It was time for action. On the 18th of April, 1775, in the night, the choicest corps of the garrison of Boston went out of the town, by order of General Gage, governor of Massachusetts. The soldiers were as yet ignorant of their destination, but the "Sons of Liberty" had divined it. The governor had caused the gates of Boston to be shut. Some of the inhabitants, however, had found means of escape. They had spread the alarm in the country, and already the men were repairing to the posts designated beforehand. As the royal troops, approaching from Lexington, were confident of laying hands on two of the principal agitators, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, they stumbled in the night against a body of militia who guarded the way. The Americans remaining immovable before the command to withdraw, the English soldiers, led by their officers, fired. Some men fell. The war between England and America was entered on. The same evening Colonel Smith, in seeking to take possession of the supply depot formed at Concord, saw himself successively attacked by detachments hastily raised in all the villages. He retired in disorder, even as far as the shelter of the cannon of Boston. Some days later the town was besieged by an American army, and Congress, assembled at Philadelphia, appointed Washington general-in-chief of all the forces of the united colonies--"of all those which have been or which shall be raised there, and of all others which shall volunteer their services or shall join the army in order to defend American liberty and repulse every attack directed against her." {278} "There is a spectacle as fine as, and not less salutary than, that of a virtuous man struggling with adversity: it is the spectacle of a virtuous man at the head of a good cause and assuring its triumph. God reserved this good fortune for George Washington." [Footnote 2] [Footnote 2: M. Guizot, _Etude sur Washington_.] [Essay on the Character and Influence of Washington in the Revolution of the United States of America; page 13; http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60668]