* * * * *

XII.--THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR.


All that winter the people of the colonies were anxious and fearful.
Would the king pay any heed to their petition? Or would he force them to
obey his unjust laws?

Then, in the spring, news came from Boston that matters were growing
worse and worse. The soldiers who were quartered in that city were daily
becoming more insolent and overbearing.

"These people ought to have their town knocked about their ears and
destroyed," said one of the king's officers.

On the 19th of April a company of the king's soldiers started to
Concord, a few miles from Boston, to seize some powder which had been
stored there. Some of the colonists met them at Lexington, and there was
a battle.

This was the first battle in that long war commonly called the
Revolution.

Washington was now on his way to the North again. The Second Continental
Congress was to meet in Philadelphia in May, and he was again a delegate
from Virginia.

In the first days of the Congress no man was busier than he. No man
seemed to understand the situation of things better than he. No man was