Samuel Ward. 1725-76, Quaker farmer, politician, Supreme Court Justice, Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island, and a delegate to the Continental Congress, 3pp autograph letter signed "Sam Ward" (vertically along inner fold of last page), datelined Westerly R.I., Feb. 10, 1775 -- after his May 1774 election as one of two delegates from Rhode Island to the Continental Congress and about one year before his untimely death from smallpox while attending the Congress in Philadelphia -- to his sister, Isabel Ward Marchant, in Newport, carried outside the mails, an important letter concerning slavery, in which Ward explains his "Duty to discountenance Slavery" stating "this I did from a Principle which I wish may direct any public Act of my Life a sincere desire to promote the Happiness of human nature and as Liberty is the great Source of that Happiness...", in 1774 the Continental Congress passed a resolution to ban slave importation and prohibit Americans from engaging in the trade, some wear and splitting along folds, minor paper loss at top and bottom edges, still Fine, a rare Revolutionary War period letter from Samuel Ward on the subject of the "Guinea Trade", a great patriot who strongly opposed the Stamp Act and joined the cause for American Independence, had his life not ended abruptly from smallpox in Philadelphia just three months before the Declaration of Independence was signed, he undoubtedly would have been one of the country's Signers

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