On this day 250 years ago at St. Johns, Canada, Congressman Samuel Chase wrote to John Adams:

 I am afraid all our Efforts to take Quebec will prove fruitless. . . .  I hope you will . . . not spend your precious Time in Debates about our Independancy. In my Judgment you have no alternative between Independancy and Slavery, and what American can hesitate in the Choice; but dont harrangue about it, act as if We were. Make every preperation for War, take all prudent Measures to procure Success to our Arms, and the Consequence is obvious. Get Money and Arms and as a fund immediately seize and appropriate all the Crown Lands. 

Source: “Samuel Chase to John Adams, 28 April 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0060. [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. 150–151.]