Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3
Permit me1 to trespass so far upon Your Time & Attention to the important Business of the United States, as to Sollicit Your Interest on my Behalf for some Employment in their Service, within this State.
I ask not for great things. My only wish is to obtain some little additional Support for my Family, and that you may be induced to favor me in this respect, I beg the liberty to mention; That about ten days after the Battle at Lexington, being determined not to Submit to the Arbitrary & Tyrannical Impositions of the British Administration, I Voluntarily made a Sacrifice of all my Business & means of Support, and with my Family left Boston, and from that time, till the disgraceful flight of the British Troops, remained in the Country; where I had not the means of earning a Shilling; and the little Business I am now employed in, does not equal a fourth part of the Expence of my Family, altho I live in the most frugal manner; and I am Reduced from a State which made me easy in Life, to a Prospect of Distress.
Thus Sir, I have laid before You my Situation and Circumstances in as few lines as possible, & would Beg Your favorable attention to the same. Should I be so happy as to obtain Your kind interposition on my Behalf, it will always be Remembered with the utmost Gratitude & Respect by Sir, Your most Olibged and Obedient Servant.
Ezekiel Price (1728–1802) was confidential secretary to several of the Massachusetts provincial governors. Shortly after independence was declared, Price became clerk of the courts of common pleas for Suffolk County. He was also very active in Boston politics and the longtime chair of the town’s selectmen (Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1st ser., 8:85). His diary, kept during the siege of Boston, appears in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 7(1863–1864):185–262.