Apr 14, 2015 - Sale 2380

Sale 2380 - Lot 107

Price Realized: $ 3,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(COLONIAL WARS--QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.) Thacher, John. Cape Cod sends Englishmen and Indians for the war effort. Autograph Letter Signed to Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley. One page, 7 3/4 x 6 inches, plus integral address leaf with docketing; minor wear, wax seal remnant; partial embossed ex-libris stamp of J. Wingate Thornton. Barnstable, MA, 11 September 1704
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Additional Details

1704 was a momentous year for the Massachusetts colony in Queen Anne's War. A French and Abenaki raid devastated Deerfield in February, and in reprisal the ranger Colonel Benjamin Church launched his last great raid against Canada in May and June. In this letter, a Cape Cod officer describes his efforts to gather troops for a follow-up raid, including Indians who had served under Church in the recent raid--some of them whalers who would not be fazed by rowing in small boats.
"There is enlisted twenty English soildiers and nineteen Indians being as many as could be procured, and are yet waiting for a faire winde to sail according to your direction with Cap't Gould, but the winde and weather keeping the vessill here so long one of the English is by accident falen lame, & another is at present sick, which I fear will occasion us faling short of our number &c. The Indians are all hiered by English, some att three, some five and eight pounds a peise, and are likely men for service being use to whale boats, and moste of them souldiers that went out with Coll'nl [Benjamin] Church upon the last expedition, but we finde it very difficult keeping of them together but hope we shall send them going the first opportunity." Provenance: Libbie's John Wingate Thornton sale, 16 October 1878, lot 1440.