On this day 250 years ago in Watertown, Massachusetts, John Winthrop, who was the Professor of Mathematics and several times acting president of Harvard College, member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the Judge of Probate of Middlesex County, and an advocate for Independence wrote to John Adams:
We have intire confidence in the wisdom and firmness of the Congress. The fate of America is in their hands, and it cannot be in better hands. We have no doubt, but they will seize this opportunity of establishing the Liberties of America on a foundation that cannot be shaken. Is it possible to come to a reconciliation with people that have treated us with so much barbarity? Tis the wish of many, I believe most, of our people, that they would throw off that dependence which has been the source of all the evils we have suffered, and which, as long as it continues, must be productive of the same, if possible of greater evils. If we must still be subject to a K’s governors, vested with all the powers of nominating, negativing, &c. &c., and directed by Instructions, what can we expect but a repetition of the same scene? But it is needless for me to suggest any thing to a Gentleman who has so comprehensive a view of affairs and consequences.
Source: “John Winthrop to John Adams, 5 April 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0037. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 4, February–August 1776, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, pp. 109–111.]
On this day 250 years ago in the Atlantic Ocean, the fleet commanded by Commodore Esek Hopkins captured the HMS Bolton, and its cargo of armaments and gunpowder.
On This Day In The Revolution 