The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a letter from BRAINTREE, Massachusetts Bay, July 16.

I am much surprised that you have not been more accurately informed of what passes in the camps: As to intelligence from Boston, it is but seldom we are able to collect any that may be relied on, and to repeat the vague flying rumours would be endless. I heard yesterday, by one Mr. Roliston, a gold-smith, who got out from Boston in a fishing schooner, that their distress increases upon them fast; their beef is spent, their malt and cyder all gone; all the fresh provisions they can procure they are obliged to give to the sick and wounded; that thirteen of our men who were in gaol, and were wounded at Charlestown, are dead; that no man dared to be seen talking to his friend in the street; that they are obliged to be within every evening at ten o'clock, according to martial law; nor can any inhabitant walk the street after that time without a pass from Gage; that Gage has ordered all the molasses to be distilled into rum for the soldiers; that he has taken away all licenses for selling of liquors and given them to his creatures; that he has issued an order that no one else shall sell under a penalty of 100l. that the spirit which prevails among the soldiers is that of malice and revenge; that there is no true courage to be observed among them; that their duty is hard, always holding themselves in readiness for an attack, which they are in continual fear of; that Dr. Eliot was not on board of a man of war, as was reported; that Mess. Lovel and Leach, with many others, are certainly in gaol; that last week a poor milch cow was killed in town, and sold for a shilling sterling a pound: that the transports from Ireland and New York arrived last week, but every additional man adds to their distress.