Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3
From the various avocations of my business and the incessant entreaties of my Relations & Friends for my return to Taunton, has kept my mind in such a continued agitation that I have had no composure for writing you, or for doing any thing else for this long time past; 327but now having unburthen’d my mind by determining to return to Taunton (tho’ I am afear’d to my disadvantage); I take up my pen with great pleasure to compensate, if possible, for my long neglect.
Govermental proceedings I know little or nothing about for since the Court have remov’d into Town, their business has been cheafly relative to War, & having a number of Foreigners around them, they have tho’t fit to shut their Galleries; thence we know nothing of their proceedings but by the streams that Issue from the Fountain. Our Old Deligates for Congress are reelected with the addition of the honble. Fran. Dana & Master James Lovell. The Court are likewise making large preparations for the next Campaign by purchasing of Cloathing & ever
Our prizes are innumerable. Sugars are a Drugg but the price is still high. We have lately taken 2 Ships & 2 Briggs with English Goods cheafly; & provision Vessells from England are daily arriving at our ports.
I long to see you that I may converse respecting Govermental matters & other proceedings. I dare not trust my Sentiments upon paper as the Enemy are between us. I have no news from the Northward, but peace & quietness.
I was at Taunton twenty days since, when our Families & Friends were well. I expect to return to Taunton next week to take up my residence, where I shall continue, I suppose, the remainder of my days, unless the voice of my Country calls me to the Field. God knows I dispise danger in such a cause as this. I have lately receiv’d 2 or 3 Letters from you, but as they contain’d nothing that requir’d a perticular answer, you’ll except of this as an answer for the whole. Do let us see you by Christmas.
In the mean time I am your Much Devoted Friend & Servant,
I am to acknowledge the Receipt of your Letter of the 22d of October last with the inclosed Resolve of Congress, and to inform you that before it came to Hand myself with the other Owners of the Privateer who took the Ship bound to Quebec being desirous that the Continent might 328have all the Goods in her which were necessary for the Army wrote to General Washington acquainting him with the Capture of the Ship and her Lading.1 In Consequence of which Brigadier General Mifflin2 appointed a Gentleman in this Town to purchase the abovementioned Goods who hath accordingly bought the Blankets being near Three Thousand, Three large Hogsheads of stout Shoes being the whole of that Article, and Three or Four Hogsheads of Camp-Kettles, and is now in Treaty for a large Quantity of coarse Cloths, Linens and Stockings for the same Purpose.
I am, Sir Your most humble Servant
On Sept. 21 the Rhode Island privateer Hawke captured the British ship Thomas, bound from London to Quebec. On Oct. 23, Congress resolved for Cooke to purchase all the blankets and coarse cloth “at continental expence, for the use of the army under General Washington’s command.” For Cooke’s letter to Washington, dated Oct. 19, informing him of the capture of the prize ship, see The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series, 6:590–591.
Thomas Mifflin (1744–1800), Philadelphia merchant, served in the First Continental Congress. General Washington appointed Mifflin as his aide-de-camp and later as quartermaster general of the Continental Army. He resigned from military service in 1778 and later returned to the Continental Congress (1782–1784), serving as it president from December 1783 to June 1784. Mifflin also served as governor of Pennsylvania, 1790–1799 (
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