Cambridge August 8, 1755

Spencer Phips Esqr. Lieutenant Governour and Commander in Chief in and over his Majestys Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. To Robert Treat Paine Gentn. Greeting. Reposing especial Trust and Confidence in your Loyalty Piety and Learning (I do by these Presents) Constitute and appoint you the said Robert Treat Pain to be Chaplain1 of a Regiment of Foot under the Command of Colo. Samuel Willard being the Forces now raising for Reinforcing the Troops against Crown Point of which Major General Johnson2 is Commander in Chief.

You are therefore carefully and diligently to do and perform the Duty of a Chaplain to the said Regiment by your Publick Prayers and Preaching private Exhortations visiting the Sick and in all things as becometh you and you are to follow such Orders and Instructions as you shall from time to time receive from the Commander in Chief for the Time Being or from the Commander in Chief of the said Expedition or other your Superiour Officers for which this is your Warrant.

Given under my hand and Seal at Cambridge the eighth day of August 1755 in the twenty ninth Year of his Majestys Reign.

By his Honours Command THOS. CLARKE Dpty Secry.

S PHIPS

MS ; endorsed: "Chaplain's Commission Augt. 8th. 1755 for Crown Point."

1.

According to his diary, RTP went to Boston and sought a commission in the army on April 3 "but found all full." However, in August Samuel Willard returned to Lancaster with his colonel's commission, and RTP recorded in his diary on Aug. 11, 1755, that he "had thought of going to Crown Point, in Coll. Willard's Regiment as Chaplain." On Aug. 18, 1755 he "accepted of the offer to go to Crown Point with Coll. Willard in the Capacity of his Chaplain."

2.

Sir William Johnson (1715–1774) of New York, trader and for many years superintendent of Indian affairs, was put in command of the expedition against Crown Point at a council of various colonial governors held at Alexandria, Va., in April 1755. This council, called by Gen. Edward Braddock (1695–1755), the new commander-in-chief of the British forces, also agreed on expeditions against Fort Duquesne and Niagara. The colonies participating in the expedition against Crown Point commissioned Johnson major-general (DAB, DNB).