I have thrown my lot with those who would resist the rulings of a distant government. It will pain him, but it would pain him more were I untrue to my beliefs. Tell him to remember the words of the Lord: “Be ye either hot or cold. If ye be lukewarm, I shall spit you out of my mouth.”Horrible is the only word for the fighting. I will leave to your imagination the effect of a pistol ball on a man’s face. Consider instead the bravery of a man who lays down his life that others may live. That was what our good neighbor John Hicks did. Badly wounded, he held off the Regulars until two students and their tutor could escape from a blacksmith shop that had become a charnel house.We retreated—nay, we ran—all the way to the Common, wherefrom we were ordered to join thousands of militia gathered at the river. But Percy, seeing what awaited him if he came through the village, avoided us by taking the Charlestown Road. This was all for the best, as the furious Regulars, who had been burning houses and fighting with vengeful fury all afternoon, must surely have put the college to the torch.After the battle, I went with John Hicks’s son back to the blacksmith shop.
