On this day 250 years ago, the Boston Committee, joined by the committees of ten other nearby towns, writes to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress to request “some immediate and effectual Measures . . . for the publick security” due to “the Insults and Depredations of a lawless and hostile Band of armed Soldiers” occupying Boston and their “wanton Cruelty and Mischief.” The Committees added “were the Constitution not unhinged thro’ the Machinations of a tryannic Minister” the towns would not need security.

Source: Norton at 333-34 quoting Wroth, L. Kinvin, et al., eds. Province in Rebellion: A Documentary History of the Founding of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1774-1775, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press (1975) at 2130-31.