1768. Thirty men boarded a schooner at Boston that had been seized by the officers of the customs, for having 30 hogsheads of molasses on board; they confined the officers and carried off the molasses.
1775. Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, with his family, took refuge on board the Fowey, British man-of-war, at Yorktown.
1776. The Declaration of Independence of the United States proclaimed from the steps of the state house at Philadelphia, and read to the army in the city of New York.
1777. Battle of fort Ann; the British defeated the Americans under colonel Livingston, who retreated to fort Edward. The Americans lost 128 cannon and considerable stores.
1778. The French fleet under count d'Estaing arrived off the Delaware, having been at sea 87 days.
1779. The British under governor Tryon plundered and burnt Norwalk, Conn. Two churches, 80 dwellings, 87 barns, 22 stores, 4 mills and 5 vessels were destroyed.
1784. Torbern Bergman, a Swedish chemist and natural philosopher, died. He was the friend of Linnæus, and an able and successful investigator of the secrets of nature.
1790. Renwick Williams, known in London as the Monster, was convicted of cutting the garments of Miss Porter. The judge reserved the case till he could determine whether the crime was felony or only a misdemeanor. Williams was a dancing master and for years a great nuisance in London.
1793. The dauphin, Louis XVII, taken from his mother and placed in the care of
the sans culotte cobbler, Simon, under whose tender mercies he soon yielded up his life.