrett,
Richaed Bareett,
E. Rockwood Hoar,
Nehemiah Ball,
Charles W. Goodnow,
Nathan Barrett,
John Brown, Jr.
Calvin C. Damon,
George M. Barrett,
Micajah Rice,
William Melvin,
Elijah Wood,
Thomas D. Wesson,
Asa Brooks,

John S. Keyes,
Benjamin E. Sawyer,
Anthony Weight,
Daniel Shattuck,
Daniel Clark,
Simon Brown,
Cyrus Wheeler,
James Wood,
Joseph Miles,
Samuel Hoar,
Joseph Holbeook,
William W. Wheildon,
Stedman Buttrick,
Francis Jarvis,
Charles A. Hubbard."

November 24, 1849.
The Committee met „ad organized by the choice of John S.
Keyes, Chairman, Wm. W. Wheildon, Secretary, and John M.
Cheney, (chosen in the place of Daniel Shattuck, who declined
serving on the Committee,) Treasurer.
The Committee then voted to invite the towns of Lexington,
Acton, Lincoln, Sudbury, Carlisle, and Bedford, to unite with
Concord, in celebrating, in that town, the events of the 19th of

78

April, 1775, on the next anniversary of that day, and send
Committees to aid in making the necessary arrangements.
This invitation having been communicated to these towns was
responded to by them all, and the following persons were chosen
to constitute the Committee from the several towns named :

Lexington.

Philip Russell,
Chaeles Hudson,
Galen Allen,
Samuel Chandler,
Acton.
Rufus Holden,
James T. Woodbury,
Francis Tuttle,
Jonathan B. Davis,
Bradley Stone,
Silas Hosmer,
Winthrop E. Faulkner,
Abraham Conant,
Joseph W. Tuttle,

Lincoln.

James Jones, Je.
James L. Chapin,
Daniel Weston,
William Colbouen,
John W. Faeeae,

Jonathan S. Parkee,
Albeet W. Beyant,
Bowen Harrington,
Isaac H. Wright.
Reuben Barker,
Chaeles Robbins,
Samuel T. Adams,
Aaron Chaffin,
Nathan Brooks,
Daniel Wetherbee,
John White,
Ebenezer Hayward,
David M. Handley.
Leonard Hoar,
Charles L. Tarbell,
Abel Wheeler,
Samuel H. Pierce,
George M. Baker.

Sudbury.
Drury Fairbanks, Ephraim Moore,
Abel Jones, Charles Gerry,
Jonathan R. Vose.

Carlisle.

Jonas Parker,
Seth W. Bannister,
Benjamin Barrett,
William Green, 2d,

Cyrus Heald,
Benjamin F. Heald,
Thomas Green,
Levi S. Hutchinson,

Ephraim Robbins.

79
Bedford.
Phineas W. Chamberlain. Reuben Bacon,
Thomas Stiles, Eliab B. Lane,
John W. Simonds, Timothy Page,
Amos B. Cutler, Nathaniel C Cutler,
Sylvanus Lawrence, Samuel Wyman.
The Committee having, at numerous meetings, decided on the
arrangements for the celebration, and having raised, by voluntary
subscription in Concord, sufficient funds for the general expenses ;
voted to invite, besides other distinguished gentlemen, the Gov
ernor, Lieutenant Governor and Council, and both branches of
the Legislature of the Commonwealth, to attend the celebration.
The following correspondence was had in pursuance of that vote:
Lexington, April 12, 1850.
Sir, — The citizens of Concord and the neighboring towns,-
having made arrangements for celebrating at Concord, on the
19th of April, inst., the Seventy-Fifth anniversary of that mem
orable day, respectfully invite you, and the honorable body over
which you preside, to be present as guests, and participate with
them in the exercises and festivities of the occasion.
No day in the annals of our country's independence stands
more prominent than the one on which the first blood of the
Revolution was shed, and the first resistance offered to Brit
ish arms. The history of our beloved Commonwealth is so
intimately connected with the events of that day, that it seems
peculiarly appropriate that the whole State should, by its chosen
delegates, participate in the celebration. We therefore fondly
trust that you will honor us by your presence, and thereby
show to the whole country that the Commonwealth of Massachu
setts cherishes a grateful remembrance of those who perilled all
in Freedom's sacred cause, and that she will be ready at all times
to sustain, at any hazard, those free institutions, which were pur
chased by the toil and blood of our fathers.
I am, very respectfully,
Your obt. servant,
CHARLES HUDSON,
In behalf of the Committee of Invitation.
Hon. Ensign H. Kellogg,
Speaker of ihe House of Representatives of Massachusetts.

80

House of Representatives, April 16, 1850.
Hon. Charles Hudson, Chairman, &c.
Dear Sir, — I am directed, by the House of Representatives of
Massachusetts, to inform the inhabitants of Concord and the ad
joining towns, that the House has this day cordially accepted the
invitation so politely communicated through you to attend the
celebration at Concord, on the 19th instant.
The House also desires to express its grateful sense of the
kindness and civility extended to them by their fellow-citizens of
Concord and vicinity, in inviting them to participate in this very
interesting celebration. With great respect,
E. H. KELLOGG, Speaker.
A similar invitation was also communicated to the Honorable
Senate, and by them accepted.
The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company were invited
to perform escort duty on the occasion, and accepted the invita
tion. Invitations were also extended to the towns of Danvers,
West Cambridge, Pepperell, Reading, Woburn, &c, citizens of
which took part in the events of the 19th of April, 1775, to send
delegations to the celebration.
The following officers of the day were appointed by the Com
mittee : '
Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, of Concord, President of the Bay.
Rev. James T. Woodbury, of Acton, Chaplain.
Col. Isaac H. Wright, of Lexington, Chief Marshal.
And
George M. Barrett, Esq., Leonard Hoar, Esq.,
Stedman Buttrick, Esq., Abel Wheeler, Esq.,
Cyrus Stow, Esq.,, Maj. Daniel Weston,
of Concord ; of Lincoln ;
Wm. Chandler, Esq., Col. Drury Fairbanks,
Maj. Benj. Wellington, Cheistopher G. Cutler, Esq.,
Col. Philip Russell, Ephraim Stone, Esq.,
of Lexington ; of Sudbury ;

81
Hon. Stevens Hayward, Maj. Jonas Parker,
Simon Tuttle, Esq., Cyrus Heald, Esq.,
Alden Fuller, Esq., Capt. Thomas Heald,
of Acton ; of Carlisle ;
Capt. Timothy Page, John D. Billings, Esq.,
Jonathan Bacon, Esq., of Bedford,
Vice Presidents.

The following notice of arrangements and order of procession
were published by the Committee :
UNION CELEBRATION AT CONCORD.
19th of April, 1850.
The General Committee of Arrangements, of the towns of
Concord, Lexington, Acton, Lincoln, Sudbury, Bedford and Car
lisle, give notice that there will be a Union Celebration of the
events of the 19th*of April, 1775, on the approaching anniver
sary, at Concord, to which the citizens of all the towns, locally
or otherwise interested in the events of that day, and the public
generally, are invited.
A procession will be formed, at 10 o'clock, A. M., escorted
by the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, under the di
rection of Col. Isaac H. Wright, of Lexington, Chief Marshal.
The procession, after visiting the monument at the " North
Bridge," will march to the pavilion, where an Oration will be
delivered by Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr.
Addresses will be made by Hon. Edward Everett, Hon. Rufus
Choate, His Excellency Gov. Briggs, Hon. John G. Palfrey, and
other distinguished speakers. Hon. E. R. Hoar will preside at
the table.
The arrangements are designed to accommodate ladies as
well as gentlemen at the table.
The dinner will be provided by Mr. John Wright, of Boston,
under a new and spacious pavilion. Tickets 75 cents, to be had
of the committees of the respective towns.
All civil and military societies, associations or bodies, who are
disposed to do so, are invited to attend, and places will be as-
11

82
signed for them in the procession, on giving notice beforehand
to the Secretary of the Committee.
Special trains will be provided on the Fitchburg Railroad
to accommodate those who design to unite in the celebration.
By order of the Committee of Arrangements,
JOHN S. KEYES, Chairman.
W. W. WHEILDON, Secretary.
Concord, April 6, 1850.

ORDER OF PROCESSION.
Military Escort by the Ancient and Honorable Artillery.
Aid. Chief Marshal. Aid.
President of the Day.
Orator and Chaplain.
Vice Presidents.
Committee of Arrangements.
His Excellency the Governor of the Commonwealth and Suite.
His Honor the Lieutenant Governor and the Council.
The Secretary and Treasurer of the Commonwealth.
Soldiers of the 19th of April, 1775.
Revolutionary Soldiers.
Invited Guests.
President of the Senate and Speaker of the House.
The Senate.
The House of Representatives.
Editors of Newspapers.
Masonic Societies, Odd Fellows Lodges and other Associations.
Town Officers and Delegation — Lexington, Concord, Acton,
Lincoln, Sudbury, Carlisle, Bedford.
Delegations from W. Cambridge, Danvers, Woburn, Pepperell,
Roxbury, and other towns, which took part in the events
of the day.
Citizens generally.
Companies of Continentallers.
The procession will be formed on the common at 10 o'clock
precisely. The Governor and suite, and the Legislature and in-

83
vited guests, will assemble at the Middlesex hotel. Societies
and associations will form in front of the First church, the right
facing the hotel. Delegations from the several towns will form
on the streets leading to their towns, the right resting on the
square. The Concord delegation will form on the street leading
by the Universalist church.
N. B. Ladies will meet at the Unitarian church, and either
join in the procession or proceed to the pavilion, under the di
rection of the marshals for that purpose, as they may prefer.
ISAAC H. WRIGHT, Chief Marshal.
Concord, April 12th.

THE CELEBRATION
Commenced by a national salute at sunrise, fired by the Concord
artillery, from their guns, which bear the following inscription :
" The Legislature of Massachusetts consecrate the names of
Maj. John ButtriSk and Capt. Isaac Davis, whose valor and ex
ample incited their fellow-citizens to a successful resistance of a
superior number of British troops at Concord Bridge, the 19th of
April, 1775, which was the beginning of a contest in arms that
ended in American Independence."
From that hour till nearly noon the people of the neighboring
towns continued to pour in by carriages, on horseback, and on
foot, till the streets and public squares were filled with a dense
crowd of every age and class.
The whole town -wore its holiday aspect. The principal
streets and many of the private dwellings were tastefully deco
rated with flags and streamers ; tablets, with inscriptions commem
orative of the events of the day, were displayed in their appro
priate localities, and the scene presented an air of joy and ani
mation which even the cloudy sky did not disturb or darken.
The Governor and suite, the Council, the Senate, and House
of Representatives, escorted by the Ancient and Honorable Artil
lery Company, Col. Andrews, commander, and the Boston Brass
Band, arrived about ten o'clock, in a special train, generously
provided for them by the Fitchburg Railroad Company. This

84

was soon after followed by two other trains, bringing large num
bers from the city and lower part- of the county, and swelling the
multitude to at least five thousand persons.
The procession was formed about eleven o'clock, in the order
before given, under the direction of Col. Isaac H. Wright, Chief
Marshal, and his aids, Capt. J. S. Parker of Lexington, and
Joseph B. Keyes of Concord, and the following assistant Mar
shals :
Col. James Jones, Jr. of Lincoln, J. Q. A. Chandler, of Lexington,
Dr. H. A. Barrett, of Concord, James Jones, of Weston,
Rufus Holden, of Acton, D. K. Hatch, of Concord,
James M.Billings, of Concord, N. H. Warren, "
E. C. Wetherbee, " Benj. Poland, W. Cambridge.
The military escort, with full ranks, in their new uniform, the
Legislature and other invited guests in large numbers, and one
of the survivors of the battle, with three other revolutionary pa
triots in a carriage, drawn by four black horses, were the prom
inent features of the procession, which was very large and im
posing. A delegation from the order of United Americans, with
a cavalcade from West Cambridge, and full delegations from all
the towns which took part in the celebration, bearing appropriate
banners, swelled its length, and the rear was brought up by a
company of Continentallers, from Sudbury, under the command
of Col. Ephraim Moore.
The procession marched to the Monument, at the old North
Bridge, where, over the grave of the British soldiers buried there,
the English ensign floated at half mast, while the American flag
waved from the top of the shaft. On the opposite bank of the
river, a company of minute-men, from Acton, numbering 120
guns, under the command of Col. W. E. Faulkner, saluted the
procession with volley upon volley, fired over the spot where
Davis fell. The old pine-tree flag floated over them, and it re
quired but little effort of imagination to see in them their fathers,
who, seventy-five years ago, on that very spot, " fired the shot
heard round the world." The procession wheeled round the
monument and marched back through the town, under a salute

85
of artillery of thirty guns, and one more for California, and about
one o'clock reached the pavilion, near the Railroad station,
where the ladies, to the number of five hundred, were already
assembled. The pavilion, made of canvass, drawn over a substantial frame
work, erected for the first time, on this occasion, by Mr. John
Wright, of Boston, was 250 feet long by 150 feet wide, and 33
feet high. It was divided across the centre by a raised platform,
for the officers of the day and invited guests, — the section to
wards the entrance filled with seats for the accommodation of
the audience, and the part in the rear of the platform occupied
by the dinner tables. So spacious were its accommodations, that
it furnished room for probably five thousand persons to hear the
exercises, and also seats at the tables for about three thousand.
A magnificent Gobelin tapestry, representing, in vivid colors,
" Fame blowing her trumpet," the property of W. W. Wheildon,
Esq., was suspended over the centre of the platform, (enwreathed
with the folds of the American ensign, conspicuous on which was
the star of California,) so as to form a brilliant back ground to
the rostrum.

EXERCISES AT THE PAVILION.
When the procession had passed in, the band played Wash
ington's March.
The President of the day then called the assembly to order,
and said :
Friends and Fellow-Citizens : — In accordance with the
custom of our honored fathers in their day of peril and of trial,
and in accordance with the reverent dictate of our own hearts,
the services of the occasion will commence by invoking the
blessing of heaven.
Rev. James T. Woodbury, of Acton, then made an impres
sive and appropriate prayer.
The following hymn was then sung to the tune of Old Hun
dred by the whole assembly:

86
Hymn. By Rev. James Flint, D. D., of Salem.
O God, supreme o'er earlh and skies,
To Thee our fathers' suppliant eyes
Were rais'd for help, when loud the alarm
Of battle call'd the brave to arm.
Here, on this consecrated ground,
Where sleeps their martyr'd dust around,
Their sons exulting raise to Thee
Their grateful hymn of Jubilee.
The blood that dyed that day the field,
A nation's independence seal'd ;
That blood sent up its cry to Thee,
A nation's pledge of Victory.
Our fathers' deeds, in deathless song,
Time in his course shall bear along ;
Their sons, still' happy, brave, and free,
Shall owe their boundless debt to Thee.
The President then introduced the Orator of the Day, Hon.
Robert Rantoul, Jr. of Beverly, who delivered the Oration.
At the close of the Oration, the band played a march, and the
audience were conducted by the marshals, through passages in
the raised platform, to the other division of the pavilion, where
tables were spread for over 3,000 persons.
A blessing was asked by the Chaplain, and, after three quar
ters of an hour spent in discussing the good cheer which was
abundantly supplied, the Chief Marshal called to order, and
the President addressed the company as follows : —
Friends and Fellow-Citizens: — We are assembled this
day to celebrate, by an act of solemn commemoration, the glo
rious deeds of our gallant fathers. The day when, seventy-five
years ago, the power of England was first confronted in the
field, — the day which the wisest of English statesmen considered
decisive of the controversy, — the day which " made conciliation
impossible, and independence certain," — the day, to which
Bunker Hill and the Fourth of July were but the natural and
necessary consequences, — the proudest day — so it seems to me,
is it not so ? — the proudest day in American annals. The power
of England, associated in the minds of the Colonists with every
thing that was invincible and triumphant, was here first to be

87
encountered; and it was met with the stern determination of
men who knew that they were doing battle for the right.
There was a bloodier conflict on Bunker Hill ; the " crowning
mercies" of Saratoga and Yorktown appeared doubtless to give
a nearer and surer promise of independence and safety ; to the
military enthusiast, the " glories " of foreign battle fields may
have seemed " unsurpassed ; " but American Liberty will still
turn with the tenderest interest to stand by the grave of her first
born ; the patriot will bend with more reverent sorrow where
Freedom's first martyrs moistened with their blood the green of
Lexington; — and the heart of the soldier kindle with loftier
emotion, where, — the men of Acton in the front, — the tide of in
vasion first rolled back from the old North Bridge of Concord !
We have in Middlesex the spots which this day has made il
lustrious ; but it was a Massachusetts day ; and it was a day that
showed the spirit of Massachusetts, wherever the news spread,
from one end of the State to the other. From Beverly to Ded-
ham, from Charlestown to Chelmsford, there was not a man who
was not ready to maintain with his' musket, what theHowns had
resolved, and the Congress voted.
The County in which Hancock and Adams had chosen their
place of refuge, where the stores for the Provincial army were
deposited, where the Provincial Congress had but just adjourned,
was perhaps the most dangerous road that the British troops
could have taken with a hostile purpose ; — but there was not a
safe road led out of Boston that morning, nor one that the Reg
ulars would not have found " down hill all the way back ! "
It is not in a mere military spirit that we hallow the deeds of
that day. There is a feeling, it must be acknowledged, in the
breast of every man that admires heroic valor and self-sacrifice,
wherever and in whatever caiise displayed : how much more
when on the side of liberty, and country, and home, and consti
tutional rights,^of all for which Buttrick, and Robinson, and
Hosmer fought, and for which Jonas Parker and Isaac Davis
fell ! Our hearts respond to the stirring language of the ballad :
High praise from all whose gift is song, .
To him in slaughter tried,
Whose pulses beat in battle strong,
As if to meet his bride ;

88
High praise from every mouth of man,
To all who boldly strive,
Who fall where first tlie fight began,
And ne'er go back alive.
But chief his fame be quick as fire,
Be wide as is tie sea,
Who dares in blood and pangs expire,
To keep his country free ;
To such, while homage nations bring,
Shall praise in Heaven belong ;
The starry harps his praise shall ring,
And chime to mortal song.
It was the cause, it was the CAUSE, which made their
deeds sacred, and has made their names immortal !
In the spirit of the occasion, therefore, of manly pride, of
union, of fervent patriotism, I propose the first regular toast :
1. The 19th of April, 1775— Lexington Common and Concord North Bridge —
Their fame belongs to all who manfully stood up that day, in their country's cause —
too sacred to be the theme of local jealousy, their glory is our common inheritance.
Hon. Rufus Choate responded to this sentiment. He said
he should experience great pleasure in attempting to respond. to
sentiments so beautiful and so just, if he did not feel a difficulty
in attempting to do so, which he dared say he shared with those
around him, and that is this, — that under the influence of what
he had this day seen and heard, his heart was so crowded full
with emotions, his memory was so overburdened by details, his
reason so impressed by the moral grandeur of the place and
hour, that he was at once unable to say all that he could desire
to say, and was equally unable to select upon any rational choice,
what he would speak and what he would leave unsaid. It seemed
to him a moment, not so much for words as thought ; not so
much a moment for speech, even of such eloquence as they had
hung delighted upon to-day, as for meditation — as for thanksgiv
ing to Almighty God — as for solitary tears — as a moment for
emotions deeper than tears, personal, solitary and incommunica
ble. For one, at least, he felt that all he would desire to say or
do would be only the honor to unite with the thousands present
beneath that flag which floated over them, among all those old
glorious symbols, upon that turf so recently wet with so much
precious ' blood — unite with them in relieving their oppressed

89
hearts, by uniting in ejaculating that sentence, so simple and yet
so replete with noble thought, which Samuel Adams uttered —
" What a glorious morning is this ! "
Mr. Choate. then proceeded, with magic eloquence and power,
to portray the stirring events immediately preceding and atten
dant upon the memorable events of April 19, 1775. No sketch
could do him justice. Towards the close of his remarks he
spoke mainly as follows :
That was a glorious morning, the 19th of April, 1775 ; and
wherein, he would ask, consisted the specific, transcendent glo
ries of that day ? Wherein lies that strange charm that belongs
to every thing connected with this place, its incidents and details ?
Why is it that our hearts grow liquid, and that we canpour them
out as water, when we listen again to that old story, older than
the words of our mothers' love, needing none of that brilliant
genius which had that day touched their ears, to invest them with
power which should never die ?
Why was it so pleasant to come up here from the miserable
strifes and bickerings of every-day life, to dwell and worship for
a short space of time in such charmed presence as this ? What
is it that makes the specific, transcendent glory of the day ? It
was because it was an event so rare, so strange, so ominous of
good or evil to future generations of man. It was from these
instruments, and from these flags, borne by these trembling
hands ; it was that essence, so subtile, so rare, so extensive, so
mysterious — that free, and that stirring Spirit, the sentiment of
American nationality, which was first breathed into the life of
this people, and made to pour itself through and about the body
of the people, and which should last until the heavens be no
more. Let then, he added, the events of which we are reminded by
these scenes, and these men, mark the strong birthlove of the
American people. On that day, within the space of twelve
hours, the old colonial party passed away, like a scroll. The
veil of the first temple was that day rent from toj| to bottom.
That day, American Liberty was then and there born. Sir, our
aged and revered friends of Concord, and Lexington, and Acton,
of Carlisle, Sudbury and the surrounding towns, went into that
battle British colonists ; the baptism of fire was laid upon their
12

90
charmed brows, and they rose from their knees American citi
zens. The flag of Massachusetts, the pine-tree flag, that old
flag, was carried into battle in the morning, and if the survivor
who rolled it up that night had noticed it, he would have seen,
gleaming through a blaze of light on one side, the pine-tree ban
ner, and, on the other, the glorious stars and stripes.
Mr. Choate concluded his eloquent and fervid address, by of
fering as a sentiment :
The Sentiment of American Nationality — It woke to life on the 19th
of April, 1775, on the banks of the Concord, and on the green of Lexington. It has
grown with the growth and strengthened with the strength of America, until it holds
together a brotherhood of twenty millions, andi blends, as kindred drops, two oceans
into one. Wrought intjd the intimate nature, composing a part of every drop of blood
of every heart, the collisions of local interest and local feeling can no more displace
it, than a thunder-gust, or a. snow-storm in April, can dissolve the golden bands of
gravitation that hold the worlds together. Let that sentiment of American Nation
ality be the first lesson taught to the infant in the cradle, and the last legacy of the
old man departing.
The President then announced the second regular toast ; ob
serving that, .first of the particular memories of this occasion,
should ever be the names of the men, who. first met the enemy
in arms ; who sealed with their blood their devotion to their
country's cause at Lexington ; the first martyrs of liberty :
2. Lexington and its first Martyrs — Parker, Munroe, Hadley, the Harringtons.
Muzzy, Brown, — they were faithful unto death ! they have received the crown of
life. Col. Philip Russell, of Lexington, replied on behalf of the
Lexington delegation, as follows:
Mr. President, — I rise in behalf of the Committee of the town of
Lexington, to respond to the sentiment just announced, so com
plimentary to the town and to the memory of those patriotic citi
zens who fell on the 19th of April, 1775.
They were, in the language of your sentiment, " faithful unto
death." But in offering themselves on freedom's first altar,
they acted up to the spirit of that self-sacrificing age.
We look back with veneration upon that generation, and es
pecially upon that patriotic band which appeared in the field in
defence of their country's rights. We remember with gratitude
those who perished and those who survived.
One of that noble band has been spared to us, and is present

91
with us on this occasion, to receive the homage due to that gen
eration. The citizens of Lexington have always felt a degree of
pride in being associated with Concord in the events of the 19th
of April, 1775. With us, our motto has been, " Lexington and
Concord, Concord and Lexington." Nor would we forget our
brethren of other towns, who, animated by the same spirit, came
to our relief in the day of our peril as cheerfully as our friends
meet us here on the day of our rejoicing.
We remember with emotion the sympathy extended and the
aid rendered to us and to the cause of freedom by the patriots
from Acton, Cambridge, Danvers, and other towns in the vicin
ity, who mingled their blood with ours on that occasion. To
them, as well as to us, belongs the glory of that eventful day.
Mr. President, I will give as a sentiment :
The County of Middlesex. — The birth-place of American Freedom.
In introducing the third regular toast, the President alluded to
the words of Capt. Isaac Davis, on the morning of the 19th of
April, 1775 ; — " that he had a right to go to Concord on the
King's highway, and that he would go to Concord, if he had to
meet all the British troops in Boston." That dauntless heart
was laid cold in death at the moment of victory.
He then gave :
3. Davis and Hosmer— " In pride, in all the pride of woe,
Wo tell of them, the brave laid low,
Who for their birth-place bled !
In pride, the pride of triumph then,
We tell of them, the matchless men
From whom the invaders fled ! "
To this toast, Hon. Stevens Hayward briefly responded on
behalf of the town of Acton.
The band played the air of " TheWhite Cockade," which tradi
tion has named as the tune to which Capt. Davis's company
marched down to the bridge in 1775.
Hon. John G. Palfrey was then introduced, and spoke sub
stantially as follows :
Mr. President, — I thank you for detailing me to serve to-day
as the lieutenant of my friend from Acton, though belonging to

92
one » of the towns which came later into the field, on the day
which we commemorate.
Sir, I like the poetry to which you have called upon us to
speak. It is worthy of the occasion, worthy of the subject,
worthy of Charles Sprague, its author. But, perhaps from old
professional habits and associations, I like the prose text which
you repeated just now, still better. "Faithful unto death."
It is as applicable to the martyrs of Acton as to those of Lex-
, ington, to whom you applied it. And as the representative of
Lexington has had the first use of it, I dare say he will be willing
that I should have the second, as Acton took up the British sol
diers seventy-five years ago, when Lexington had done with
them. "•
I suppose, Mr. President, that the sacred text which you re
peated, well describes the courage called into action on that
great historical day. "Faithful unto death." Faithful. In
these latter days, we have made a cautious estimate of the
quality called military courage, and we do not allow the same
credit as was allowed in other times to every thing that goes by
the name. Dr. Charming, as I remember, in an analysis which
he makes of it according to its different sources, specifies
courage from mental weakness, courage from ignorance, courage
from a rigid fibre ; — he speaks of soldiers, brave from want of
reflection, brave from sympathy, brave from the thirst of plun
der, and " especially brave, because the sword of martial law is
hanging over their heads." Not such was the courage of the
patriot soldiers to whose blessed memory you consecrate this oc
casion. "No two things could be more different than the courage
of Davis and Hosmer and their brave associates, and the courage
of the mercenaries whom they put to disgraceful rout. No con
dition could be more unlike than that of the independent Mid
dlesex farmers, who, on the 19th of April, '75, took up arms for
their Massachusetts rights, for their old English liberties, and
that of the hireling, who, for his " sixpence a day," is equally
ready to shoot down whomsoever his captain bids, ih the West
Indies or in Ireland, in France or Hindostan. These yeoman war
riors fought not for pay, nor for fighting's sake. They fought,
to be " faithful" to a great and holy cause. In the high places
of the field they were ," faithful unto death," because a thorough
faithfulness conducted to that extremity.

93
They went to the battle from Christian homes. Davis and
Hosmer, the minister of Acton has just told me, were both sons
of deacons of the church, and he further informs me that, at that
time, there was only a single house in the town, in which family
worship was not maintained. Davis himself, in the expressive
language of the same authority, was " a man of prayer." The
little which tradition has preserved of his proceedings on that
morning, is not without its interest. Having issued orders for
his company of minute-men to parade, after information of the
approach of the British had reached Concord, he went home for
his arms. Snatching a hasty repast, and taking down his accou
trements from his kitchen wall where they hung, he, parted from
his wife on the door-step, and turning back to say, " take care
of the children," went his way. Take care of the children.
I do not know whether it was some presentiment of what was
coming, that dictated the words. But he was to take care of
them no more. And if, as he spoke, a tear gathered in his
manly eye, I am sure every parent here will be ready to forgive
tlie weakness. It was the last moisture that ever filled the lids
of Isaac Davis.
We next hear of him on the rising ground on the Acton side
beyond the North Bridge, where his company, and three or four
others from the neighboring towns, had collected by nine o'clock.
The bridge was held by Captain Laurie's three companies of
infantry, while Captain Parsons, with three more, had gone two
miles further to Colonel Barrett's, on the Acton side, to destroy the
stores. The American officers, Davis and the rest, held a brief
council, the result of which was that they had a right to go
down to Concord village y drums and muskets and all, and go
they would, for the bridge was the king's and the county's high
way, and nobody had a right to bar their passage. " I have not
a man that's afraid to go," said Davis, as he turned away from
the council to take his place at the right of his Acton comrades.
Just now his lip had quivered, and his eye had filled, as he had
left his door-stone. But that was the last weakness. He had
left his children with their mother and with God, — the God of
the widow, the Father of the fatherless.. There was no dimness
in the eye that glanced along the line of his faithful townsmen,
and down to the shining platoons at the bridge. There was no

94
tremor on the lip, — it was firmly set, — that said, "I have n't a
man that's afraid to go." No ! There was not an Acton man
that had any such fear. With the story 'from Lexington just
tingling in their ears, there was not an Acton woman that morn
ing, — had that been tlieir business, — there was not an Acton boy
that would have been afraid to go, if, instead of Captain Laurie's
three companies, every regiment in King George's blood-colored
livery had beset the path.
The order was given to advance, and the column moved rap
idly down the hill, to the tune of " The White Cockade," which
we have just how heard from the band. In its front was the
Acton company, a post which Captain Davis is said to have so
licited, because no company on the ground but his had bayonets,
to match those of the enemy. Two or three guns, fired by the
British into the water,' as a warning, being disregarded, an effec
tive volley followed, which brought him to the ground. He
never breathed again. Here are the shoe-buckles which he wore
on that day. They have just been handed to me by the Rev.
Mr. Woodbury, to whom they were presented a few years ago
by his aged widow.
By the side of Captain Davis, and at the same moment, fell
Abner Hosmer, a private in his company. Their bodies, with
that of their neighbor, James Hayward, killed, (I believe) at
West Cambridge, in the afternoon, were taken that night to
Captain Davis's house, whence they were all three buried to
gether, two or three days after. Hbsmer was a young man,- — I
believe, a mere lad. But he was hardly missed the less for that,
in the home where his infancy had been tended, and his youth
had opened with fair promise. Still he died where and when he
should, for he was " faithful unto death," and there was conso
lation in that. So thought the " faithful " matrons of that time.
No doubt, when the soldier's last departing foot-fall had been
heard, and the arms that had just clasped him were raised to
Heaven in prayer by the forsaken hearth, there was breathed a
supplication that the"1, God ' of , battles would hold over him the
shield of His protection. But more earnest than even that, was
the entreaty that he might be approved in the sight of God,'
and known of men, as faithful to his duty, — " faithful," if need
should be, " unto death."

95 *¦
And, Mr. President, unless I greatly err, this conscientious,
this religious element, has been the leading characteristic of the
military courage of New England, through all its history. It
has not been recklessness. It has not been thirst of blood.
It has not been lust of rapine. It has not been even ambition
of martial glory. It has been simply " faithfulness ;" faith
fulness to the end, — whether to victory or to death. I said, it
had not been ambition of martial glory. And I think that in the
apparent total absence of this feature from the history of our
wars there is something well deserving of notice. There is a
set of phrases common elsewhere in military despatches, as well
as in military memoirs, popular harangues, funeral tributes, and
so on. They are such phrases as " martial renown," " a sol
dier's fame," " glory won in arms," and the like. I think our
New England documents would be searched for them absolutely
in vain. We of Massachusetts have done a good deal of fighting
in our day ; I wish that, especially with the poor Indians, we had
done much less. We had stirring times with the native tribes,
and in the dreadful French wars ; we were busy at Louisburg, at
Havana, at Martinique ; at Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Yorktown, we
. had work in hand that tried men's mettle. Can any one show
me that any sentiment of mere military ambition ever prompted
the New England men who acted in those scenes ? He who has
found a trace of that comparatively vulgar sentiment, is deeper
read in our annals than I am, which, to be sure, may not be say
ing much. He who will show it, will give me a new lesson in
New England history. No ! Faithfulness, " faithfulness unto
death," and not the mere craving of any honor to be gained by
slaughter, has been in all times the animating impulse of New
England valor. Even old Ethan Allen, of Vermont, was no ex
ception. He was no Christian, — the more .is the pity. But. he
took up arms, not for glory, but for right. And he was a man
of sense, and he understood the temper of his men, at any rate,
if he did not for the time enter into it, and sympathize with it.
When he woke the slumbering garrison of Ticonderoga, one fine
May morning, with a summons to surrender, and was asked in
whose name he made the de.mand, he said it was in the name of
" the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." From old
habit and use, if for nothing else, the name of " the great Je-

96
hovah," or some reference to it, could hardly be spared from so
much as the countersign of a New England regiment.
Apparent through the whole of our history, never did this
grave, reflecting, law-loving, God-fearing character of New
England courage appear more conspicuously, than in the course
of those events which we to-day commemorate. It is known to
you, Mr. President, that when, in the summer of 1774, the two
Acts of Parliament arrived, which amounted to a virtual abroga
tion of the Massachusetts charter, and when a convention of fpur
counties at Boston advised the assembling of a Provincial Con
gress, and other decisive measures, the County of Middlesex was
the first which responded to the call. In three days after it was
issued,- — so rapid was the movement, — a hundred and fifty del
egates, from the Middlesex towns, assembled here at Concord,
and adopted the boldest measures in furtherance of the object.
No one town was unrepresented, and the delegates were chosen
at legal town meetings, so that an article for the elections must
have been in the warrant, and the remarkable fact is disclosed
that the friends of freedom were in a majority in every town.
The report and resolves adopted on that occasion, breathed, in
•eloquent terms, precisely that spirit of Christian courage, of
" faithfulness unto death," to which I have referred. I am
tempted to quote from them, but I will not venture on it, as, in
repeating from memory, I might make some change in the lan
guage, where any change would be a blemish.
What followed the battle is curiously illustrative of the same
matter. The 19th day of April was given to fighting ; on the
22d they proceeded to take depositions. The men who, on the
19th, had " lined with a continuous fire " the British race-course
of twenty miles from Concord to Charlestown, after cooling their
blood with a few nights' rest, came into court, in their Sunday
suits, as quiet as lambs and as sober" as judges, to make affidavit
in perpetuam rei memoriam, that there might be a permanent
record of how things had gone. I recollect the irrepressible
amusement which, some years ago, I afforded to a Southwestern
statesman, of great national celebrity, by telling him of this fact.
He made me tell it over again, — it was so inexpressibly droll to
him to think of people, hardly cool from the sublime rage of
" the battle of the miriute-men," telling their story under cross

97
examination on the witnesses' stand: It did not meet his Ken
tucky notions of the proper and natural sequence of things, that
such a fight as that shquld be ended in a Justices' Court. But I
ventured to hint to him, that it was just this love of law, this rev
erence for right, this perfect loyalty to justice and principle,
which made our people able to fight that battle. They had been
able to defend the right so valiantly, because they had kept
themselves sure of having the right on their side ; and that they
had' kept the right on their side, they wanted to show to the
world and to posterity. It concerned their sense of character
to prove that they were not the assailants, that they did not give
the first fire. If, when given, they returned it, if they returned
it with interest, if they returned it with compound interest^ if
they returned it in a way that the assailants had not bargained
for, they were not responsible for that. The responsibleness
was on those minions of arbitrary power, whether in high or low
degree, who had forgotten that the rights of Massachusetts free
men were written in their charter, and the blood of Massachu
setts Puritans was coursing in their veins.
But, Mr. President, I am abusing the patience with which I
have been honored. Let me only add a word to say, that above
all other kinds of courage whatever ^ for any use whatever, give
me the good old-fashioned religious courage, the " faithfulness
unto death," of Puritan Massachusetts. In preference to any
other kind of courage, give me this, not only for superior purity
and rectitude, but for energy, for efficiency, for constancy, for
bottom', for work. For any Use whatever, — ito smooth the pil
low, and hold the cooling draught to the lips, of contagious
sickness, or to battle with the midnight conflagration, — in the
storm of angry debate, in the hour of critical counsel for a na
tion's welfare, or " on the perilous edge of battle when it rages,"
give me, above all other kinds of courage, that of the man who
fears God so much that it is impossible for him to fear any thing
else, — the faith-inspired courage that nerved those "faithful"
men, who, for the right and their country, took their lives in their
hand on the ever memorable day we celebrate.
The President said, —
I have now to announce a toast to which you will. all do honor.
13

98

It refers to men, whose infirmities will not permit them, though
present with us to-day, to speak. for themselves. There are but
two survivors of the day we are met to celebrate, still among
the living :—
JONATHAN HARRINGTON, of Lexington, of the age of
92, and
AMOS BAKER, of Lincoln, of the age of 94 ;* and they are
both upon the platform. The palsy of age is this, day upon
them, on whose youthful vigor, 75 years, ago, the destinies of
America depended.
Jonathan, Harrington was on the green at Lexington in the
morning, a member of Captain Parker's company. He was a
fifer, — and I wish that about these times we could have a. little
more of the same music !
Amos Baker was- at Concord North Bridge, in the forenoon,
and is the. only man living who bore arms on that day. He saw
the Regulars come to the Bridge, and he saw them leave it !
Mr. Harrington will give you a sentiment ; and as Mr. Baker
cannot make himself heard, I will say for him what he said to
me yesterday :
"When we had returned the fire of the British at the Bridge,
Noah Parkhurst, of Lincoln, who was my right hand man, said
to me, ' Now ^he war has begun, and no one knows when it will
end.' "
Mr. Baker made another statement, in the correctness of
¦which; you would probably all agree with him. He, said, "I
verily believe I felt better that day, take it all the- day through,
than I should if I had stayed at home ; " and this seems to be his
deliberate opinion, after, having Jiad seventy-five years to think
ofitl The two veterans then stood up,- and were received with a
succession of cheers upon cheers, which lasted for some minutes,
when the fourth regular toast was read :
4. The surviving Soldiers of the 19th of April, 1775— Jonathan Harrington and
Amos Baker. Thank God, that in the glory and beauty of our harvest, there ate
still left to us some of those who sowed _e seed.
The Chief Marshal, Col. I. H. Wright, then read the follow
ing toast, given by Jonathan Harrington, and written by his own
hand :

99
" The 19th of April, 1775.' All who remember that day will stand by the Consti
tution of the United States."
The fifth regular toast was then announced :
5. Our Ancient Commonwealth— a child, born of good.parents, but fefl early with
the Massachusetts Indians ; and though forced to feed her children from a clam
bake in the sand ; to raise Indian corn and pumpkins ; to fish all about the bay be
tween the North and South Poles ; to spin a little cotton at Lowell and Lawrence ;
and to truck a little in Yankee notions ali along from Cape Cod to Canton — she has
raised a large family, and laid up something against a rainy day.
His Excellency Governor Brigos, addressed the company in
response to this toast, substantially as follows :
Mr. President,- — The sentiment in honor^of our ancient Com
monwealth, which you have just announced, speaks for itself.
It requires no response from me. As children, we all love and
honor her, and I trust it will' not be deemed improper on this oc
casion for me to say that her character and history, from the
time of her provincial dependence to the present time, and her
standing among her sister states, entitles her to the love and rev
erence of her children. But, sir, if, upon the great theme which
this day fills all our, hearts, I had any thing to say when I came
here, let me tell you, the „ll-grasping reapers who have pre
ceded me, have taken it all away.
Far back in distant ages, when a Moabitish stranger went into
the field of one of the notables of the land of Canaan " to glean
and gather after the reapers among the sheaves," the lord of the
harvest commanded his reapers to let the damsel " glean even
among the sheaves, and reproach her not." I wish these gentle
men had shown a little of the humanity and kindness of that
oriental landholder. Why, sir, in my solicitude I have been
searching the field, and can find scarcely a head of wheat left.
There is, however, one thing which they have not said, in con
nection with the 19th of April, 1775. They did not' state
the historic 'fact, that the incursion of the British army on that
day was the first and last time, since Massachusetts has had a
political existence, that a foreign enemy had penetrated so far
into her territory. This is a truth which her people may regard
with'pride and gratitude. Few states, nearly two hundred' and
fifty years old, can say as much. I trust the result of that ex
periment will admonish her enemies, if enemies she shall ever

100
have, that the experiment had better not be repeated. That
proud legion of loyalists expected, as they advanoed, to see the
pale and trembling rebels shrink and flee before them. Great
was their disappointment. Sir, what a day was that for Massa
chusetts ! Well did Samuel Adams "exclaim, when he heard the
volley at Lexington, "Oh, what a glorious morning is this f"-^-
words of prophecy and patriotism. They will be repeated with
enthusiastic awe, and inspire the lovers of freedom to the latest
generations. Mr. President, I wish that venerable old man, who
this moment stood before these assembled thousands, could re
hearse in our hearing the thrilling incidents of that auspicious
morning. When on a visit to • Lexington last winter, one who
participated in those incidents told me, that, on the bright "moon
light evening which preceded the 19th of April, while returning
to his father's house, for he had been out fifing for a company of
boys, he met several British officers on horseback, who preceded
the army which came before ' the rising sun. After reaching
home and retiring to bed, about one o'clock, his mother, calling
to him from the chamber door, said, " Jonathan, you must get up-;
the Regulars are' coming ; something must be done ! " The hoary
headed patriarch who has just retired from your sight, was the
boy who, by his more than Spartan mother, seventy-five years
ago, was summoned to get up in the dead of night, to " do
something, for the Regulars were coming!" Jonathan got up ;
what do you think he did ? What could a' boy sixteen years old
do in such an emergency ? I'll tell you what he' did. He went
out and blew that shrill little fife, to alarm the neighbors, rally
the minute-men, and call the patriots together. Mothers of Mas
sachusetts, do you hear that ! Young men of Massachusetts, do
you hear that ! '* The Regulars are coming ! " And who are
the Regulars? They are' the embodied power of the British
Kingdom, the armed representatives'' of the British King, disci
plined, brave and obedient soldiers, commanded by gallant and
heroic officers, -advancing, in the stillness of the night, to drive
back the rebels and seize upon their military stores in a neigh
boring town. At the approach of such an army, at that awful
hour, we hear the voice of an American mother, calling her boy
to leave his bed, " to get up and do something." Before he saw
the sun on that bright and ominous morning, he stood by the side

101
of the stout-hearted Parker, at the head of his company on Lex
ington green, and roused the martial blood, of his countrymen
by the piercing notes of his spirit-stirring fife. There he stood
with the little band- of armed freemen, hastily called together, in
the very presence of British legions. He saw the dauntless Pit-
' cairn at their head. He heard the order given to load with pow
der and balls, and saw it executed. He saw them march up
with an imperious and threatening air. He heard the words,
" Rebels, disperse ! Rebels, lay down your arms ! " He saw
the flash, the smoke; and heard the sharp report of the. guns
which broke the stillness of. that first morning of the American
revolution. Yes, sir, he was in the midst of that great scene.
Those eyes, now dimmed with the vision of an hundred years,
saw it ; ' those ears, dulled by the din of a century, heard it ; that
heart, now feebly beating in his aged bosom, felt it.
The first martyrs in the great cause of their Country, fell at
Lexington, and the fratricidal host marched on to Concord.
Faithful couriers and deep-toned bells aroused the patriots of
Concord and the adjoining towns, who had heard of the massacre
of their neighbors, and were prepared to meet the approaching
foe. At the old North Bridge, that foe again fired upon the
peaceful yeomanry of Massachusetts, while firmly standing in
defence of their rights. The blood of other victims gushed out
and flowed upon the soil ; the fire was returned, and two British
soldiers fell. The enemy hastily retreated. Here sits Amos
Baker, the sole survivor of that memorable "fight. That arm,
now enfeebled by age, then youthful and strong, helped to drive
back the enemies of his country. Thank heaven, that these two
only remaining actors in the scenes of that day, the one at Lex
ington .and the other at Concord, are here to heighten the interest
of this seventy-fifth anniversary. They are here for the last time,
and the youth who now look upon them, will, in their old age, re
late with patriotic emotion, to the children of a generation not
yet born, the wonderful fact, that they saw in 1850, two soldiers
who fought at Lexington and Concord. When, in the neighbor
hood of Lexington, Samuel Adams heard the guns, he exclaimed,
u Oh, what a glorious morning is this ! " Early in the same
morning, as General Warren landed at Charlestown from the
ferry boat, which had brought him over from Boston, on being

102

asked what he thought of the political prospect of the times, re
plied, " Keep up a brave heart ; they have begun it — that either
party could do ; we'll end it — that only one can do." A soldier
at Concord said, " The war is now begun, — the Lord 'only knows
when it will end."
This remarkable sentiment, uttered by noble patriots on the '
same day, in different places, shows how the spirit of freedom
pervaded the hearts of the people of Massachusetts. It was a
glorious day for Lexington^ and Concord, and Middlesex, for
Massachusetts and (the thirteen- British colonies'. It was a glorious
day for liberty, for patriotism, for humanity. Every blow struck
for liberty amongst men,- since the 19th of April, 1775, has but
echoed the guns of that eventful morning.
Mr. President, I give you as a sentiment :
The Nineteenth of April, 1775, with the prophetic and patriotic exclamation of
Samuel Adams, when he heard the guns at Lexington, " Oh, what a glorious morning
is this!" A volunteer sentiment was handed to the chair, and announced
as coming from the reporter of the " Boston Post," but has
since been ascertained to have been the production of C. W.
Storey', Esq., Clerk of the House of Representatives. It was
received with great applause :
" When Jonathan Harrington got up that morning, at the call of his mother, a dis
tinguished relative of hisgotup at the same time,. Brother Jonathan — but his
mother did not call him .' "
The sixth regular toast followed :
6. The President of the United States and our National Union.
In introducing the seventh regular toast, the President of the
day said :
It is the commandment of God; " Thou shalt honor thy fa
ther and thy mother."
No Englishman is an invited guest, nor would it be consistent
with the proprieties of the occasion that any should be present at
our festival ; but we have not met here to-day with feelings of
bitterness. We come to indulge in no vulgar animosity, — to re
vive no ancient feud. We would remember in kindness, with
honor, with filial pride, our mother country. Stern and rugged

103
as we found her at times, we drew from her breast the health of
our infancy, and the vigor of our youth, The men of the Revo
lution declared to the world that they were contending for the
liberties of Englishmen. K
In the south aisle of Westminster Abbey, — under those majestic
arches where England for ages
" Has garnered up her great,"
i '
where repose her princes and her nobles, her warriors and her
statesmen, surrounded by the ¦memorials which national pride
and national gratitude have raised to the saints and martyrs, the
orators and poets, the patriots and heroes of a thousand years, —
there stands a marble monument. It was erected to the memory
of Lord Howe, general of the British forces in North America,
who died on the march to Ticonderoga in 1758 ; and was placed
there, — as the inscription tells us, — " by royal permission, by
his Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England."
Among, the figures which it bears is an allegorical personage,
whose embodied presence I do not remember to have met with
elsewhere :
The Genius of the Province of Massachusetts. Bay !
It moves the- imagination, to contemplate the Genius of our
State thus assuming a place in that treasure-house of England's
renown^ But may it not be fearlessly claimed., and worthily
held ? Might she not look round upon those who sleep beneath,
with a kindred spirit, conscious that she' had never done discredit
to the English name ? Has not -the Genius of Massachusetts an
honest .right, does she not find a fitting place, in Westminster
Abbey, as among the heroic spirits which the English race has
nurtured ?
I confess it seems to me, that if the stern and lofty virtues of
the Pilgrims, if Louisburg and Quebec were not enough, the
memories of Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, might
suffice forever to vindicate the claim —
" Her father's blood before her father's face,
Boiled up, and proved her truly of his race ! "
May we not here at least assert that we have not dishonored
our lineage ?

104

I give you as a toast :

7. England — Our Mother Country. We have cause to speak well of-our stock.
The reason why the Essex and Middlesex farmers could front the power of England
was, that they had good West of England, blood in .their veins. We had half of
England to sympathize with us through the war 5 and our fathers could afibrd lo
part with Old England, for they had established a New England in the West.
The band played " God save the Queen," and the President
said: I have the pleasure and the honor to introduce to you a gen
tleman, who, next to the men whose deeds in arms we commem
orate, has done the most to give celebrity to the 19th of April,
the Honorable Edward Everett.
Mr. Everett rose amidst prolonged cheers, and replied .to the
seventh regular toast as follows :
When I rose this morning, Mr. Chairman, the state of my
health and of the weather was such, that I feared it would not
be in my power to avail myself of your kind invitation. But
since my arrival here I have so much enjoyed the patriotic ex
citement of the day and the place ; it has gratified me so much
to visit again these hallowed scenes ; I have listened with so
much pleasure to the eloquent discourse of the orator of the day,
and to the interesting and impassioned addresses which have
been made at the table, that I am quite ready, with our venerable
friend near me (Mr. Amos Baker,) -to say that, " all things con
sidered, I feel much better here than if I had staid at home."
It is truly gratifying to one, sir, who has taken the interest that
I have in former celebrations of this anniversary, an interest to
which you have had the goodness to allude in such kind terms,
to come back and revive the recollections of earlier days. The
familiar but freshly told tale of the 19th of April, 1775, as nar
rated by the orator, falls like music on my ear. I gaze with re
spectful admiration on these venerable men, the survivors, the
few and sole survivors, of the eventful day, in which they bore
so honorable a part. One of them, (Mr. Jonathan Harrington)
who has this moment been assisted from the platform, " filled
the fife-" on that morning of peril and glory at Lexington. The
Governor has just narrated to you the incident, whose heroic
simplicity is unsurpassed in the annals of liberty. While I was
helping that infirm old man a few minutes since to draw on his

105
outer, garment, as I saw him trembling with years, the arm which
held the fife on the 19th of April, 1775, now so feeble and
nerveless, I was ready to exclaim, since we have been alluding
to him by the Christian name, " I am distressed for thee, my
brother Jonathan ; very pleasant hast thou been unto' me."
I suppose, Mr. Chan-man, that I am indebted for the honor of
being called upon to respond to the last toast, to the circumstance
that a ^ew years ago I was the mihister of the United States in
England. My residence there gave me full opportunity of be
coming, acquainted with the feelings existing in that country to
wards the United States. I have much pleasure in saying that
they are in harmony with those expressed in the toast toward
England. The events of this, day have there passed into the
calm region of history.. From' the highest personages in the
kingdem and the government, through all the circles of society
in which I had the means of observation, I witnessed nothing
but indications of good will toward the. people of this country.
I therefore rejoice^ sir, that you haye guarded against any inter
pretation of the proceedings of this day, inconsistent with a sim
ilar feeling on our part toward the parent country. I was pleased
to see the English flag at half mast over the spot where the two
British -soldiers fell at the North Bridge on the 19th April. I
was gratified to hear the liberal sentiment of the orator, that the
account of hostilities was long ,since closed, and that between
the two kindred countries the future struggle should be for pre
eminence in the arts of peace. I hold indeed, sir, that duty to
those, who met the perils of the 19th April, 1775, and put all to
risk for the liberties of themselves and their children, requires
that the great events of that day should be kept in fresh remem
brance. I feel it to be impossible, that we who inhabit these
classical fields of our country's freedom, who have seen and
known some of the leading actors of the great drama, should
ever be insensible to its interest. But I am sure that you, sir,
and this intelligent company, agree with me in thinking, that we
shall greatly mistake the proper object of these commemorations,
if we made them the occasion of cherishing any unkind or bitter
feeling toward the country between which and ourselves there
are bonds of kindness and grounds of friendship such as never
existed between any two other nations. k
14

106
Why, sir, even at that moment of extreme exasperation, which
preceded the breaking out of the war, there were men in Eng
land, and those of the highest note for talent, station, and char
acter, who entertained the most friendly feelings toward the col
onies and their cause. The most eloquent voices in parliament
were heard on our side. When the stamp- act, in 1765, was re
ceived with a burst of opposition from one end of this continent
to the other, Lord Chatham declared that he rejoiced that Amer
ica had resisted. It was less than a month before the com
mencement of hostilities, that Burke pronounced that truly divine
oration on " Conciliation with America," which, in my poor judg
ment, excels everything,- in the form of eloquence, that has
come down to us from Greece or Rome. Less than a month it
was, before the 19th of April, 1775, that he said, " My hold' of the
colonies is in the close affection which grows from common
names, from kindred blood, from' similar privileges, and from
equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are
strong as links of iron." These kindly words and more like
them were uttered on the 22d of March. Oh the 19th of April
the curtain rose on "that mighty drama in the world's history, of
which the quiet villages of Lexington and Concord were- the ap
pointed theatre. When that day's tidings reached England
they went to many a generous heart. I often heard in that
country a gentleman of great literary eminence, (I wish it were
proper to repeat his name,) say, that when the news of the 19th
April arrived in England, his father, with a sorrowful counte
nance, announced it to the family assembled at prayers. He
then ordered a suit of full mourning. Some one asked him if he
had lost a friend, — -a relative. " Yes," was the answer, " many
friends, many brethren, at one blow, in Lexington and Concord,
in America."
I do not of course mean, sir, that liberal men in England, in
1775, were in favor of the independence of America. This was
a result (I hardly need say) to'which but a few of the more ar
dent even of our patriots had arrived. But as soon as the .ne
cessity of this consummation was apparent, it was embraced on
the other side of the water quite as readily as could have been
expected. Even the prime minister, Lord North, whom we have
been accustomed to regard, on this side of the Atlantic, as the

107
great promoter and the inflexible prosecutor of the war, was de
sirous, two or three years before that event took place, to retire
from the ministry, that he might- be succeeded by those who
could consistently make peace with the United States. This
fact was brought to light a few years since, by the extracts from
the notes of George»III. to Lord North, published in the appendix
to the sixth volume of President Sparks's edition of the writings
of Washington. I had the opportunity, while in England, ¦ of
seeing all of that correspondence, which has been preserved in
Lord North's family, and the fact alluded to is beyond question.
It was the personal and urgent appeals of the king to Lord North
which alone induced the latter to remain in office. It must be
admitted that these facts place in no very favorable light the in
flexibility of the king and the compliance of the minister. But
we. all remember that when President Adams, senior, was pre
sented to George III. as the first minister of the United States to
England, the king magnanimously said, " I was the last man,
Mr. Adams, to wish the independence of your country ; but I
will be the first to respect it."
I have alluded to the. stamp act, with which, in many points of
view, the American. Revolution begins. You recollect, I dare
say, sir, in that admirable speech of Burke, to which, I have re
ferred, that he vindicates the colonies from the reproach of
having turned the great issues of civil liberty into a money ques
tion. He reminds the House of Commons that " the great con
tests of freedom in England were from the earliest times chiefly
upon the question of taxing," and it was, as I have said, from
the ill-starred project of Mr. George Grenville, to raise a revenue
from America, (not, however, I believe, original with him,) that
the first movements of the American Revolution sprung. We
have been gratified this morning with a sight of several relics of
those days, of .various kinds and great interest ; and I have
thought, sir, you might be pleased with the inspection of one
which will at least have the interest of novelty : I mean a speci
men of that ever memorable stamped paper which, considering
its "great influence* in bringing on the American Revolution, has
played as important a part in human affairs as any paper that
was ever made. We may almost call it, as Pliny the elder does
the paper made of the Egyptian papyrus, res qua constat immor-
talitas hominum. I hold a half crown stamp in my hands. How

108 ¦*
I got it, sir, I believe I shall 'not tell you. -It is sufficient to say
that I came by it Honestly and without' infringing any man's
rights, which is saying a gdod deal considering what it is: »< '
Yes, sir, that bit of dingy blue paper, stamped with the two
and sixpence sterling, created the United Stages of America, and
cost Great Britain the brightest jewel in heV crown ; an event
however which, in all things .except the precious blood that was
shed in the contest and the sufferings of a seven years' war, was
the greatest blessing, in reference both to political ancT material
interests, which could Rave' fallen to the lot of either country.
The continued, subjection of Ameriea" to the restrictions of the
colonial system, (even if our fathers had- carried the points im
mediately at issue,) would have produced a prolonged state of
feverish agitation and ever reviving controversy utterly inconsis
tent with any wholesome social progress. On the other hand,
the policy pursued by England, if crowned with temporary suc
cess, would have been attended or followed by the prostration' of
the barriers of liberty in that coun_y. The prophecy of Lord
Chatham would unquestionably have been fulfilled ; " If Arnerica
falls, she "will fall like the strong man, embracing the pillars, of
state, and drag down the constitution along with ' her." As to
the material interests promoted by the separation, while the pro
gress of America, since the adoption of the constitution, exceeds
in rapidity any thing recorded in history, that of England, (not
withstanding the tremendous shock of the wars of the French
revolution and the load of debt entailed by those wars upon her,)
has been scarcely less astonishing than our own. I suppose
there is no period of English history, in which she has grown so
much in numbers, wealth, and extent of dominion, as that which
has elapsed since the recognition sf our independence. All that
could have been wrung * from us by the blue paper is but an
insignificant trifle compared with the rich harvest of our mutu
ally beneficial commerce.
¦¦V It cannot of course be necessary in this place, before this au
dience, especially after what we have heard frOm the orator- of
the day, to defend the principles "of the American Revolution,
first sealed with blood as 1_% were on the 19th of April, 1775.
The American state papers <of that day have become' the Pan
dects of civil liberty throughout the world. To wars of ag-

109
gression I am vehemently opposed. They are remnants of sav
age barbarism, and disgrace our Christian civilization. But when
a war of self-defence, a war for those' rights which make it life
to live, is forced upon a people, it must be manfully met. That
out revolutionary contest was such a war is now admitted by
the consent of mankind. That the demands of Our fathers were
reasonable is shown by the fact, that concessions, far beyond
those demands, ha've been made by Great Britain to all her col
onies deemed capable of free institutions. Our neighbors in
Canada are in the full enjoyment of a responsible government.
The royal governor is instructed to select his ministers, not from
the party favorable to the crown, but from the party which pos
sesses the majority in the provincial parliament. The crown, in
a recent and most remarkable case, has refused to interpose its
veto on a measure carried by the popular party in that parlia-
, ment ; and what may be regarded as throwing down the last
buttress of the colonial system, the great Navigation Act, (the
real if not the avowed cause of the American Revolution,) has
within a twelvemonth been repealed. The colonies are now
permitted to trade with foreign countries as freely as with Eng
land. In a speech of great ability in the British House of Com
mons, at the present session of parliament, the prime minister
(Lord John Russell) is reported to have said : " On looking back
to the origin of that unhappy contest, (the American Revolution)
I cannot but think it was not a single error, or a single blunder
which got us into that contest, but a series of repeated "erro'rs
and repeated blunders ; of a policy asserted and then retreated
from; — again asserted and then concessions ma'de when they
were too late, and of obstinacy when it was unseasonable. I be
lieve it was by such a course we entered into that unhappy con
test, with what were, at the beginning of it, loyal provinces of
England."* It is twenty-five years, sir, to-day, since I first had the honor
of addressing my fellow-citizens at this place and exertingfmy-
self, to the best of my ability, to freshen "the recollections of the
momentous day. Twenty-five years are a great space in the
life of an individual ; but we are 'accustomed to regard it as a
* Lord John Russell's Speech on the Colonial Question, on the 8th of February,
1850.

110
brief period in the life of a. state. But even in the life of the
country, if length of time is measured by the magnitude of, the
events crowded into it, one might say that America had "lived an
age in this quarter of a century. .In 1825 we had but twenty-
four States. We have now thirty, and the thirty-first, our latest
born sister California, — with her golden locks, — is advancing
across the continent with youthful but vigorous step. Presenting
herself at the door of the Union with her self-imposed, rather let
me say self-conferred, restriction, — a richer treasure than all
her mines,— she is knocking for admission with a claim not long
to be resisted. When I addressed you in 1825, the population
of the United States amounted to about 11,000,000, It is be
lieved that the enumeration of the present year will carry it to
24,000,000. Yes, sir, within this period of twenty-five years,
since some of us now present (alas, sir, that I must say some
only,) were assembled to lay the corner-stone of yonder monu
ment, a new nation of 13,000,000, not then in being, has grown
up within our borders, to whom, as well as to ourselves, a pre
cious heritage of political liberty was bequeathed by the men of
1775. The few of us who shall assemble here in 1875, (they
will be very few indeed, sir, of those who have reached my age,)
at the close of the full century, will be citizens of a kindred na
tion of fifty, millions.
On one condition, however, to which I cannot but allude.
There is no law of our nature which makes such a national growth,
or any growth, a matter of absolute necessity under all circum
stances. I received by the last steamer, a pamphlet written by a
member of the French chamber of deputies, on " the Decline of
France."* He states that the population of France, when she
went into her revolution in 1789, was thirty millions ; when she
came out of it in 1816 it was but thirty millions. In twenty-seven
years, in which the United States more than doubled their popula
tion, France had not added a unit to her numbers, and yet, with
the Exception of the first six or seven years, it was what is called
a prosperous period ; at any rate, a period of victory and glory.
What was the cause of this stationary condition of a country,
*De-la Decadence de la France, par .M. Raudot, (De l'Yonne) membre de
I'assemblee legislative, Paris, 1850.

Ill
seated like France in the centre of Europe, and possessing all
the material elements of prosperity, in a greater degree, thah
almost any other country in that quarter of the globe ? The se
cret is soon told. The flower of her population was annually
decimated. The ripened grain does not more regularly fall in
its season beneath the reaper's sickle, than the flower of her
young men was annually mowed down by the ruthless scythe of
the conscription. The car of Napoleon rolled indeed in triumph
over conquered Europe :
" O'er shields and helms, and helmed heads he rode
Of thrones and mighty dynasties prostrate,"
but the bleaching bones of his subjects strewed the pathway from
the frozen clods of the North to the burning sands 'of Syria.
We are safe from foreign invasion. What the most powerful
state in Europe could not do in 1775, when our numbers fell,
short of three millions, is not likely to be attempted again, now
that they have reached eight times that number, and are increas
ing with a rapidity which it makes the head giddy to calculate.
No, sir, the wars which we have to dread, the wars, if any such
to chastise our sins, are lying in wait for us in the store-house of
Providence, (a catastrophe which heaven avert) will be wars of
aggression, or wars in which our foes will be those- of our own
political household. A higher than human wisdom, has taught
us, that every kingdom divided against itself is brought to deso
lation ; and if ever this more than kingdom of ours, — this imperial
family of States, spread out between the two great oceans of the
globe,— " Bridging the way, Europe with Asia joined,"
to gather as it were into her bosom the riches of both hemis
pheres and either sea ; I say, sir, if this mighty family of States,
in the Providence of God and by the madness of men, shall ever
be divided against itself, it will be brought to desolation. Along
this curiously-indented frontier of neighboring States, fitted,
dove-tailed into each other like the fingers of hands approaching
in friendship, the line of demarcation will' soon be run with blood
and fire. Our mighty rivers, that bear the world's commerce
east and west from the Atlantic coast to, the.. interior, or which

112
sparkling down the continent from . North to South,-1— as if the
great circles of the globe were chased in living silver along its
surface, — these stupendous rivers which spring from arctic snows
and pour into the sea beneath the tropics, will become like the
rivers of the old world, the Rhine and the Danube, the Euphrates
and the Indus, the boundaries of alien and hostile races,- whose
eternal border wars have fixed upon their necks the eternal yoke
of military despotism. This it was which, in- the morning of the
world, brought the beaming forehead of Asia, queen of nations,
cradle of mankind, to the dust. This it was that struck down the
shortlived civilization" of Greece and Rome, and overwhelmed it
with a millenium not of grace but of barbarism. And if I read
aright the signs of the times, it is. this which is even now shaking
the social system of continental Europe .to its foundation. Is it
not plain as day, that if Germany on the one hand and Italy on
Jhe other had been, united in- well compacted .constitutional con
federations, resting on an historical basis, — cemented by a com
mon national feeling,— and possessing tribunals for the amicable
adjustment of public controversies, instead of referring them to
the bloody and abominable umpirage of war, that Hungary and
Lombardy, and Rome, and Sicily, instead of being .trampled un
der the iron hoof of foreign and despotic- power, might at this
moment have been enjoying all the blessings of freedom and
peace ? And if we, blessed by the wisdom, of our forefathers
with such a safeguard against anarchy and war, should rashly
cast it away, what words of condemnation will adequately describe
our folly ?
The laws of human nature, like those of the physical universe,
are the same in both hemispheres. Like causes will produce
like effects. Our fathers, in the days. that tried men's souls,
grasped at a union of the colonies as the ark of their safety.
They formed a union "in the act of declaring -their independence.
They formed a union before they attempted a constitution. This
was " The hoop of gold to bind their brothers in,
That the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion,
As force per force the age will pgur it in,
Should never leak though it dowork-as strong
As aconitum." -.

113
But I forbear, sir, to enlarge upon this all-important theme,
and I offer you as a toast, in taking my seat :
The 19th of April, 1775, and the principles of constitutional freedom which our fa
thers sealed with their blood ; may they be peacefully diffused throughout the world,
till every human being shall partake the blessing.
The President of the day then said :
Before announcing the next toast, there is much which it
would be proper to say, much which it is not pleasant to me to
leave unsaid, but for which the time will not suffice. There are
many towns who deserve an honorable mention on this occasion,
to whose citizens belongs no inconsiderable share of the glory
which has been attached to the names of Lexington and Concord".
The hardest fighting of the day was in Lincoln and West
Cambridge. Danvers, although nearly the farthest from the
line of march, lost more men than any other town but Lexington.
There is an anecdote of the Roxbury company, which I had
from the learned and venerable Chief Justice of the Common
wealth, (who I am sorry to say is not here to add dignity and
interest to our festival) and which was told him by the late Mr.
John Parker, a member of the company. When the alarm was
given in the morning, and the company mustered, the first thing
they did was to march two miles in the opposite direction, to
the house of the Rev. Dr. Gordon, to attend prayers ! But they
reached the scene of action iri time to vindicate their charac
ter for patriotism as well as piety, by losing a man in the af
ternoon. The first trophy of the Revolution was taken by a citizen of
Lincoln. Col. Abijah Pierce was the colonel of the regiment
of minute-men. He had been but recently chosen to that office,
had not provided himself with equipments, and came up to Con
cord in the morning, armed with nothing but a stout cane. He
went with the Lincoln company to the North Bridge, and when
the Regulars were repulsed, armed himself with the gun of one
of the British soldiers who was killed by the first fire, and used
it during the day in the pursuit to Lexington and West Cam
bridge. It was preserved for nearly fifty years in his family
and by his descendants.
You may see on the table before me, the powder-horn of
15

114
Isaac Parker, of Chelmsford, who wore it at the North Bridge ;
and a fragment of the shirt in which Reuben Kenniston, of
Beverly, was killed, which was preserved with pious care by his
wife. The holes through.it have decayed from the bloodstains,
which were left uneffaced.
There is a story to be told of the men of Woburn, of Reading,
of Needham, of Sudbury, of Westford ; — but, to include all, I
¦can but offer as the eighth regular toast :
8. The Towns whose citizens took part in the deeds of the 19th of April, 1775.
There was " a diversity of gifts* but the same spirit."
A toast was received in reply from James Russell, Esq., of
West Cambridge :
" Thernerriory of Jason Russell, Jason Winship, and Jabez Wyman, citizens of
West Cambridge, with nine other American citizens, whose names and places of
residence are unknown, who fell martyrs to liberty at Wes* Cambridge, on the day
we are now assembled to commemorate."
The ninth regular toast was then given :
9. " The Legislature of Massachusetts— Incorruptible in its numbers, popular in its
origin and its sympathies, conservative by its intelligence ; — its members do well to
refresh their patriotism by a draught from the fountain head."
Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, President of the Senate, re
sponded briefly to this sentiment, in Behalf of that branch. He
said that after the eloquent address and the soul-stirring speeches
to which we had listened, and at this late hour when he expected
every moment the bell of the cars would summon him to return
to the city, and when he was anxious that the Speaker also should
have an opportunity to be heard in behalf of the House, he did
not believe any thing which he could offer would add either to
the enjoyment or interest of the occasion. After a few appro
priate remarks, he concluded with the following sentiment :
. Lexington and Concorde-Twin Sisters. On the 19th of April, 1775, they sprinkled
the altar of Freedom with the bloodof their sons. May their memories be embalmed
in the hearts of their grateful countrymen, and may their praise be sung by the myr
iads of happy freemen who shall yet join in the" psean of universal liberty.
The Hon. E. H. Kejclogg, Speaker of the House of Repre
sentatives, followed with some remarks, and a toast.
.Mr. Kellogg said :

115
Mr. President,— If the- rail^car bells do not ring too quick, I
shall be most happy to avail myself, for a moment, of the official
privilege that happens to attach to me, to thank the citizens of
Concord and neighboring towns, in behalf of Massachusetts,
for allowing her, in her most popular representative capacity,
to partake in the patriotic joys of this occasion. We rejoice,
sir, that we are allowed on this sacred day to tread with you
these sacred grounds. We love to breathe the airs that pre
vail over them. We gaze intently on yonder eminence, where
towered the liberty-pole seventy-five years ago this morning.
We rejoice to look up and down this old road from Concord
to Lexington, along the lines of which, on that great day, there
magically appeared to the Regulars as many foemen as ever
sprung into view at the sound of the whistle of Rhoderic Dhu.
We thank you for leading us to the locality of the old North
Bridge, where the first men fell. We thank you for enabling
us to see so vividly the situation of your fathers on that morning.
The roll of the drum, the rattle of musketry in the hands of
your citizen-soldiery, on the yery spot where Buttrick led his
men to the first attack, almost produced the day we commemo
rate. Seventy -five years of history faded away. I stood in the
light of the old 19th of April, with the proud invaders before me.
Pardon me, sir, but my blood leaped in my veins, under the mo
mentary illusion of being one to open our Revolution.
We are here, sir, from all parts of the State,— -most of us for
the first time, — visiting this, one of our earliest revolutionary bat-
lie-grounds. With what pride, with what unspeakable satisfac
tion, Massachusetts cherishes its name, the world well knows,
and we desire to testify here to-day. What son of hers here does
not feel the power of the occasion ? Borne away by emotions
not to be repressed, we can scarcely do more than felicitate you,
our fellow-countrymen, on your good fortune. Happy men !
You have in your veins- the blood, and in your keeping the
graves, of the first martyrs to the great cause. Their glorious
slumbers bless this quiet vale. But that cause poured its tide of
blessings over a wider field -than Concord, — on other heads than
those of their children. In the full and abounding fruition of
those blessings, we appear here, to-day, to join you in paying
homage to the spot and the memory of those whose deaths hal-

116
low it. The same filial piety that leads you to observe the day,
brings us here to join you. Indeed, sir, you can hardly appro
priate the glorious lineage exclusively to yourselves.- Opportu
nity did not serve our ancestors all alike. But your fathers did
not raise the battle-shout on that morning in firmer or fiercer
tones, than it was echoed back from the hearts of our fathers,
resident in other and more distant parts of the State. All hearts
leaped alike to the field, though all hands did not close with the
foe in the fight.. Sir* these fields. of Concord and Lexington ex
pand, as I am contemplating them, to the full dimensions of Mas
sachusetts. The hearts of all her sons, seventy-five years ago,
beat responsive to those in Concord. And so, I must be allowed
to believe, does the chord that you strike here to-day, vibrate
throughout the same wide limits. Whether we live on that Cape
that stretches her mighty arm so far into the sea, or within the
charmed circle of Faneuil ' Hall's influence, or whether we live
in the great Central County, or in the velvet vale of the Queen
of New England Waters, or breathe the air of my own dear
mountain land : however distant our abodes, we would this day
bow with you around this early altar of our country's freedom,
with equal gratitude to those who consecrated it, and to God,
who so abundantly blessed their cause.
Sir, we broke from pressing official duties to come here on
no idle errand. We shall read but poorly, however, the lesson
that Massachusetts teaches on an occasion like this, if we go
away without an enlivened sense of our duties to our common
country and to humanity. The great volume of history, sir,
does not present an instance of more noble services in behalf of
other states, than that of Massachusetts affords. The fight we
celebrate was not begun for Concord, but the country. ' It was
but a few short months after the event, before the last foot of the
invaders left our State forever. But did Massachusetts halt on
her borders, when she found her own soil free ? No, sir. For
seven long years, wherever the front of battle lowered darkest,
there was she found in numbers and in spirit in the foremost
ranks . of the revolutionary army. Around the Green Mountain
Lakes, on the banks of the Hudson, the Delaware, or the Sus
quehanna, — on the plains of Virginia, or "the savannas of the
South, — on whatever part of our country the power of England

117
descended, there she bared her breast to the shock. When the
country* found itself incapable of exertion, almost incapable of
defence, under the old confederation of independent states, she
waived her state pride, and contributed the wisdom of her Kings,
her Gerrys, her Gorhams, and Strongs, to the establishment of
the present political fabric: — the wonder of the world. Under
that Union she has exhibited the same patriotism with which
she led the states through the weary way of the Revolution.
When the General Government felt it to be its duty to drive
her myriad of sails from the ocean, to turn her wharves into
green mounds, and her ports into stagnant pools, she com
plained, to be sure, but she did not traitorously rebel. She turned
her cunning hand to the Mechanic Arts. Her heart, soon re
vived. Her countenance was again radiant with the smile of
prosperity. And when dissatisfaction, jealousy and distrust un
happily seized upon a portion of the country — when one of the
sister states that had shared with us in the transcendent glories
of revolutionary sacrifice and service, — that had actually rivalled
us in patriotic care and solicitude for the Union in its tender
years, — when this state made her wild attack on our venerated
Constitution, she found Massachusetts in front of its citadel.
With her heart throbbing again with the old revolutionary pul
sations, and with a tongue, entirely worthy of her, and of which
she was entirely worthy, endowed though it was with immortal,
immortal, speech, she called upon her old revolutionary asso
ciates, and their younger sisters, and led them on to repel the
attack. The cohorts of disunion fled the field in dismay. What
though some undutiful son of her own, — what though the sons of
younger states, that have been cradled and reared beneath the
protection her blood and treasure did so much to establish, — may
accuse her of a local, a selfish and provincial patriotism ! This,
and other, her revolutionary fields shall bear eternal record
against the lying accusation. Under a Union that she passion
ately loves, under a Constitution that she absolutely venerates,
she will cherish the spirit in which that Union was founded, and
discharge promptly all the duties exacted by the compromises
that gave birth to the Constitution. In the dispensations of an
all-wise Providence, it was impossible to establish that Union,
without her holding a certain constitutional relation to an institu
tion against which her moral nature rebels. Whatever duties

118
spring from that relation she will discharge. If any man shall
ask — if any man shall tempt her to do more — if> under alarm
created by sectional or party"devices, she be tempted the breadth
of a hair beyond the line of her constitutional duty, she will, in
her moments of reflection, feel degraded by an insult, and her
spirit will recover its level, whatsoever sacrifice it may cost her.
May God bring us out of this perilous hour, with our garments
clean, with a sense of duty done, and with our confidence in one
another restored to its wonted firmness ! The Massachusetts les
son for the hour is, that we should make all honorable sacrifices
for the good of the country and the Union, and that, under that
Union, we should perform all our duties with the spirit of free
men. If this lesson reach our hearts, we shall not have come
here in vain.
Mr. Kellogg closed his speech by proposing as a toast:
" Massachusetts and the Country — Massachusetts performed her duty in the Rev
olution, and in the establishment of our National Government; she has hitherto per
formed her duty under the Union, and God and her patriotism will enable her here
after to perform her whole duty to, and under, that Union."
The next regular toast was read by Hon. John S. Keyes,
Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements :
10. The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company — From the earliest .period
of our history as a Commonwealth, they have fostered the true military spirit which
blazed forth on the 19th of April, 1775, and still burns brightly in their hearts.
To this, Col. Andrews, the commander of the company, made
the following reply :
Mr. President, — I am aware, by the rules of courtesy, a re
ply to the sentiment just uttered is expected from some one, —
and I was not without hopes that my gallant friend, in virtue of
his position as Chairman of the Military Committee of the House
of Representatives, and first Lieutenant of the Ancients, would
have felt it incumbent upon him to have responded. Consulting
my own individual wishes, I certainly should remain silent in
presence of so many distinguished speakers, but the position
which I hold, as commander of the corps .alluded to, seems to
enforce upon me the duty of acknowledging the compliment
expressed in the sentiment, and also to acknowledge, through
you, the honor your Committee of Arrangements have conferred
upon the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, in selecting

119
them for the performance of the duty assigned them this day.
In their behalf you will allow me to say, that the honor is highly
appreciated, and the courtesies extended, to them upon this occa
sion cannot but be remembered with gratitude. Nor, Mr. Pres
ident, can any one who reflects upon and is conversant with the
history of this company deem the selection an inappropriate one,
for, to this ancient corps, and the military spirit fostered by it
throughout the days of the colony, may undoubtedly be traced
much of the martial spirit of Massachusetts in its earlier history,
through the Indian and French wars, and down to the events of
the Revolution. It is a significant fact, going to show the mate
rials composing the company, that during the whole of our rev
olutionary war the company ceased to have their regular parades,
in consequence of so many of their members being engaged in
more active duties for the defence of their country; and their
records say, " that they had the honor of leading in the military
duties of the day — the insurrection under Shays." I am glad
that the military haye been recognized, and their patriotic ser
vices been acknowledged, upon this occasion. It is indeed refresh
ing in these days to have them honorably noticed, for it has been
too much the custom of late, to cover the citizen-soldier with de
traction and abuse, to hold him up to ridicule, and to assail the
militia system as the embodiment of all that is evil. May we not
hope that a better day is coming, a day when justice will be
done to that necessary part of a republican system ? Sir, I do
not intend to speak of the system, or undertake a defence of
those who deem it their duty to unite to give efficiency to it, but
will merely remark, that, for one, in the present state of society
and the world, I believe in the necessity of an armed force, of a
power behind the law to enforce the law. We arm for peace
within our borders as well as to repel aggressions from without,
and -our whole history as a nation has shown that the volunteer
force has proved a safe reliance. There is, I know, sir, a
strong peace feeling in the land, and 1 for one say, God speed the
" good time coming ;". but the good time has not yet come, and
the only practical question for the present age is, what shall
be done in the interim ?
Mr. President, , I am glad to see so many of the honorable
members of the Legislature here this day. I trust they, in com-

120
anon with us all, will be reminded of the- services of the citizen-
soldier in the days that are past, for the past is at least secure.
Let them and others do justice to the militia, sustain it liberally,
if they think it worth sustaining at all, treat its members with
respect, and, my word for it, they will find them able and ready
to do their whole duty should any emergency arise.
Sir, — the day we have assembled to commemorate is one of
the immortal days of our country, destined to live in remem
brance, whilst an American heart throbs in an American bosom.
Let it never be forgotten, that the blow here struck for Liberty
was given by citizen-soldiers, — -by the lion-hearted yeomanry of
the country in defence of their rights. It is a glorious, sublime
thought that its echoes are not yet stilled, but are even now
coming back to us from the shores of the Pacific ; and the names
of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill, are still fresh in the
remembrance of our whole country, on the lips of twenty millions
of freemen.
As a native of old Essex, I must confess to a feeling of exul
tation and patriotic pride, that among the host of freemen who
rallied at the call of their country seventy-five years ago this day,
so many of her sons were participators in its glory. As I looked
upon yonder monument and thought of the scenes and events of
that day, I could not help saying with the poet :
" Oh glorious day ! that saw the array
Of Freemen in their might,
When here they stood, unused to blood,
Yet dared th' unequal fight ;"
and to rejoice with him
" That the sons have met to own the debt
J)ue to their father's fame."
But, Mr. President, the lateness of the hour admonishes me
to bring these desultory remarks to a close,, and I will only de
tain you to offer the following sentiment :
The 19th of April, 1775 — It taught the world Ihe might and power of the Citizen-
Soldier, when armed in defence of the rights of his country.
The President then said :
The next toast is one to which no particular person will
reply, but I know what a reception it will meet from this assembly.

121
In the salutes fired to-day, there were thirty-one guns ; on the
flag which waves over your heads, there are thirty-one stars ;
and I call upon you all to unite in doing honor to the toast,
which I give you from my whole heart :
11. California— The youngest sister of our family of States ;— the Queen of the
Pacific, with jewels of Gold upon her robe and the jewel of Freedom on her brow,—
the voice of Concord, Lexington and Bunker Hill, unheard in the national councils,
here gives her a joyful welcome.
A shout arose from the whole audience, expressive of their
heartfelt sympathy and concurrence.
After the cheers had subsided, —
Hon. J. S. Keyes read the following letter, received an hour
before by telegraph, from the Hon. George W. Wright, the
first Representative elect from California to Congress, and who
was born in sight of the Old North Bridge :
[By Telegraph.]
Washington, April 19, 9.25 A. M.
Hon. John S. Keyes, Concord, Mass. :
My Dear Sir : — I have this moment received your favor, in
which I am honored with an invitation to be present at the
Grand Union. Celebration of the events of April 19, 1775.
There are fifty reasons why I cannot be with you : the first
that no human power can dart me along in season for the occa
sion. The other forty-nine "I will not enumerate. Could I reach
you by the same agency which is to carry this reply, I would
forthwith mount some trusty thunderbolt .and lay my course for the
sacred battle-field of human liberty : for nothing on earth could
give me greater pleasure, than to join the citizens of my native
town and country in a celebration designed to commemorate
the glorious old Nineteeth, which you have been pleased to de
signate as the birth-day of American Liberty ; and why may we
not claim it the birth-day of universal liberty ? The first ap
peal ever made to the American people in favor of indepen:
dence, was published at Philadelphia, some six months subse
quent to the events of the 19th. That appeal would never
have been countenanced and sustained, but for thrilling and soul-
stirring allusions, made- to the bloody conflict of the 19th. It
was the watchword of a seven years'- war. Our republican
16

122
government has ever since been the watchword, the beacon-
light, which has guided the patriots of every nation, and led
them on to victory.
Thanking you most sincerely for the very kind manner in
which you have alluded to the fact of my having been born
within sight of the old battle-field ; presenting my profoundest
respects to the old patriots who have been spared to you ; with
my kindest regards to each and all your guests, I will conclude
with an humble but heartfelt offering :
The Descendants of the Immortal Patriots of the 19th — May they mingle their
blood with the sacred dust of Davis and Hosmer, sooner than be found in tlie ranks
of the enemy of human liberty.
GEORGE W. WRIGHT.
The twelfth regular toast was then announced :
12. The Orator of the Day;— He has followed the example of his townsmen of
Beverly, in 1775, by doing his full part toward making the 19th of April famous.
And the thirteenth and last ;
13. "The Women of the Revolution."
Several volunteer toasts were then given, among them one by
Hon. Leonard M. Parker, of- Shirley, one by Dr. Amariah Pres
ton, a revolutionary soldier, in his 93d year ; — and the following,
by Captain Josiah Sturgis, of the Revenufe Service, to whom
the committee were indebted for the " Pine Tree Flags," used
on the occasion :
" The Union Celebration of this day — It is tp commemorate the first event which
led to the union of the Colonies. May it be hailed from Maine to California, as a
return to the glorious principles which will ever bind together the Union of all the
States."

The following were the replies received from gentlemen who
had been invited to attend the " Union Celebration," and who
were unable to be present : Washington, April 15th, 1850.
Hon. John S. Keyes, Chairman, _c. &c. :
My Dear Sir, — I deeply regret that my public engagements
will not allow me to be present at the celebration of the 19th inst.
It would afford me the highest gratification to unite with the
citizens of the towns which took part in the events of the 19th

123
¦*
of April, 1775, in doing honor to an occasion so truly memora
ble in American history.
I hail the omen which presents itself to me in the terms of
your invitation. It is to be " a Union celebration in Concord."
.Permit me to place at your disposal a sentiment for the occa
sion, suggested by this language ; — and believe me, my dear sir,
with best respects to all to whom I am indebted for so kind an
attention, Very faithfully, Your obliged friend and servant,
ROBT. C. WINTHROP.
The Blood of the 19lh of April, 1775 — The first blood of the American Revolution-
May it prove to be, also, the last blood which shall ev«r have been shed in any revo
lutionary struggle, upon the sami soil ; and may Union and Concord be the per
petual watchwords of Middlesex, of Massachusetts, and of our whole country.

Washington, April 15th, 1850.
Dear Sir, — I much regret that my engagements in this city
will deprive me of the pleasure of attending the very interesting
celebration of the events of the 19th of April, the marked day in
the calendar of freedom. Within the limits of the town of Con
cord was affixed to the deed of separation from the British
empire, the seal of blood, -without which no charter of na
tional liberty has been considered of full force and ratified
solemnity. As long as granite monuments shall endure, so long shall
the noble daring and heroic sacrifices of the martyrs of Con
cord, Lexington and Danvers, and the neighbor towns, be held
in precious remembrance; as long as liberty and patriotism
shall have an abiding place in the minds of men, so long
shall the valor and devotion of the .noble actors in the great
drama of the American Revolution be honored and cherished.
By the venerable men who have survived the "Concord
Fight," and the sword of the general destroyer, you have been
led to the very spot of the martyrdom of their compatriots.
It is natural and proper that, on this sacred .altar, rites of com
memoration should be performed and grateful incense be offered.

124
May -the happiest results follow every attempt to honor and to
imitate the wisdom and the valor of the fathers of the republic ;
may the sons, in all corning generations, prove themselves
worthy of so noble an ancestry.
With many thanks to the Committee, for. their kind invita
tion, I am, Very respectfully, Your o'bt servant,
DANIEL P. KING.
To the Hon. John S. Keyes,
Chairman Committee of Arrangements, &c.
The people of Concord and the other towns of Massachusetts, made near of kin
by blood mingled on many battle-fields of trje Revolution, while gratefully counting
the sacrifice and the cost, they will never sordidly calculate the value of Liberty and
the Union, but will soberly enjoy, manfully maintain, and faithfully transmit their
glorious heritage.

Northampton, April 15, 1850.
Hon. John S. Keyes :
Dear Sir, — Allow me, through you, to tender my thanks to
the Committee of Arrangements, for an invitation to attend the
proposed celebration at Concord, on the 19th inst. Nothing
but the urgency of official engagements would induce me to
decline the pleasure of uniting with you on this interesting oc
casion. I rejoice at the patriotic interest manifested by the Sons of
Concord and Lexington, in thus cherishing the memory of the
glorious deeds achieved by their fathers, in this, the first of
the series of those conflicts that led to the establishment of
our National Independence. No better assurance can be given
to their country, that should a resort to arms ever again be
come necessary, these sons would be the first to emulate their
fathers, in all that is noble, generous and brave.
With much respect,
Your obedient servant,
CHARLES A. DEWEY.

125
John S. Keyes, Esq.
Sir,— I am highly honored by the invitation of the Cor#
mittee of Arrangements to attend the celebration of the next
anniversary of the 19tii of April, 1775, but circumstances con
nected with my period of life, ' state of health, and locality of
residence, compel me to decline the proffered honor."
Be assured, sir, that I rejoice in the spirit and feeling, and
that it is with great, reluctance that I am precluded from par
ticipating in the pleasure of that celebration.
With great respect,
I am your and their obliged servant,
JOSIAH QUINCY.
Boston, 15th April, 1850.
You will have toasts enough on the occasion, and I hope
it will not be regarded as " sending coals to Newcastle," if I
offer a sentiment, which may be used or withheld at the dis
cretion of the Committee :
The Blood shed on the fields of Concord and Lexington, on the 19th of April,
1775— May it forever constitute a cement of indissoluble peace and amity among
the people, states and territories of our glorious Union.

Washington, April 15, 1850.
My Dear Sir^ — I had hoped to have returned home in sea
son to have been present at the interesting celebration of the
anniversary of the 19th of April, '75, your invitation to which
reached me before I left. But I find my absence is likely to
be protracted to a period which must compel me to forego the
great pleasure I had promised myself on that occasion.
If it had been my good fortune to be present with you, I
should have been tempted to offer the following sentiment: —
The County of Middlesex— It is her high distinction, that, within her limits, she
includes at once those Monuments which are the proudest memorials of the Past,
and those Halls of Learning which furnish the best pledges for the Future.
I am, dear sir,
Truly and respectfully yours,
JOHN H. CLIFFORD.
Hon. John S. Keyes, Chairman, &c. &c. &c.

126

The town of Danvers sent a committee of thirteen to attend
the celebration, with the following missive :
To the Committee of Arrangements for the celebration at Con-
' "' cord, in commemoration of the 19th of April, 1775':
Gentlemen, — Your kind invitation to the citizens of Danvers
to be present on this occasion has awakened in their breasts a
recollection of the spirit that animated their fathers on the morn
ing of that day, when,, at the first signal of alarm, more than one
hundred started to the rescue. The story of their adventure is
too well known to be repeated. No one now remains to confirm
it. Only a few months since, at the good old age of ninety-
three, the last of their number was called away. Could those
brave Captains, Hutchinson, Page, Flint, Eppes, and Foster, who
were then on hand in the front ranks of their compatriots, have
been permitted to behold. the scenes of the present moment, a
glow of purest patriotism would have enlivened their counte
nances. Instead of the fathers, come the sons, thirteen of whom
have been delegated by the town to mingle their sympathies
with yours, in the recollections of the occasion. Fellow-citizens
of Concord, we congratulate you on your efforts to keep alive
that spark of liberty, first kindled on your own altars, and crim
soned by the blood of your own sires. At a time when the des
pots of Europe are straining the cords of bondage to the ex
treme, and the lamentations of the down-trodden and oppressed
are wafted across the ocean in every breeze, it is refreshing to
hear the notes of freedom from scenes of Revolutionary memory.
Let the sound be echoed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, — from
the poles to the equator, — until not a rood of land shall remain
on this western hemisphere, where servitude or tyranny can find
a resting place. The sons of Massachusetts " scorn to be slaves."
The admonitions of Warren pervade their inmost souls. Free
dom is the universal birthright of man, — whoso thinketh otherwise
is unworthy of its inheritance: How changed the scene since
the ardent sons of Danvers stationed themselves by the road side
in Cambridge, the more effectually to salute the enemy on their
return ! The orders of their commander were, " take good aim ; "
and if tradition is to be credited, here it was, that blood flowed
most freely, on that eventful day. Time will not admit of allu-

127
sion to the many incidents that crowd upon the memory. May
the zeal for liberty then manifested be held in perpetual remem
brance. With the highest respect, we have the honor to be,
Your obedient servants,
JOHN W. PROCTOR,
MOSES BLACK,
RICHARD OSBORN,
R. S. DANIELS,
HENRY COOK,
FITCH POOLE,
GEORGE OSBORNE,
EBEN SUTTON,
LEWIS ALLEN.
Danvers, April 16, 1850.

New York, Jan. 21, 1850.
My dear Mr. Hoar, —
I greatly applaud the purpose of Concord to celebrate the
deeds of a day which made conciliation impossible and indepen
dence certain. But I have purposely declined making addresses
in public, because I wish, by the exclusive devotion of my time,
as soon as possible to complete, as far as I can, a little memorial
of the events which made the day world-renowned. For this rea
son I shall not be able to join in your celebration ; but you have
my whole heart ; and cannot do more honor to the occasion than it
deserves ; nor can you exaggerate its importance. The British
minister of that day held the day decisive ; and the late Arch
bishop of York told me, many from. that hour predicted the suc
cess of the American arms in the struggle for self-existence.
I am, dear sir,
Very truly your friend,
GEORGE BANCROFT.

WASHiNGTON^April 2, 1850.
Jno. S. Keyes, Esq., Chairman Committee of Arrangements :
Sir, — I have duly received your letter of March 28, inviting
me, in behalf of the citizens of Concord and Lexington, to attend

128
a celebration of the battle, which has rendered those places so
memorable. It would afford me great satisfaction to mingle with the peo
ple whom you represent, on the interesting occasion of celebrat
ing the anniversary of the conflicts which opened the Revolution
ary war, but public duties, rendering my presence indispensable
at the seat of Government, will deprive me of that pleasure.
Please convey to the citizens of Concord and Lexington my
unfeigned thanks for the honor of their invitation.
I am sir, with high respect,
Your most obt. servant,
Z. TAYLOR.

Washington, Feb. 21st, 1850.
C. W. Goodnow, Esq.
Dear Sir, — I have just received your favor of the 19th inst.,
inviting me to meet your citizens on the Seventy-Fifth anniver
sary of the 19th of April, '75. I thank you for the honor of be
ing remembered in connection with such an occasion. No theme
would warm my blood, or quicken it, more readily than that of
the "Battle of Concord," and the events that grew from it.
But, my dear sir, I am at another " Battle of Concord," stand
ing here in the ranks, prepared for my duty, and meaning to re
main at my post, until danger disappears. One of the old militia
who stood at the head of your bridge, might as well have prom
ised beforehand, that he would leave his ranks, at some given
hour on that day, as I promise to leave mine. I hope, sometime
in the spring, that matters may wear such an aspect here, that I
may be able to obtain a furlough of a few days, to visit my fam
ily. Should I be able to do so at the time you mention, I shall
be most happy to be a spectator of your services. But the cause
of Freedom outweighs family and home; and I -shall never
knowingly put that in peril.
Be pleased to accept, in behalf of yourself and your committee,
the assurances of my regard.
HORACE MANN.

129

Washington, April 15, 1850.
To the Hon. J. S. Keyes, Concord.
Dear Sir, — I have your circular of the 28th ult. and should
be gratified to unite in commemorating an event which gives to
those brave men who dared to strike for liberty, come what
might, an imperishable fame. Few in numbers, and unprepared
as they were to meet a veteran army, yet their hearts were filled
with courage to resist aggression, and to become, if need be, mar
tyrs in the great cause of political freedom. It is a duty which
we owe to these patriots to commemorate their bravery and
their virtues ; but my engagements will not permit me to leave
here. With great respect,
I am, dear sir, your and the Committee's obt. svt.
J. DAVIS.

Worcester, April 17, 1850.
Hon. J. S. Keyes, Esq., Chairman, &c.
Dear Sir, — I regret that engagements in the S. J. Court, now
in session here, will render it impossible for me to accept the in
vitation kindly tendered to me by the Committee to be present
on the 19th instant at Concord.
It would have given me great pleasure to visit a. spot so inter
esting as that consecrated by the scenes of the 19th April, 1775,
under the circumstances which well distinguish the return of that
anniversary the present year.
Almost every nation has its shrines to which the Pilgrim loves
to resort to register new vows or renew resolutions already
formed there. It was not merely to worship, that the Hebrew
went up to the Holy City to celebrate the great feasts of his na
tion, but to cherish, through the common sympathy of the assem
bled thousands on those occasions, his love of country and a
generous national pride.
We have no saintly shrines nor gorgeous national temples to
draw men together, nor do we need them so long as Concord
and Lexington remain, and the sons of the men who fought there
17

130
may come up thither as they have now done, to revive the pa
triotic associations which these spots can never fail to awaken.
I am, sir, with great respect,
Your obt. servant,
EMORY WASHBURN.

Worcester, April 16, 1850.
My Dear'Sir, — I had the honor to receive, a few days since,
your note, in _ehalf of a Committee, inviting me to attend " the
Union Celebration of the anniversary of the events of the 19th
April, 1775," — and until to-day, I have anticipated, with the
truest gratification, the opportunity of participating, with my re
spected-fellow-citizens, in this most interesting commemoration.
A severe and oppressive cold, with some consequent irritation of
the lungs, now admonish me of the imprudence of exposure to
the sudden changes of weather, in this remarkable season, and
the fatigue incident to attendance upon a public festival ; and I
fear, there remains to me but the satisfaction of expressing my
grateful acknowledgments for the kind remembrance of the
Committee, in the invitation by which I am so greatly honored, —
with the assurance, that, if not personally present, my best sen
timents, and my warmest Sympathies, will mingle with all the
patriotic observances and enjoyments of the occasion.
With the highest and truest consideration for the Committee,
and for yourself, personally, I have the honor to be, their and
your faithfully obedient and obliged servant, LEVI LINCOLN.
John S. Keyes, Esq., Chairman of Com., &c.

. Danvers, May 1, 1850.
Dear Sir, — From .the best information at command, I estimate
the whole number of men who left Danvers, for the scene of
action on the 19th of April, 1775, to have been one hundred and
fifty. About half of these were the minute-men, under the com
mand of Hutchinson and Foster. The remainder belonged to
the three companies of militia, commanded by Eppes, Page and

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Flint. The entire rolls of these companies will be found in
Hanson's History of Danvers, pages 108-9. Of those killed,
four belonged to Foster's command— being one-eighth part of
the whole number — two to Page's company, and one to Eppes'
company. Foster, with those under his command, took his posi
tion by the road-side, in a barnyard at West Cambridge. Here
they met the enemy in close combat. After that, I have been
inf6rmed by Foster himself, that he discharged his musket eleven
times at the enemy, loaded with two balls at each time, with well
directed aim. Nathaniel Cleaves, of Beverly, while standing
and loading by his side, had his finger cut Off and* ram-rod shot
away. This shows that the men from Danvers were not partic
ular to keep at a prudent distance from the enemy.
At their request, permission had' been granted by Col. Picker
ing,- in the morning, to proceed in advance of the regiment.
They marched sixteen miles in four hours. This was a rapidity
of movement rarely equalled. Inexperienced as they were, it is
not surprising that they found themselves in a hazardous position.
But it is surprising, when we reflect that they encountered one
thousand disciplined troops, that so many of them should have
returned. I remember to have heard from Col. Pickering him
self, a minute statement of the entire movements of the Salem
regiment on that day. Captain Eppes and Foster had permission
to go in advance of the regiment ; this accounts for the position
they occupied. Col. P. told me the regulars were passing over
Winter Hill, when he came in sight of them. He had not one
fourth as many troops as they had, and therefore he did not ap
proach them. If the Danvers troops had had his good judgment,
they probably would not have fallen into the snare they did.
Much reproach fell upon him ,at the time, for not going ahead.
His memory should be vindicated from all such reproach.
Very truly yours,
J. W. PROCTOR.
Hon. E. R, Hoar.

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COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
House of Representatives, April 20, 1850.
Ordered, that the thanks of the General Court be tendered to
the inhabitants of Concord and the adjoining towns, for the cour
teous and cordial hospitality with which they were received and
entertained on the occasion of their visit to Concord on the 19th
instant. Sent up for concurrence. CHAS. W. STOREY, Clerk.

Concurred.

In Senate, April 22d, 1850.
CHAS. CALHOUN, Clerk.

A true copy — Attest,
Chas. Calhoun, Clerk of the Senate.

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APPENDIX

The Concord Fight. — Affidavit of the Last Survivor.
The affidavit of Amos Baker, of Lincoln, given April 22d,
1850 ; he being the sole survivor of the men who were present
at the North Bridge, at Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775, and
the only man living who bore arms that day.
He was present at the celebration at Concord, April 19th,
1850, aged 94 years and 11 days: —
I, Amos Baker, of Lincoln,, in the county of Middlesex, and
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on oath depose and say :
That I was ninety-four years old on the 8th day of April, 1850.
I was at Concord Fight, on the 19th day of April, 1775, and
was then nineteen years and eleven days old. My brother Na
thaniel, who was then paying his addresses to the girl whom he
afterwards married, was at the house where she was staying near
the line between Lexington and Lincoln, and received the alarm
there, from Jr. Samuel Prescott, and came over and gave it to
me. My father and my four brothers, Jacob, Nathaniel, James
and Samuel, and my brother-in-law, Daniel Hosmer, were in
arms at the North Bridge. After the fight at the bridge, I saw
nothing more of them, and did not know whether they were alive
or dead, until I found two of my brothers engaged in the pursuit
near Lexington meeting-house. Nathaniel followed the enemy
to Charlestown.
When I went to Concord in the morning, I joined the Lincoln
company at the brook, by Flint's pond, near the house then of
Zachary Smith, and now of Jonas Smith. I loaded my gun
there with two balls, ounce balls, and powder accordingly.
. I saw the British troops coming up the road'that leads on to

134
the common at Concord ; the sun shone very bright on their
bayonets and guns.
' Abijah Pierce,' of Lincoln, the colonel of the minute-men,
went up, armed with nothing but a cane. j
When we were going to march down to the Bridge, it was men
tioned between Major Buttrick and Captain Isaac Davis, that the
minute-men had better be put in front, because they were the
oidy men that had bayonets, and it was not certain whether* the
** British would fire, or whether they would charge bayonets with
out firing. I do not remember which of them said it, but both
agreed to it ; and Captain Davis's company of minute-men was
then brought up on the right. Then they saw the smoke of the
town-house, and I think Major Buttrick said, " Will you stand
here and see them burn the town down ? " And the order was
given to march, and we all marched down without any further
order or arrangement.
The British had got up two of the planks to the bridge. It is
a mercy that they fired on us at the bridge, for we were going to
march into the town, and the British could load and fire three
times to our once, because we had only powder-horns, and no
cartridge-boxes, and'it would have been presumptuous. I under
stood that Colonel Abijah Pierce got the gun of one of the British
soldiers who was killed at the bridge, and armed himself with it.
There were two British soldiers killed at the bridge. I saw them
when I went over the bridge, lying close together, side by side,
dead. Joshua Brooks, of Lincoln, was at the bridge, and was struck
with a ball that cut through his hat, and drew blood on his fore
head, and it looked as if it was cut with a knife — and we con
cluded they were firing jacknives.
When we had fired at the bridge, and killed the British, Noah
Parkhurst, of Lincoln, who was my right-hand man, said—
" Now the war has begun, and no one knows when it will end."
Before the fighting begun, when we were on the hill, James
Nichols, of Lincoln, who was an Englishman, and a droll fellow,
and a fine singer, said, " If any of you will hold my gun, I will
go down and talk 'to them." Some of them held his gun, and
he went down alone to the British soldiers at the bridge and
talked to them _ometime. Then he came back and took his gun

135
and said he was going home, and went off before the fighting.
Afterwards he enlisted to go to Dorchester and there deserted' to
the British, and I never heard of him again. I believe I was the
only man from Lincoln that had a bayonet. My father got it in
the time of the French war. I went into the house where Davis
and Hosmer were carried after they fell, and saw their bodies.
I supposed the house to be Major Buttrick's. When we marched
down to the bridge, Major Buttrick marched first, and Captain
Davis next to him. I did not see Colonel Robinson to know him.
I verily believe that I felt better that day, take it all the day
through, than if I had staid at home. AMOS BAKER. (Seal.)
We saw Amos Baker sign the above, after it was read to him.
E. R. Hoar,
Josiah Bartlett,
Jas. Baker.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Middlesex, ss. Lincoln, April 22d, 1850.
Personally appeared Amos Baker, the within-named deponent,
known to me to be a man of good character and in the full pos
session of his mind and memory, and made the foregoing state
ment, which was reduced to writing by me in his presence, and
it was afterwards carefully read to him, and he then subscribed it
and made oath that the same is true.
Before me,
E. R. HOAR,
Justice of the Peace and Justice of the C. C. P.