On this day 250 years ago, in New York the British 16th Light Dragoons disembarked from 11 transports. The transports had anchored in New York Harbor the previous day and had been escorted to New York in a convoy guarded by a British warship but one transport brig had gotten separated in a storm and was captured by a Massachusetts privateer (see yesterday’s blog for the capture of the brig). The dragoons also lost 46 horses en route and a British soldier recorded that the surviving

horses look very indifferently, and it will be some time before they are in proper Condition for service.

Mackenzie Diary at pp. 72-3 accessed at https://archive.org/details/diaryoffrederick21ptunse/page/72/mode/2up

On this day 250 years ago in Princeton, the New Jersey General Assembly passed “An Act to punish Traitors and disaffected Persons” declaring that anyone who aided and abetted the British army or defended the authority of Great Britain was guilty of treason and subject to imprisonment.

Sources: https://www.njstatelib.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/11.4.pdf; https://archive.org/details/journalofproceed1776newj/page/28/mode/2up; https://archive.org/details/votesproceedings1776newj/page/34/mode/2up