Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
By a return’d Express I last evening receiv’d a Resolution of Congress which I herewith take the liberty of transmitting you, least that sent you should miscarry.
2It will be intirely out of my power to attend the business directed in the Resolution which I have signified to Congress, & must beg the favor of you sir, and the other Gentlemen in the Commission to excuse.1
I heartily wish you may be able to investigate the true causes of the failure which reflect so much dishonour on the American Arms. In order to contribute my mite, I beg leave to recommend that Capt. Caleb Gardner2 may be called upon, as I understand he ingaged as a Volenteer in this intended expidition & from my Knowledge of that Gentn: I am Confident he will give you as good information of matters as any person you’ll meet with.
Whipple had been appointed a member of the commission to investigate the failure of the Rhode Island expedition (see Extract from the Minutes of the Continental Congress, Dec. 12, 1777, RTP 3:423).
Caleb Gardner (1739–1806), a sea captain who sailed to China and the East Indies in his early years, had retired to life as a merchant in his native Newport before the Revolution, for which he raised a company. In 1778 he assisted the French navy in negotiating out of Newport Harbor beyond the blockading British navy. After the war, Gardner was appointed French consul in Newport (Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography).
I am ordered by a Warrant from James Williams & Benja. Williams,1 Esqrs. quorum unus to Notify the Several Justices of the peace for the County of Bristol2 to meet at the Court House in Taunton in sd. County on friday the ninth day of January instant at one oClock in the aftern noon to act upon a petition of the Selectmen of Freetown respecting Licencing an Hospital for Inoculating for the smallpox in sd. Freetown3—& you are desired to attend at time & place aforesd. for the purpose aforesd.
Brothers James (1703–1779) and Benjamin Williams (1720–1784) were both active in Taunton town affairs. Benjamin was judge of probate for Bristol County (1778–1783), and James was register of deeds (1747–1779). James was succeeded in that office by his son James Williams, Jr. (1741–1826), who also served with his uncle Benjamin on the local Committee of Correspondence during the Revolution (Samuel Hopkins Emery, History of Taunton, Massachusetts [Syracuse, N.Y., 1893], 377, 474, 477; Duane Hamilton Hurd, History of Bristol County, Massachusetts [Philadelphia, 1883], 900).
RTP had served as a justice of the peace in Bristol County since Sept. 7, 1763.
No smallpox hospital at Freetown was mentioned in the journals of the House of Representatives, which was the usual agency for such places.