- An excerpt of a letter, dated May 4, from a woman in Stow, Massachusetts:
- She writes that around noon, a Negro boy comes begging for work.
- She asks if he's free, but she knows he's lying when he says he's lost his papers.
- So she tells him there's no work for him—only he looks so pitiful that she gives him some Indian pudding before sending him away.
- According to this woman, there are a lot of these "vagrants" streaming in from Boston.
- Some of them have passes from General Gage, but many are fleeing the city because everyone expects something really bad to happen.