Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
I Recd. yours by Capt. Richardson & the Note Inclosed1 & herewith Send Full & for the loan of the Book shall expect (after you have Settled the Affair with de la Vertu2 for till then Mechanism aside) a drill Plow in miniature or Such Directions that Aaron may be able to build one. You gave me a hint in your Letter of an Intercourse cum fratre3 de la Vertu. You had better Said nothing or Said more for it was just enough to Sett me alonging to hear the whole. For I fear O. Bob. O. de la Vertu me Occidisti4 will be the Language of your Soul if Success attends not on thy long & deep laid Schemes. Valeo de Scabie. Quare Gaudeo & valde gavisus Sum5. I am yr. Friend & hble. Servt.
N.B. Send me Rasilas6 if you have it at home by my Brother the Bearer therof.
I have got a Power of Attorney from Mr. Haskell but it is only a common one which I believe will do if not I will get another & send it in Short time.
Not located.
An unidentified woman with whom RTP corresponded. Judging from the comment in this letter, she may have been the E. Clark, probably of Boston, who appears twice in RTP's diary, both times in coded entries: July 31, 1760: "About this time contracted an acquaintance with E. Clark";203Dec. 29, 1760: "This night owned my mind to E. Clark." She does not appear again in either the diary or correspondence.
There are three items, all undated, addressed to I'Vertue in the Paine Papers, none of them published in this edition. One is a undeciphered coded letter, one is titled "To l'Vertue on human Uncertainty," and the other is "To I'Vertue on the Death of her sister."
With the brother of.
You have slain me.
I am well from the scabies. Wherefore I rejoice and have rejoiced very much.
Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (London, 1759).