Apr 27, 2017 - Sale 2444

Sale 2444 - Lot 27

Price Realized: $ 500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1778.) [Bartlett, Josiah.] Request for New Hampshire troops to aid Rhode Island. Autograph retained draft letter written as a Continental Congress delegate, to Meshech Weare as president of New Hampshire. One page, 8 x 6 1/4 inches, docketed on verso; vertical fold, minor dampstaining. (MRS) [York, PA], 15 June 1778

Additional Details

By May 1778, the British were making regular forays from occupied Newport, RI and General John Sullivan's forces were unable to check them. In response to his request, the Continental Congress requested that the New England states send troops to Rhode Island's aid. Here is one New Hampshire delegate's request to his state's legislature. In full: "Congress having rec'd advice by letters from Gen'l Sullivan of the late ravages of the Brittish troops in his department, and of his present inability to prevent the like in future should they come out with any considerable force, have ordered the delegates of N Hampsh, Mass'ts Bay & Connect to address the legislatures of their respective states, requesting them forthwith to send forward their quotas of troops destined for the defence of the State of Rhode Island. Tho we think there is no reason to doubt that before this reaches you the quota of our state will be raised & marched, yet in obedience to the orders of Congress, we think it our duty to address you on the subject & if by any means our state is delinquent in that matter to sollicit your immediate attention to a measure that will probably be attended with very important consequences."
The sent copy of this letter, signed by Bartlett and John Wentworth, is held by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and was published in Letters of Delegates to Congress, page 10:95-96. Provenance: sold by dealer Lawrence Appel to the consignor, June 1985.