On This Day In The Revolution

On this day 250 years ago, William Fitzhugh of Calvert County was appointed Commissary General of Maryland by the Royal Governor of the colony. Fitzhugh was a close friend of George Washington, and like Washington, chose the Patriot side in the Revolution. He continued in office as Commissary General after the Patriots effectively took control…

Benjamin Franklin published in London his satire An Edict by the King of Prussia. The Edict points out the absurdity of London’s claims of entitlement to control and enjoy all benefits from the American colonies by inventing similar claims by the King of Prussia of dominion over England. Source: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-20-02-0223

On this day 250 years ago, the Boston Committee of Correspondence wrote that “Our Enemies . . . are alarmed at the Union which they see is already established in this Province, and the Confederacy into which they expect the whole Continent of America, will soon be drawn, for the Recovery of their violated RIGHTS”…

On this day 250 years ago, Nathaniel Saunders of Orange County, Virginia was convicted in neighboring Culpeper County of unlawful preaching and sedition. Saunders was a Baptist preacher although it was against the law in Virginia and most of the colonies to conduct religious services not sanctioned by the established Church of England. Although there…

On this day 250 years ago, George Washington wrote a letter to John West asking for his assistance in contacting veterans of the Virginia militia who had served under Washington in the French and Indian War to let them know that there would be an upcoming distribution of land in the Ohio River valley for…

On this day (or actually yesterday, since I am writing this well after midnight), 250 years ago, the Providence Gazette published the last of its weekly advertisements for subscribers for a new edition of English Liberties, or, The free-born Subject’s Inheritance. This book had been written in the previous century by a Scottish journalist, but…

The Maryland Gazette included on its front page a report from London dated July 3 that the British Ministry was planning to reappoint former Governor Thomas Pownal of Massachusetts because “nothing but discord, confusion, and the greatest dissatisfaction, have taken place in that province, since he resigned the government of it.” Pownal had been a…

Benjamin Franklin published an anonymous letter in the Public Advertiser in London to bring attention to the “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One” that had been published only three days earlier. Franklin did not need to be worried; his “Rules” were immediately noticed by British officials, and their…

Couriers carrying the Resolution of the Georgia Assembly creating a Committee of Correspondence, as well as the initial correspondence from Georgia’s Committee would have been traveling by boat, or horse, or both to Williamsburg. Boston and other American cities. Undoubtedly, other correspondence among the seven Committees of Correspondence were also en route. I am sure…

Benjamin Franklin published his “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One” in the The Public Advertiser in London. Although Franklin intended the “Rules” as a satire, the widely-read article proved to be remarkably prescient. The British Government within a year enacted “The Intolerable Acts” which implemented many of the…