GEORGE III APPOINTS A COMMISSIONED OFFICER, ROYAL SIGN-MANUAL ON A MILITARY COMMISSION, COUNTERSIGNED BY THE DUKE OF GRAFTON
 

George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland (1738–1820). Document signed (“George R.”) with large papered wafer seal; countersigned “Grafton.” White vellum, one page in English, folio (old horizontal and vertical folds), St. James’s, 16 December 1765. Folio measures 13 7/8 x 9 3/4 in.

A royal army commission appointing Daniel Peterson, gentleman, to rank as an officer: “to be Ensign,” in a regiment of Foot. The text follows the standard form, authorizing Peterson “carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of [his] commission…, to obey your superior officers according to the rules and discipline of war.” At the lower right appears the countersignature of Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735–1811), then Secretary of State and later Prime Minister (1768–70). The upper left bears the bold royal sign-manual “George R.” and an intact great papered wafer seal with the royal arms.

Dated in the year of the Stamp Act crisis and at the outset of Grafton’s tenure in the Rockingham ministry, this is a fine, display-worthy example of a Georgian military commission bearing both the autograph signature of George III and the countersignature of one of the era’s most prominent statesmen. Such complete commissions, with strong royal sign-manual and large wafer seal, are increasingly scarce and highly desirable to collectors of British military and political history.