On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress appointed

a Committee of Seven . . . to take into consideration the state of the trade of America, and report their opinion. The following members were elected: Benjamin Franklin, John Rutledge, John Jay, Peyton Randolph, Thomas Johnson, Silas Deane, and Thomas Willing.

The Congress also ordered investigation of the activities of French and Indian War hero Major Robert Rogers, who was still an officer in the British Army although not in active service, and had recently been captured by the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety.

Sources: https://americanfounding.org/entries/second-continental-congress-september-22-1775/; https://americanfounding.org/entries/second-continental-congress-september-22-1775/

On this day 250 years ago at the Palace Garden of the Royal Governor’s mansion in New Bern, North Carolina

under a fine bed of cabbages, was discovered and dug up, a barrel containing about three bushels of gunpowder; in the palace cellar was also dug up, two quarter casks of the same commodity, the casks quite new, and marked, “R. B.” In the Palace Garden was also dug up, about one thousand pounds of musket balls, lately cast, and about five hundred pounds of iron swivel balls, a large quantity of small shot, lead, iron worms for the cannon, with swabs, rammers, artillery, boxes, matches, and the whole apparatus for his park artillery

Source: Constitutional Gazette, Oct. 28, 1775 quoted in https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/september-1775/

And on this day 250 years ago from his home in Braintree, now Quincy, Massachusetts, ardent Patriot Josiah Quincy, Sr. wrote his friend John Adams a long letter with detailed suggestions for constructing batteries on islands in Boston Harbor so that “we might prevent any Ship of Force from going out or coming in” the harbor. He also proposed the construction of 20 “Row Gallies” to guard against the British cruisers and cutters that were raiding the Massachusetts coast. And the 65-year-old Quincy assured Adams that

Were my Abilities equal to my Inclination, you would be amply assisted, in giving Birth to a Revolution, which, I think with you, “seems to be in the Womb of Providence as important as any that has happened in the Affairs of Mankind.”

Agreable to the Old Man’s Sentiments, in this enclosed Paper, “the Sword and not the Quill is now to decide the Controversy;” Nothing therefore, could revive my desponding Hopes more, than the assurance you give me, of a sufficient Plenty of Powder against another Year

The 65-year old Quincy was probably the author of the “Old Man’s Sentiments” he shared with the younger Adams. You can visit his home in Quincy, Massachusetts today.

Sources: “Josiah Quincy to John Adams, 22 September 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-03-02-0080. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 3, May 1775 – January 1776, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, pp. 163–168.]; https://www.historicnewengland.org/property/quincy-house/

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