On this day 250 years ago, thousands of militia under the nominal command of General Artemas Ward, but in practice acting as independent companies, surrounded Boston. More militiamen were on the march to join them. Most of the men were Massachusetts Militia, but militia from New Hampshire commanded by Col. John Stark had also joined the Siege of Boston.
In New Haven, Connecticut, Benedict Arnold, commander of the Second Company, Governor’s Foot Guard, had assembled his 60 men to go to Boston but needed gunpowder. General David Wooster of the Connecticut Militia initially refused Arnold’s demand for the keys to the Powder House because the Connecticut Governor and Legislature had not given their authorization. After Arnold threatened to break in, Wooster relented, and Arnold took the powder he needed and he and his men began their three-day march to Boston. Wooster was more cautious than Arnold but he was not a Loyalist; two years later Wooster and Arnold would fight together to defend against a British raid into Connecticut, and Wooster would be mortally wounded fighting for American Independence.
Every year the State of Connecticut celebrates Arnold’s seizure of the gunpowder as Powder House Day. This year the 250th commemoration of Powder House Day will be held on May 10.
And on this day 250 years ago in western Massachusetts, the Stockbridge Militia Company under the command of Captain William Goodrich with David Pixley as first lieutenant and Jehoiakim Mtohksin as second lieutenant, began their march to Boston. In addition to Jehoiakim Mtohksin, at least fifteen other members of the Stockbridge Mohicans would participate in the Siege of Boston including Abraham Naunauphtaunk, William Notonksion, Sr., Solomon Uhhaunauwaunmut, Jacob Naunauphtaunk with his sons Abraham and Jehoiakim, Daniel Nimham, and both William Ntonksion, Sr., and Jr.
On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Virginia, Governor Dunmore ordered seamen and marines from the HMS Magdalen to seize the gunpowder stored in Williamsburg’s Powder Magazine.
Tonight and tomorrow night, April 20 and 21, 2025, Colonial Williamsburg is reenacting the Gunpowder Incident at the Powder Magazine where it happened 250 years ago.
On this day 250 years ago in Charlestown, South Carolina, the General Committee of the South Carolina Provincial Congress led by the president of the Provincial Congress, Colonel Charles Pinckney, convened to discuss the news received from England that the British Army was sending additional troops to America to put down the rebellion. The General Committee appointed William Henry Drayton to head a “Secret Committee” to plan the seizure of government-owned weapons and gunpowder in the colony to make sure that they would not be used against the Patriots.
Also on this day 250 years ago in New York City, a Provincial Convention convened to elect delegates from New York to the Second Continental Congress. This Convention had delegates from all New York counties except Tryon, Gloucester and Cumberland and was New York’s first state-wide governmental body organized without royal authority. The Provincial Convention elected Philip Livingston as it chairman and adjourned two days later after electing delegates to the Continental Congress.
At the beginning of this day 250 years ago at the Alden House in Duxbury, Colonel Theophilus Cotton, commander of the Plymouth County Militia, held a council of war with his subaltern, Lt. Col. Briggs Alden, Major Ebenezer Sproat of Middleborough, and other officers to plan an assault on the British detachment guarding Loyalists in the adjacent town of Marshfield, the only town outside of Boston occupied by British troops. The militia companies from Plymouth, Kingston and Duxbury had assembled and were ready to make the short march on Marshfield. In addition, Marshfield’s Patriot militia commanded by Colonel Anthony Thomas and Captain William Thomas were ready to rise up and expel the British soldiers.
Before the end of the day, three companies of militia totalling 150 men from the Town of Middleborough commanded by Capt. Nathaniel Wood, Capt. Isaac Wood and Capt. Amos Wade, Captain Josiah Hayden’s company of Bridgewater minutemen (which included Luther Jotham, Elias Sewell and other free men of color), and Captain Israel Fearing’s Wareham company had arrived in Duxbury. And on that day militia companies from Hanover, Plympton, Scituate, Rochester, Sandwich, Barnstable, and Yarmouth were marching to join Col. Cotton’s command. In all, more than a thousand militiamen from Plymouth and Barnstable Counties were on their way to drive the British and Loyalists from Marshfield.
On that day 250 years ago in Cambridge and the other towns surrounding Boston, thousands of Massachusetts Militia began the Siege of Boston. General William Heath is nominally in command of the militia but is succeeded by General Artemas Ward that evening. In Cambridge, Joseph Warren writing for the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, issued this letter to the towns of Massachusetts:
The barbarous murders committed on our innocent brethren, on Wednesday the 19th instant, have made it absolutely, necessary that we immediately raise an army to defend our wives and our children from the butchering hands of an inhuman soldiery, who, incensed at the obstacles they met with in their bloody progress, and enraged at being repulsed from the field of slaughter, will, without the least doubt, take the first opportunity in their power to ravage this devoted country with fire and sword. We conjure you, therefore, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred, that you give all assistance possible in forming an army. Our all is at stake. Death and devastation are the instant consequences of delay. Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge your country in blood, and entail perpetual slavery upon the few of your posterity who may survive the carnage. We beg and entreat, as you will answer to your country, to your own consciences, and, above all, as you will answer to God himself, that you will hasten and encourage by all possible means the enlistment of men to form the army, and send them forward to headquarters, at Cambridge, with that expedition which the vast importance and instant urgency of the affair demand.
And on this day 250 years ago word of the Battles of Lexington and Concord had reached Providence, Rhode Island, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (where the New-Hampshire Gazette published the “Bloody News” before the end of the day) and the towns of Brooklyn, Woodstock, Norwich, New London, and Pomfret, Connecticut. When French and Indian War hero Israel Putnam received the news at 3:00 pm in Pomfret, he immediately mounted his horse and rode the 100 miles to Cambridge, arriving 18 hours later.
On this day 250 years ago, the Concord militia received and began executing the order of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety instructing that certain ammunition and supplies stored in Concord be removed from the town or hidden. That order was issued just in time, because on that same day in Boston, General Gage ordered Lt. Col. Francis Smith:
You will march with the Corps of Grenadiers andLight Infantry put under your Command with the utmost Expeditionand secrecy to Concord, and where you will seize and destroyall the Artillery and Ammunition Provisions Tents & all other military stores you can find, you will knock off one Trunion at least of each of the Iron Guns, and destroy the Carriages and beat in the Muzzles of the Brass ones so as to render them useless.
Before midnight on this day 250 years ago, almost 900 men commanded by Lt. Col. Smith had boarded boats and were rowed across Back Bay to Lechmere Point in Cambridge. As the first step in the raid, however, that morning 20 British officers and troops rode out of Boston on horseback across Boston Neck to patrol the roads between Boston and Concord and intercept Patriot messengers warning of the raid. From Longfellow’s poem we all know that Paul Revere rode out of Boston to warn of the raid, but he was not the only American who spread the alarm on that day that the British were coming.
Joseph Warren received word of Gage’s order to Smith shortly after Smith received it and learned in the evening that British troops were heading to boats on the Back Bay. He immediately dispatched Revere and William Dawes to ride to Lexington to warn Hancock and Samuel Adams who were staying at the home of Hancock’s cousin Rev. Jonas Clarke in Lexington. Dawes rode out of Boston on the Boston Neck taking the longer route to Lexington. Revere first went to Old North Church to send the signal that the British troops were going by water. Revere did not hang the lanterns in the church, but gave that task to Robert Newman and John Pulling who put up the lanterns while Thomas Bernard stood guard.
And the warning of the raid was spreading before Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson rowed Revere across the Back Bay. Col. William Conant of the Charlestown Militia was watching for the lantern signal and alerted his company and sent a messenger to Lexington before Revere arrived in Charlestown. Revere met with Conant and Richard Devens of the Charlestown Committee of Supplies to pass along the news and to mount the horse that Devens had borrowed from John Larkin for Revere to ride.
Other Patriot messengers besides Revere and Dawes were spreading the word of the British patrols. Devens and Abraham Watson had earlier that day encountered the advanced party of mounted British soldiers patrolling the roads and warned their fellow members of the Massachusetts Committees of Safety and Supplies staying in Menotomy (present-day Arlington, Massachusetts) — Elbridge Gerry, Jeremiah Lee and Azor Orne — and other Patriots to avoid the patrols. Elijah Sanderson, Solomon Brown and Jonathan Loring had encountered the British patrols and went to Lexington to warn the militia there.
As a result, the Lexington Militia had begun to assemble and had placed a guard on the Clarke House where Hancock and Adams were staying before the end of the day. In Groton, several miles to the northwest of Concord, the Patriots correctly surmised that the redeployment of cannon from Concord to their town meant that the British raid on Concord was underway. Nine Groton minutemen set out on the march to Concord that night and would arrive there before the British.
Although the first shots and deaths in the Concord raid would occur at Lexington on the next day, the first American casualty in the Concord raid happened on April 18. Josiah Nelson questioned one of the British officers on the patrol and was slashed on the head by the officer’s sword. Although Nelson was bleeding profusely from his scalp, he bandaged his wound and would join the fight against the British the next day.
On this day in 2025, there will be a reenactment in Boston on the 250th anniversary of the beginning of Paul Revere’s ride including the hanging of the lanterns in the Old North Church, and a reenactment in Lexington slightly in advance of the 250th anniversary of Revere’s arrival in Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British army was coming (Revere didn’t make it to Lexington until after midnight).
On this day 250 years ago in New York City, John Jay on behalf of the New York Committee of Sixty wrote to the New Haven, Connecticut Committee:
Notwithstanding a small Majority of our House of Assembly have taken no notice of the Proceedings of the Congress the People in general are zealous in the Cause. A provincial Convention for the Appointment of Delegates will be held this week and this City & County & indeed, almost all the principal Counties in the Province have already chosen their Deputies.
The anonymous Letter you have recd. contains many Misrepresentations, and in Times like these Misrepresentation is too common to cause Surprize. It is the Interest of our Enemies to sow Jealousies & Dissentions among us. Nothing but mutual Confidence & a free & candid Intercourse with each other can prevent it.
. . .
In short we have no Reason to apprehend a Defection of this Colony, whose Inhabitants are as sensible of the Blessings of Liberty as any People on the Continent and are too well apprized of the Importance of the present Union to violate or destroy it.
Men there are among us, and such there are in every Colony, to whom a Defection would be an agreable Event, but happily for us this is not the Case with the Bulk of the People. At present little more is to be feared from this Class of Individuals than impotent Invectives & illiberal Calumny
On that day in Alexandria, Virginia, a meeting of the Fairfax Committee elected George Washington and Charles Broadwater as delegates to the Virginia Convention. Washington and George Mason rode together from Mount Vernon to attend the meeting and Washington had wanted Mason to run for delegate. Mason declined but would be elected to take Washington’s seat when Washington departed Virginia to attend the Second Continental Congress.
And on that day in Concord, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety held a joint meeting with the Massachusetts Committee of Supplies and appointed captains for artillery companies from Boston, Dorchester, Charlestown, Marblehead, Worcester, Hadley and Concord, deployed two Four-Pounders now at Concord, four Six-Pounders to Groton, two seven-inch Brass Mortars to Acton, and ordered
that an Instructor, for the use of the cannon, be appointed, and to be put directly in pay, [and when called to duty that] six Pounds, lawful money, per month, be for Captain’ s pay in the Artillery Companies; that the First and Second Lieutenants have four Pounds; the Lieutenant of fire-works to have three Pounds five Shillings; the Sergeants to have forty-two Shillings per month; the Corporals thirty-eight Shillings per month; the common men thirty-six Shillings per month; the Drummers and Fifers thirty-eight Shillings per month; also, that four Shillings per week be allowed for their board.
On that day in Woburn, Massachusetts, the Town Meeting voted
to raise a number of Minutemen so called, not exceeding fifty, and they to meet half a day every week in each month the six succeeding months, viz: May, June, July, August, September and October, for Instructing themselves in the military science of handling the firelock; and if called into service, the town voted to each man a Dollar as a premium for their services, exclusive of what they shall be allowed by the government.
Two days laters, the minutemen of Woburn, and companies of artillery, minutemen and militia from across Massachusetts would be called into service to defend American liberty.
On this day 250 years ago Isaiah Thomas, publisher of the Massachusetts Spy, smuggled his printing press out of Boston with the assistance of Timothy Bigelow and Joseph Warren. Thomas removed his press and paper to Bigelow’s home in the Patriot stronghold of Worcester were it would be safe from seizure by the British Army. The Massachusetts Spy resumed publishing in Worcester in early May, and from there it would remain a leading Patriot newspaper throughout the Revolutionary War.
Also on this day 250 years ago in Boston, Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere to ride to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British were planning to send troops to raid Concord. Revere then rode to Cambridge and Charlestown to meet with the committees in those towns to work out a plan to provide warnings when the British began their raid. They agreed that Revere and other express riders would leave Boston through Boston Neck and by rowing across Back Bay to carry the warnings to Lexington and Concord, but in case they were unable to get through, Revere would hang lanterns in the steeple of the North Church to signal whether the British were moving by land (one lantern) or by sea (two lanterns).
After learning of Revere’s warnings of the planned raid by the British Army, the Patriots in Worcester that night moved the military supplies stored in their town to hidden locations.
And this week in 2025, the National Park Service, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the towns of Lexington and Concord and many Revolutionary heritage organizations have events planned to commemorate the 250th Anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The events will be ongoing for several days and you can find links to some of the events here:
On this day 250 years ago in Penobscot Bay, then in Massachusetts but now Maine, the armed 120-ton 6-gun topsail schooner HMS Diana with thirty men, and the schooner HMS Neptune with a contingent of the 64th Regiment of Foot, anchored off Fort Pownall. Lt. Thomas Graves, nephew to Vice Adm. Samuel Graves, commanded the British expedition and rowed ashore to present a letter from General Gage to the Massachusetts militia colonel commanding the fort. Gage had ordered the Massachusetts militia to turn over all cannon and ammunition in the fort to Lt. Graves. The militia colonel had only seven men under his command within the fort and recognized that he was badly outnumbered by the British, so he chose not to put up a fight. The British seized eight 6-pound cannon, six cohorns, and two small mortars with their carriages, beds, and other equipment, 308 6-pound shot, 176 4-pound shot, six rammers with sponges, seven worms, seven ladles, thirteen boxes of grape shot, fifteen boxes of canister shot, five boxes of charged cohorn shells, and forty-five small arms from Fort Pownal, loaded them on the schooners and sailed back to Boston.
On this day 250 years ago in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress adopted a resolution declaring May 11, 1775 as a day of prayer for
the union of the American colonies in defence of their rights, for which, hitherto, we desire to thank Almighty God, may be preserved and confirmed ; that the Provincial, and especially the Continental Congress, may be directed to such measures as God will countenance : that the people of Great Britain and their rulers may have their eyes open to discern the things that shall make for the peace of the nation and all its connections : and that America may soon behold a gracious interposition of Heaven, for the redress of her many grievances, the restoration of all her invaded liberties, and their security to the latest generations.
The Provincial Congress then adjourned to reconvene on May 10 but made arrangements to call a special session in the event that “important unforeseen events may take place, from whence it may be absolutely necessary that this Congress should meet sooner than the day abovesaid, notwithstanding the adjournment.” Most of the members returned home, but John Hancock and Samuel Adams do not return to Boston, and instead go to the home of Hancock’s relative in Lexington.
On this day in Boston 250 years ago, General Gage ordered 700 light infantrymen and grenadiers from the elite flank companies to prepare for a mission. Although Gage did not alert anyone as to their destination, all the soldiers, and all the people of Boston surmised they would be marching to Concord.
And on this day in London, Lord Dartmouth wrote orders to General Gage
that all cannon, small arms, and other military stores of every kind, that may be either in any magazine, or secreted for the purpose of aiding the rebellion, should also be seized and secreted; and that the persons of such as, according to the opinion of His Majesty’ s Attorney and Solicitor General, have committed themselves in acts of treason and rebellion, should be arrested and imprisoned.
On this day 250 years ago in Boston, Massachusetts Governor Gage wrote to Governor Josiah Martin of North Carolina that
This Province has some time been, and now is, in the new-fangled Legislature, termed a Provincial Congress, who seem to have taken the Government into their hands.
On that day in Groton, Massachusetts, the Groton Committee of Inspection published a notice as instructed by the Town Meeting a week earlier. The notice identified the Loyalists in the town who had declined to sign a covenant pledging to honor the Continental Association and read:
In compliance with said vote, we hereby notify the public that said Association paper was offered to the Reverend Samuel Dana, Joseph Sheple, Jonas Cutler, and Joseph Chase, who did refuse to sign the same, and it is expected that all those who have signed said Association will remember their covenant.
And on that day in Concord the Massachusetts Provincial Congress passed a resolution that was then posted as a broadside signed with the unmistakeable signature of Congress President John Hancock. The resolution and broadside declared
WHEREAS the Preservation of our Country from Slavery, depends under God, on an effectual Execution of the Continental and Provincial Measures for that Purpose:
RESOLVED, That there be now appointed for each County in this Colony, a Committee consisting of Five Persons, any Three of whom to be a Quorum, whose Business it shall be, to receive from the Committees of Correspondence in their respective Counties, a State of the Conduct of the Towns and Districts, with Respect to their having executed the Continental and Provincial Plans as aforesaid
. . .
And whereas some Towns and Districts in the Colony, may be destitute of so excellent an Institution as Committees of Correspondence :
RESOLVED, That it be, and it hereby is strongly recommended to such Towns and Districts, forthwith to choose them, and to afford them Assistance at all Times, in effectually suppressing the Efforts of the Enemies of America, whenever they shall make them.
These committees were sometimes styled as the “Committee of Safety” and are usually referred to by that name in histories today. The Committee of Safety would serve as the local governing body of each town and county in Massachusetts and the other colonies in the opening years of the Revolutionary War.
On this day 250 years ago in New Bern, North Carolina, the Provincial Assembly, which Governor Josiah Martin had declared “the only lawful Representatives of the people of” North Carolina, merges with the Provincial Congress, which Martin had deemed “highly offensive to the King and dishonorable.” The merger made sense to the members of the North Carolina Assembly and the Congress, if not to Governor Martin, since their membership largely overlapped and both bodies had elected the same man — John Harvey — to lead them.
Norton at pp. 327-29.
On that day in Concord, Massachusetts, the Second Provincial Congress adopts “articles, rules, and regulations for the army, that may be raised for the defence and security of our lives, liberties, and estates.” The 52 Articles adopted by the Massachusetts Congress were based on the 1765 British Articles of War.
On the same day in Boston, General Gage requested that Admiral Graves of the Royal Navy prepare ships to ferry soldiers across the Back Bay to Cambridge.
And 250 years ago at Mount Vernon, Virginia, George Washington writes to his old friend and comrade George Mercer, then in London, that
A great number of very good companies were raised in many Counties in this Colony, before it was recommended to them by the Convention, & are now in excellent training; the people being resolved, altho’ they wish for nothing, more ardently, than a happy & lasting reconciliation with the parent State, not to purchase it at the expence of their liberty, & the sacred compacts of Government.
Washington’s letter to Mercer mostly deals with properties that Washington had purchased from Mercer including 1200 acres on Four Mile Run in present-day Arlington that George Mercer had jointly owned with his brother James Mercer. The purchase was very complicated for many reasons including that the brothers were estranged — perhaps because James was an ardent Patriot and George was a Loyalist. James Mercer would go on to serve on the Virginia Committee of Safety, as a delegate to the Continental Congress and as Judge on the Virginia Court of Appeals, throughout the Revolution. George Mercer, on the other hand, would remain in London and never return to Virginia.
Washington’s correspondence indicates, however, that the falling out between the brothers was more personal than political. In the same letter to George Mercer, Washington writes
I could wish most sincerely that the unhappy jealousies which seem to prevail between you, were removed, & the confidence which I believe both of you are entitled to, restored. You do not, if I may be allowed to give my opinion, make proper allowances for the situation of each other. The great distance you are apart—miscarriage of Letters, & various other incidental causes have, I dare say, lead each of you into conjectural mistakes which might be explained at a personal interview, but scarce possible in an epistolary way, after the mind is corroded with unfavourable suspicions.
On the same day Washington writes to a lawyer representing another party in the complicated land transactions:
It gives me much pain to find two Gentln, brothers, who individually stand high in the esteem of their Countrymen, imbibing unfavourable impressions, and, to their joint Friends, mu[tu]ally arraigning the conduct of each other, when I am satisfied that both think themselves right, and that neither hath made proper allowance for the situation of the other. . . . the uneasiness I feel at seeing two Brothers, accustomed to live in perfect amity, now bickering, & accusing each other of hardships occasioned by the other, led me into this digression, for which I ask your pardon.
“From George Washington to George Mercer, 5 April 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0251. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 326–328.]; “From George Washington to Edward Montagu, 5 April 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-10-02-0252. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 10, 21 March 1774 – 15 June 1775, ed. W. W. Abbot and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 328–330.]
At any event, because of the falling out between the Mercer brothers, whether it was tied to their views on the Revolution or only personal, George Washington acquired a large tract of land in present-day Arlington. Every year I lead a tour of George Washington’s property in Arlington for the Arlington Historical Society, and this year it will be on May 10, 2025.
On this day 250 years ago in New Bern, North Carolina, the Province of North Carolina General Assembly is convened by Royal Governor Josiah Martin. Although the General Assembly was the official body recognized by the British Government, it proved to be no more cooperative with Governor Martin than the outlawed Provincial Congress. That was not surprising in that 61 members of the General Assembly were also members of the Provincial Congress. Moderator John Harvey of the Provincial Congress was also Speaker of the House of Burgesses and the Patriots were the overwhelming majority of both bodies.
Also on that day in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Mercy Otis Warren writes to John Adams about “the present dark and Gloomy aspect of public affairs.” She asked:
Is there no hope that the Dread Calamity of Civil Convulsions may yet be Averted, or must the Blood of the Best Citizens be poured out to Glut the Vengeance of the most Worthless and Wicked men Ever Nursed in the Lap of America.
And wishes him success in the coming Continental Congress:
I do not Expect the pleasure of seeing you (if we both Live through the Approaching storm) till your Return from the Assembly of the states (Ere which perhaps the Fate of Nations may be Decided and A Mighty Empire trembling to the Centrer) but my Every Wish for your Honour safety and Happiness will Attend you. And may you and your Associates be Directed to those steps which will Redound to the Glory of America, the Welfare of Britain and the promotion of that Equal Liberty which is the Birthright of Man and the only Basis on which Civil society Can Enjoy any durable Tranquility.
“To John Adams from Mercy Otis Warren, 4 April 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0087. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Papers of John Adams, vol. 2, December 1773 – April 1775, ed. Robert J. Taylor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977, pp. 413–414.]
On this day 250 years ago in Boston, John Andrews wrote to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia reports of British soldiers harassing citizens of Boston:
An officer, with men from the 4th Regiment in Barracks at West Boston, erected a couple of tents just at the back of Howard’s meeting and conducted a parcell of fifes and drums there, which play’d and beat Yanky Doodle the whole forenoon service time, to the great interruption of the congregation. They intended to repeat the same in the afternoon, but were prevented by orders from the General. The officers in general behave more like a parcell of children, of late, than men. Captain [*] of the Royal Irish first expos’d himself by behaving in a very scandalous manner at the South meeting, while Doctor Warren was delivering the oration in commemoration of the Massacre. He got pretty decently frighted for it. A woman, among the rest, attack’d him and threatened to wring his nose. Last Wensday, the day the oration was publish’d, a vast number of Officers assembled in King street, when they proceeded to the choice of a moderator and seven out of their number to represent the select men, the latter of whom with the moderator went into the Coffee house balcony, where was provided a fellow apparrell’d in a black gown with a rusty grey wigg and fox tail hanging to it, together with bands on — who deliver’d an oration from the balcony to a crowd of few else beside gaping officers. It contain’d the most scurrilous abuse upon the characters of the principal patriots here, wholly made up of the most vile, profane, blackguard language as ever was express’d. . . .
The same evening eight or nine officers paraded the street and abus’d every person they met. but finally met with their matches and were all made to lay level with the ground — and yesterday four Sergeants and as many men were sent to insult John Hancock, under pretence of seeing if his stables would do for barracks.
I wish Andrews had written more details about the patriotic woman of Boston who attacked the Captain of the Royal Irish Regiment “and threatened to wring his nose.” But he did include an interesting report on the collection of arms by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and an attempt to smuggle ammunition out of Boston to the Patriots.
Our provincial congress is to meet next month at Concord, when, I am told, there is to he an army of observation incamp’d, consisting of twenty thousand men. Am also inform’d that the congress have expended near a million in our Old tenor for amunition and provisions. This I know, that they have had upwards of fifty ton of shot, shell, &ca., cast, besides an innumerable number of Musket halls. Have seen twenty load cover’d with dung to go out of town myself, but lately all carts have been search’d by the Guards, and unluckily last Saturday evening a load of cartridges were seiz’d pack’d in candle boxes, consisting of 13500 besides 1 boxes balls. The countryman struggled hard before he would deliver ’em, and received two or three bad wounds.
On that same day, British Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie recorded in his diary a slightly different report of the same or perhaps a different attempt by a “countryman” to smuggle ammunition out of Boston:
A Country man was Stopped at the Lines, going out of town with 19,000 ball Cartridges, which were taken from him. When liberated, he had the insolence to go to Head quarters to demand the redelivery of them. When asked who they were for, he said they were for his own use; and on being refused them, he said he could not help it, but they were the last parcel of a large quantity which he had carried out at different times. Great numbers of Arms have been carried out of town during the Winter; and if more strict search had been made at the Lines, many of them, and much Ammunition might have been seized.
And on this day 250 years ago in Newport, Rhode Island, Rev. Ezra Stiles recorded in his diary:
A vessel this day from Virginia informs that the Virginians had sent a Vessel to Old France which lately returned Laden with Powder, Arms, Field pieces & military stores— & tho’ pursued & fired at by the Man o’ War & her Cutters, got in safe to Land.
