On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Royal Governor/General Thomas Gage summoned the Selectmen of Boston to inform them that new town meetings could not be held because they were prohibited by the Massachusetts Government Act, unless the Selectmen first obtained authorization from him. Gage later wrote that

I assembled the Select Men in Boston, had the clause read respecting town-meetings, told them I expected their obedience to it, that I should put the act into force, and they would be answerable to any bad consequences; they replied, they had called no new meeting, that a former meeting had only adjourned themselves

to October and they would continue the meeting then. Gage remarked that the people of Boston were able “to consider means to elude the act, in doing so they are very expert.”

Michael McWeeney, “The Battle for Legitimacy and Sovereignty in Revolutionary Massachusetts: 1774-1775” (Ohio State University 2010) at pp. 35-36 (available at https://kb.osu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/e83e5161-9046-5b37-a566-11082f4e4103/content)