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Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4

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To Titus Hosmer

9 February 1778

To Henry Laurens

13 February 1778
To Elbridge Gerry
RTP Gerry, Elbridge
Providence February 13th. 1778 My dear Sr.,

I wrote you very largely from New Haven the other day on the Subject of regulating System &c. From this place I now address you on the Subject of the Comssn. for examining the causes of the failure of the Expedition to Rhodisland; I was so long detained at New Haven on the first business that I did not arrive here till the friday after the monday appointed for our meeting, we went immediately upon business, tho’ with great reluctance with a bare quorum but we thought if we excused our selves one after another, it would thro’ the requisitions of Congress into a faint point of light, & so I undertook this fatiguing business meerly from patriotic principles, & to put a good face on our affairs; otherwise, a large sum would not have tempted me to have been absent from Genl. Court, forming Constitution, regulating money, &c to say nothing of private affairs. We are obliged to adjourn to 4th. Monday in March, when we hope to finish to Satisfaction; you will oblige me if you will inform me how the Expences of this business are to be born, & whether any allowance is to be made to us by Congress for this Service. You will further oblige me by 19 informing me, what returns are made from the other two Conventions appointed for regulating prices, as soon as you are acquainted with them.

My particular regards to Messr. Dana & Lovell.

Hoping yr. welfare I rest yr. Obedt. hble. Servt. R T Paine

P.S. Mr. Agent Tillinghast1 informed us that he was willing to advance to us, & accordingly we draw have drawn on him for such sums as have accrued for Expences exclusive of our own Expences Services instructions.

RC (New York Public Library; in private collection of L. J. Cist, St. Louis, 1876; published in facsimile in The Book of the Signers, ed. William Brotherhead [Philadelphia, 1861]); addressed: “To the honble. Elbridge Gerry Esq. Member of Congress York-Town Pennsylvania per post.”

1.

Daniel Tillinghast was Continental prize agent for Rhode Island, appointed by the Continental Congress, Apr. 23, 1776 (Journals of the Continental Congress, 4:300, 301).