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This document is the Massachusetts Provincial Congress's official report on the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Printed by the patriot printer, eye-zay-uh Thomas, it includes dozens of eye-witness testimony covering the events of April 19, 1775. These are not mere claims, but depositions given under oath to the relevant civil authorities. This crucial document aimed to immediately counter any British accounts and garner support for the American cause both domestically and internationally. Knowing the importance of telling their side of the conflict first, the account produced by the Provincial Congress was sent to London on a fast ship, beating General Gage’s official report by two weeks. Accordingly, by the time Gage’s report arrived, Londoners had already read the American account, having been published, at least in part, in virtually every London newspaper.
This is the only document that eye-zay-uh Thomas ever printed for the government. While a journeyman, printing for the Halifax printer, Anthony Henry, he saw how the colonial government controlled what Henry printed in Nova Scotia’s only newspaper by threatening to withdraw his contract as the official printer for the Colony. When Thomas began his own printing enterprise in 1770, he determined that he would never print for the government to deny the state that means of controlling his press. However, because Thomas’s press was the only one in the vicinity of Boston not under the control of the British Military in the days after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he consented to serve his country in its hour of need by printing this report.