On this day 250 years from Chelsea on the American front lines besieging Boston, Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin reported intelligence to General Washington

about a Brigg from England Laden with all sorts of Ordinance Stores who were Informed that She was taken & caried in to Plimouth at which news the Admiral Said if so we are Undone, in the presence of an Officer or officers who told the Gentlemen now a[t point Shirley, I understand that She can not make any defence If it could be ordered so that some of our Privateers could come across & bring her in to us it would give us great advantages over them this Winter as their chief dependanc seems placed on her Cargo.

Two days later one of the newly launched ships of the Continental Navy would capture this British supply ship in the first victory for the Continental Navy.

Source: “Lieutenant Colonel Loammi Baldwin to George Washington, 26 November 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0393. [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. 428–429.]