Letter 407 to Mrs Sargent of Boston* Gloucester May 8th. 1785
I should not, my dear Lady, have thus long delayed my acknowledgements for your last favour, had I not expected, e’er this, to have expressed my gratitude in person: my wishes have been prevented by the interposition of kind friends, who solicitous for my health have judged the country air absolutely essential to its establishment and I have, in order to give a display of my acquiescence with my superiors, taken a journey of upwards of forty miles — I was escorted by Mr Stevens, and we have traced the road, in which the british progressed, in their first attempt, to establish their oppressing mandates, by force of arms —
We have viewed the river at the extremity of Concord: where their retreat commenced, we have blessed the memory of those whose ashes are entombed in the burial ground at Lexington, who first sacrificed their lives in the revolutionary contest, and, although, strange to tell, no stone points the precise spot which inhumes them, although they are huddled together in one promiscuous group with the common dead, yet every child of the Village can lead you to their graves, and directing the eye of the stranger can proclaim —
Here lie the Men who first urged the missive weapon against the insolent invaders of the Rights of Freemen — they were early immolated at the shrine of liberty, and their names should be held in everlasting remembrance —
With solemn steps, interesting introspection, and the gaze of veneration, we measured with our feet the hallowed earth, we would have raised the monumental marble, the sculptured register, and the song of the Bard, should have transmitted to the latest posterity, each Hero’s name — but alas! nor means, nor Muse were ours, and we departed, impotent and unavailing wishes our only resource, and, what were our sensations as we passed over Lexington plains, the patriotic bosom can better imagine than my pen can describe....
*Judith Sargent Stevens to Mary Turner Sargent
Notes
• Mary Turner Sargent is Mrs. Daniel Sargent, Judith's aunt and close friend.
• In 1785, Judith was married to her first husband, John Stevens.
