Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
Pray be kind enough to deliver the inclosed to a Catch-pole,—and when you can give me an Oportunity to cancel the Obligation, please to command truly. Your hearty Friend
How is the Harvest in your part of the Vineyard? Which Side do you take in the political Controversys? What think you of coin?2What, of Writs of Assistance?3What of His Honr. the L—G—r?4 What, of Otis? What, of Thacher? What, of Cooke the Cobler?5 What think you of Bedlam for political madmen? What think you of Patriotism? What think you218of disappointed Ambition? What think you of the Fable of the Bees?6 What,—. Send me your Thoughts on these Questions, and I'll send you 50 more.
Jonathan Sewall (1729–1796), son of Jonathan and Mary (Payne) Sewall of Boston, a friend of John Adams and RTP, rose quickly in Massachusetts legal circles to hold the post of attorney general in Nov. 1767. A loyalist, Sewall sailed in Aug. 1775 for England where he remained until the summer of 1787 when he took ship for St. John, New Brunswick. Except for a few years in Quebec, Sewall lived in St. John until his death (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 12:306–325).
Probably a reference to Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson's proposal that silver be devalued in order to check its drain from the Province.
When William Pitt (1708–1778), the British secretary of state, ordered in 1760 that the Sugar Act of 1733 be enforced, the royal customs collectors applied to the Superior Court of the province for writs of assistance to enable them to search for evidence of violations. James Otis (1725–1783) opposed the issuance of these writs. He and Oxenbridge Thacher (1719–1765) argued the case for the Boston merchants before the Superior Court in Feb. and Aug. 1761. It applied to England for instructions which when received supported the legality of the writs.
Thomas Hutchinson.
Sir Edward Coke (1662–1634), judge and law writer, whose chief works are his Reports and his Institutes (DNB). Although himself the great arbiter of English common law, Coke's Institutes were seen as "the doctrinal source of the customs writ of assistance" (M. H. Smith, The Writs of Assistance Case [Berkeley, 1978], p. 18).
Bernard de Mandeville (1670–1733), The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits (London, 1714), "designed to illustrate the essential vileness of human nature" (Harvey, Oxford Companion to English Literature, p. 490).