Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
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).
Some perticular affairs require my going to Halifax. I should have gone much sooner but have been hindred by Out Winds &c. so that it is uncertain whether I shall return by Taunton June Court.2 If I should not, I pray you to favour me so much as to permit the three Actions against the Widow Eldridge be continued.3
As my absense is not wilful but necessary and I have no time to
James Otis (1702–1778), a lawyer from Barnstable, was first elected to the House of Representa-136tives in 1745 and held the seat almost continuously until 1769. In 1760, while speaker of the House, Otis anticipated appointment as chief justice upon the death of Stephen Sewall but was thwarted by the appointment of Thomas Hutchinson to that post. This slight has often been interpreted as the origin of the opposition of his son James (1725–1783) to the standing government (See John W. Waters, The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts [Chapel Hill, 1968]).
RTP left Boston on May 17 but because of the weather did not reach Halifax until the 23d. His diary records only a few incidental occurences and does not discuss the business of Thomas Paine's estate, which was the purpose of the trip. He left Halifax on June 14 and returned to Boston on the 19th.
On these various cases against Deliverance Eldredge, see RTP to Deliverance Eldredge, Taunton, March 21, 1763.