To the Printer of the Massachusetts Spy

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MR˙ THOMAS: The piece in your last,, signed Thomas Gage, is replete with such notorious falsehoods, calumny, and evasion, that I scarce know whether it admits of any animadversion, to make it appear most false, abusive, and irritating to every honest mind; neither would it come into my heart to say any thing upon it, were it not that there are, even to this day, those that will speak so far favourably of him as to suggest that they do not think it is his doings so much as some others, that things are carried

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Let us, then, take a short view of what he has done, and see whether we have any reason to conceive a favourable opinion of him, any thing better than that he is a most inimical, malicious, and blood-thirsty man. It is well known what a calumniating, malicious letter he sent to England about this Province, when Bernard was Governour here; that was certainly a most officious piece of malice; he was under no necessity of doing that. It is as manifest that he knew what he was undertaking when he came over last year, that it was to carry most arbitrary, unrighteous schemes into execution. Let it be that he was persuaded to believe that he should meet with no very powerful opposition, and that he would not have undertook, if he had known what opposition would have been; this will argue his baseness, and not any goodness; a disposition to trample upon the weak, and to set up power instead of righteousness, and to cast truth to the ground. As soon as he arrived, the first specimen of his goodness was to strike out thirteen Counsellors, very worthy men. Soon after this he dissolved the General Assembly, without even suffering them to have any pay for their service.

The next thing he did remarkable, was his sending in the night and plundering the magazine at Charlestown. Soon after this he went to intrenching and fortifying upon the Neck, and it would be tedious to emimerate all the falsehoods he publickly told about this to President Randolph, to the Town of Boston, and to sundry Committees; telling them that he was not about to hurt the Town by it, to stop the avenues; that he could not fortify it stronger than nature had formed, &c˙, &c. It would be endless to enumerate all the robberies, abuses, and insults, which his Troops have committed against the inhabitants of Boston, and passengers; the tarring and feathering, quarrelling with the watch, shooting at children passing quietly in the street, violently taking away men' s substance from them and detaining it, knocking them down and leaving them half dead; all this before the Concord expedition, and all justified by the humane Thomas Gage. As to the Concord expedition and Lexington battle, they are too well known by the publick to be the most barbarous, savage conduct of the Troops, to admit of any illustration. The most barbarous Indians, I presume, would be ashamed of such conduct. It is not to be wondered that his Troops deny what they have done; for it is no new proverb that they who steal will lie, and much more; they that rob will murder, in a most savage manner; and Thomas Gage owns, in his letter, that he sent out his men to destroy, and yet says he has "commenced no war but defensive!"

Upon the whole, it is the well known character of the Devil to deceive by fair pretences, lie, and destroy; which character is most amply exemplified in what is above related. But the Devil did speak the truth twice — I do not know that this man has once; so I will leave him for the present.