“If we wish to be free … we must fight! I repeat it, sir; we must fight! An appeals to arms and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger … Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? We are not weak.  — Patrick Henry

It is now quite evident that war was on the horizon. British tyranny continued. The colonists saw more and more of their freedoms eroding and parliament and the king were ignoring all attempts by the colonists to come to some kind of agreement with them.

Historians disagree on when the war actually began and with what event. The fact is, the war did begin. Some of the events that took place are these.

In the summer of 1774, General Gage had now succeeded Thomas Hutchinson as the British royal governor of colonial Massachusetts.

Hutchinson had been the governor from 1771 to 1774 and was a prominent Loyalist in the years before the American Revolution. Gage did not want the colonial legislature to meet and he tried to stop the meeting. However, they met anyhow at Salem; then later on they met at Cambridge and Concord. It was in these meetings that the plans were laid out, as was described in our last article, concerning the safety of the colonies.

It is pretty well agreed that the Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first major battles of the war. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy and Cambridge, near Boston. At this point, it was now evident that the colonists were at war with Great Britain.