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The primary goal of the Brittish regulars was to aprehend the leaders of the opposition, Sam Adams and John Hancock. There secondary goal was, to disarm the populace along the way. Here's the whole story of Paul Revere's ride:

Utter and complete nonsense. The only goal of the army was to capture and destroy the weapons and war material stored in Concord. After they marched through Lexington and killed a bunch of minutemen while taking almost no casualties themselve they continuned on to Concord and searched the town. Spies had provided them with information. They had orders to destroy powder, balls, cannons (they found some) and flour. The first American Revolution was started by men opposing gun confiscation! (The second one may well be started for the same reason)

They had no orders to captue Adams and Hancock, and made no attempt to search for them. They also had no plan to disarm the population along the way. (Cambridge, and the other towns they rode through were not disarmed in the slightest. They did not even search Lexington after slaughtering the militia there, they simply yelled three cheers, fired a volley and marched on to Concord.)

You might read "Lexington and Concord" by Arthur Bernon Tourtellot, available at Amazon. It was written in 1956 and is very accurate and completely free of PC B.S.

*IT WAS A GREAT DAY, ON THAT WE AGREE!!* <

Pitcairn, cursing the day that he was ever given command of a squirming light infantry, took the British on to Concord. The morning was cold and bright and bitterly windy--not at all the balmy spring day that legend says it was; the troops marched fast. They went over the North Bridge into Concord. Pitcairn, preturbed major of marines, pounded on the door of Jones' tavern. He had a tired heart and a parched throat. But Jones had bolted the door against him. Pitcairn stamped about heavily, winded and excitable, striking on the door with the flat of his sword, and rolling out oaths as only a masterly and angered major of marines can. The story is that he did get into the tavern at last and that while his soldiers were wrecking the patriot arsenal he stayed there overlong sipping his Scotch...

For five hours the British lingered in Concord. There was no reason for it; they simply hung on like men too tired or too stunned to move. They evidently felt that the business of destroying the patriot military dumps was a full morning's work. Their accomplishment was a joke. All these passionate protectors of Empire did on that bright spring morning was to spike two cannon in the tavern yard while Pitcairn nodded over his whisky, break up a few barrels of flour, and throw about five hundred pounds of ball into the river. A dozen healthy schoolboys could have done the job in less than an hour. They spent the rest of the time stamping about, throwing out their chests, making an ungodly racket, and trying to bluff the colonials into dread of the dapper and beautifully groomed forces of the Crown.

--John Hyde Preston