After the battles of Lexington and Concorde in April 1775, the New England militias mobilized to surround the British in Boston. On July 6, 1775, Congress issued, A declaration by the representatives of the United Colonies of North America, now met in General Congress in Philadelphia, setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms. They concluded, "We mean not to dissolve that union which as so long and so happily subsisted between us, in which we sincerely which to see restored....We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states."[2]