Apr 16, 2019 - Sale 2505

Sale 2505 - Lot 12

Price Realized: $ 488
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--PRELUDE.) Issue of the Boston Gazette and Country Journal featuring a declaration of patriotism by John Hancock. Issue #770. 4 pages, 15 1/2 x 10 inches, on one folding sheet; missing about a quarter of the second leaf from the upper corner, folds, minor dampstaining. Boston, 8 January 1770

Additional Details

This newspaper was published in Boston just two months before the Boston Massacre, and features the young patriot John Hancock defending himself against charges of importing British goods. The first piece in this paper below the masthead is an advertisement signed in type by Hancock: "It is suggested that I the Subscriber, with others, have imported Goods from Great-Britain contrary to the agreement of the Merchants to which I acceeded. This is once for all to certify whom it may concern, that I have not in one single Instance, directly or indirectly, deviated from said Agreement; and I no publickly defy all Mankind to prove the contrary. And I am determined to co-operate with the Merchants and others in every legal and laudable Measure, for the Redress of all the Grievances, under which this Province and Continent have so long laboured." This issue includes several other piquant patriotic pieces, including "To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York" by "A Son of Liberty," and a short letter to the editor by "Agricola" insisting that "the Tories are so set upon ruining this continent."