1p., 4to (356 x 229 mm), docketed on verso, fading to text, central scorch mark, minor repaired splits along folds.

MASSACHUSETTS CALLS ON VOLUNTEERS TO JOIN GENERAL JOHN SULLIVAN'S ATTACK ON RHODE ISLAND.

In part: "General Sullivan has Signified to this Board his design of making a Sudden attack upon Rhode Island by General Washington's Express Command and has called upon this State to aid his Design with Three thousand of her Militia and to Communicate his request To the General Independent Companies, and Gentleman Volunteers with his State to cooperate with the French Fleet in the reduction of that Island. In Compliance with such earnest request of the General and upon the idea of the Glory of such a Conquest, we invite you and the Worthy Gentlemen under your Command to March immediately to Providence to share largely in the banishing for ever from the New England States and from America the remnant of the British Army too long suffered to deal in Blood and [Force] in the Sovereign and independent states..."

On 22 July 1778 the French fleet under the command of Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, Count of Estaing sailed from just outside of New York harbor bound for Newport, Rhode Island. For months General John Sullivan had been making logistical preparations for an attack on British forces in Newport, and the entry of the French into the war gave a glimmer of hope that the standoff between American and British forces in Rhode Island might soon come to an end.

On 9 August, with British and French forces preparing to do battle off the Rhode Island coast, a violent storm developed which scattered both fleets and caused serious damage to the French flagship. Fearing that the opportunity to take the British forces by surprise had been lost, Estaing departed for Boston to make repairs to his ship, leaving General Sullivan to fight the British alone. With the garrison at Newport regrouped Sullivan was forced to retreat. The French retreat coupled with the inconclusive results of the Battle of Rhode Island led to a mass exodus of American soldiers from the Continental Army. The situation prompted the Marquis de Lafayette, who had greeted Estaing upon his arrival in Boston, to remark, "I am more upon a warlike footing in the American lines than when I came near the British lines at Newport." Nonetheless, relations between American and French forces were soon smoothed over, and the British would abandon Rhode Island entirely in 1779.