On this day 250 years ago in London, Member of Parliament John Burgoyne declared in an address in the House of Commons that “should the American colonists rebel against the treatment accorded them by His Majesty’s Government, I, for one, would not blame them.” Burgoyne would later become more famous in American history as the British general who lost the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.

Source: https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/john-burgoyne

Also on that day in Boston, three companies of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot arrived in Boston to reinforce General Gage’s army. Among the British soldiers arriving that day was Private Samuel Lee, who would later be wounded at Concord and become the first British prisoner of war captured by the Americans. In contrast to the subsequent horrific treatment of American prisoners by the British Army, Lee did not suffer as a prisoner of war and never returned to the British Army. He married a woman from Concord the year after his capture, set up shop as a tailor in the town before the end of War, raised a family in Concord and died in 1790 as a citizen of Massachusetts and the United States. His descendants would take up arms in the War of 1812 defending America against the British.

Source: https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/early-america-review/volume-12/first-pow