Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
What is it to stand Tryal to the Indictments or Presentments of Grand Juries? Nothing—in comparison to the grand Decision, for which you are now awaiting. What did the Monday Morning Qualm proceed from?1Was it from Absence or Suspence? Why was there that retrograde Motion to Taunton? Was it, because you were not without the Sphere of female Attraction? Are you at length become a sincere Votary at the Altar of Venus, continually offering up the Oblations of a bleeding Heart? Are you at length fallen a Victim to the irresistible Power of Beauty, and drawn in Triumph by the captivating Chains of female Charms? Has Venus at last attack'd & reduc'd your fortress of Stoicism & brought you to be an humble Admirer, & Adorer at her Shrine?
Thus are the mighty fallen. Omnia Vincit Amor, et TU, quoque cedas Amori.2
If Sir, a priority of Choice does not give one the best Right, then the Offer, which sometime Since you made, by which to determine a Matter287of some Consequence, is now accepted by him, who has the Unhappiness to interfere with You in some particular Matters; but in all others begs leave to Subscribe himself Yrs. to serve at all Times,
RTP records in his diary that he was in Boston on Jan. 18 but found the General Court removed to Cambridge because of the smallpox in Boston. RTP went to Cambridge on the 19th remaining there until the 26th when he went to Boston. He returned to Taunton on Jan. 30. RTP did witness the burning of the Harvard Library in the early morning of Jan. 25, 1764.
Virgil: "Love conquers all things"; Oliver adds to the quotation: "et TU, quoque cedas Amori" and you, also yield to love.
Daniel Oliver (1738–1768), son of Chief Justice Peter and Mary (Clarke) Oliver, graduated from Harvard in 1758 and briefly represented Middleborough in the provincial legislature. He died on his way to the Canary Islands for reasons of health on Apr. 22, 1768 (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 14:302–304).