This provocative act, which later became known as the Boston Tea Party, was the turning point. The British could not tolerate it and quickly closed down Boston harbor and imposed military law on Massachusetts. Now all doubt vanished: pushed into a corner by Adams, the British were acting just as tyrannically as he had prophesied they would. The heavy military presence in Massachusetts was predictably unpopular, and it was only a matter of months before violence erupted: in April 1775, English soldiers fired on Massachusetts militiamen in Lexington. This “shot heard ’round the world” became the
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