Colonel Pole was promoted to the rank of major-general in 1757, and to that of lieut.-general in 1759. He commanded the regiment thirteen years, and died in the winter of 1762; when King George III. conferred the colonelcy on Major-General Edward Sandford, from the twenty-sixth regiment, by commission dated the 4th of January, 1763. [Sidenote: 1763] [Sidenote: 1767] [Sidenote: 1768] The regiment was stationed in Ireland during the whole of the seven years' war, but when the disputes between Great Britain and her North American colonies began to assume a serious aspect, the TENTH was one of the first corps ordered to proceed across the Atlantic. The regiment embarked from Ireland in the spring of 1767, and after a short stay in Nova Scotia, it was ordered to Boston, where, in 1768, the conduct of the populace assumed so violent a character as to render the presence of a military force necessary. [Sidenote: 1769] The policy pursued by the British government towards the North American provinces alienated the affections of the people from the mother-country, and the idea of these extensive colonies becoming a great and independent empire, having gained possession of many minds, the Americans became impatient of their condition. The events of each succeeding year appeared to mature the revolutionary designs of the colonists, and the determination to assert their independence became prevalent. [Illustration: COLOURS OF THE TENTH REGIMENT OF FOOT.] [Sidenote: 1775] In the spring of 1775, General Gage, who commanded the British troops at Boston, ascertained that the Americans were collecting military stores at Concord, about eighteen miles from Boston, and the flank companies of the TENTH, and of several other corps, embarked in boats, at ten o'clock on the night of the 18th of April, under Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Smith of the TENTH, for the purpose of destroying the stores. Proceeding to the entrance of the Cambridge-river, the troops landed at Phipps's farm, and advanced upon Concord, while the Americans, by the ringing of bells and the firing of guns, spread an alarm over the country. About four o'clock on the morning of the 19th of April, the light company of the TENTH, being in advance, approached the village of _Lexington_, where a body of American militia was forming; they were called upon to lay down their arms, but instead of obeying the order, they attempted to take shelter behind a stone wall, and several of them fired at the King's troops, wounding a soldier of the TENTH, which was the first blood shed in this unhappy contest. The light infantry responded to this act of hostility with an irregular volley, which killed and wounded several Americans, and dispersed the remainder: the commencement of the American war thus took place.