On this day 250 years ago in New York City, an effigy of Royal Governor Tryon was paraded through the streets and then hung from a gallows. A paper was attached to the effigy that read:

William Tryon, late Governor of this province, but now a professed rebel and traitor to its dearest rights and privileges, as well as to his native country, who, in order to extinguish every spark of American liberty, and recommend himself to the favor of a brutal tyrant, and an insidious court, did illegally, unjustly, and cruelly, shed the blood of an innocent and worthy citizen, when he had the command in North Carolina. For which, and his numberless traitorous practices against the liberties of this country, he is to suffer the just demerits of his atrocious villany, as a warning to all others,

 “Calm thinking villains, whom no faith can fix,
Of crooked counsels, and dark politics.”

Secondly. –Behold the bloody tool of a sanguinary despot, who is using his utmost efforts to enslave you!–”With how secure a brow, and specious form he gilds the secret traitor!“

Thirdly. –Tories take care!!!

Governor Tryon was not in the city but had fled to the protection of a British warship in New York Harbor.

Source: The Constitutional Gazette, New York, New York, March 23, 1776 quoted in https://historycarper.com/1776/03/23/tryons-effigy/

On this date 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress issued a commission to Captain William Shippen to command a ship “as a privateer, in order to guard and cruize on the coast of Virginia” and also agreed to sell gunpowder to Shippen for the ship. This was the Congress’s first authorization of a privateering — for profit naval actions where the privateers were allowed to retain the proceeds of the cargo of British ships that they capture.

Source: Journals of the Continental Congress at 225 accessed at https://archive.org/details/us_congress_continental/lljc004/page/224/mode/2up

On this day 250 years ago three miles northeast of Fort Johnson, off the coast of Charlestown, South Carolina, the sloop Comet of the South Carolina Navy commanded by Capt. Joseph Turpin captured the larger brig HMS General Clinton and its crew that included the pilots that the British needed to navigate in Charlestown Harbor. This was the first time the South Carolina Navy captured a British warship.

Sources: https://revolutionarywar.us/year-1776/;