On this day 250 years ago in London, Prime Minister Lord North wrote a memorandum to King George III recommending an expedition to the southern colonies to suppress the rebellion. North contended that the Patriots in the southern colonies were in a “perilous situation” because of “the great number of their negro slaves, and the small proportion of white inhabitants.”

Source: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lord-dunmores-proclamation/

On this day 250 years ago in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Col. John Glover wrote a report to Gen. Washington on the work was nearly complete to outfit the armed schooners Hancock and Franklin, to be commanded by Captains Nicholson Broughton and John Selman, respectively. Broughton and Selman had served as captains of companies in Glover’s Marblehead Regiment. Captain Broughton had previously commanded the first ship commissioned by Gen. Washington, the Hannah, which was now decommissioned because of damage from its engagement with the HMS Nautilus. The Hancock and Franklin would become the second and third ships of the Continental Navy.

Source: “Colonel John Glover to George Washington, 15 October 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0161. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2, 16 September 1775 – 31 December 1775, ed. Philander D. Chase. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987, pp. 169–170.]; O’Donnell at 162-63.