Lot 4[AMERICAN REVOLUTION]
CARROLL, CHARLES; CHASE, SAMUEL; PACA, WILLAM and OTHERS from MARYLAND
Document signed transmitting resolutions of the Town of Boston and urging Virginia to embargo exports and imports from Great Britain. Annapolis: 25 May 1774. A single-page document in the form of a letter on one long sheet of laid paper, prepared in a secretarial hand (possibly that of Samuel Chase), and with seven signatures on the verso, also with a cover addressed to "To The Honble. Peyton Randolph Esq. and The Gentleman of Virginia." 14 1/2 x 9 inches (37 x 23 cm). The letter silked repairing tears and losses, some losses to edges affects the legibility of about five lines, the cover silked with the letter but not obscuring any text.

Provenance: Dr. Herbert Ernest Klingelhofer (1915-2015), collector and former President of the Manuscript Society

This interesting document prepared in the form of a letter from officials in Maryland to Peyton Randolph and officials in Virginia opens reporting receipt of a letter from the Committee of Correspondence in Philadelphia transmitting a copy of a letter and vote from the Town of Boston and consider it great luck "that your General Assembly is now sitting, as it affords so good an opportunity of instantly collecting the sense of your Colony on a point on which the Liberties of America must turn ... we shall communicate the papers transmitted to us to every part of our Province and endeavor to give the strongest Impressions of the Sufferings of Boston in the Common Cause. We shall anxiously expect your Resolutions..."

What follows is a list of four immediate resolutions to be considered by Randolph: 1) "an immediate stop to all exports to Great Britain" and after a time a stop of all imports "till the act for blocking up the Harbor of Boston be repealed; 2) "That the association be on oath"; 3) that inhabitants of the Province not pay debts to Great Britain; and 4) that the Province "immediately break off all Trade and Dealings with that Colony or Province which shall refuse or decline to come into similar resolutions with a majority of the Colonies."

The letter closes with the hope that Maryland will adopt these measures, form appropriate committees offers, and offers cooperation to Virginia, ending with "that the value and consequence of these Colonies to Great Britain will be demonstrated by withholding our tobacco." The document is then signed Charles Carroll, John Hall, Thomas Johnson, Jun., William Paca, Samuel Chase, Matthias Hammond, and Stephen West. An important document seeking to link Maryland and Virginia with the plight Massachusetts in the build up to Revolution, signed by three of the four signers of the Declaration of Independence from Maryland.


C Dr. Herbert E. Klingelhofer, former President of the Manuscript Society

Sold for $8,190
Estimate $800-1,200


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