Bunker Hill

11:00 a.m., after five hours of marching through the countryside, Percy and his brigade were back in Boston. The march had been only an exercise, but given the size of the British force it could have easily turned into something much more dangerous.
    At ten the next morning, the Boston Committee of Correspondence sponsored a meeting of what was known as the “little Senate,” the committee representing the towns neighboring Boston, in the selectmen’s chamber in Faneuil Hall to discuss the issues raised by Gage’s most recent move. This meant that even as Warren was attempting to arrange matters for Sally Edwards, he was helping to formulate the policy that would govern what happened the next time Gage sent a brigade into the country.
    The committee decided that since Percy’s men were “without baggage or artillery,” the regulars had not been out “to destroy any magazines or abuse the people” and did not therefore pose a significant threat. If the country people had attacked Percy’s brigade on March 30, they might have been judged guilty of exactly the kind of reckless act of aggression that the patriot leadership wanted to avoid. So as to prevent such an “unnecessary effusion of blood,” the Provincial Congress responded to the committee’s recommendation by passing the following resolve: “That whenever the army . . . to the number of 500, shall march out of the town of Boston with artillery and baggage, it ought to be deemed a design to carry into execution by force the late acts of Parliament . . . [and] ought to be opposed; and therefore the military force of the province ought to be assembled, and an army of observation immediately formed, to act solely on the defensive so long as it can be justified on the principles of reason and self-preservation.”
    No one—neither the provincials nor Gage and his army—wanted to be judged guilty of initiating what might very well become a bloody war. Massachusetts risked losing the support of the other colonies; the king and the North administration risked losing the support of Parliament and the British people. And yet both sides were under pressure to do something more than simply wait it out. Many of the patriots feared that if nothing happened soon, an unsatisfactory compromise might be the result, and they’d be right back to where they started. Gage had spent the fall and winter doing his best to prevent an explosion of violence and was now awaiting word from Lord Dartmouth on how he should proceed. In the meantime, even his most politically moderate officers had lost all patience with these upstart provincials. As a Whig, General Percy had been predisposed to sympathize with the New Englanders; by the winter, however, all sympathy had been lost. “The people here are the most designing, artful villains in the world,” he wrote to a relative back in England. “They have not the . . . least scruple of taking the most solemn oath on any matter that can assist their purpose, though they know the direct contrary can be clearly and evidently proved in half an hour.”
    Percy’s accusation of duplicity was about to meet a critical test. As of early April, the Provincial Congress had determined that the Committee of Safety could not issue an alarm unless the battalion of regulars was equipped with baggage and artillery. Since February, members of the Provincial Congress, most notably the lawyer Joseph Hawley, had expressed concern that an undue amount of power had been granted to the committee respecting this important issue. Given what had happened back in September with the Powder Alarm, they knew that if a battalion of soldiers ventured from Boston and another regionwide alarm was sounded, a commencement of hostilities was almost guaranteed. “When once the blow is struck,” Hawley wrote to Thomas Cushing, “it must be followed, and we must conquer, or all is lost forever. . . . I beg you, therefore, as you love your country to use your utmost influence with our Committee of Safety, that the people be not mustered, and that hostilities be not commenced, until we have the express, categorical decision of the continent [i.e. the rest of the colonies] that the time is absolutely come that hostilities ought to begin.”
    Even Hawley realized that gaining the consent of the other colonies might prove impractical given the possible suddenness of a move on the part of Gage. To help prevent any individual or small coterie of individuals