On this day 250 years ago at the Continental Army headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Brig. Gen. Horatio Gates, who had himself immigrated to America from England, wrote to Benjamin Franklin recommending an officer who claimed to have fled

the Tyrannical treatment he has received from The King Prussia: may he enjoy in This Land of Freedom that Comfort which has been denied him in Germany; and may this Land continue to Embrace with her wonted Cordiality, every Oppress’d Subject from every other Quarter of The Globe.

Source: “Horatio Gates to Benjamin Franklin, 23 February 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0217. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 22, March 23, 1775, through October 27, 1776, ed. William B. Willcox. New Haven and London:: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 362–363.]