Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
I recd. yours1by My Father, & have been very much entertain'd with your Answers to the Observations made on your Character. You Judge right in supposing that I wrote them only for amusement, & as you made use of them as a Subject of haranguing, I do not regret my writing them since they have been the Occasion of so much Entertainment to Me.
I could have mentioned other Gentlemen besides Dr. Eliot who remember with Pleasure the Time they Spent in your Company, but Enough of this. Speaking of Dr. Eliot brings to my Mind a Discovery lately made by that Gentleman, which I imagine will be very advantageous to this Colony; The Sea shore, from New London to Norwalk is in many Places cover'd with a Heavy black Sand, such as we sift upon Paper to keep it from Blotting. 80 lb. of this Sand the Dr. carried to an Ironworks, out of which the workmen made 50 lb. of Bloom' Iron.2
I am glad to hear so good a Character of the Widow Father3addresses. His heart is very much set upon that affair & if he does not Succeed, it will not be his Fault.
I wish Sr. I could hear of your Attempting something in that way. I scarcely ever heard a man So Eloquent upon Matrimony & Courtship as you was when here, but, it seems, you content your Self with the Theory & leave the Practice to others.
As you are curious in searching after Epitaphs I here send you a very odd one, I think, upon the Late General Wolfe,4which concludes a Poem lately publish'd to the Memory of that Gentleman.
Lives &shines, while Seas & Sun endures
Death, it conquers Briton's foes,
The Poem was written by One Dr. Young,5 a profess'd Deist, who not long ago was prosecuted & fin'd for asserting that the Bible was a D—d Lye.
Mr. Williams & Trumble in health & present their Com
Not located.
Jared Eliot published his findings in An Essay on the Invention or Art of Making very good, if not the best Iron, from Black Sea-Sand (New York, 1762). The essay was awarded a gold medal by the Royal Society of London (DAB).
Ebenezer Tisdale, Nathan's father, was successful in his pursuit of Mrs. Deborah Gilbert of Taunton. They were married on June 8, 1762 (Orlo D. Hine and Nathaniel H. Morgan, Early Lebanon [Hartford, Conn., 1880], 172).
James Wolfe (1727–1759), major-general, who commanded the successful British force that captured Quebec in 1759. He and Montcalm, the French commander, died of wounds received at the battle of the Plains of Abraham, Sept. 13, 1759 (DNB).
Thomas Young (1732–1777), patriot and physician, wrote A Poem Sacred to the Memory of James Wolfe...who was slain upon the Plains of Abraham...September 13, 1759 (New Haven, [1761]) which appeared anonymously. Young was active in the patriot group in Albany, Boston, Newport, and Philadelphia. He served on the Boston Committee of Correspondence, was active in the Boston Tea Party, and helped frame the constitution of Pennsylvania (DAB).
Pray be kind enough to deliver the inclosed to a Catch-pole,—and when you can give me an Oportunity to cancel the Obligation, please to command truly. Your hearty Friend
How is the Harvest in your part of the Vineyard? Which Side do you take in the political Controversys? What think you of coin?2What, of Writs of Assistance?3What of His Honr. the L—G—r?4 What, of Otis? What, of Thacher? What, of Cooke the Cobler?5 What think you of Bedlam for political madmen? What think you of Patriotism? What think you218of disappointed Ambition? What think you of the Fable of the Bees?6 What,—. Send me your Thoughts on these Questions, and I'll send you 50 more.
Jonathan Sewall (1729–1796), son of Jonathan and Mary (Payne) Sewall of Boston, a friend of John Adams and RTP, rose quickly in Massachusetts legal circles to hold the post of attorney general in Nov. 1767. A loyalist, Sewall sailed in Aug. 1775 for England where he remained until the summer of 1787 when he took ship for St. John, New Brunswick. Except for a few years in Quebec, Sewall lived in St. John until his death (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 12:306–325).
Probably a reference to Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson's proposal that silver be devalued in order to check its drain from the Province.
When William Pitt (1708–1778), the British secretary of state, ordered in 1760 that the Sugar Act of 1733 be enforced, the royal customs collectors applied to the Superior Court of the province for writs of assistance to enable them to search for evidence of violations. James Otis (1725–1783) opposed the issuance of these writs. He and Oxenbridge Thacher (1719–1765) argued the case for the Boston merchants before the Superior Court in Feb. and Aug. 1761. It applied to England for instructions which when received supported the legality of the writs.
Thomas Hutchinson.
Sir Edward Coke (1662–1634), judge and law writer, whose chief works are his Reports and his Institutes (DNB). Although himself the great arbiter of English common law, Coke's Institutes were seen as "the doctrinal source of the customs writ of assistance" (M. H. Smith, The Writs of Assistance Case [Berkeley, 1978], p. 18).
Bernard de Mandeville (1670–1733), The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits (London, 1714), "designed to illustrate the essential vileness of human nature" (Harvey, Oxford Companion to English Literature, p. 490).