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Lot 65: Cadwallader Colden Signed Document

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Lot   65: Cadwallader Colden Signed Document
<b>Autographs</b><hr><b>Implementing An 'Intolerable Act' !</b>

<b>CADWALLADER COLDEN, The Royal Lieutenant Governor of New York Orders Money to Quarter British Troops in Private Dwellings - A Major Grievance Leading To Revolution!</b>
Document Signed, as Acting Governor, 1 page, 8' by 13', New York, October 8, 1774. With wafer seal intact; an interesting effect of the document having been folded, apparently, before the ink was entirely dry is that the blank bottom half of the sheet faintly mirrors the top; in Very Fine condition....Here 'his MajestyÕs Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief of the Province of New York and the Territories depending thereon in America' orders the Treasurer of New York that 'Pursuant to the Directions of An Act intitled An Act for making a further Provision for two thousand Pounds for furnishing his MajestyÕs Troops Quartered in this Colony with Necessaries for one Year...Pay unto Gerard Bancker...the Sum of One Hundred Pounds towards Furnishing his MajestyÕs Troops Quartered within this Colony.':

Beginning with the Mutiny Act of 1765 -passed to improve discipline in the British Army by, in part, quartering troops in private homes - Americans began to resist housing, or paying money to house, troops in the Colonies. Compliance, they argued, would be tantamount to acknowledging ParliamentÔs right to tax them without their consent. In New York, which served as the headquarters for British troops in America, resistance was particularly fierce to quartering acts - not the least of which is referred to here: the notorious Quartering Act of June 2nd, 1774. This Coercive or, as it was known here, Intolerable Act demanded colonists provide accommodation for British troops, and supply them with fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, cooking utensils, and up to five pints of small beer or cider or half a pint of rum mixed with two pints of water per man - all to be paid for by the colonists themselves. The Intolerable Acts backfired, badly : instead they rallied the Colonies together, produced the first Continental Congress, and led to the Declaration of Independence.