Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775
This year marks the 250th since Americans stood up for their freedoms at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, against the tyrannical British government that sought to disarm them and tax them without representation. April 19 was the anniversary of the “shot heard around the world,” which began the fight for America’s freedom. The NRA’s Stephen P. Halbrook explains what happened after, in which Gen. Gage, garrisoned in Boston, responded to Connecticut Gov. Jonathan Trumbull on why the city was shut, writing, “You ask why is the town of Boston now shut up? I can only refer you, for an answer, to those bodies of armed men, who now surround the town, and prevent all access to it … . I am surrounded by an armed country … .”
Americans had responded to the British attempt to take their arms away by rising en masse against the crown. Halbrook writes:
Gen. Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth on May 13: Ever since the Skirmish of the 19th Ultimo the Avenues to this Town have been possessed by large Bodys of Men from all Places in this Province, Connecticut, New Hampshire & ca and they have collected Artillery and Military Stores that had been deposited in various parts of the Country.
In response to an enquiry from Connecticut Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, Gage replied, “You ask why is the town of Boston now shut up? I can only refer you, for an answer, to those bodies of armed men, who now surround the town, and prevent all access to it … . I am surrounded by an armed country … .”
Lexington and Concord, then Boston, were just the first steps to disarm and put the Americans under foot. The Virginia Gazette, June 24, 1775, reported “that on the landing of the General Officers, who have sailed for America, a proclamation will be published throughout the provinces inviting the Americans to deliver up their arms by a certain stipulated day; and that such of the colonists as are afterwards proved to carry arms shall be deemed rebels, and be punished accordingly.”
Gage next declared martial law and offered a pardon to all who would lay down their arms except Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The proclamation issued by Gen. Burgoyne described the events at Lexington and Concord as an ambush in which thousands “of armed persons, … from behind walls and lurking holes, attacked a detachment of the king’s troops … .” It continued that “I do hereby, in his majesty’s name, offer and promise his most gracious pardon to all persons who shall forthwith lay down their arms … .”
An American penned a widely published poem entitled “Tom Gage’s Proclamation,” which told how the general had sent an expedition to “disarm” the men of Concord and how he afterwards reflected:
Yet e’er draw the vengeful sword
I have thought fit to send abroad
This present gracious Proclamation,
Of purpose mild the demonstration;
That whoseoe’er keeps gun or pistol,
I’ll spoil the motion of his systole … .
But every one that will lay down
His hanger bright, and musket brown,
Shall not be beat, nor bruis’d, nor bang’d,
Much less for past offences, hang’d … .
But every other mother’s son,
The instant he destroys his gun,
(For thus doth run the King’s command)
May, if he will, come kiss my hand … .
Meanwhile let all, and every one
Who loves his life, forsake his gun … .
The Declaration of Causes of Taking Up Arms of July 6, 1775, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson and passed by the Continental Congress, protested Gage’s seizure of arms as follows: The inhabitants of Boston being confined within that town by the General their Governor, and having, in order to procure their dismission, entered into a treaty with him, it was stipulated that the said inhabitants having deposited their arms with their own magistrates, should have liberty to depart, taking with them their other effects. They accordingly delivered up their arms, but in open violation of honor, in defiance of the obligation of treaties, which even savage nations esteem sacred, the Governor ordered the arms deposited as aforesaid, that they might be preserved for their owners, to be seized by a body of soldiers; detained the greatest part of the inhabitants in the town, and compelled the few who were permitted to retire, to leave their most valuable effects behind.
A Virginia gentleman wrote to a friend in Scotland on Sept. 1, 1775: “We are all in arms, exercising and training old and young to the use of the gun. No person goes abroad without his sword, or gun, or pistols.”
Action Line: Your Survival Guy often suggests that you get your gun and your training now. It’s an American philosophy as old as the country itself. Any enemy, foreign or domestic, who breaches the peace of the United States will find themselves “surrounded by an armed country.” Let me know how you plan on celebrating Independence Day by emailing me at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com. And click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.
