The Rubicon, as Mansfield said, was passed, but the event was to be different from the expectation of the king and the nation at large. When Gage went out to enforce the repressive acts neither he nor those who sent him thought that his task would be hard. Four regiments, he believed, would be enough to settle the business. The Americans, Sandwich said, were cowardly and undisciplined; they would not stand a cannon-shot. That they would not fight was the firm opinion of all but a very few. More than this, it was generally expected that Massachusetts would not be supported by the other colonies, and no special military preparation was thought necessary. On June 1, Boston harbour was closed. The busy little town lay desolate, its wharfs were deserted, its warehouses shut up, its streets silent; its merchants were threatened with ruin, its seamen, shipwrights, and labourers and their families with starvation. The act was enforced to the utmost, and small as Gage's force was, it was sufficient to keep the town in subjection. Its punishment was heavy, but surely not heavier than its offences. Be this as it may, it was worse than ineffectual. The penal acts irritated the Americans and did not intimidate them. Boston was regarded as suffering for the common cause. Supplies poured in from the towns and villages of New England, from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland; and a continental congress was decided on. Encouraged by the prospect of support, the revolutionary party in Massachusetts defied Gage's authority; gatherings of armed men took place, and warlike preparations were set on foot. Gage began to fortify Boston Neck and brought in some guns which might otherwise have been seized by the people.