Watertown Feby. 13th 1776 Dear Sir,

I have receiv’d your Favor of the 30th of January.1 Am oblidged to you for the Intelligence it contained, & hope you will Continue your Favors & particularly Inform me, as far as you consistently can, what is doing at Congress? How they are disposed since the reception of the Kings Speech?2 & whether they are like to get any Powder? an Article much wanted here, pray forward it to the Camp as fast as possible. I should have wrote you particalarly with respect to the State of the Superior Court, but Colo. Palmer told me he should, in his reply to your Letter, fully Inform you with respect to that matter. By him you will have learnt that none of the Judges except Mr. J. Adams & Mr. Cushing have Accepted, that Mr. Peasly Seargent has declined as well as yourself & that Mr. Reed has not as yet given any answer. It is supposed he will decline the service. There is nothing done as yet, at the Board, with respect to filling up the Bench & when there will is very uncertain. Such as are qualified for the Business & would make a figure, are unpopular, so that the Board know not what to do, hope we shall be directed to a wise choice.

160

At the Election of Delegates for the Congress for the year 1776, we were both struck at. I must refer you to Mr. Hancock for a state of the Votes upon this occasion as I sent them to him; Endeavors have been used to hurt us both in our Influence at Court, by those whom I need not mention as their names & characters are well known to you; It seems we are not men to suit their Turn. We are not subservient enough, we do not pay an implicit obedience to their Sovereign Dictates. I have endeavoured to remove any Impressions that may have been made to your disadvantage & think I have succeeded. You may depend upon my embracing every opportunity in my power to give you Intelligence. I well recollect how much we lamented the want of it when I was at Philadelphia. However since my return I do not so much blame our Freinds upon this account as I did while with you. You cannot well conceive how much every man in Court, any ways capable of Bussiness, is crouded with it. We have hardly time to sleep eat or drink. The settling of our Goverment, the appointment of civil & military officers & other Provincial matters are amply sufficient to Employ the whole of our Time. What Can you think must be our Situation then, when the General Court are oblidged to take upon them, as it were, the department of a Quarter Master General to the Army. There is hardly any thing wanted for the army but we are oblidged to supply it. If Men, Money, Guns, Blanketts, Wood or Hay are wanted the General immediately applys to the Court for them & the Members are appointed upon Committees & sent thrô out the Province to procure them. This I hope will serve as an apology for us if we do not write so frequently & particularly as you might otherways expect.

Mr. Adams or Mr. Gerry will deliver you your appointment & Instructions. The General Court have passed a Militia Act which I inclose you. They are about repealing the Act they lately passed with respect to admiralty Matters & passing one Conformable to the Resolutions of Congress. They have Resolved to Build Ten Sloops of War of about one hundred & fifteen Tons & have appointed a Committee to put this Resolve into Execution. Mr. Phillips has near finished his Powder Mill and the Court have voted to have one Built at Stoughton & have voted a Bounty for the Building two more. Colo. Porter3 of Hadley is Colo. of the Regiment destined for Canada; our Army has filled but slowly. The raising the officers Wages is very unpopular & has disgusted the People and this togather with paying of them by the Callender month and not allowing of them a Bounty has discouraged the 161Men from Enlisting. The People in Connecticut are quite outragious at the Mens not being allowed a Bounty.

I can get the Heavy Cannon for the Ships cast by Mr. Aaron Hobart of Abington, but must have the Pig Iron from Philadelphia. The Furnace at Providence will not be able to cast more than is wanted for Rhode Island Government. I remain with respect Yr. Freind & humble sert.

Thomas Cushing

Mr. Henderson will deliver you the Militia Act.

RC ; addressed: “The Honble. Robert T. Paine Esqr. at Philadelphia. Favord. Mr. Avery4”; endorsed.

1.

Not located.

2.

King George III addressed both houses of Parliament on the “present Situation of America” on Oct. 25, 1775 (Massachusetts Gazette, Jan. 11, 1776).

3.

Elisha Porter (1741/2–1796), a 1761 Harvard graduate, was a lawyer in his native town, Hadley, Mass. He served in the Third Provincial Congress, and on Jan. 19, 1776 the House of Representatives elected him colonel of a new regiment to be raised in Hampshire and Berkshire counties. Later in the spring he participated in the abortive siege of Quebec. In 1777 he was elected colonel of the Fourth Hampshire Regiment and with it served on the Saratoga campaign. After the war Porter continued as sheriff of Hampshire County, to which he had been appointed in August 1775. He ended his military career as brigadier general of the militia ( Sibley’s Harvard Graduates , 15:96–100).

4.

John Avery (1739–1806), a 1759 Harvard graduate, was married to Cushing’s daughter Mary. Shortly after this trip to Philadelphia, Avery became the deputy secretary of the Massachusetts Council, a position comparable to secretary of state. “From then to the end of his life he was the pen of Masachusetts, and hundreds of letters in his beautiful copper-plate hand survive” ( Sibley’s Harvard Graduates , 14:384–389).

Philada. Feby. 14th. 1776 Dear Sr.,

I cannot omit so good an opportunity of writing to you; the bearer brings ten Tons of Saltpetre to yr. mills for manufacture.1 I am very glad to hear yr. mills are repaired. I rely upon it that effectual care will be taken to prevent a like Accident in future. Mills are wanted to manufacture the saltpetre that is imported. I hope your Mills are enlarged as well as rebuilt. I hope also that your neighbourhood will soon furnish saltpetre sufficient to keep your Mills at Work. This Manufacture has recd. great improvements lately. Dr. Wm. Whiting of Massachusetts, & one of 162a Committee of Gen’ral Assembly to improve & promote the manufacture, had reported to sd. Assembly a certain process the result of Experiment & this process has been published in many papers. I have had repeated Accounts from many places of the good Success of this process; I wish you would promote experiments on it. I am satisfy’d with a little more application we shall make sufficient of this valuable Article, but Sr. when we have got powder enough, we then shall want Small Arms & Cannon, the former of wch. we undoubtedly make very good, application only is wanted to exercise them. As for Cannon, I am of a Cmttee. to enquire into this matter, & should be obliged to you if you would inform me if Cannon can be made at the Furnace in the Mannor & of what size; if they can be made, it will save the transporting them to many places where they are wanted. Pray favour me with your Sentiments on these matters as soon as you can. With Compliments to yr family & Freinds, I am yr most hble. Sevt.

R. T. Paine

RC (New York State Library, Albany) ; addressed: “To Robert R. Livingston Esq at Claremount lower Mannor of Livingston”; franked: “per post RT Paine”; endorsed.

1.

Ordered by Congress on Feb.12 (Journals of the Continental Congress, 4:128–129).