Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 2
How does the Impeachment set upon the stomachs at Middleborough?1 Cant you steal a Moment in an Evening or Morning to write me a Line, by Kent?2
I asked Putnam,3 at Charlestown this Week, whether the Chief Justice would sit at Worcester. He says he would not advise him to attempt it, and that he has given that answer, to all who have asked him about it, since he came down, of all Parties. The grand Jury at Charlestown, had535it sometime under Consideration, whether they should do any Thing as they were, Summoned by a Writ, tested by Peter Oliver Esqr. They determined to proceed but to tack to their Indictments, a Remonstrance expressing their full approbation of the Impeachment of the grand Inquest of the Province, and their full Reliance that, the said P. O. would not set upon the Tryal of them; This was Subscribed by all but four. The grand Jury had a few Things Said to them by the Court, with much Moderation but they answered with great Firmness, that they looked upon their Honours then present, in the same Light they always did—but they did not think him a constitutional Judge, and if he had been present they should not have taken the oaths.4
Had a Letter, last Week from Cohoss, from Collonell Judge, Clerk, Captain Fenton.5 He says that the spirit runs like wild Fire, to the very Extremities of N. Hampshire and that their Government is as determined, as ours.
News, is the Scarcest Commodity at Markett—Expectations are high—I want to hear how Things, are in your Quarter. Pray write me. I am, your Friend & sert.,
The home of Chief Justice Peter Oliver.
Benjamin Kent.
James Putnam.
Oliver attended the court at Charlestown in Apr. 1774 but came under heavy criticism from the grand jury, which requested that he not preside at trials until acquitted on the impeachment. He did not attend the Worcester meeting of the court, and the grand jurors refused to sit. After this maneuver by grand jurors was repeated in Northampton and Plymouth, Oliver made no further attempts to convene the court which thus fell into abbeyance (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 8:752; Boston Gazette, Apr. 11, 1774).
Capt. John Fenton (d. 1785), a retired British Army officer, married Rebecca Temple, a member of the socially prominent Temple family of Boston and Charlestown. Upon receiving a grant of land in New Hampshire from Gov. John Wentworth of New Hampshire he moved there establishing himself in the township of Plymouth close to his land holdings in Coos County (Lawrence Shaw Mayo, John Wentworth, Governor of New Hampshire [Cambridge, Mass., 1921], 153–156).