Manuscript document, one page, signed by Thomas Orby Hunter, James Harris (tear affecting letter) and G. Hay, as Commissioners.
Chatham: 9 April 1763.
Price: $750.00
About the item
1 vols. Folio. To Captain Archibald Kennedy. Two leaves, docketed on the verso of the second, folded and creased, tears in margins and along folds (affecting a few letters or words but not legibility), some browning, else very good. PR 1b.
Item #23620
Kennedy was the Commander of H. M. S. “Coventry.” Document instructing him that his ship was being outfitted to be sent to North America, and requiring “utmost despatch in getting her ready for the Sea.”
Following the end of the French and Indian War the British sent ships and troops to deal with the problems of the Indians insurrections, primarily Indians of New France who did not agree with the surrender. Although Sir William Johnson attempted to allay the problems, in the spring of 1763 the Indians under the central direction of Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa, attacked British posts from Niagara and Fort Pitt to Mackinac and St. Joseph as well as settlements, many of the forts and settlements falling to the Indians in “Pontiac's Rebellion or War.”
Captain Archibald Kennedy, later eleventh Earl of Cassillis was the son and heir of Archibald Kennedy, the British colonial official in New York who was expecially noted for having bought Bedlow's Island in New York Harbor for one hundred pounds in 1746 and sold it to New York for a thousand pounds twelve years later. The father wrote several pamphlets relating to the British interests in America and lived in America from 1710 on. He was infirm and ill the time of this document and died the 14th of June 1763.
James Harris (1709-1780) is best known as the author of “Hermes”.
