Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
I this Day Recd. yours in which you inform me of the fate of my writ v Downe. I dont understand your way of avoiding the Costs by directing the Officer to return the writ Satisfied.
If the writ is return Satisfied wont that nullify the Note? If it wont, I should be glad you would order the officer to return it so but if the Officer wont do that I should be glad you would Agree with Downe so as to prevent his getting Costs. No doubt he will settle easily for he knows if he should put in for Costs the Attorney will have it & if he should settle he will have the money himself. Be so good as to let me know what you do by my Brother Levi & also See whether the Executions Willard v Mansfield & Willard v Dennis are returned and what is done thereon. My Brother Sets out for Boston early tomorrow morning & so I cant Shant have time to fill up a writ, for you may know it is against my Principles to draw writs on Sundays. Let me know when you design for Hallifax for I design to go to Boston the week after May Court & if you go before then I will come go down the week before. I am Yours
I Embrace this Opertunity to let you know that I have Obtained a Judgment upon your Note against Jonathan Nash & Expect Mr. Winslow will make out the Execution & bring it to Probate Court next Monday Come Week & Should be Glad youd Let me know by a Line whether to Send it to You Or Deliver it to an Officer here & I will Conduct accordinly. Johnson Atty. appeard before Justice Winslow & moved for Costs in an Action brought vs one Snell but failed in his Motion, as I Supposed it was Setled.1
The Matter Is Settled with Job Randal as Well as I was able all things Considered he being Inlisted Into his Majestys Service &c.2 I Expect to135See you ere Long as Soon as the Measels are abated in Boston In the Mean time. I Remain Your Friend & Servt.
Please to Give my Regards to all friends
These cases remain unidentified among Plymouth County General Sessions or Common Pleas. Neither Nash nor Johnson appears in RTPs cash received accounts for the year 1759. Both references to Winslow are probably to Edward Winslow (1714–1784), who had been appointed a justice of the peace in 1751. Son of Chief Justice Isaac and Sarah (Wensley) Winslow of Marshfield, he removed to Plymouth and held many offices there including that of Register of Probate for Plymouth. A Loyalist, he and his family after a stay in New York moved to Halifax where he died (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 10:100–109).
Jonathan Snell of Bridgewater defaulted on a case of trespass brought against him by RTP, Joseph and Abigail Paine Greenleaf, and Eunice Paine at the Plymouth Court of Common Pleas, April term, 1759. The trespassed note, dated Nov. 14, 1752, was for £23.16. Snell was ordered to pay damages and costs (David Thomas Konig, ed., Plymouth Court Records, 16 vols. [Wilmington, Del., 1978–1981], 7:409).
RTP noted in his cash book on Aug. 22, 1759: "to Acct. &c. Job Randall's Note," 13s.4d. Job Randall did not survive his military term and was one of four Duxbury men who "died on their return from the fleet & Canada expedition of the yellow fever" (Vital Records of Duxbury, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 [Boston, 1911], p. 406).