To consider measures "for the recovery, and securing, or Just Rights and Liberties." - photo 1
To consider measures "for the recovery, and securing, or Just Rights and Liberties." - photo 2

To consider measures "for the recovery, and securing, or Just Rights and Liberties."

Lot 145
27.01.2023 10:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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$ 8 190
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 887923
Lot 145 | To consider measures "for the recovery, and securing, or Just Rights and Liberties."
Estimate value
$ 8 000 – 10 000
AMERICAN REVOLUTION – BORDMAN VI, Andrew (1745-1817). Autograph document signed ("And:w Bordman") as Town Clerk for Cambridge, Cambridge, 26 December 1774.

Two pages, bifolium, 309 x 191mm (partially separated along spine fold, a few minor marginal tears). Endorsed by constable Benjamin DANA, Cambridge, 2 January 1775, certifying the delivery of the warrant.

Calling a town meeting to consider measures "for the recovery, and securing, or Just Rights and Liberties." Less than four months before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the warrant was directed to those "Freeholders & other Inhabitants on the south side of Charles River," to "assemble at the Court House in Cambridge… on Monday, the Second Day of January [1775]." The warrant lists four agenda items. The first was “To know the Minds of the town whether they will [be] agreeable to the recommendations of the Provincial Congress,” and "To take under their Consideration such of the important Resolves, either of the Continental Congress, or the Provincial Congress, to act and do as they think fit any thing that they shall think proper for the recovering and securing our Just Rights and Liberties." Secondly, the meeting was to consider whether " the Town will hire a Sum of Money to pay Henry Gardner Esqr. Their proportion of the Tax granted by the General Court in June last, as a large Sum of Money is wanted in the Treasury sooner than it can be collected by the Collector of Taxes upon the immediate payment of which the Safety and Preservation of our inestimable Rights and Liberties much depends." Thirdly, the meeting was to determine, "if the Town will appoint a Committee of Inspection for effectually carrying into Execution the Non-Importation, Non-Exportation, & Non-Consumption Agreement; agreeable to the Resolves of the Continental and Provincial Congresses." Finally, the meeting was to" take under their Consideration such of the important Resolves, wither of the Continental, or the Provincial Congress as to them shall seem meet, and to act upon the before-mentioned Clauses as they shall think expedient; also to act and do any thing that they shall think proper for the recovering and securing our Just Rights and Liberties."

The meeting was among many held in towns across Massachusetts in January 1775 as tensions rose in the wake of Parliament's decision to close the Port of Boston as punishment for the Boston Tea Party. In October 1774 Thomas Gage suspended the Massachusetts Assembly, which was then sitting in Salem. The members ignored Gage's order and formed a Provincial Congress with John Hancock serving as its president, the body serving as the de facto government of the colony outside of Boston—collecting taxes, organizing and supplying companies of militia, or "minutemen," to thwart a repeat of the events of September 1774, when royal troops confiscated the military stores in the Provincial Powder House in the heart of Cambridge. When royal troops attempted to do the same in Concord in April 1775, the Massachusetts militia would stand in opposition—sparking the American Revolutionary War.

Although it is not stated implicitly, one of the functions of the Cambridge meeting was to choose delegates to the Second Provincial Congress. Newspapers printed in the first week of January 1775 abound with town resolves listing the names of the delegates chosen. Francis Dana, John Winthrop, Thomas Gardner, and Abraham Watson represented Cambridge in that assembly which in February reelected John Hancock as its president, despite his selection to represent Massachusetts in the Continental Congress. As a call to political action, this summons to the Cambridge Town Meeting formed an integral part of the growth of independent self-government, setting the stage for the movement toward American independence in 1776.
Place of origin:USA
Auction house category:Letters, documents and manuscripts
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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13.01.2023 – 27.01.2023
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