On this day 250 years ago at the Old South Meeting House in Boston, Dr. Joseph Warren delivers the annual speech on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Warren’s stirring address included these lines that nearly provoked a riot that night in the streets of Boston:

^{Our fathers having nobly resolved never to wear the yoke of despotism, and seeing the European world, at the time, through indolence and cowardice, falling a prey to tyranny, bravely threw themselves upon the bosom of the ocean, determined to find a place in which they might enjoy their freedom, or perish in the glorious attempt. . . . nothing was so much the object of their abhorrence as a tyrant’s power: they knew that it was more safe to dwell with man in his most unpolished state, -than in a country where arbitrary power prevails. . . . tyranny, when once established, entails its curses on a nation to the latest period of time; unless some daring genius, inspired by heaven, shall, unappalled danger, bravely form and execute the arduous design of restoring liberty and life to his enslaved, murdered country.}

The tools of power, in every age, have racked their inventions to justify the few in sporting with the happiness of the many

. . .

our liberty must be preserved; it is far dearer than life, we hold it even dear as our allegiance; we must defend it against the attacks of friends as well as enemies; 
. . .

But, pardon me, my fellow citizens, I know you want not zeal or fortitude. You will maintain your rights or perish in the generous struggle. However, difficult the combat, you never will decline it when freedom is the prize. . . . if . . . it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from our foes, but will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is trodden underfoot

Joseph Warren would lie dead in a field of blood on Bunker Hill (or to be more precise Breed’s Hill) only three months later.

Sources: https://www.drjosephwarren.com/2019/03/joseph-warrens-1775-boston-massacre-oration-full-text/; https://revolutionarywarjournal.com/warren/;

Joseph Warren’s 1775 Boston Massacre Oration – Full Text

Also on that day in New York City, a meeting of freemen and freeholders issued a formal call for the election of delegates from the city to a provincial convention that would name the colony’s delegates to the Second Continental Congress.

Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%2222%20November%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=3&sr=

And on that day in London William Lee wrote to Robert Carter Nicholas in Virginia:

The prospect of American affairs is more dreadful than ever; you are all by implication declared to be in a state of rebellion; ships of war and soldiers are preparing to go from hence to Boston and New York.

https://www.yorkmaine.org/DocumentCenter/View/10983/American-Revolution-Chronology-