Jun 25, 2024 - Sale 2674

Sale 2674 - Lot 36

Price Realized: $ 8,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
SIGNER'S CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION ON THE MAINTENANCE OF PRISONERS OF WAR (AMERICAN REVOLUTION.) MIDDLETON, ARTHUR. Autograph Document, unsigned, draft of resolution for the Continental Congress, resolving to investigate passports which authorize the importing of British goods for use by prisoners of war, resolving to create an inventory of goods at Lancaster [PA] that can be used to supply the prisoners, and resolving to control goods imported for prisoners by enforcing a contraband list. A mono-alphabetic cipher key is written vertically on verso, likely in holograph. 1½ pages, folio, written on recto and verso of a single sheet; minor loss to few scattered letters from ink burn, folds. Np, [June 1782]
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"Resolved--That investigation be made by the Sec'y at War & that he report to Congress the Causes why Passports have been granted for the Introduction of British goods under Colour of supplying the British Prisoners with necessaries & the Names of Persons by whom such Passports were granted.
"That the Sec'y at War cause an inventory to be taken of the British goods now at Lancaster, & that He take measures for returning such Articles to N[ew]York as he may judge to be improper for the supply of Soldiers, & some calculated for the purposes of Trafficking with the Citizens of these States.
"That the Persons authorized to grant Passports or permissions for the Necessaries intended for the British Prisoners be charged to scrutinize strictly into the Packages & parcells forwarded for that purpose, & to let none pass but such as contain necessary Articles bona fide intended for the Use of the Prisoners and agreeable to a Schedule pick'd by the Sec'y at War limiting the Articles in quantity & Quality proportion'd to the Number of Prisoners & agreeable to the usual mode of supplying Soldiery by the Powers to where they belong.
"That the Sec'y at War draw up a Schedule of such Articles as will be allow'd the Prisoners in future, & that the British Commissaries be inform'd that, if any extra Articles different in quantity & quality from the said Schedule should be attempted to be forwarded, the said Extra Articles shall be held to be contraband, & the whole of the parcells or packages in which they are contained shall be forfeited to the use of the United States.
"That the American Officers commanding the posts where such Prisoners are Kept, be directed to Search the Bales & Packages & see that the Articles agree with the Invoices mentioned in the Passports, previous to their being issued to the Soldiery, & that he make proper returns to the Board of War."
The present resolution may have been abandoned by Middleton and replaced by his related motion of June 11, 1782: "Resolved, That the Commander in Chief be instructed to make a demand upon Sir Guy Carleton [commander-in-chief of all British forces in North America], to discharge the arrears due to the United States, for the maintenance of the British prisoners . . . ." Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, 1904–37), XXII: 324.
Cipher keys were used frequently during the Revolutionary War by spies and others to prevent important communications from being understood by the enemy. Most keys were simple, like that used in the present document, in which one could create an encrypted message by finding, for each alphabetic letter in the original message, the matching letter in the top row of the key, and writing down the letter found just below it. The recipient could decode the message by employing the identical key in reverse.
Most of the extant examples of Middleton's autograph--among the most uncommon of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence--are enumerated in "A Census of Important Middleton Documents" in Joseph E. Fields's article, "The Autographs of Arthur Middleton," where the present resolution is listed as No. 42. Taylor, ed., Manuscripts: The First Twenty Years (Westport, 1984), 86-104.