Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3
I cannot express to you the Surprize & uneasiness I recd. on hearing yr. Congress Express respecting the Want of Gun Powder; it always was a matter that lay heavy on my Mind but the observation I made of yr. Attention to it & yr. Alertness & perseverance in every thing you undertake, & your repeatedly expressing it as your Opinion that we had quite probably enough for this Summers Campaign, made me quite easy. I rely upon it, that measures are taken in your parts of the Continent to Supply this defect. The design of yr. Express will be zeallously attended to I think. I have seen one of the Powder Mills here where they make excellent Powder2 but have work’d up all the Nitre; one of our Members is Concerned in a Powder Mill at N. York & has a man at Work making Nitre. I have taken pains to enquire into the method. Dr. Franklin3 has seen Salt Petre Works at Hannover4 & Paris; & it strikes me to be as unnecessary After a certain time to send abroad for Gun Powder as for provisions. People will make use of common understanding & Industry; but for the present we must import from abroad.
Major Foster told me at Hartford he suspected he had some Land that would yeild Nitre, pray converse with him about it. Dr. Franklin’s account is much the same as is mentioned in one of the first of American Magazines. The Sweepings of the Streets & Rubbish of old Buildings are made into Mortar & built into Walls exposed to the Air & once in about two months scraped, & lixiviated & evaporated. When I can describe the method more minutely I will write you; mean while give me leave to Condole with you the Loss of Col. Lee.5 Pray remember me to Col. Orne 57& all other our Worthy Freinds. Pray take Care of yr. important health, that you may be able to stand stiff as Pillars in our new Government.
I must now Subscribe with great Respect & affection yr. hble. Servt.
Elbridge Gerry (1744–1814), a 1762 Harvard graduate from Marblehead, was elected to the General Court in 1772 and to the Provincial Congress in October 1775. He replaced Thomas Cushing as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776, serving until 1780 and again 1783–1785. Gerry later served in the First and Second Congresses (1789–1793), as governor of Massachusetts (1810–1811) and as vice president of the United States from 1813 until his death (see George A. Billias, Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Statesman [New York, 1976]). RTP and Gerry corresponded with some regularity through mid 1778.
See Charles C. Smith, “The Manufacture of Gunpowder in America,”
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
, 1st ser., 14:248–256.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), senior statesman of the American cause and active in educational, scientific, public service, and political spheres, had served as the agent for Pennsylvania in London from 1757 to 1762 and again 1764 to 1775. On May 6, 1775, the day after his return to Philadelphia, Franklin was elected to the Continental Congress, where he served until his appointment as minister to France in 1776 (
DAB
). RTP and Franklin had known each other since at least 1751 (see vol. 1, p. 145). RTP noted in his diary for June 7, 1775: “din’d Dr. Franklins this Evning,” and Franklin visited Sally Cobb Paine at the family home in Taunton later in the year (see below, Sally Cobb Paine to RTP, Nov. 10, 1775).
Joseph Palmer published a 1766 “Method of Making Salt Petre at Hanover” in the Boston Gazette, July 24, 1775.
Col. Jeremiah Lee (1721–1775) of Marblehead, Mass., was called “one of the most eminent merchants on this Continent” at the time of his death. Lee had been elected to the Continental Congress in 1774 but declined, although he did serve on the Committee of Safety and was a prominent Whig voice in Massachusetts (Essex Institute Historical Collections 52[1916]:329–339).