Issue of The Connecticut Journal and the New-Haven Post-Boy from Wednesday, August 16, 1775, [Whole] No. 409, four pages, 8.5 x 13.5, addressed to subscriber Elias Baldwin. The paper contains the full text of a Congressional letter "To the People of Ireland,” originally written by John Jay, signed in type in the footer by "John Hancock, President" of the Congress, on July 28, 1775. In part: “As the important contest, into which we have been driven, is now become interesting to every European state, and particularly affects the members of the British Empire, we think it our duty to address you on the subject. We are desirous, as is natural to injured innocence, of possessing the good opinion of the virtuous and humane. We are peculiarly desirous of furnishing you with a true state of our motives and objects; the better to enable you to judge of our conduct with accuracy, and determine the merits of the controversy with impartiality and precision.” In very good to fine condition, with original untrimmed pages, never bound; moderate dampstaining vertically through the centerfold, with a worn main horizontal fold; and two small holes through the folded sheet at the lower end of the main fold. With the pages open, the masthead and entire letter can be viewed on one side of the newspaper, well-suited for framing.
Even before the Continental Congress recognized the failure of its July 1775 petitions to the King for relief, it agreed on the necessity to publicly explain to specific audiences the causes and nature of its newly escalated conflict. Following congressional instructions on June 3rd, committees prepared letters ‘to report an address to the inhabitants of various countries in the British Empire.’ These letters would be sent to Great Britain, Ireland, and Jamaica; the committee for Ireland consisted of John Adams, Samuel Adams, James Duane, John Jay (who wrote the draft for submission), and William Livingston. On July 21st, the draft letter was reported to Congress for finalization, and on July 28th the final version was approved and released for publication in newspapers and pamphlets. These letters had followed two negotiating instruments earlier that month to Britain, both the conciliatory letter known as the Olive Branch Petition on July 5th and a more hardened ‘Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms’ on July 6th. Both of these were eventually ignored by the King and his ministers as illegitimate paths to resolution, making the letter to Ireland even more relevant.
From a review of these public documents, it is clear they anticipate Congress' Declaration of Independence a year later, and in some instances the eventual Bill of Rights: Congress identified the abuses that prompted the colonists to rebel against the British government and that had to be corrected. Among these, they cited taxes imposed without consultation, various kinds of judicial abuse, quartering of troops, restrictions on bodily freedoms, and their now-notorious complaints about Native American attacks fighting for the British government. Following their enumeration in this address, they characterize years of their colonial responses as measured and appropriate, but now provoked beyond tolerance, resulting in their reactions at Lexington and Concord and its aftermath that triggered the current state of war. Congress then pointed out that despite this state of war, as recently as early July they had made respectful overtures to the King and had counseled Americans to continue to be patient. Turning again to their audience in Ireland, they repeatedly assure them of America's friendliness, recognize Ireland's suffering under British rule, and apologize that Irish people must be caught up (through a trade boycott) in America's resistance, while offering that any are welcome to immigrate to America.
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