Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
In obedience to their direction that the Attory. Genl. shod. reduce to writing his verbal report to them respectivleying his doings on the Allegations of Jas. Sullivan Esqr. against J Temple Esqr., refered to him by the Genl. Court at their last Session.
The sd. Atty. Genl. answers that the above mentioned allegations were referred to him “to be acted upon as to law & Justice appertaineth”: that upon considering these allegations, there appears to be some of them bottomed upon great political questions, & exceedingly extensive beyond Mr. Temples particular case, & therefore not cognizable by or suitable to be submitted to the determination of a Grand Jury:
that had he passed over those questions & Allegations & prosecuted Mr. T——e for the single high crimes & Misdemeanors expressed in the sd. Allegations, it might have been considered as such acknowledgmt. of Mr. T——s citizenship, & such a superceeding of the Allegations & questions respectg. the same, as he thought he had no right to make:
that as to the Question respect of Citizenship respectg. Mr. Temple & many others who may be thought to be in like circumstances, he knows of no law or regulation of tryal provided by this Common Wealth that comes within his department:
that as to the Question of procedure prudence, whether Mr. T—— shall be admitted to a Citizenship, he conceives it to be a political question beyond the extent of his Office: and that for these reasons he has not acted upon the sd. Allegations.
As I had no oppy. of laying before you a State of our Claim to a certain small Island in Kennebec libelled as the estate of Dr. Gardner, while at Boston, I now take the Liberty of doing it. About the year 1763 the Plymo. Compy. agreed with my Father to take a survey for them at his own expence, of a certain Stream which empties itself into Kennebec, as a Compensation for which, they were to make him a Grant of Land, in which Grant, was meant to be included the said Island. The survey was accordingly made by my Father,1 & a Grant by made him by said Compy. of certain Lands, but either by mistake or design the said Island was not comprized in the Grant, though my Father had been at the expence of taking a survey thereof & was in actual possession thereof for a Number of years, prior to its coming into the Docktor’s hands, it contains about 2 Acres & as it lies contiguous to our Lands can be of no value to any one else. If I am to be opposed to Coleman’s Claim to the Chops farm I could wish to be apprised upon what it is bottomed if that is in your Power, this will be especially necessary if a Recovery by him at the lower Court should be conclusive agt. the Commonwealth.
William Lithgow (c. 1713–1798) was among the early settlers of the Kennebec region and served as judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Lincoln County when it was first established in 1760 (William Dawson Bridge, Genealogy of the John Bridge Family in America, 1632–1924 [Cambridge, Mass., 1924], 425).