October 11, 1783 .

Whereas it appears to this Court, by the report of a committee of both Houses, appointed to adjust and settle accounts between Capt. Benjamin Gould, 1 of Lancaster, and the men under his command, that there is a balance due to this Commonwealth, from the said Capt. Gould, of four hundred eighty-one pounds four shillings and one penny:

Resolved, That the Attorney General be, and he hereby is directed and required, to commence a process against the said Capt. Benjamin Gould, of Lancaster, in the county of Worcester, for the recovery of the aforesaid sum of four hundred eighty-one pounds four shillings and one penny, and to persue the said prosecution to final judgment and execution, provided the 273 aforesaid Capt. Gould does not pay the said sum into the public treasury, on or before the first day of November next.

And it is further Resolved, That the Secretary be, and he hereby is directed, to furnish the Attorney General with attested copies of this resolution, and all such papers in his office as may be necessary to afford evidence in the course of the said process.

Printed as Chapter 46 [Sept. 1783] in Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [1782–1783] (Boston, 1890), 761–762.

1.

Benjamin Gould (1751–1841) was a native of Topsfield, Mass., for which town his father was serving in the Provincial Congress at Watertown when he died suddenly in 1778. Benjamin served in several different companies during the Revolution and took command of Capt. Samuel Flint’s division at Stillwater in 1777 when Flint was killed. After his marriage in 1781, Gould lived at Lancaster until 1805, then returned to Topsfield and later moved to Newburyport, where he died (Benjamin Apthorp Gould, The Family of Zaccheus Gould of Topsfield [Lynn, Mass., 1895], 64–65, 91).