The sole momentous novelty was that everyone of the new constitutions proceeded upon the theory of popular sovereignty. The new governments derived their authority solely and directly from the people. And this authority, too, was not surrendered to the government, but simply--and this only in part--intrusted to it as the temporary agent of the sovereign people, who remained throughout the exclusive source of political power. The new instruments of government were necessarily faulty and imperfect. All have since been amended, and several entirely remodelled. But they rescued the colonies from impending anarchy and carried them safely through the throes of the Revolution. CHAPTER IV. OUTBREAK OF WAR: WASHINGTON'S MOVEMENTS [1775] By the spring of 1775 Massachusetts was practically in rebellion. Every village green was a drill-ground, every church a town arsenal. General Gage occupied Boston with 3,000 British regulars. The flames were smouldering; at the slightest puff they would flash out into open war. On the night of April 18th people along the road from Boston to Concord were roused from sleep by the cry of flying couriers--"To arms! The redcoats are coming!" When the British advance reached Lexington at early dawn, it found sixty or seventy minute-men drawn up on the green. "Disperse, ye rebels!" shouted the British officer. A volley was fired, and seven Americans fell dead. The king's troops, with a shout, pushed on to Concord. Most of the military stores, however, which they had come to destroy had been removed. A British detachment advanced to Concord Bridge, and in the skirmish here the Americans returned the British fire. [Illustration: Map from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.] Map of the United Colonies at the Beginning of the Revolution. "By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world." [Footnote: From R. W. Emerson's Concord Hymn, sung at the completion of the Battle Monument near Concord North Bridge, April 19, 1836.] [Illustration: Sketch of Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill.] A Profile View of the Heights of Charlestown. The whole country was by this time swarming with minute-men. The crack of the rifle was heard from behind every wall and fence and tree along the line of march. The redcoats kept falling one by one at the hands of an invisible foe. The march became a retreat, the retreat almost a rout. At sunset the panting troops found shelter in Boston. Out of 1,800 nearly 300 were killed, wounded, or missing. The American loss was about ninety. The war of the rebellion had begun. All that day and the next night the tramp of minute-men marching to Boston was heard throughout New England, and by April 20th Gage was cooped up in the city by an American army. May 25th, he received large re-enforcements from England.