Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3
I feel a strong impulse to write upon a Subject to which I feel myself unequal, Salt-petre. The present system of British tyranny makes it almost as necessary for us to manufacture this article as to raise bread-corn. We in this colony are indefatiguable in the business & very success full. But we should not be content with present discoverys, but wreck our inventions to find out more expeditious ways to obtain it, & in larger quantities.
The air is full of nitre, we inhale it in every breath, the earth contains great quantities of it, every vegetable & animal contains a proportion, it 135appears necessary to animal & vegetable life, & to be deposited in the air for that purpose by the beneficent creator. What pity is it then, that it should be made use of for the destruction of our fellow Creatures! But since it has become necessary to have it as an article of self-defence, it is the duty of every one to make use of every means in his power to obtain it. I am not certain that my conjectures are philosophical, but I imagine there is but one salt in nature, which is differently denominated Nitrous, alcaline, marine &c. as the form happens to be changed, by fire, or otherwise, in a course of natural, or artificial chemistry. What we call nitre or salt petre is generally allowed to be contained in all animal & vegitable substances. When this salt is obtained by fire from vegetables it is called alcaline, & when by putrefaction nitrous. It may be worth while to enquire whether the alcaline salt may not have the explosive quality of nitre added, or rather restored to it, for I suppose that it consists in the acid spirit which is destroyed in fluxing the salts when we make potash. I would propose an experiment. Take 1/2 a Bushel fresh *oak saw-dust, pour on it as much boiling water as it will take in, let it stand ten hours & then draw it of into a clean Iron kettle, in which dissolve one pound potash or as much as the decoction will fairly dissolve; when it is well mixed, by stirring, set it over the fire & evaporate till you find by tryal in a spoon that it will cristalize. I expect by this experiment, to add to the potash, all those qualities the fire has deprived it of.
This hint, however novel, may be improved to advantage & no doubt will if you think it deserves your attention. Should it succeed a small time would supply us fully with this necessary article.
Since I wrote to you last I have been to Brookfield in search of Sulphur. I took Dr. Cobb with me & there we made diverse experiments on a stone wch. has all the properties of what in Europe is called yr. alluminous pyrites. It is charged high with sulphur, but we cannot free it from the stone by Smelting.
We tryed the method propos’d in yr. letter, & every other method prescribed by chemical writers but in vain. We obtaind. some by sublimation which has since been manufactured into powder with saltpetre manufactur’d here. It is very good. The sulphur obtain’d in this way is very pure & it requires no pounding.
One discovery often leads on to another. In search of Sulphur we have found both copperas and allom & the way to manufacture both. I have made some which by good Judges is called very good. If I had some small 136public encouragement, I could supply the whole continent. I should think myself happy if by this means I could, not only serve the public, but support my family in their exiled state. I did expect some public employ, as I think I had a right to, but since I have been neglected, I determine to retire & content myself. If I can procure, by any just means, a comfortable subsistance for myself & family (three of whom are in service of my country) untill providence shall order a restoration of our Just rights liberties, privileges & possessions.
I had forgot to tell you that saltpetre making goes on briskly at Taunton. Dr. Cobb & Mr. Tisdell by the meetg. house have good encouragment to proceed: The earth under the meetghouse produces abt. 3/4 oz. to a bushel treated according to the Newbury plan. Vizt. by mixing 1/3 strong ashes lye with the extract drawn from the earth. (which by the way favours the proposed experiment). Crossman the miller’s wife1 has made & is makg. Saltpetre & does it to advantage.
Raynham, influenced by Esqr. Leonard, is earness in the business.
We had the pleasure of hearing yesterday of your safe return to Phila. Yr. first letters are not recd. so know not any thing about yr. Journey. You will hear more about the affairs of yr. family from your wife sister & nieces than I can write.
As to News, I dare not write, reports so often turn out false, that it is unsafe writing them, that that is important & true you have of course. I long to See you; I think you ought to have some respit from such arduous business as you are engaged in; I heartily wish you, & all the other members of the Congress, Wisdom as angels of God, that you may conduct our public affairs in such a manner as that you may receive the applause of all good men, & the approbation of him who is God Supreme over all earthly potentates, & who can rebuke kings for his peoples sake. I am Dear Sr. yr. freind & brother
*P.S. Perhaps a decoction of some very acid plant, Sorrel for instance, may do better. I imagine the acid spirit is what causes the explosion in the nitre. I am the rather inclined to think so, because, by destroying it in, the nitre the explosive quality is lost & it becomes a simple alcaline salt. This may be done by melting Saltpetre, giving it a high degree of heat, & throwing in charcoal dust, a little at a time. It will keep fulminating ’till it has intirely lost that quality.
Desire Crossman (d. 1782) was the second wife of Robert Crossman (1707–1798), who had inherited the family mill at Taunton and was also widely known as a cabinetmaker, drum maker, and innkeeper (Robert Owen Crossman, A Genealogy of the Crossman Family [Morrilton, Ark., 1977], 29).
We are all rejoicing at the receipt of your letter the 8th inst. greatly lament not having recd. that of the first sent by Mr. Cushing. We’ve heard he brought it and Commited it to the care of sombody but can’t learn who the unkind person is that robs us of so much pleasurable entertainment, as we hope to find in reading the account of your journey through a countrey so different from this. We long to know how much you suffer’d by the cold and have a discription of your furr habit &c.
You very justly call upon me for a letter and in the Docts. desire him to write all you want to know, since a journal of my time and familys since I wrote last will afford you some satisfaction I shall give it. My last I think was dated at Newton. I return’d to your house in eight weeks from your departure four days after Mr. Greenleaf went back to Watertown and carried sister Eunice to Coll: Palmers by their desire, they having remov’d into Mr. Borlands house1 and taken their son & family home. She was in very low health has continued their ever since is much better both in health and spirrits, and wou’d increase in both at the receipt of a line from you. The weather being now cold I provided fewel for the office and open’d school for your little ones and have kept Robert and Sally very steady every since and am not a little pleas’d at the progress they, as well as Tommy have made. Sally hopes you will bring some shirts for her to make and they both request some books. Bob must read Spectators soon if you don’t supply them with others. If Watts Catechism’s are to be had and you don’t dislike them pray get it. Somthing of that sort seems necessary, a Royal primmer for Tommy.2 Their education lies near my heart; and be assur’d I shall do my best to promote their learning and polish their behaviour. I have Mr. Brecks son in addition to my school. They solicited so hard Mrs. Paine and I at last consented. I find it an advantage he being so far behind yours. The children ingross allmost all my day 138light. Charle is a sweet play thing a fine boy just the reverse of what he was when you left him come on finely in the art of Commanding. Mr. Zepa. Leonard3 invited Naby to his house to spend the winter and instruct his children seven weeks ago. She went she is well he brings her to visit us often. Tommy is still at Mr. Carters4 at Provedence. We all think it best at present. He has a school for back so that he will be able to clothe himself. He is in a great straight for some shirts. No linnin is to be bought here but what is extravagantly dear 6 & 7/pr. yd. for such as us’d to be 2 & 3/ and but little at any rate. If you wou’d get one peice for him about as fine as your last shirts were it two’d serve him greatly for he will be naked soon. That is hard with the mony to buy in hand. Sister Eunice will be in the same case soon for linnin. Pray remember her. Sister Paine will send a long memo’m for we can get nothing here but at near double price provisions excepted flax is 9d. here and at Bridgwater 1/ west india goods are plenty and not high flour 24/. You say we must make salt peter. We all think so. We talk of little else. Many do more than talk. The Doct. & one Tisdel have scrap’d under the meeting house and have made a Considerable quantity are at it still many others. Old Mrs. Crosman has been inspir’d to try in her Kettle and made very good. We shou’d have attempt’d it had we had a proper place in frosty weather. Rainham have distingush’d themselves have pass’d a vote to promote the work, & chose a Committee. Mr. Leonard is one and his neighbour Jones who have made some good, and are very industerous in collecting every thing proper in store for spring. He send his Complements to you and desir’d me to send this acc’t. Naby has wrote by the post. I hope you have rec’d it. Mr. Greenleaf is writing the Sulphur history. Mr. Peck and he have been very busy here in these matters. Mr. Peck is gone to Brokfeild to forward the good work of salt peter there &c.
It is a very healthy season. We have had fine weather not very cold and but very little Snow. We live very pleasantly at home know but little of what passes abroad, only the publick Concerns. Wicked Wallis is often affording us matter for Conversation. The prints will afford you this intelligence.
I’ve chated on Strangely don’t call it a letter. Fancy you hear my tongue run in your office. Oh, one other peice of intelligence. We have had a Court of Sessions chose Mr. Saml. Fales5 Clerk pro tempro. adjourn’d to 4th tuesday in Jan: then are to proceed to business. Mr. Paddleford is come here, and boards at Mr. Cobbs is to have Colo: Leonards office for 139his business. Mr. Jos. Crocker6 is come to town from plymouth boards with him and keeps school in the school house.
Sister has forgot some of her ditto’s, a black handkechief for herself is quite nesesary a quaintity of threads No. 16, 15, 20, 26, 1 quarter each none to be had here. 1 oz. for Cambrick. We long to see you and often wish you cou’d look in upon us. For my own part I banish every care and take no thought for tomorrow finding it a sufficient employ for me to make returns Suatable for the favors I constantly receive from a kind Providence by the hands of such friends. That you may be ever the favorite of heaven is the Constant prayer of your every effectionate Sister & oblig’d friend,
Mr. Greenleaf pray you to bring some writing paper he wou’d be glad to buy 2 a ream none to be had here.
Joseph Palmer was leasing the house of John Borland in Braintree. See John Borland to RTP, Mar. 23, 1769 (vol. 2, p. 444).
In his library RTP already had a nine-volume set of the English journal the Spectator, which he had purchased at vendue in 1760; Isaac Watts, Catechisms, or, Instructions in the Principles of the Christian Religion, and the History of Scripture, Composed for Children and Youth According to Their Different Ages, went through multiple editions; The Royal Primer: Or, an Easy and Pleasant Guide to the Art of Reading, Authorized by His Majesty King George II, to be Used Throughout His Majesty’s Dominions, published in Boston in 1767 and 1773.
Zephaniah Leonard (1736/7–1814), a 1758 graduate of Yale, practiced law in his native town of Raynham, Mass. He represented the town in the General Court, was justice of the peace, colonel of the militia, and high sheriff of the county, as well as involved in the family ironworks. He was a second cousin of Sally Cobb Paine (Dexter, Yale Biographical Sketches, 2:545–546).
Thomas Greenleaf worked as journeyman printer for John Carter in Providence, R.I., from Sept. 6, 1775 to Apr. 10, 1776, earning 12 shillings per week. John Carter (1745–1814) apprenticed as a printer with Franklin and Hall in his native Philadelphia. In 1767 he became printer for the Providence Gazette and the next year purchased the newspaper. He continued as editor and publisher until 1814, shortly before his death (Marcus A. McCorison, “The Wages of John Carter’s Journeyman Printers, 1771–1779,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 2d ser., 81[1971]:273–303).
Samuel Fales (1750–1818) was a 1773 graduate of Harvard and captained several companies in the Revolution. In 1774 he first became clerk of the courts in Bristol County and continued in that position until 1804. After the war he became a justice of the peace and collector of duties and excise for the county. Fales and his wife Sarah (Cook) purchased RTP’s Taunton home after the Paine family moved to Boston in 1780. In 1805 Fales was appointed a special justice of the Court of Common Pleas, which he then served as chief justice from 1806 until 1810 (
Sibley’s Harvard Graduates
, 18:233–236).
Joseph Crocker (1749–1797), the step-son of Sally Paine’s sister, was a 1774 Harvard graduate. He taught school, first at Plymouth and then at Taunton, before joining the Continental Army in 1777. He spent the remainder of the war in the service rising to the rank of captain. After the war, he became an active member of the Society of the Cincinnati and worked as a commission merchant in Boston. His wife, the former Hannah Mather, became well known through her writing as an early advocate of women’s rights, freemasonry, and the temperance movement (
Sibley’s Harvard Graduates
, 18:406–409).