On this day 250 years ago, the sloop of war HMS Falcon sailed into Squam Harbor at the mouth of the Annisquam River in Massachusetts and dispatched a barge with about fifty Royal Navy sailors and marines ashore to capture a flock of sheep. Major Peter Coffin of West Gloucester gathered about half a dozen armed neighbors to repel the raiders. They concealed themselves behind sand mounds and kept up such a brisk fire that the raiders thought they faced a large detachment of militiamen. The British immediately gave up foraging and returned to the Falcon without any sheep to feed the hungry British soldiers beseiged in Boston.
Sources: https://historicipswich.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/battle-of-gloucester.pdf;
And on this day 250 years ago, the Spanish ship San Carlos commanded by Juan Manuel de Ayala, sailed into San Francisco Bay, California to claim the Bay for Spain. This was part of the American Revolution because the Royal Navy under the famous Captain James Cook was also exploring the California coast to stake claims to the territory for Britain. Although the Royal Navy was the largest and most powerful fleet in history at that time, this event illustrates that the British could not deploy all of their formidable naval resources to the campaign to defeat the 13 Colonies, and that the Spanish would later enter the War against Great Britains, in part to defend their claimed American territories against the encroachment of the British.
On This Day In The Revolution 