Confederation Congress Member Concerned For Secret Information For Early America

Description

7 1/4 x 7 1/2, single page, New York, Jan’y 23, 1785, ALS, written by PIERSE LONG with his free frank as a member of the Confederation Congress. Americans adopted the Articles of Confederation, which established a very weak national government that consisted of a one-house legislature as the Confederation Congress.  This Congress had the power to declare war, sign treaties and settle disputes between states.  The letter was likely written to JOHN LANGDON, who represented New Hampshire at the Constitutional Convention and helped debate, draft and sign the U.S. Constitution. Langdon’s name has been cut off from the address leaf.
Long writes, “The want of matter has prevented my writing until now and at this time there’s nothing that I am at liberty to communicate...have received dispatches from our minister at foreign courts which I expect will be forwarded to the president...till then, you must be patient for their contents. The many paragraphs extracted from private letters & published in newspapers which we daily see has laid us under the injunction of secrecy...not that I am conscious what laws [received?] to be very alarming...”  [The president is likely a reference to John Hancock, who was appointed the fifth President of the U.S. in Congress from 1785-1786.]
LONG (1739-1789) was an American merchant from Portsmouth, NH, who served as colonel in the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War and served as a New Hampshire delegate to the Confederation Congress in 1785 and 1786.  As the Revolution neared, Long became a member of Portsmouth’s Committee of Safety. In 1774, he participated in the raid that removed gunpowder from Fort William and Mary. The following year, the town sent him to the revolutionary Provincial Congress held at Exeter.  During the Saratoga Campaign of 1777, he led the bulk of his regiment in the withdrawal from Fort Ticonderoga. They successfully delayed the British at the Battle of Fort Ann on July 8. Long and a few of his men fought as volunteers in the Battle of Saratoga as part of Enoch Poor’s brigade. In 1784, New Hampshire named him as a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he was active in developing proposals for dealing with western lands. Many of his proposals became part of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. He was a member of the State’s convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1788.
LANGDON was first elected president [governor] of New Hampshire in 1785, winning reelection in 1788, 1805 and 1810. Between his gubernatorial terms, he served as delegate to the 1787 Federal Constitutional Convention as well as serving in the Continental Congress.
Letter has light soiling, toning. A few old tape repairs in the left margin. One hole affecting the word “paragraphs.” Docketing on verso as well as Long’s free frank.  A wonderful example of workings of the American government prior to the establishment of the Constitution.  Highly unusual to find such a communication regarding an early and weak American government.
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