Boston July 4th. 1757 Dear Eunice,

I am returned,1 & now I guess you want to know every thing. In the first place I like the Country & Road as far as Portsmouth hugely, but on the other side the river to York tis bad enough, tho' by the way such a sort of badness as that is never better nor worse. I mean tis all Rock, the Town is not unpleasant, I mean the Natural Prospect, the Air is very fine, I mean the Natural or Elementary Air in distinction from the Moral Air which is, it is, it is, in short Egyptian darkness, such perpetual foggs & gloom as has a manifest effect on the behaviour of the Inhabitants to their own very great Consolation (if despair be a Comfort) & the utter Condemnation of all that are not immediately affected as they are. Yet it is said of them that when they are in Natural darkness or Secrecy this Moral Gloom looses its effect, & that they then in every Respect behave like other Children of darkness. For my part I found my self suddenly affected the consequence of wch. is, I have worn out my Sundays face by using it every day and as for a Sunday face I could make nothing in the shape of one, but it being a rainy day I did not loose so much credit. I contracted but little acquaintance by reason of a constant attendance on the Court, & a natural Unsociability of the People; I could42not find there was one family would admit me to board except Tavern keepers, & no house to be let & the living exceeding dear. There is a Young Lawyer well introduced to Portsmouth,2 or I would go there. Upon the whole I don't like York, & further I find that the chief Business of that county comes from lower down, so that Falmouth is the place if any where there, a place vastly preferable to York, & I am strongly invited to go there, & advised. As yet I am undetermined & if determined not ready to go, so it must rest a while. Miss Hannah Whipple3 sends her Complements to you & sundry others. Our Court is now sitting, but will come & see you as soon as I can. Tell all how do ye. I saw Colo. Blanchard who gave me a hearty scold for not bringing you. Yr. loving Brother,

R .T. P.

RC ; addressed: "To Miss Eunice Paine at Weymouth"; endorsed.

1.

According to his diary, RTP set out to attend the Superior Court session at York, Maine, on June 20, returning to Boston on July 2.

2.

Probably Samuel Livermore (1732–1803), a 1752 graduate of Nassau Hall (now Princeton University), who was admitted into the Middlesex bar in 1756 and within a year settled as a lawyer in Portsmouth, N.H. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and was appointed chief justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire in 1782, serving in that position until 1790 (Charles H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire [Boston, 1894], 34–38).

3.

Hannah Whipple (1735–1806), daughter of Capt. William and Mary (Cutts) Whipple of Kittery, who married Dr. Joshua Brackett (1733–1802), of Portsmouth, N.H., on Mar. 4, 1760 (NEHGR, 10[1856]: 48; Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 13:197–201).