Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
I suppose before this Time you have seen & read with a proper Mixture of Indignation & Contempt, the low, pitiful, Grubstreet, Billinsgate, rascally, dastardly, Indian-like, c-rs-d, d-'d impudent attack upon our right, noble selves. Be he
Captain or Doctor, I set him down for a mean cowardly Scoundrel—a base born Son of Darkness—a Savage Sculking D—l.1
And what vex's me to the Guts, more than this unknown Whelp's Impudence, is the egregious Stupidity of some of my Countrymen, who are so303blinded by the Father of this notable Lyar, the God of this World, as really to to think it a smart performance. I have no patience to hear the dirtyest of all the dirty Scrouls that ever the dirtyest Jokes produced, trumpeted up as the Mirror of Wit. All this Novanglian Geniuses have in their Turns been guess'd at as the Author of a scurrilous piece, for which, had any porter on the Docks scribled it, he ought to have been strip'd of his Badge, & kick'd into the Kennel.
I have sent a few Lines to the press calling on him for his Name, which is all the notice I think proper to take of it, unless I can find him out; but if I do, I dont know but I shall make a Journey to Taunton purely to join with you in lampooning the Dog. I am in a hurry, or should write many Things to you. Pray let me have a Line from you that I may know what your Feelings are upon this Occasion. If you find out the Author let me know him—& if I am so lucky as to ken him, you may depend on a Line post haste from Your Friend & Bror.
The letters by "Philanthropos," which attacked William Greenleaf and his defenders, was dated at Cambridge May 25, 1764, and appeared in the Boston Gazette of May 28, June 18, and July 16, 1764. Sewall submitted his challenge to reveal the identity of "Philanthropos" on June 11, signing as "S.P."
Sewall himself used the pseudonym "Philanthrop" for a series of articles defending Governor Bernard, published in the Boston Evening Post between Dec. 1, 1766, and Mar. 2, 1767 (Adams, Diary, 1:329).