On this day 250 years ago in Savannah, Georgia, Royal Governor Sir James Wright reported to Lord Dartmouth that a customs collector who had seized smuggled hogsheads of molasses and sugar with the help of sailors from the Royal Navy was attacked by “a large number of people, with their faces smutted and armed with Pistols and Cutlasses, in a very riotous and unlawful manner.” Wright further reported that the customs collector was tarred and feathered and he and the sailors were thrown in the river by the mob, with one of the sailors drowned. Whether this assault on a British official and Royal Navy sailors was part of a criminal enterprise, or part of the American resistance to British rule is unclear. But if the latter, the Royal Navy sailor may have been the first Briton to die in the Revolutionary War.

Source: Norton at p. 319.

Also on that day in Virginia, Richard Henry Lee wrote to his brother Arthur Lee in London that the “wicked violence of the Ministry is so clearly expressed, as to leave no doubt of their fatal determination to ruin both Countries, unless a powerful and timely check is interposed by the Body of the people” and that the American people are “resolved to defend their liberties ad infinitum” and that “the means of repelling force by force are universally adopting” citing as example Virginia’s frontier counties:

This one County of Fincastle can furnish 1000 Rifle Men that for their number make the most formidable light Infantry in the World. The six frontier Counties can produce 6000 of these Men who from their amazing hardihood, their method of living so long in the woods without carrying provisions with them, the exceeding quickness with which they can march to distant parts, and above all, the dexterity to which they have arrived in the use of the Rifle Gun. There is not one of these Men who wish a distance less than 200 yards or a larger object than an Orange. – Every shot is fatal.

Sources: Norton at p. 313; https://allthingsliberty.com/2015/03/a-posture-of-defense-virginias-journey-from-nonimportation-to-armed-resistance/#_ednref9; file:///Users/kevin/Downloads/American%20Revolution%20Chronology%20%20(2).pdf

Also on that date the Committee of Columbia County, New York adopted resolutions in opposition to the British government.

Source: https://www.wgpfoundation.org/historic-markers/pratt-house-2/

And also on this day in Boston, Governor Gage received an anonymous, and erroneous report about the whereabouts of four brass cannon that the Patriots had secretly removed from Boston. The report claimed that the “Field pieces [were] in an old store, or Barn, near the landing place at Salem, … [and] are to be removed in a few days.”

Source: https://www.discoverconcordma.com/articles/579-the-salem-affair