On this day 250 years ago, the HMS Nautilus docked in Boston carrying a secret dispatch for General Gage from London. The letter was written by William Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the American Colonies. Dartmouth criticized Gage’s ineffective response to “proceedings that amounted to actual revolt” and informed him that
The King’s dignity, and the honor and safety of the Empire, require, that . . . force should be repelled with force. . . . It is the opinion of the King’s servants, in which His Majesty concurs, that the essential step to be taken toward re-establishing government would be to arrest and imprison the principal actors and abettors in the Provincial Congress, whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason and rebellion.
Dartmouth added that to effectuate his orders, 700 Marines, three infantry regiments, and the 17th Light Dragoons had been dispatched to Boston and if Gage needed more troops he should raise them from “friends of government in New England.”
Sources: https://www.nps.gov/mima/organization.htm; Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride at 75-77
Also on this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia the Pennsylvania Society for the Relief of Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was formed by French immigrant Anthony Benezet and other Quakers. This was the first abolition society in America. Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin would later become members.
Sources: https://www.historicamerica.org/journal/2021/4/13/philadelphia-and-the-birth-of-the-nations-first-abolitionist-society; https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/April-14/first-american-abolition-society-founded-in-philadelphia
On This Day In The Revolution 
One response to “On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — April 14, 1775”
It is heartwarming to read about the Pennsylvania Society and to know there were those from the early days of American slavery who believed in the freedom of all.
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