The warlike preparations throughout the colonies, and the intelligence obtained from certain credible refugees of a secret design, formed in Connecticut and Massachusets-Bay, to attack the royal army, induced General Gage to make some fortifications upon Boston-Neck for their security. These, of course, gave offence; but much more the excursion of a body of troops, on the 19th of April, 1775, to destroy a magazine of stores at Concord, and the skirmishes which ensued. In a letter of the 28th of April from Mr. Trumbull, the Governor of Connecticut, to General Gage, after speaking of the “very just and general alarm” given the “good people” of that province by his arrival at Boston with troops, and subsequent fortifications, he tells the General that “the late hostile and secret inroads of some of the troops under his command into the heart of the country, and the violence they had committed, had driven them almost into a state of desperation.” Certain it is, that the populace were then so maddened by false representations and aggravations of events, unfortunate and lamentable enough in themselves, as to be quite ripe for the rebellion the Governor and Assembly were on the point of commencing, though they had the effrontery to remonstrate against the defensive proceedings of the General, in order to conceal their own treachery. Further on, in the same letter, Mr. Trumbull writes thus: “The people of this colony, you may rely upon it, abhor the idea of taking up arms against the troops of their sovereign, and dread nothing so much as the horrors of civil war; but, at the same time, we beg leave to assure your Excellency that, as they apprehend themselves justified by the principles of self-defence, so they are most firmly resolved to defend their rights and privileges to the last extremity; nor will they be restrained from giving aid to their brethren, if an unjustifiable attack is made upon them. Is there no way to prevent this unhappy dispute from coming to extremities? Is there no alternative but absolute submission or the desolations of war? By that humanity which constitutes so amiable a part of your character, for the honour of our sovereign, and by the glory of the British empire, we entreat you to prevent it, if it be possible. Surely, it is to be hoped that the temperate wisdom of the empire might, even yet, find expedients to restore peace, that so all parts of the empire may enjoy their particular rights, honours, and immunities. Certainly this is an event most devoutly to be wished for; and will it not be consistent with your duty to suspend the operations of war, on your part, and enable us, on ours, to quiet the minds of the people, at least till the result of some further deliberations may be known?” &c. &c.