On this day 250 years ago, in Boston Lt. Robert MacKenzie of the British 43rd Regiment of Foot, wrote to his friend and former commander George Washington in Philadelphia. MacKenzie was from Virginia and had commanded a company in Washington’s regiment of Virginia militia during the French and Indian War, but had been commissioned in the British Army in 1761 and his regiment was in Boston under General Gage in 1774.

MacKenzie wrote to inform Washington “of the State of this unhappy Province,” and “of their fixed Aim at total Independance” and that

the rebellious and numerous Meetings of Men in Arms, their scandalous and ungenerous Attacks upon the best Characters in the Province, obliging them to save their Lives by Flight, and their repeated but feeble Threats to dispossess the Troops have furnished sufficient Reasons to Genl Gage to put the Town in a formidable State of Defence, about which we are now fully employed, and which will be shortly accomplished to their great Mortification.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2213%20September%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=4&sr=