Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 3

5. Enclosures not found. Capt. John Derby (1741–1812), son of Richard Derby (1712–1783), a prosperous Salem merchant, and brother of Richard Derby Jr. (1736–1787), a member of the Provincial Congress, received orders on 27 April from the Provincial Congress to proceed immediately to England with dispatches describing the American {p. 85} version of the Battle of Lexington and Concord in order to anticipate Gen. Gage's own account. Arriving in London on 28 May, Derby lost no time in circulating his description of the battle, thereby scoring a propaganda coup. Returning to the province on 18 July, he gave Washington and the Provincial Congress firsthand accounts of the British reaction (Mass. Provincial Congress, Jours. , p. 154–156, 159, 523; JCC , 2:27, 28, note [both these sources incorrectly identify Capt. Derby as his brother Richard]; DAB ; James Duncan Phillips, Salem in the Eighteenth Century, Boston, 1937, p. 364–369).