On this day 250 years ago, the 14-gun sloop HMS Falcon sailed into Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts to seize two schooners sailing from the West Indies as part of the Royal Navy’s blockade of cargo that could be used to supply the Continental Army besieging Boston, and in order to impress American crewmen into the British Navy. The British captured one of the schooners but the second schooner ran aground on a sand bar within firing range of the harbor. The Falcon’s captain demanded that the town surrender the schooner, but the townspeople refused. The British captain dispatched most of his crew in smaller boats to seize the schooner and sail it from the sand bar when the tide rose, but the crew of the schooner opened fire on the British. The militia from Gloucester led by Captains Joseph Foster and
Bradbury Sanders joined with muskets and two old swivel guns (small cannons normally mounted on smaller boats) to defend the schooner from the harbor docks and an adjacent hill. Despite the Falcon opening fire on the town (leaving a cannonball embedded in Foster’s home to this day) and sending a boat with men to burn the town down, the Gloucester militia soundly defeated the British and forced the Falcon to flee to Boston. The British would lose three killed, and a lieutenant and a boatswain wounded, and 24 men, two barges, a whaleboat and the captured West Indies schooner surrendered to the Gloucester militia plus 12 Americans sailors were freed from impressment. Despite 300 cannon shot fired on the town, there was little damage to the town. But two Americans — Benjamin Rowe and Peter Lurvey — were killed. We should remember their sacrifice for American liberty today.

Sources: https://daybydayamerica.com/day-by-day/year-1775/august-8-1775/