State of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations : To the freemen of the state aforesaid. Elisha R. Potter, Esq; the first representative of this state in the Fifth Congress of the United States ... declared his resignation ... I do therefore ... require you, at your respective town-meetings ... to elect a suitable person, legally qualified, to sit as the first representative of this state ... Given under my hand, at Providence, this twenty-fourth day of July, A.D. 1797 ...