=143. Battles of Lexington and Concord.=—The minutemen instantly assembled and drew up on Lexington Common to meet the British when they appeared. Pitcairn ordered them to disperse, but seeing no signs of their moving, first fired his own pistols and then ordered a volley. Eight men were killed and ten wounded. Although the Americans fired in return, they were in no condition to offer battle. Hancock and Adams, having received the necessary warning, made timely escape. The troops pushed on to Concord, but found that the greater part of the stores had been removed. Four hundred Americans then charged across the Concord bridge and drove back the British. The minutemen were by this time streaming in from every direction, and as the British were fired upon from behind trees and fences, they had nothing to do but to beat a retreat. They were saved only by a timely reënforcement of twelve hundred men under Lord Percy. In the course of the expedition the British lost two hundred and seventy-three; the Americans, eighty-eight. The battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, proclaimed to everybody that war had begun. The readiness with which the people responded to the call was shown by the fact that among the killed and wounded on that day there were representatives of twenty-three different towns. Within less than a week General Gage found himself surrounded in Boston by a motley force of sixteen thousand Americans armed with such weapons as they could secure. * * * * *