Fair copy of the Circumstantial Account sent to Gov. Trumbull of Connecticut

The royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage (1719-87), responded to the flurry of news reports of the Battles of Lexington and Concord by sending official accounts of the confrontation to high officials in the adjoining colonies. He hoped that they would issue their own statements and quench the vitriolic and hyperbolic versions of the events appearing in most of the colonial newspapers.

This is a handwritten copy of the British account of events that also appeared as a broadside, A Circumstantial Account. This fair copy, made out by a clerk of Gage’s, was sent to Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-85) of Connecticut. Note the “x” under each capital letter. These notations specify how the document should be set in type, an indication that Gage hoped it would be published and transmitted to a larger audience than just Trumbull and his staff.