?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(MASSACHUSETTS.) Letter to John Hancock begging clemency for a convicted thief sentenced to have a "B" branded on his forehead. Manuscript Letter Signed by William Cushing, David Sewall and Increase Sumner as justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Court to John Hancock as Governor of Massachusetts. 2 pages, 9 x 7 inches, plus integral address leaf; address leaf inlaid to early paper mat, closed separation along center fold, otherwise minimal wear. (MRS) Boston, 15 March 1784
William Milton was a Boston veteran of the Revolution who was convicted "for breaking a warehouse & stealing, & thereupon sentenced to pay treble damages to the party injured, to be branded upon the forehead with the letter B, to pay costs of prosecution and stand committed till sentence performed." Three justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Court learned that Milton had earned "a badge of merit from the Commander in Chief for his fidelity & good service" in the Revolution and requested that Governor Hancock waive "that part of his sentence which relates to branding." We have not learned whether Hancock decided to exercise mercy in this case. Provenance: Sotheby Parke Bernet's Nathaniel Stein sale to Milton R. Slater, 25 January 1979, lot 75.
