On this day 250 years ago in Providence, the Rhode Island General Assembly received and considered a copy of British Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Dartmouth’s Order to Royal Governors and the Royal Navy to intercept and seize all arms and ammunitions shipped to the American Colonies. Out of concern that General Gates or the Royal Navy would execute the Order by seizing the Colony’s cannon at Fort George in Narrangansett Bay, the Assembly

voted and resolved, that all the cannon now at Fort George (excepting two eighteen-pounders and one six pounder) and all the powder, shot and stores, thereto belonging (excepting so much powder and ball as are sufficient for the cannon to be left at said fort) be immediately removed to the town of Providence; that Col. Joseph Nightingale, be, and he is hereby, appointed to see the same done.

. . .

It is voted and resolved, that the copies of the letter from the Earl of Dartmouth, to this colony, and of the order therein enclosed, now lying before this Assembly, be immediately sent to . . . the provincial congress [of Massachusetts.]

Col. Joseph Nightingale would go on to lead Rhode Island militia in combat under the overall command of the Continental Army during the Siege of Newport in the Revolutionary War. He would also become a major importer of arms and ammunition for the Continetnal Army during the War.

Source: https://ndar-history.org/q-node/125/; https://fortadams.org/discover-the-fortress/fort-adams-history/full-history/