Henry Laurens autograph letter signed ("Henry Laurens President of Congress"). One page, 8" x 13", Yorktown, [Virginia]; March 7, 1778. With integral address sheet. Docketed. Henry Laurens, President of Congress, sends letter with an act of Congress, to the President of Pennsylvania. Letter from Laurens to Thomas Wharton Jr. (1735-1778), President of Pennsylvania, enclosing an act of Congress recommending April 22, 1778 as a day of fasting. The letter reads, in full: The 1st Inst. I addressed your Excellency by the hand of Messenger Mckonky. Your Excellency will be please to receive under this Cover an Act of Congress of the present date recommending to hold on Wednesday the 22d. April a General Fast throughout these States. I have the honour to be With great Regard, Sir Your Excellency's Obedient humble Servant." Signed, "Henry Laurens / President / of Congress". On March 7, 1778, Congress passed legislation establishing April 22 as a day of fasting to ask God's forgiveness and aid in the war against Great Britain. Congress ordered the act so that Americans might "implore the mercy and forgiveness of God; and beseech him that vice, prophaneness, extortion, and every evil, may be done away; and that we may be a reformed and happy people; that they may unite in humble and earnest supplication, that it may please Almighty God, to guard and defend us against our enemies, and give vigour and success to our military operations by sea and land; that it may please him to bless the civil rulers and people, strengthen and perpetuate our union, and, in his own good time, establish us in the peaceable enjoyment of our rights and liberties; that it may please him to bless our schools and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of true piety, virtue and useful knowledge; that it may please him to cause the earth to yield its increase, and to crown the year with his goodness"our schools and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of true piety, virtue and useful knowledge; that it may please him to cause the earth to yield its increase, and to crown the year with his goodness" In his General Orders of April 12, 1778, General George Washington directed that the Continental Army observe the day of Fast and that "no work be done thereon & that the Chaplains prepare discourses suitable to the Occasion—The Funeral Honors at the Interment of officers are for the future to be confined to a solemn Procession of officers and soldiers in number suitable to the rank of the deceased with Revers'd Arms; Firing on those occasions in Camp is to be abolished." Also included with the letter is a steel engraving of Laurens by John, Fry & Co., circa 1870. Henry Laurens (1724-1792) succeeded John Hancock as the fifth president of the Continental Congress, serving from November 1, 1777 to December 9, 1778. In fall 1779, he was appointed U.S. minister to the Netherlands and traveled to Amsterdam to enlist their support in the war. After successfully negotiating an American-Dutch treaty, his ship was intercepted by the British on its return from Europe. The papers Laurens was carrying back to America were thrown overboard but retrieved by the British, which resulted in British attacks upon Dutch shipping vessels and prompted the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. Laurens was charged with treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London for nearly two years. He was eventually released on December 31, 1781 in exchange for British General Lord Cornwallis. Thomas Wharton Jr. (1735-1778) was a politician and merchant from Pennsylvania, who served as the first president of Pennsylvania from 1777 to 1778. Reference: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 14, 1 March 1778 – 30 April 1778, ed. David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2004, pages 133–134 and 483-484. Condition: Appears to have originally been a bifolium, which has since been backed onto a mounting sheet of equal size on both sides. Light scattered rubbing and soiling. HID03101062020 © 2022 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved

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