Easton replied he should be treated with much more honour than our people had met with from the British Troops. The officer then said, he was all submission, and immediately ordered his soldiers to deliver up all the arms, in number about one hundred stands. As they gave up their arms, the prisoners were secured in the hollow square.

The American forces having thus providentially got possession of this important fortress, found in it upwards of one hundred pieces of cannon, several mortars, and a considerable quantity of shot, stores, and some powder.

After this acquisition, a detachment of our Troops was despatched to take possession of Crown Point, where there is a considerable number of cannon. Another detachment was sent to Skenesborough, where they took Major Skene and his family, with a number of soldiers, and several small pieces of cannon.

Colonel Easton met several hundred men from the western parts of this Province, on their way to Ticonderoga. They were on the same expedition, not knowing the Fort was taken till they met Colonel Easton. Part of them pursued their march, in order to secure and garrison the Fort.

The prisoners, to the number of about one hundred, including negroes, &c., were brought off by John Brown, Esquire. Colonel Allen was left commander of the Fort.

The officers and soldiers in this important expedition behaved with the utmost intrepidity and good conduct, and therefore merit the highest applauses of their grateful Country.

PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE.

Committee-Chamber, May 17, 1775.

Whereas, by some misapprehension or mistake of the Seventh Resolve of the late Provincial Convention, sundry Lambs have been lately brought into market and purchased by some of the inhabitants of this City: In order, therefore, to rectify such mistake, and as much as possible to preserve and promote the breed of Sheep, it is ordered that said Resolve be re-published in all the Newspapers; and the Committee do earnestly request all persons to discourage a practice which has so pernicious a tendency to deprive us of wool, one of the most material and necessary articles of manufacture.

“Resolved unanimously, That from and after the first day of March next, no person or persons should use in his, her, or their families, (unless in cases of necessity,) and on no account to sell to the butchers, or kill for the market, any Sheep under four years old; and where there is a necessity for using any mutton in their families, it is recommended to them to kill such as are the least profitable to keep.”

ISAAC MELCHER, Secretary pro tem.

An account of the Commencement of Hostilities between GREAT BRITAIN and AMERICA, in the Province of the MASSACHUSETTS-BAY. By the Reverend Mr. WILLIAM GORDON of ROXBURY, in a Letter to a Gentleman in ENGLAND, dated MAY 17, 1775.

MY DEAR SIR: I shall now give you a letter upon publick affairs. This Colony, judging itself possessed of an undoubted right to the chartered privileges which had been granted by our glorious deliverer, King William the Third, and finding that the Continent was roused by the measures and principles of Administration, was determined upon providing the necessary requisites for self-defence, in case there should be an attempt to support the late unconstitutional Acts by the point of the sword, and upon making that resistance which the laws of God and nature justified, and the circumstances of the people would admit, and so to leave it with the righteous Judge of the world to settle the dispute. Accordingly the Provincial Congress, substituted by the inhabitants in lieu of the General Assembly, which could not convene but by the call of the Governour, prepared a quantity of stores for the service of an army, whenever the same might be brought into the field. These stores were deposited in various places; many of them at Concord, about twenty miles from Charlestown, which lies on the other side of the river, opposite to Boston, answering to Southwark, but without the advantage of a bridge. It was apprehended by numbers, from the attempt made to surprise some cannon at Salem on the 26th February, that there would be something of the like kind in other places; and many were uneasy, after the resolutions of the Parliament were known, that any quantity of stores was within so small a distance of Boston, while there was no regular force established for the defence of them. Several were desirous of raising an army instantly upon hearing what had been determined at home; but it was judged best upon the whole not to do it, as that step might be immediately construed to the disadvantage of the Colony by the enemies of it, and might not meet with the unanimous approbation of the Continental Congress.

Here I must break off for a few minutes to inform you, by way of episode, that on the 30th of March, the Governour ordered out about eleven hundred men to parade it for the distance of five miles, to Jamaica Plains, and so round by the way of Dorchester back again; in performing which military exploit, they did considerable damage to the stone fences, which occasioned a Committee’s being formed, and waiting upon the Provincial Congress, then at Concord, on the point of adjourning, which prevented their adjournment, and lengthened out the session till the news of what Parliament had done reached them on April 2d, by a vessel from Falmouth, which brought the account before the Governour had received his despatches, so that obnoxious persons took the advantage of withdrawing from Boston, or keeping away, that they might not be caught by the General, were orders for that purpose given him from home, as there is much reason to suppose was the case, from a hint in an intercepted letter of Mr. Mauduit’s to Commissioner Hallowell, and from subsequent intelligence. The Tories had been for a long while filling the officers and soldiers With the idea, that the Yankees would not fight, but would certainly run for it, whenever there was the appearance of hostilities on the part of the Regulars. They had repeated the story so often, that they themselves really believed it, and the military were persuaded to think the same in general, so that they held the country people in the utmost contempt. The officers had discovered especially since the warlike feat of tarring and feathering, a disposition to quarrel, and to provoke the people to begin, that they might have some colour for hostilities. This cast of mind was much increased upon the news of what Parliament had resolved upon; the people, however, bore insults patiently, being determined that they would not be the aggressors.

At length the General was fixed upon sending a detachment to Concord, to destroy the stores, having been, I apprehend, worried into it by the native Tories that were about him, and confirmed in his design by the opinion of his officers, about ten of whom, on the 18th of April, passed over Charlestown Ferry, and by the neck through Roxbury, armed with swords and pistols, and placed themselves on different parts of the road in the night to prevent all intelligence, and the country’s being alarmed; they stopped various persons, threatening to blow their brains out, ordering them to dismount, &c. The Grenadier and Light-Infantry Companies had been taken off duty some days, under pretence of learning a new exercise, which made the Bostonians jealous; one and another were confirmed in their suspicions by what they saw and heard on the 18th, so that expresses were forwarded to alarm the country, some of whom were secured by the officers on the road; the last had not got out of Town more than about five minutes, ere the order arrived to stop all persons from leaving the Town. An alarm was spread in many places, (to some the number of officers on the road to Concord proved an alarm;) however, as there had been repeated false ones, the country was at a loss what to judge. On the first of the night, when it was very dark, the detachment, consisting of all the Grenadiers and Light-Infantry, the flower of the army, to the amount of eight hundred or better, officers included, the companies having been filled up, and several of the inimical torified natives, repaired to the boats, and got into them just as the moon rose, crossed the water, landed on Cambridge side, took through a private way to avoid discovery, and therefore had to go through some places up to their thighs in water. They made a quick march of it to Lexington, about thirteen miles from Charlestown, and got there by half an hour after four.