On this day 250 years ago in Rhode Island, the Reverend Ezra Stiles recorded in his diary a raid by at least 200 (Stiles thought more) British Marines on Conanicut Island and the burning of the village of Jamestown:

This Morning we were awaked with the Conflagration of Jamestown on Conanicott. An awful Sight! The Bomb Brigg & several Tenders full of Marines went over last Night, & about o’clock or a little before day landed and set fire to the Houses. The men continued ravaging & firing till about Noon & returned.

The next day, Stiles wrote:

About 1 o’clock yesterday morning a Bomb Brig, 1 schooner & 2 or 3 armed sloops went to Conanicott & landed upwards of Two hundred Marines Sailors & Negroes at the East Ferry; and marched in 3 Divisions over to the West Ferry, & set the several houses on fire there, then retreated back setting fire to almost every house on each side of the road, & several Houses & Barns some distance on the North & South side of the Rode, driving out Women & Children &c.

A Company of Minute Men had left Conanicut the Afternoon before so that there were but 40 or 50 soldiers on the Island, of 22 were well equipped. At the Cross Rodes there was a Skirmish our people killed one Officer of Marines & wounded 7 or 8. 

Not one Colonist was killed or hurt in the Skirmish. The Kings forces fired on Mr. John Martin, 80 standing unarmed at his Door & wounded him badly. Mr. Fowler had above 30 Head Cattle: these the Regulars carried off & perhaps a dozen Head more, about 30 Sheep & as many Turkeys, & some Hogs, Beds Furniture & other plunder. They returned on board at X & XI o’Clock & came to this Harbor about Noon.

The Alarm spread, & I am told there are this day Three hundred Men on Conanicutt, & Eight hundred upon this Island. The Town in great Consternation.

The elderly bystander John Martin would die of his wounds.

Sources: https://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/narragansett-bay-operations-1775/; http://smallstatebighistory.com/major-general-charles-lee-imposes-oaths-of-allegiance-on-newport-tories-in-1775/

On this day 250 years ago in Braintree, Massachusetts, Abigail Adams wrote a long letter to her husband John serving in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in which she provided her assessment of the characters of officers in the Continental Army who she had recently met in Cambridge, a advice to pass along to Congress on trade with the West Indies and on curbing inflation, and a shopping list:

I am very loth to trouble you about articles of conveniancy for myself, especially as they are so much out of your way of Buisness. I will only mention two or three which if you can direct Bass to get for me will much oblige me one black Barcelona hankerchief, two or 3 yd. of black Caliminco for shooes and binding for the same he knows how much will be proper and 3 or 4 common manchester check hankerchiefs for the pocket. Not a hankerchief of any kind can be purchased here, but out of the Store for the Army, and they are allowd only to those who inlist.

Source: “Abigail Adams to John Adams, 10 December 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0221. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Adams Family Correspondence, vol. 1, December 1761 – May 1776, ed. Lyman H. Butterfield. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, pp. 335–338.]