Salem Gunpowder Raid

[1] On Sunday, February 26, 1775, the 64th British Regiment of the Line, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Leslie commanding, landed at Marblehead from Castle William in Boston Harbor.

The regiment, with loaded muskets and bayonets fixed, marched to Salem under orders to seize military stores concealed there.

Captain John Felt was at Colonel Leslie's side with purpose, afterward declared, of throwing him into the river in case the regulars had fired.

[citation needed] The Honorable Richard Derby, whose ships' guns, loaned to the Province, were the objects of the search, and Colonel David Mason, the Provincial agent for mounting them for the field, were present, insisting, as did Captain James Barr, Major Joseph Sprague, and others who had disabled the flatboats, that Colonel Leslie was marching not on the King's highway, but in a private lane, that the bridge was the property of individual proprietors, that the draw would not be let down on his order, and that, as neither war nor martial law had been declared, he would advance at his peril.

Meanwhile the guns had been removed to a safer place, and a mounted messenger, Benjamin Daland, had posted to Danvers, spreading the alarm.

[citation needed] Night was approaching, and at dusk Colonel Leslie agreed that, if the draw should be lowered, he would march but a few rods beyond, abandon the search, and withdraw his regiment.

Enough appeared to show on what a slender thread the peace of the Empire hung, and that the least exertion of the military power would certainly bring things to extremities."