Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
The receipt of your Excellency’s Commission, appointing me to the high and important Office of a Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of this Commonwealth, obliges me to take this Opportunity of expressing my most respectful sence of the great honour conferred upon me thereby.
When I had the honour of an appointment to the same Bench by the Government and People of this State, when they renewed that Court, I found myself obliged to decline the Office, as incompatible with my Engagements in the Political line, on which Line I considered the Salvation of my Country to depend: the Smiles of Providence on our Exertions have removed that Objection & with the utmost pleasure should I now contribute my small assistance in the Judiciary Line, but that Necessity which cannot be suppressed obliges me to say, that the Support of that Office is not equal to my unavoidable Expences: it hath been my Fortune to have attended so intirely to the Concerns of the Revolution from its beginning, as to have lost the Prospects of the business I was in when it began, and to have neglected my private Interest very detrimentally; mean while my Family has encreased to the number of seven children from fourteen years old & downwards to an Infant; the unavoidable expences of Supporting which to a Person in a Rank of Life no higher than that in which I have always been, must needs be great.
The Government have undoubtedly a Right to determine what the Support of that office shall be; but should I accept it on a Salary that will not Support me, I must be driven to the disagreable Alternative, either of 299 expending on the Little Property I have, already reduced and deranged thro’ inattention, and thereby reducing my Family, in Case of my Death, to a scituation they dont deserve, or else of retranching my Expences below Dignity, Comfort & reasonable advantage of Education: Any Person who hath such a Family to support, in a moderate State of Life & Education, if he keeps a faithfull account of his Expences either in Town or Country, at the End of the Year will be Convinced that they amount to a sum much above three hundred Pounds; at least one sixth part of this Sum must be expended in travelling expences, in the duties of the Office, and the high demands which are made upon Persons in exalted Offices, will exceedingly reduce the remainder.
I am willing to be spent in my Country’s Service, when that service requires it; if there is a principle that hath absorbed my whole attention, it is to render substantial service to that Revolution I have had such a hand in bringing about; but the Idea of want and depressed circumstances to my Family, when the Interest of the Commonwealth would not be benefitted by it, would render me very uncomfortable in the Execution of that office: whether I shall be better in any other Station is a matter I must risque; but if it be my Fortune to be depressed to a scituation of less Profit and Eminence than that in which I was, when at the hazard of every thing I espoused the Cause of my Country & followed her fortune; I must endeavour to bear in a humble Scituation such Poverty as the fruit of my Patriotism, which in that exalted Office would be more grevious: should I accept the Commission your Excellency now offers me, I should consider it incumbent on me to apply wholly to the duties of the Office, & by Study & application to render the most important Service in my power to the Commonwealth in the same; but with such a support it would embarrass my Attention to accomodate the innumerable Streams of unavoidable Expence to the little Fountain that must supply them.
Your Excellency will excuse these remarks when you consider the Grounds of them, and accept the return of the Commission with Ideas of my most respectfull Gratitude for the honor done me by the offer of it, and believe me to be with the greatest personal & official respect