Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
As you promised me1 a Letter to the Hone. Continentall Congress, or to your Friend in Congress, Stating the Case, or at Least your Opinion, of the Tryall, & Condemnation, of Our Sloop Fancy; Col. Cary leaves Medford Teusday Next, in Order to prosecute the Apeal, not having Oportunity to inform you in Season, of the Time of his departure, must beg the favour, to send your Letter to Boston, inclosed to Mr. Edward Jones, Merchant of that Place, who will forward it to Col. Cary at Philidelphia; Your Compliance with my Request, as Speedy as is Convenient, will much Oblidge
Why Should our joys transform to Pain why gentle hymens silken chain a chain of Iron prove a plague of Iron prove a plage of Iron prove,2 this is better than it was before but not so good as it has been. I think this is much the best
Seal him upon wax my own pen made of brass my heart leaps for Joy & all my Spirits revive at the joyful news of The defeat of Burgoyns Army by Gates & Arnold at the heights of Bemis.3
Jonathan Payson of Portsmouth, N.H., and Edward Jones of Boston were also co-owners of the brig Prudence, for which see Naval Documents of the American Revolution, 12:377.
This is a partial quote from “The Indian Philosopher” in Isaac Watts’s Horæ Lyricæ; Poems, Chiefly of the Lyric Kind with an interjection by RTP. According to his library catalogue, RTP owned a copy of Watts’s “Lyrick Poems.”
The Battle of Bemis Heights on Oct. 7 was an immediate precursor to the decisive Battle of Saratoga.