Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
By our worthy & well belove’d Friend I send this token of my Existance which an Assault from my old spasmodick disorder might Ere this have put an End to; I am very feeble yet and carefully nursed in my chamber. But a regard to truth, a Love of virtue, and sympathetic zeal for Honour Engages my mind to the tryal you have before you, and I find a satisfaction, a confidence, in the Abilities I ascribe to you which rests all my conjectures. A man must be more than a man of sense, he must be a man of strong feelings to do justice to a mind stung with calumny. I in’ly congratulate my Friend on the choice his country has made of a Judge & mode of Tryal, of a cause which others have made his cause.1 Exceeding bad health & Stormy weather has the last week prevented the Journey we all so much rejoyce in Tomorrow we hope will be favourable to his seting out may it be a happy meeting. I hope you & yours are well Excuse this wild Trick of my pen & see in it the assurance that though feeble I am your Sister
Eunice Paine was a long-term guest in the Germantown section of Braintree as part of the household of Gen. Joseph Palmer and so had a particular interest in the outcome of the investigation into the failure of the Rhode Island expedition.
On Sunday morning last, I sat off for Providence in order to attend the Commissioners, agreeable to their Notification of the 6th Instant; at Wrentham I was told by Majr. Tyler1 that they had adjourned to the 23d. of March; in consequence of this, I returned home on monday. Genl. Lovell is ill with the Gout. I Should have been earlier, but my health was bad, & almost a constant Series of Storms last Week.
I beg that you will inform me, whether all Papers coming into your hands as Comrs. &c., must not be Sent to Congress? I ask this, because I 22 have many Papers put up for the Comrs., of wh. I have no Copies, & wh. I would Copy if time permits provided they are not to be returned into my hands.
Royall Tyler (1757–1826), a 1776 Harvard graduate, was at this time serving as a major in Gen. John Sullivan’s campaign against Newport. His later career as a lawyer in Boston was augmented by a notable literary success. In 1791 he settled in Vermont, where he eventually became chief justice of the Supreme Court (American National Biography).