Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
There shall be no Difficulty about your Appearance to the Action Brimmer vs. Sprout1 on Friday, the Court I suppose will do Business next week when Mr. Brimmer would wish to have the Cause tried; the Case was thus Mr. Brimmer bought divers Articles of Judge Olivers at Vendue among the Rest were these Chairs at £11 the Acct. was footed & paid the goods delivered & at Bs Risque when he was about to transport them to Plymouth Sprout2 discovered an Error in the Calculation of £8:10/ which Mr. Watson who recd. the Goods & was in Doubt whether it was real or not offered to become accountable for & that Mr. Brimmer should pay but Sprout with some Insinuations as to the Credit of them both refused there was an Article in the Invoice of the very Price with the Amount of the Error this Mr. Watson urged Sprout to detain if he would detain anything but he refused & took the Chairs. Brimmer in particular want of the Chairs & at the same Time offended at the Treatment he recd., brings this Action, let the Chairs be deld. at Plymo. where they would at that Time have been carried without any further Expence to him & the Costs paid & Mr. B. wishes for no more & stands ready to account for the Error if there is one—& I will be his Bondsman for the Payment. I write in Haste Representatives Room House just forming. Your Friend & Bror.
Zebedee Sprout v. Martin Brimmer was heard at the Feb. 1779 term of the Superiour Court of Judicature for Suffolk County, and the jury awarded Brimmer damages of £29. The case concerned the sale of furniture from the estate of Judge Peter Oliver (1713–1791), a loyalist who had left Massachusetts in 1776. Martin Brimmer (1742–1804), a Boston merchant, was married to Sarah Watson of Plymouth, a granddaughter of Judge Oliver. RTP represented Brimmer in this case but left only cursory notes concerning it (Superiour Court of Judicature Minute Books, Suffolk County, Feb. 1779. Massachusetts Judicial Archives, Boston, Mass.; NEHGR 12[1858]:338).
Zebedee Sprout (1742–1810) represented Middleborough in the state legislature between 1778 and 1784 and served on the Plymouth County committee on confiscated loyalist estates (Schutz, Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 345).