Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
I received yours of the 19th. Inst.1 and was suprised when I imagined you said that you repeatedly desired and I engaged you the Refusal of the House, if any one offer'd to buy it, but upon a second reading of your Letter, I find you only say, you think so. Now, Sir, I well remember your making that Proposal, and I as well remember my rejecting it. Had I passed my Word and remeber'd it, I should not have forfieted it for the whole Value of the Estate—and to suppose I should have put my self under such a disadvantage, would be to suppose me a very weak Person, or not attending to what I was about—not withstanding which it is not impossible (thô I do not remember it if it was so) that you might some Time or other in a loose Manner desire that if any one offer'd for the house that I would let you know it, and I might say yes, but this is certain that I never enter'd into such an Engagement with you so as to foreclose my self from selling if an Opportunity presented; for if I had I should have remember'd if, which I do not. You say I told you that £1600 was the lowest Price, and now I have sold it for £1500, very like I told you so, and I believe I have told some others before that £2000 was the lowest; so I tho't and so I intended at those Times, but I found I could not get it—if you had offer'd £1500 'tis more than probable you would have had it, but I never could get you to offer any certain Sum, and the best Opinion I could form (from your general Conversation upon the Subject) was, that you had no Tho'ts of giving any thing like it. You say you rely upon it that the matter is not gone so farr, but that you may still be consider'd as a Purchaser. I am sorry for your Sake to tell you that you cannot from me, for I no sooner agreed with Liscombe but I enter'd into a Bond with £100 Penalty, sign'd sealed and Witnessed to execute to him a good deed of the Premises, so soon as the442Bounds could be ascertained, so that I can't now do any thing with you but by his Consent. From your Complaint of your Situation being extreemly perplexing, owing to the variety of things you have in the house, which can be put no where else, and being call'd upon in the Winter to turn into the Street from a House sold over your head, a stranger would be apt to imagine that you had in the House a Wife and a Number of Children, at least that you lived in it yourself; but if I am rightly informed, you only keep your office there; that Liscombe, thô he would choose to enter on the whole yet is not desirous of discommoding you, but would rather discommode himself for the Present, and take up with the house exclusive of the Office; but you will not consent, althô you make but little or no use of any other part of the House.
Upon the whole Mr. Paine, I should have been better pleased with selling the House to you than to any one else. That you have it not, is your own Fault. I have now absolutely sold it to Mr. Liscombe. When you come coolly to reflect I would hope you'l accomodate Matters. If you do not I am bound to give Liscombe all the Aid I can to obtain a peacable Possession; in doing which you must not blame Yr. hum. Serv.,
Not located.
RTP probably first occupied this house in 1767, when he noted in his diary (Nov. 24): "I moved my Books to my Office." On Jan. 3, 1769, he further noted in his diary: "I moved my office into the Front Room of the House" and on Feb. 15: "Bargained wth. Nehemh. Liscumbe for Mr. Thos. Greys house."
On Mar. 24, 1769, Thomas Gray of Boston, merchant, sold to RTP for £200 "a Dwelling House and Lott of Land thereto Adjoining scituate in the Town of Taunton," partly bounded by Taunton Green and the training field (RTP Papers; recorded in Bristol Co. Deeds 52:254). See also Eunice Paine to RTP, Apr. 8, 1769.