A Letter Published in the April 22, 1775 issue of the Providence Gazette

 

A letter from Taunton, dated last Friday mentions, "that on Monday before, parties of Minutemen, etc from every town in that Country, with arms and ammunition, met at Freetown early that morning, in order to take Col. Gilbert, but he had fled on board the Rose, man of war at Newport; they then divided into parties, and took, 29 Tories who had signed inlistments, and received arms in the Colonel's Company, to join the Kings Troops; they also took 35 musquets, 2 case bottles of powder, and a basket of bullets.  All which they brought to Taunton the same afternoon, where the prisoners were separately examined.  18 of whom made such humble acknowledgements of their past bad conduct, and solemn promises to behave better for the future, they were dismissed; but the other 11 being obstinate and insulting, a party was ordered to carry them to Simsbury mines; but they were sufficiently humbled before they had got 14 miles on their way thither; upon which they were brought back the next day, and after signing proper articles to behave better for the future, were escorted to Freetown, - there was upward to 2000 men embodied there last Monday"