Jun 12 at 12:00 PM - Sale 2708 -

Sale 2708 - Lot 8

Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--PRELUDE.) Invoice to the Town of Boston for advertising pre-revolutionary content in the Boston Post Boy. Manuscript document, 12 x 8 inches, with docketing on verso; partial separations at folds, worn on left edge, lacking at least part of one line at bottom edge. Boston, July 1768
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Additional Details

"A day for general rejoiceing for repeal Stamp Act."

As Boston began its pre-revolutionary rumblings, the town's leadership placed a series of paid notices and advertisements with the firm of Green & Russell and their loyalist-leaning weekly newspaper, the Boston Post Boy and Advertiser. This invoice itemizes 20 such expenses, incurred from October 1765 to March 1768--opposing the Stamp Act, and supporting an importation ban and John Dickinson's "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania."

Some of these were controversial pronouncements by a Board of Selectmen which was beginning to push back against royal rule. Most notably, the invoice lists a 14 April 1766 charge "to adv. the Selectmen will fix a day for general rejoiceing for repeal Stamp Act."

On 30 November 1767, they were charged for "inserting a piece signed by the Selectmen, recommending to all persons to sign the subscription rolls &c." This notice would be printed with a three-column banner headline in the Post-Boy: "Save Your Money, and You Save Your Country." It urged the avoidance of "unnecessary Importation of Europe Commodities which threaten the country."

On 28 December 1767, they were charged for "inserting long instructions to the Representatives," which sounds somewhat benign. That day's newspaper included the town's request that the General Court urge the repeal of the Townshend taxes.

On 28 March 1768, they paid to praise John Dickinson's patriotic "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" in opposition to the Townshend Acts: "To inserting letter of thanks to author Farmer's Letters."

Not all notices were political. Two of the paid notices mandated the control of enslaved servants. On 28 October 1765 the town paid "To advertising the inhabitants to keep their Negroes in after 9 o'clock." On 22 December 1766 they paid "to adv'g select men have given orders to the watch men, relating to Negroes." This latter advertisement, as printed in the Post-Boy, advised that after 9 p.m., watchmen would apprehend "Negro, Indian or Molatto slaves" found on the streets without "Lantorns with light Candles."

Other entries relate to the more routine matters of taxation, the town's fire ladder, and the removal of horse carcasses from the Common. The town also paid Green & Russell for two printing jobs, both "to paper & printing 2000 notifications for calling town meeting," on 6 March 1766 and 26 November 1766.

Most of these expenses were ordered by the town's Board of Selectmen, and appear in their published minutes. The invoice was likely prepared and submitted by Green & Russell, and is recorded as paid in the docketing on verso: "Green & Russell's acc't £20.6.4, July 1768 (allowed)."

Provenance: consigned by collector George Bresnick, and analyzed by him in "Advertising a Revolution, an Original Invoice," an article published in the Winter 2024 issue of "Manuscripts," pages 35-56, the journal of the Manuscript Society (included).

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