Letter to a Gentleman in Newport, Rhode-Island

v2:430

Roxbury, April 28, 1775.

Notwithstanding your many neglects; notwithstanding my many avocations, I once more salute you, jacta est alea. What folly could have induced General Gage to act a part so fatal to Britain. It is all over with them; their withering laurels will soon be plucked from their brows by the rapacious Bourbon. I pity the madness which effected their destruction.

You have, no doubt, been informed of the affair of Wednesday the 19th. Is it not truly amazing, that such a body of Regulars, so thoroughly appointed, with artillery, &c˙, should be defeated and put to flight by a handful of raw, undisciplined peasants? We have lost but forty-one, and but few, not exceeding ten, wounded; they have near three hundred killed, wounded, and missing. Our countrymen swarm to our defence from all quarters. We are busily organizing our Troops, and shall soon have a well constructed army in the field of thirty thousand men. Gage and his Troops are immured within the walls of Boston; and what is a delay to our satisfaction, our friends are entrapped by them. We have some hopes they will be liberated this day, General Gage has proposed, upon their surrendering their arms, that they march out. They surrendered their arms yesterday.

Poor Quincy, alas! he is no more. He returned to his native Country, pressed the beloved soil, and died. We did not se' e him; he breathed his last the night before last, at Cape Ann.

We have had an express by the way of Connecticut, enclosing transcripts from letters sent lately to New-York. Such a vile system of slavery is preparing for us as might make a Domitian blush. Thank God, our enemies will assuredly be defeated.