[American Revolution]:

$1,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE PENNSYLVANIA EVENING POST...TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1776.... An issue of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, published June 11, 1776, some three weeks before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, with news of various military preparations, including the launch of the USS Raleigh and the sourcing and manufacture of gunpowder. The entire first page and part of the second prints a letter addressed to James Rankin, the state assemblyman for York County, Pennsylvania. The letter, signed "A Freeman," is a point-by-point refutation of a public letter from Rankin published in the previous issue of the Post. The exchange was part of an ongoing debate concerning the Continental Congress's May 15 resolution urging each of the colonies to form their own independent state governments. At issue was the General Assembly's role in shaping the new government and whether the Assembly was still beholden to king and parliament. Among the news reported in this issue are a handful of stories concerning American military preparations. There is an account of the launch on May 21 of the USS Raleigh, a "Continental frigate of thirty-two guns, built at Portsmouth, under the direction of John Langdon," described as "one of the completest ships ever built in America." Philadelphians could read news out of Watertown, Massachusetts, of the arrival a ship carrying "ten tons of Sulphur, and the remainder of her cargo salt," which "will greatly help in manufacturing the amazing quantity of thirty-four tho

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