Hancock, John, as President of the Continental Congress

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

paper and ink

Document signed ("John Hancock Presid^{t") and countersigned by the Secretary of the Congress Charles Thomson ("Chas. Thomson"), one page (9 7/8 x 8 1/4 in.; 257 x 210 mm), [Philadelphia], 30 December 1776, being a resolution to send commissioners to the Courts of Vienna and the Grand Duke of Tuscany to form treaties of commerce with those courts; margins expertly extended on three sides, blank verso silked. Blue cloth folding case, teal morocco spine lettered gilt.}

Literature

Journals of the Continental Congress 6: 1054–1058

Catalogue Note

This is the last paragraph added in committee to a lengthy resolution chiefly regarding the Commissioners of France: "Resolved, That the Commissioners at the Court of France be informed of the designs of Congress to send Commissioners to the Courts of Vienna and the Grand Duke of Tuscany to cultivate the Friendship of those Princes, and to form such Treaties of Commerce, as may, be beneficial to those countries and the United States, and directed, that the Ambassadors from those Courts to that of France be made acquainted with this design, and in the mean time to solicit, through those Ambassadors, the interference of the Emperor and the Duke of Tuscany to prevent Great Britain from sending Foreign Troops to his Country, and to procure a recal of such Foreign Troops as are already here."

The appointments were not completed until mid-1777. In the meantime, the Committee of Secret Correspondence instructed its three commissioners to France (Franklin, Deane, and Jefferson), to procure the "friendly mediation" of the Viennese and Tuscan ambassadors to France "for the purposes proposed by Congress" (Letters of Delegates to Congress 5:696).