Boston Augt. 27th. 1782 Dear Sr.,

Since your departure I have not suffered that affair to sleep the sleep of —— yet it is not issued, & I believe it not like to be in the manner talked of. Mr. Shaw a Minister of Nan—1 has been here & before the Council & his acct. of the matter is very different from Barlows. He says he was present & saw the whole affair & that Mr. Hawley of Mashpee2 was there likewise. Mr. Shaw says that Barlow might have gone out of the harbour or up the harbour & been safe, but that he chose the worst place to defend himself & needlessly exposed the Town, & he plumply asserts that no person molested him by pulling down his breastwork or otherwise & I think he said that he was offered protection if he went elsewhere but am not certain of that; he said that Barlow had so few men that he coud not have defended his boat, & that Capt. Dimmock was in the harbour when the British Privateer came in, but he made his Escape & went out as Barlow might have done & further he gives Barlow a very bad Character on most accts. I expostulated much with him but found him fixed.

Mr. Spooner has arrived at Council since yr. Departure. I find him more enraged agt. Barlow than any body,3 on acct. of his Character & bad actions—from all this you will naturally suppose there is no prospect of the matter being conducted as you expected, & from all the Circumstances of the matter I doubt whether any thing will be done till the General Court sitts, & then I think the affair of Nan. & M. Vin— ought to be taken up on a large scale of Enquiry & regulation.

Mean while the collecting Evidence agt. Folger on the other accts. must be attended to, accordingly I have procured an Order of Gov. & Council, impowring you to go on to Nan. & take Depo. in the Libel Cmnwlth. vs. Sloop Good Intent Wm. Moore Master, in wch. Folger returned: this Sloop was seized by Plaisted4 late Naval Office of Nantucket on Jany. 9, 1782 by Order of Governor & Council, five persons vizt. John Elkins, Gershom Drew, Nathl. Russel, Henry Coffin & Hezh. Russel, have Libelled the sloop pretending they seized her as she came over the barr. Evidence is wanting to prove this seizure Collusive—such as that they unladed the Goods before she came up the harbour, that Folger assisted, that the Goods were carried some to Folgers some to the seizors & elsewhere wherever, who fitted out the Sloop again (for she was immediately fitted for the West Indies) whether Folger concerned or any of the Seizors—and 221 any other circumstances tending to prove the Fraud—also to prove that Plaisted seized her & put a Guard on board.5

The Govr. has issued a Proclamation annulling all old Commissions, so that, the Justice before whom the Depositions are taken, must be qualified by taking the oaths & Subscribing the Declaration, if the Justices there are not qualified & will not qualify, then the Deponants must be brought to the County of Barnstable & sworn before some Justice there and the adverse Party Elkins & als must be notified to attend. I proposed yr. being appointed a Justice of that County, but on consultation it was Said it would take seven days for the nomination, that nothing of the kind had ever been done and the power was doubted.

Respecting Folger going to England, Evidence is wanted to ground a prosecution on, & it is only wanted to have put in writing what can be proved, Enquire wn. Fol: sailed, and whether the Law agt. illicit Trade made March 3d. 1781 had reached Nant. and all Evidence to prove that Fol. went to England designedly, wt. cargo he had on board, who owned it, whether any Evidence of the agreemt. that he should go to England so as to charge others beside him—the Evidence of the Protection, from whom and how obtained: herewith I send a Letter to Capt. Nathl. Coffin wch. you may read Seal and deliver him & consult him on these matters if you please.

The Warrant of Govor. & Council above referred to I could not get to send by this opportunity, but understand there will be an oppo. tomorrow.

yr. freind & hble. Sevt. R T Paine

RC (Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.); internal address: “Brigadier Freeman.” A draft of this letter appears in the RTP Papers.

1.

Bezaleel Shaw (1738/9–1796) graduated from Harvard in 1762 and was the first settled minister on Nantucket (Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 15:292–293).

2.

Rev. Gideon Hawley (1727–1807) graduated from Yale in 1749 and was a missionary to the Indians, first at Stockbridge, Mass., and from 1757 at Mashpee under the auspices of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians in North America (Freeman, The History of Cape Cod, 1:683–692).

3.

Draft at this point adds: “& says there is a rumour he has since killed a man wantonly if not worse.”

4.

Ichabod Plaisted (d. 1782) was appointed naval officer for Nantucket in 1776 (Independent Chronicle, Dec. 26, 1776).

5.

The sloop Good Intent, owned by William Rotch and others (including, it is alleged, Gov. John Hancock), was seized on order of the Board of War for carrying contraband goods headed for Jamaica. See Collections, Historical and Miscellaneous; and Monthly Literary Journal (Concord, N.H., 1824), 3:appendix 68–69. For further on the case, see RTP to John Bean, July 10, 1786 (below).