NARRATIVE
OF THE
EXCURSION and RAVAGES,
OF THE
KING'S TROOPS, &c.
ON the
nineteenth day of April one thousand, seven
hundred and seventy five, a day to be remembered by
all Americans of the present generation, and which ought
and doubtless will be handed down to ages yet unborn, in
which the troops of
Britain, unprovoked, shed the blood
of sundry of the loyal American subjects of the
British
King in the field of
Lexington. Early in the morning of
said day, a detachment of the forces under the command of
General Gage, stationed at
Boston, attacked a small party
of the inhabitants of
Lexington and some other towns ad-
jacent, the detachment consisting of about nine hundred
men commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Smith :
The inhabitants of
Lexington and the other towns were
about one hundred, some with and some without fire arms,
who had collected upon information, that the detachment
had secretly marched from
Boston the preceeding night,
and landed on Phip's Farm in
Cambridge, and were pro-
ceding on their way with brisk pace towards
Concord
(as the inhabitants supposed) to take or destroy a quantity
of stores deposited there for the use of the colony ; sundry
peaceable inhabitants having the same night been taken,
held by force, and otherwise abused on the road, by some
officers of General Gage's army, which caused a just alarm
to the people, and a suspicion that some fatal design was
immediately to be put in execution against them : This