Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
Forc'd to lay alone these cold Nights, I dont pity you in yr. cold chamber for my Compassion is swallow'd up in astonishment how you live. The old Horse I believe don't find very good picking. You are sensible the season commands you to come into new measure both for man, or rather Woman & Beast. Let us hear how you are what you do & moreover what you intend to do. Greenleaf is certainly going for York next week & is desireous that you should spend the winter with him. If you do twill save horse keeping & serve him on that acct. too. Consult the matter. That cold Room wont do. Youll be as stiff all over as119my fingers now are before the long cold Winter is gone. Memorandum I shall want the Horse, bless me 'tis not till the 2d tuesday of December. I thought it was sooner; I lent Wriford my Baggs. Take care of them for all my success in Courting depends on them. I want to see you but as I am not sensible I shall get anything by it so I quell the desire. This Morning died after a short Illness, Charles Apthorp Esqr.1 very suddenly. The first thought I had on hearing the news, was what a vain thing it was to plague my self to get money for added to the trouble of getting it I might have the Regret of leaving it before I had a competent Enjoyment of it; 'tis a loss to the community beside a Meloncholly Providence. I hear he has left something for you. (They say tis, not one of his sons, but you may guess.) I shall charge so much a yard for this Letter. Let me hear from you as soon as may be. Farewell. Yrs. &c.
Charles Apthorp (1698–1758) came from England to Boston as a young man, married Grizzell Eastwicke in 1726, and became one of the wealthiest Boston merchants of his day. Apthorp was a great benefactor of Kings Chapel (Henry Wilder Foote, Annals of King's Chapel from the Puritan Age of New England to the Present Day, 2 vols. [Boston, 1896], 2:142–147).