Many powerful speeches were made, but George Washington sat silent.  He was a doer rather than a talker.

At last the Congress decided to send an address to the king to remind him of the rights of the colonists, and humbly beg that he would not enforce his unjust laws.

And then, when all had been done that could be done, Washington went back to his home at Mount Vernon, to his family and his friends, his big plantations, his fox-hunting, and his pleasant life as a country gentleman.

But he knew as well as any man that more serious work was near at hand.

* * * * *

XII.—­The beginning of the war.

All that winter the people of the colonies were anxious and fearful.  Would the king pay any heed to their petition?  Or would he force them to obey his unjust laws?

Then, in the spring, news came from Boston that matters were growing worse and worse.  The soldiers who were quartered in that city were daily becoming more insolent and overbearing.

“These people ought to have their town knocked about their ears and destroyed,” said one of the king’s officers.

On the 19th of April a company of the king’s soldiers started to Concord, a few miles from Boston, to seize some powder which had been stored there.  Some of the colonists met them at Lexington, and there was a battle.

This was the first battle in that long war commonly called the Revolution.

Washington was now on his way to the North again.  The Second Continental Congress was to meet in Philadelphia in May, and he was again a delegate from Virginia.

In the first days of the Congress no man was busier than he.  No man seemed to understand the situation of things better than he.  No man was listened to with greater respect; and yet he said but little.

Every day, he came into the hall wearing the blue and buff uniform which belonged to him as a Virginia colonel.  It was as much as to say:  “The time for fighting has come, and I am ready.”

The Congress thought it best to send another humble petition to the king, asking him not to deprive the people of their just rights.

In the meantime brave men were flocking towards Boston to help the people defend themselves from the violence of the king’s soldiers.  The war had begun, and no mistake.

The men of Congress saw now the necessity of providing for this war.  They asked, “Who shall be the commander-in-chief of our colonial army?”

It was hardly worth while to ask such a question; for there could be but one answer.  Who, but George Washington?

No other person in America knew so much about war as he.  No other person was so well fitted to command.

On the 15th of June, on motion of John Adams of Massachusetts, he was appointed to that responsible place.  On the next day he made a modest but noble little speech before Congress.