At New York Samuel Adams and his friends were kept nearly a week. Many persons in carriages and on horseback came out to welcome them to Philadelphia, the city of William Penn. People were anxious to see the man who had written the "Circular Letter," who had driven the king's regiments out of Boston, who had planned the Tea Party, and whom the king could not bribe. Here, in Carpenter's Hall, for the first time, he met George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, Christopher Gadsden, who was called the "Samuel Adams of South Carolina," and many other noble men who became his life-long friends. [Sidenote: =Other colonies to help Boston=] Soon Paul Revere came riding into Philadelphia with the news that the patriots of Boston were in danger of being attacked by the British. The Congress immediately declared that if the British made war on Boston, it was the duty of every colony to help her people fight. It now looked as if war might come at any moment. [Illustration: PAUL REVERE ALARMING THE MINUTEMEN _The old Hancock House, where, guarded by the minutemen, Samuel Adams and John Hancock lay sleeping when Paul Revere rode by, still stands in Lexington_] [Sidenote: =Minutemen=] When Congress was over, Samuel Adams hastened home to help form, in all the Massachusetts towns, companies of minutemen ready to fight at a moment's warning. The next spring the news got out that British soldiers were going to Concord to destroy the powder and provisions collected there by the minutemen, and also to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock and send them to England to be tried for treason. Paul Revere agreed to alarm the minutemen the moment the soldiers left Boston. [Sidenote: =Alarming the minutemen=] =89. Paul Revere's Midnight Ride.= Standing by his horse across the river from Boston, one April evening, waiting for signals, Paul Revere saw two lanterns flash their light from the tower of the Old North Church. He mounted and rode in hot haste toward Lexington, arousing the sleeping villages as he cried out: "Up and arm, the regulars are coming!" Soon he heard the alarm gun of the minutemen and the excited ringing of the church bells. He knew the country was rising. At Lexington minutemen who guarded the house where Samuel Adams and John Hancock were sleeping ordered Revere not to make so much noise. "You will soon have noise enough," he shouted. "The regulars are coming!" And he rode on toward Concord. [Sidenote: =The first conflict of the minutemen=]