 Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for coming to our event today. We're thrilled that George Don is back in Portland to speak about his new book, Lexington and Concord, The Battle Heard Round the World. And Jim Nelson is here to do a conversation with him. Hilary Link is here from the main historical society who we are co-presenting this with. She'll do a bit of an introduction for Jim and Jim will introduce George. And thanks for being here. All right, so I'm happy to introduce Jim Nelson, who's a former professional sailor aboard the tall ships for the past 24 years, though. He's been a full-time author of more than 20 works of fiction and nonfiction, including two award-winning books about the Civil War and the American Revolution. And he's joining us today from his home in Harpswell. And he'll be happy to introduce George here. And we'll get started. Excellent, thank you. You folks hear me? Excellent. George and I are not used to sitting up this high without a bar in front of us. So if it might throw us off a little. Anyway, it's a delight to be here. It's a delight to be doing this talk with George. We've done this a couple of other times over the years. I've had the pleasure of knowing George for a number of years. And he's the kind of author that I most admire. He's an excellent writer, an excellent historian, but someone who really wears his scholarship very lightly. If you met George, you would be more likely to think that he was the shop steward of your local pipefitters union than a Harvard-trained historian, as he is. And actually, I just found out that his father and grandfather were labor organizers, which makes perfect sense to me now. George is a native of Boston, which will become evident the moment he opens his mouth. He's the winner of two Samuel Eliot Morrison awards, which is impressive. I've only won one. So you've got 50% more Samuel Eliot Morrison awards than me, which is very appropriate for a historian from Harvard. He used to live in Portland, but for some unknown reason has moved to New Hampshire. But anyway, it's a great honor for me to be able to do this. I think we're having a lot of fun. What we're going to do, I've got a few questions I'm going to ask George about his new book, Lexington and Concord, which if you did not notice is for sale at the back of the room. And the author will be there to sign it after the event. I might have some books there to sign to, if you are so inclined. So I'm going to ask George a few questions concerning the book and sort of get a discussion going. And we're going to leave time at the end to do questions and answers. So if you have questions, and I hope you do, please save them. And George will make something up, I'm sure. So with no further ado, when we're writing history, one of the problems we run into is that we're basically taking a slice out of a continuum of time. It's always very difficult to just sort of examine this one part of history specifically because it's so interconnected. And I think one of the things you do so well in this book is to bring in the French and Indian War, which of course was crucial to what happened in the American Revolution. But obviously, at some point, you have to decide this is where the book is going to start. Can you talk a little bit about how you got this time framed together? Well, let me say first that it's a great honor for me and really a privilege to have this conversation with Jim Nelson, who was one of this country's really great writers, not only of fiction, but also of history. He has written four classics, history, nonfiction, on the American Revolution that no historian writing about the American Revolution can ignore. Each one is a classic. So it's a great honor for me to share this stage with him and to respond to his questions. On why I focus on Lexington and Concord, I did because it marks a turning point in world history. It's a great divide before and after Lexington and Concord. And the divide was between a couple of ways. Number one, before Lexington and Concord, nobody thought that America had a chance in defying the British Empire. And after Lexington and Concord, that all changed. And the American Revolution, which changed the world eventually, started here because it gave hot to all the other colonies. Of course, it gave hot to the people of Massachusetts that they won this battle. Nobody thought that they could. It gave hot to all the other colonies in New England. And it gave hot to the whole country. This diverse group of 13 colonies, which were so different, but were being crushed by the British Empire in certain ways, they came together. And they came together at this point because of this victory. Had there been no victory at Lexington and Concord, had the British prevailed here, the American Revolution, in my opinion, never would have happened. Or would have happened much differently in a much different way. And what the Americans were showing here, another divide, a historical divide, what the Americans were showing here was that the British Empire was not going to become the great empire that the British King and the British nobles who ran the kingdom thought it would be. They thought that after the French and Indian War, after they defeated all the other great powers, and particularly the French, they controlled North America. They controlled most of the Caribbean. And they were going to become a sort of an endless global empire with no end. North America would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They would be the greatest empire in the history of the world. And the Americans here were showing them that they could not. Why were the Americans standing up to them? After all, there are an awful lot of good things about the British that we still use today. What the Americans didn't want was for Britain's feudal hangover, I call it a feudal hangover, to be imposed here on them and the rest of North America as we expanded. The feudal hangover was very visible in England, even more visible in Ireland. In England, maybe about 500 aristocrats controlled the country, controlled the political system, controlled literally the land. They were extremely wealthy. And the people who they ruled over were in fact serfs, and particularly in Ireland. And I opened this book with two or three quotations from Benjamin Franklin. When he took a tour of the British Isles in 1772, and he reported back to his American sponsors that he couldn't believe the poverty in Ireland. Here's England, the most advanced country economically. And the people in Ireland were living like he couldn't imagine people live, like animals. And he said, you know, the Indians in America live a heck of a lot better than these people. This was not just in Ireland, but it was also in Scotland and in large parts of England. And he contrasted this with what he saw in America. Well, in America, in Massachusetts, people were, by contrast, very wealthy. The average person in Massachusetts was, by English standards, very wealthy. They were also educated. There was no universal education in England. There were no aristocrats in Massachusetts who controlled all the land. There was voting in Massachusetts. The people who owned the farms, Massachusetts was a password quote of farms that people owned. Ownership was widespread. And these people, not only were economically well off, but politically, they ran their towns. They were represented in the state legislature where they represented the same type of people in London. No, nobody would even think of that. So this was a great divide in world history as the Americans were showing the world that there could be a different way of organizing economically and politically. And by the way, the people in America were very wealthy. They had done very well without the aristocrats who show them how to live. So I guess I talked too much. No, that was excellent. But this is the great divide. And I could go on for the next two or three weeks if you want to. No doubt. No, just the next 45 minutes will be fine. But no, you make a great point. And that was a real eye-opener for me reading this book. Because of course, one of the things that I'd always wondered about were some of the underlying causes of the American Revolution. We all know about taxation, representation, and all that. But the Americans didn't have that much to complain about. I mean, we really, like you say, were very wealthy, very prosperous, much better living standard even than people in England. So the point that you make about the fact that there were examples of how this could be taken from them, I thought was very potent. Well, it's a great question. They couldn't understand to begin with what they held the king was up to. Why was he making fuss about them? They were very successful. He ought to be overjoyed with them. This is what he was upset about. He thought that it was his duty to preserve the British Empire and to expand the British Empire. And he thought that if he didn't gain full control of the Americans, that they would expand West. And precisely because they were so successful, they would get very powerful and inevitably declare independence. They were not going to allow a little island off the coast of Europe to rule over this potentially great continent. I would argue that King George is right about that. And he sort of pushed him into it quicker than they might have inevitably done it. Exactly. He was pushing. And the Americans on their side were saying, hey, we don't want to fight a war. Why not have a partnership? He didn't want a partnership. He wanted to take the semi-feudalism that was left over in England and oppose that on every single colony and make serfs out of the farmers, out of the prosperous farmers, take away their political and economic power. Well, that was a no-seal here. If you wanted to in some way conquer them militarily, offering them to take away their political power and their economic well-being, that's not much of a program. You're going to have them fighting you. Keep this in mind. The militiamen in Massachusetts were led by veterans, combat veterans of the French and Indian War. And so the American army, militia army, that met the British on their way back from Concord, was a much more professional outfit than even the British were, because the British troops, there are only 700 of them, they were out from Boston to Concord via Lexington. They had never been in combat. They were kids in uniforms and they looked terrific on the parade ground, but that was it. So you were not going to run roughshod over the Americans. And then there were all the great European powers who had just been defeated by the British in the Seven Years War, was known as the French and Indian War here. They were waiting for the British to be crucified. The French couldn't wait to get into this. This is another story about France. It's getting involved. Oh yeah, it's one of the great ironies is that France helps the America when it's independence. And then the French peasants go, gee, you know, that sounds like a good idea. Maybe we should do that. But let me get back to the point that you just made. There's so many great things to talk about. But you made the point about the fact that the farmers were not just farmers like a lot of the British thought, but were French and Indian War veterans. You're pretty hard on Thomas Gage, who is the, as you want to explain who he is, but do I tell? Well, if you think I was hard on Thomas Gage, you should see his wife. Mrs. Gage. But she was an American. Mrs. Gage was an American. And a New Yorker, I believe. And no, she came from New Jersey, of course. Oh. What can you do? So Thomas Gage is the poor general in Boston who was told by the king, you teach the Americans a lesson in Massachusetts that will reverberate throughout the colonies, and I won't have any trouble anymore. I will have my way with them. This was his orders. And the king gave him like 3,500 troops. Whenever I mention numbers of troops, take it with a grain of salt. Nobody knows the exact numbers, but that's roughly what it was. And facing Gage out in the countryside, when the time came, 30 towns sent militiamen to do battle, OK? Thousands and thousands, way, way more than Gage had. Gage sent 700 troops out from Boston to conquer, to teach the rebels a lesson and to get rid of an arms catch in conquer. He knew. He was an experienced general. He was a good officer. He had been in combat here in America and other places. But he knew that the countryside couldn't be subdued or even influenced this way. And he kept writing letters back to the king, saying, if you want this done, you've got to give me a whole lot more troops. And the number he mentioned was 20,000. And later on, as the war went by, it showed that even 20,000 wasn't adequate. And in fact, there wouldn't have been any adequate number. The king thought Gage was a coward. Here's a decorated officer who was no coward, risked his life all the time. And so the king sent off his replacement. He sent off three generals. And one of them was named William Howe. And he was going to replace Gage if Gage didn't get going and teach the Americans a lesson. So here's Gage in Boston. He has the king's orders. He knows that his replacement is coming. So what he should have done was resign. And when General Howe showed up, he would have said to him, congratulations, General Howe. You got it. It's your baby. And he could have easily done this by getting a sore foot or get the gout or not get a haircut or whatever. And Howe would have been delighted. And Howe had with him a couple of other generals who would just die and to get involved over here. And Gage could have gone back to England and lived happily ever after with Mrs. Gage. He didn't do that. He stayed there. And he sent these 700 troops out to Concord. And it was a total disaster for him. The thousands of these well-trained militiamen showed up. They drove him back to Boston. Gage had sent out a reinforcement of 1,000. So there were 1,700. It was nothing. The head of the column became a guy named Percy. He was a great general. But the odds were against him were incredible. So these British troops were pushed back to Boston. And all of a sudden, Gage realized that these Americans, all these Americans, could come into the city. And the city was also full of rebels, don't forget. And they were armed in the city. So Gage was in fear of losing his whole army in Boston. And that's an interesting part of the story, too, because the Americans weren't thinking that. There are reasons why that didn't happen. But he was very lucky, Gage, that that didn't happen. Well, like I said, I've always been particularly sympathetic with Gage. And one of the things about him is that he had come over as an officer to fight in the French and Indian War and was in America for 18 years. He became governor, I think, of New York. He wasn't governor. He was head of the British Army. That's right. He was the commander. And then he became governor of Massachusetts and commander-in-chief. So I think Gage, it's fair to say, knew Americans certainly better than any of these Yahoos back in London. Absolutely. And I think he knew that this was going to happen. Lexington Conker was not a surprise to him. I think at one point, because he had fought with Americans in the French and Indian War, and he knew particularly this guerrilla-style warfare was something that Americans excelled at. And in fact, he had a hand in changing some military tactics in order to cope with the situation here. So yeah, he was a good officer in an impossible situation. The only thing, the only puzzle that I have is why the hell he stayed there in that situation. He should have resigned. Just like in Vietnam, instead of the generals reporting back, everything is fine, they should have resigned. Well, it's funny how the history. Well, it wasn't fine. The history, repeating itself, I remember during the run-up to the Iraq War, one of the generals went before Congress and said, well, if we're going to fight Iraq, we need about 350,000 men. And the Bush administration went nuts. Are you crazy? And it's exactly what George's administration did when Gage told him he needed 20,000 men. 20,000 men, after they left Boston, OK, the British, they invaded America through New York. And the army was not much more than 20,000. It was actually, and again, these figures, you don't really know exactly what the figures are. But the army then grew to between 30,000 and 40,000. That wasn't nearly enough, you know? I mean, because look at the plan that the king had for them. We're going to take away your political power and your economic power, and we're going to make you serfs like you see in Ireland. It's like you mean to say that the Americans didn't know what was going on in Ireland, how these people lived. Just think of this, we were a great trading country. You know this better than I do. We think of all the great seaports in the United States. The British merchant fleet at that time was over 3,000 merchant vessels. It was the greatest trading power in the world. You know where most of these ships were now being built? They were now being built in our yards, in American yards. Our seaports were thriving. There was a great interchange between the countryside and the seaports. The farmers were selling their goods overseas and the Caribbean and so on. And they knew what was going on in the world. They were educated people. They were very familiar with conditions in Ireland. They were not going to put up with that. They were going to fight. They didn't want their kids to become serfs. You do the same thing. One of the things that I love about this book, we tend to think in America of Lexington Concord as being this intense battle that takes place outside of Boston. And you do such a good job of looking not just at that fight but at the larger context. And really, the majority of the book is looking at the political situation that ultimately ended up exploding at Lexington and Concord. Could you talk a little bit about what was going on in England and why you chose to write about that? I've spent a lot of time in England. And one of the things that I noticed early on was that the English writers don't know much about American history. And that's not by chance. And I don't know why, and that still continues on. So when they write about things like what we're talking about, now strangely enough, there's quite a bit about what goes on in England. But almost nothing or very little and very uninformed about what's going on here. So the two of them joined together. And some of the writing here suffers from the same thing in reverse. The American writers don't include enough of the English what was going on. But there was an argument going on in England in political circles. Not all of the aristocracy thought it was a brilliant idea what the king was doing. And the leading figure in this was a guy named William Pitt, who had been the leader of the British in the Seven Years War, who was responsible for winning the Seven Years War, who was very popular in the United States and worked very well with the Americans. And William Pitt, although he was advancing in age and was not very well, he publicly spoke in Parliament about how stupid British policy was. He said, look, the Americans don't want a war. What they want is a partnership. They want to get along with us. They love us. They love our language. Look at how they talk. Look at the way they dress. Look at when they get rich where they send their kids to school. They send them to London, in Scotland, and so on. All you have to do, instead of fighting with them, all you have to do is have a conference with their Congress. All of the colonies are represented in this Congress by their best men. They're dying to get along with you. They love you. Why are you fighting them? It's foolish. And besides which, you can't fight them. You are never going to win this war. Just think of it. You're 3,000 miles away. There are all these people there. And they're spread out over a big territory. They know how to fight. And you would have to do what to keep them under control. You want to take away their political power, their economic power. You're going to have to station permanently British troops there. It's going to cost you for what? When you don't have to. And if you just have a partnership with them, they will eventually control that whole continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And the British Empire will be the greatest in world history. You know who had that vision, too? Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin said the same thing. He tried to tell the British the same thing. He tried and tried and tried. And all during the year before Lexington had conquered, he would publish. He was in England. He didn't come back here until 1775. But he would publish in British newspapers just what I'm saying. Why are you doing this? You expect these guys who fought so hard in the French and didn't even want to just roll over? They're not going to. And they don't want to. They love you. So there's every basis for an agreement here. What did the king and company want to do? They wanted to arrest Franklin and kill him by talking in some sense. He loved the empire all these years. He couldn't believe what was going on. And guess who he was very close with, Pitt? And if Pitt had been the king or even the prime minister, it would have been a much different story. So I wanted to put the English side of it in just to show how stupid this work was and how unnecessary it was. And you know how many people got killed, how many people suffered for all those years for nothing. Never mentioned in this is that in the fighting that went on, the British captured a lot of Americans. Probably 30,000 were killed in one way or another. In the war, 18,000 of them were prisoners. Obviously, the prisoners weren't killed at that point. But when the British captured the prisoners, it's like all the venom, for some reason, all the venom that the king and so on felt about the Americans got concentrated on these prisoners. And how would they treat them? Well, if you could capture the first thing they would do is starve you to death. They starve to death, 18,000 of them. When you starve someone to death, they die. So it happens to you. And you get diseases along the way from malnutrition. So they could say you died for something else. You don't die of starvation. The British government used to supply food for the prisoners. The guys who were in the prisons took the food and sold it. Stuck the money in their pocket. The lead guy was a guy named Joshua Loring from Boston. Well, of course, what do you think? His wife was beautiful. And General Howe Lighter and Mrs. Loring were an item. And Joshua got paid off with this job. It was a lovely scene. And 18,000 dead. This figure comes from only recently because we've been so close to the British in the 20th century. We're so close with them that no one wanted to bring up this sort of subject. But it was the greatest war crime of the 18th century, what they did to American prisoners. Did we do the same to them? No. We didn't treat them. Sometimes we treated them poorly, but nothing like this. You talk about Benjamin Franklin, of course, as such a great character. And you make the point that I think a lot of Americans certainly don't realize that Franklin was a very late comer to the idea of independence. He struggled mightily to keep the British Empire together. When he goes to France, ultimately, as an ambassador. And the French view him as this sort of backwards philosopher, this sort of quaint fellow with the unpowdered hair. And they just love it. Of course, Franklin was nothing to the sword. He was a very sophisticated, well-known, internationally famous scientist and philosopher. But he played it to the hill. I love Franklin. And of course, one of the things that makes the book so wonderful are these characters that you flush out so beautifully. And of course, there were so many wonderful characters at that period. Could you talk about any of the others that you particularly liked or appealed to you, Sam Adams? The Adamses, Sam Adams was 13 years older than John Adams. And John Adams was a cousin. And the writers who have written about the revolution have a lot to say about Sam Adams in the beginning. And I remember when I first started out on this years ago, I said to myself, what the hell happened to Sam Adams? We hear so much about him in the 1760s and the 1770s up until 1775 and 1776. We hear about him. And then he's gone. Did he die? No, he lived quite a long time. Well, why don't we hear about him more? Because he destroyed his papers, if you can believe it. He gloried and made no secret of the fact that he got rid of a lot of his papers. To me, if someone like that, a major historical figure, and he knew he was a major historical figure, gets rid of his papers, he's hiding something. He wants his future historians to ignore certain things that he would like them to ignore and keep up. When I was a student doing my PhD thesis, one of the guys I had to look at was Henry Cabot Lodge, the old senator. And his papers were at the Massachusetts Historical Society. And before he became a senator, he was an historian at Harvard, if you'll pardon the expression. So I had to get permission from his son, George Lodge, to look at the papers. And when I was going through them, I could see that he had culled the papers. I mean, just for guys like me. So I assumed later when I got into Sam Adams that he was doing the same thing. He was an enormously talented guy who spent all of his time politicking. He literally spent every waking moment. He would go to bed at midnight. And he'd get up early. And he was very puritanical. And he dressed and looked like a bum. He thought it was somehow sinful to make money. If he wasn't a foreman thing of revolution, he would have made a great monk. Great. Well, he certainly seemed to be allergic to making money, because he was a failure in everything he did, except rabble rousing. Yeah, he was a failure at any kind of economic enterprise he was in, and proud of it. And so my next book is going to be on, he's going to be in the next book. And I'm wrestling with him now and trying to piece together his relationship with Washington, which happened very early. Oddly enough, Sam Adams, when the revolution started, after lexing in the Concord, he became very interested in the military side of what was going on and became very close to Washington. And Washington became close with him as well, because he wanted to keep an eye on him, because he thought that Sam Adams would become a powerhouse in the Continental Congress, just like he was in the Massachusetts House in politics here. And Washington was a great political infighter. The reason Washington stayed where he was all those years was because he knew how to handle these politicians. And how he handled Adams is classic, and I'm writing a wonderful, if you'll pardon me. Sure you are. I have no doubt you are. Story about that relation, I love it. Now I'm very intrigued now, but can you tell us more about it? John Adams was 13 years younger and extremely ambitious. And Sam Adams really spoke. He did everything behind the scenes. John Adams couldn't stop talking. John Adams was just the exact opposite. And the both of them went off to the Continental Congress, First Congress, Second Congress. Second Congress was right after Lexington and Concord. And here's John Adams. He's out front. He participated in every major event. He was a big factor in the Declaration of Independence. So was Sam Adams, but he was keeping very, very quiet. And at some point, John Adams thought that Sam Adams was a little irritated with his being out front so much. But the two of them were very much interested in the war side of the revolution. And Adams, John Adams even mentions that Sam Adams, they couldn't have been closer to the Adams brothers when people think about them. But John Adams says he's actually jealous of me, I think, says this. And I think John Adams was probably wrong. But Sam Adams certainly wanted to shape the war policy, and particularly naval policy, if you can believe it. He didn't know a rowboat from a banana peel. Well, John Hancock is another one that sort of disappears. And he also had proposed himself to be Commander-in-Chief, which I think would have made for a very short revolution if he had been in charge. Well, the only reason that we think that John Adams was interested in- Hancock. John Hancock was interested in Washington's job was because John Adams said so. This long passage he has in his autobiography describing what John Hancock wanted. Well, John Hancock was actually the president of the Congress. And he had to work very closely with Washington. And I'd been all through their correspondence and so on and so on. And they worked really well together through all the ups and downs of the revolution. And Hancock was the president for two and a half years. And they went through some very rough times. And if Hancock wanted to, Washington made a mistake and if Hancock wanted to get him, he could have. He never did. So all that stuff about Hancock comes from John Adams and should be taken with a grain of salt. Hancock annoyed the Adamses because he was wealthy. He was rich. And he liked to flaunt it, Hancock. And that irritated them no win. But they liked his money because they needed it for the revolution. So they took his money like this. But George touches on one of the dirty little secrets of writing history, which is a lot of the things that we take as fact when you look at the primary sources, you realize they're actually based on very little. Like for instance, every history you read of George Washington will say that he wore his military uniform to Congress. But the only source for that that I know of is, again, John Adams, which is just one line in a letter to Abigail Adams to sort of a toss off about that. But you'll never read a biography of Washington that doesn't say that. OK, well, we've got a few more minutes here. Let me get it. That's the only suit he had. Right. Well, Washington was one of the richest as you know, one of the richest guys. Of course, Adams was always very jealous of Washington, too. John Adams said the only reason that Washington got picked for everything was because he was the tallest guy in the room. Can you talk any more about the book you're writing on, or do you not want to? What? Can you talk any more about the book you're working on now, or do you not want to get it done? Oh, I don't want to talk about that. I don't blame you. I'd age you and have my head. But how are we doing on time? We've got a couple more minutes. Let me just ask you one more question. This is kind of as much for my curiosity as anyone's. But on a technical note, the research that you do, do you find that most of it you're able to do? I know you work at the Harvard Library a lot. Do you find most of what you need is there? Do you find the internet helpful in your research? Do you have to travel to archives? All of the above. The Harvard Library is unbelievable. And the collection continues to get better. Yeah, the internet grows all of Washington's papers and now it's on the internet. So yeah, it's a great source. But my wife and I spent a lot of time in England and France and so on over the years. And we were in business, but I was always doing research on what I was going to do eventually one day at the British archives and the old British Museum and on and on. So yeah, and I've been at every major research institution on the East Coast. One thing I'd like to point out is that I've been at the stamp thing for years and years and years. I didn't just sit down and write. And it requires that. It's an enormous undertaking to write about, as you know, about the revolution. The amount of stuff written on it is enormous and a lot of it's good. All right, well, I guess that's probably it for our portion of the program. Does anyone have any questions? Yeah, specifically on Lexington. Can years of caps will take on? Why did that confrontation happen? Why did the British just pass through? Did they have a business that they wanted to do of any kind? I know Hancock and Sam Adams had a business there and certainly before them. The British column was led by a guy named Smith. And when I weighed much more than I do, I always used to refer it to him as fat. British officer Lieutenant Colonel Smith. And he had orders from General Gage not to engage the Americans unless he absolutely had to. He used to run out to Concord and destroy the arms. They had his spies that had given him details on everything that was there. And then he was to rush back to Boston. And everybody lived happily ever after. And the king was going to be happy and so on and so on. The second in command was a Marine major named Pitcon. Pitcon had the same orders, but Pitcon answered to the Admiralty. And so he could get orders from Gage, but the person he was trying to please the most would be the First Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral Sandwich. Admiral Sandwich, the man famous for the sandwich. Admiral Sandwich was a great gambler, among other things. And he liked to go to the gaming houses in London. And although he was enthusiastic, he was also a lousy gambler. And he would lose his money, but he would sit there and they would bring him his food, and that's a sandwich. And right next to him, oddly enough, would be defense contractors who would mysteriously pick up the losses. That's why I really liked Sandwich, very bright guy. His wife was crazy, insane. And his mistress was named, if you can't make the stuff up, Martha Ray was the name of his mistress. And he used to go with his buddies on fishing trips without Martha Ray, without the wife. And his buddies, and so no one knew where all those girls came from, who also went fishing with them. They were great fishing enthusiasts. And he would go for the weekend, and they would have a really good time. So they would stay for the rest of the week so they could have another weekend. And after that weekend, they would stay for another week and then another weekend. And then he would go back to the admiralty. So that's the head of the admiralty. When I first started looking at his admiralty papers, this guy, what would you expect from that? And I was expecting, I don't know what. But the admiralty papers, when he was on the job, were strictly business and very well written and very detailed. And one of the reasons the royal name, he was as good as it was in those days, was because of him. So when he was on duty, he was a different guy than when he was off duty. He also hated Americans. He hated the whole thing over here. He thought they were cowards and they could be easily dealt with. He had a very important one. He what? He had a hand in burning of his head. An important one? No, that's another story. But we'll come back to it. If you want me to, that's another session, really. Easy, easy. Love to do that. Ashley, I'll be talking about that at the Tate House at the end of July. I'm going to be giving a talk at the Tate House, I think, at the end of July about that. So Pitcon is responsible to sandwich, in what way? In this way, his future promotions, dependent on pleasing sandwich, sandwich hates the Americans literally. And sandwich and the king were like this, OK? So the king wanted to kill as many rebels in the countryside as possible, OK? So Smith had orders not to initiate any action. The second in command is Pitcon. So when they get halfway between Boston and Lexington, Smith sends Pitcon ahead with a couple of hundred troops because there's been a been delay. And so it's Pitcon in charge of the troops that get to Lexington, Lexington Green. And so there's been all of this controversy over the years about who started the killing on Lexington Green. And I have a lot to say about that. And I blame Pitcon. So you've been to Lexington, and you remember the statue there. Well, the Green, where the fighting occurred, was much bigger than it is what you see now. And Pitcon was, his second in command, was another Marine named Jesse Adair. And Jesse Adair is the one who was in charge of the company's small number, a couple of hundred troops who got to the top of the Green and went to the right down the Bedford Road, OK? Pitcon was a little bit delayed. And he went to the left down the Concord Road with about four or five other people, OK? And so Jesse Adair is the officer who, in my view, initiated the attack on the Americans, who numbered probably between 75 and 80 who were there on the Green. And the Americans were led by a guy named Parker, a veteran, a decorated veteran from the French and Indian War, who told them to disperse when he saw how many troops were lined up against him, and the British attacked them. Why did Jesse Adair feel that he could attack them? It's because, only because Pitcon wanted them attacked. Why did Pitcon want them to attack? Because he knew that the First Lord of the Admiralty and the King would have liked to kill every one of them on the Green. As it was, they were 22% casualties on the Green. Now, when Pitcon gets back, he tells Gage that he didn't initiate the fighting, that the Americans initiated the fighting, which the evidence, in my view, does not support that. But one of the interesting questions Hancock and Sam Adams were on the scene at the time, so was Paul Riviera. And Hancock was the head of the provincial Congress there. And Hancock should have told Parker to get the hell away, get off the Green. Why? Because all those 30 towns, those militias were being warned, were being alerted, and they were mobilizing. And they were going to outnumber, by a huge amount, this British column, if given time. So get Parker and his people the hell out of the way. And I blame, I put a lot of the blame, and there's no other historian who does. I place a lot of the blame on John Hancock for not telling him this. And Parker would have taken what he said seriously. Later in the day, when the British were coming back from Concord, Parker's men, who were left there, the ones that were left there, they gave the British back everything that they had suffered. So why was the blood shed on Lexington Green? It's because of my friend's sandwich and the king. That's why. And they would have loved more blood spills because they thought this would be a warning. But of course, it wasn't. It ignited all the anger all across the countryside, did the exact opposite of what I go on too long. Do you have a question or a little more? OK. Just a question about the money. Money, yes. We'll be right by it. We'll be back there happy to take it from you. We'll pass the basket. Did the payments to the Crown, did Lexington and Concord, was that like an inflection point? Did people kind of stop paying the duties at that point? Or did it continue on, or did it? It's a very good question. The rebels in Massachusetts in the fall of 1774 created their own parallel government in Massachusetts. And the taxes then from the towns who were supporting the revolt paid their taxes to the Provincial Congress instead of the usual place, which would have been the Crown Treasury in Massachusetts. If that's what you're talking about, that's how that happened. And all the towns, every single one of them did that except for Marshfield. And someone asked me about this the other day. What the hell happened in Marshfield? Marshfield was what's the name of it? I'm going to give a talk at a place called Winslow House in Marshfield next month. Winslow, who was a great leader in Marshfield at the time. And the Marshfield militia, he kept control of it. And it was a Tory militia. And so the town treasurer had to send the money to Crown in Boston, or the colonel would have had his head. And believe me, he would have. Well, thank you very much, George.