Rodney, Caesar, 1728-1784 to Thomas Rodney
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00983 Author/Creator: Rodney, Caesar, 1728-1784 Place Written: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Type: Autograph letter signed Date: September 19, 1774 Pagination: 2 p. ; 32 x 19.7 cm. Order a Copy
Written by Rodney, an eventual signer of the Declaration of Independence, as Speaker of the Delaware Assembly to an unknown recipient. Says he wrote recipient on 17 September 1774. Says he was probably concerned about a report of the British firing on Boston. Says Philadelphia's bells rang all day when that news arrived, but that it proved to be false a few days later. When expresses were sent out from Boston to say it was false, the riders came upon 50,000 men in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Says if the men were not armed, they were carrying provisions for others. When they heard the news they went home, but not before sending officers ahead to see if it was true. Claims the rumor was spread by "some of the friends to the Ministerial plan" to prove the valor of the people, which he says there is no doubt of now. Gives a report of a British Captain "that friends to the American Cause are daily increasing on the other side [of] the water." Year inferred from content, but 19 September 1774 was on a Monday according to a calendar.
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