Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
This Board1 having at present before us a Matter of Consequence which requires an immediate decision, are very desirous of Your Opinion thereon, and earnestly request if the business of Govermt. will admit of your coming to Town that you would favor us wt. your Company for an hour; if it will not you will be so good as to let us know it as soon as may be by a line.
On Oct. 29, 1776, the Massachusetts House of Representatives established a board of war “to order, & direct the operations of the Forces in the pay of this State, both by Sea, and Land; by giving the Commanders of the Troops, Garrisons, and Vessels of War such orders for their Conduct, & Cruises from time, to time, as they shall think proper such orders to be signed in their Name by the President of said Board, or in his absence, by the member thereof officiating as President pro tempore” (The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1775–1776 [Boston, 1918], Chapter 455 [1776–1777], 625-626). The initial board consisted of James Bowdoin, George Whitcomb, Joseph Palmer, Henry Bromfield, Samuel P. Savage, James Prescott, Samuel Allyne Otis, Jonathan Jackson, and Jonathan Glover (Journals of the House of Representatives, 52, pt. 2:139).
Samuel Phillips Savage (1718–1797) was a prominent merchant in Boston until 1764 when he and his brother dissolved their firm. The following year, Savage moved to Weston, Mass., where he resided for the remainder of his life. He served as a judge in the Middlesex County courts and as a representative from Weston in the Provincial Congress of 1774. On Oct. 30, 1776, Savage was among nine men appointed to the newly created Board of War and was quickly made president, a position he retained until the board was dissolved at the end of the Revolution (NEHGR 67[1913]:313–314).
April 15, 1778
Whereas there is now confined in the goals in the Counties of Hampshire & Berkshire, sundry persons who were taken with our enemies & in arms against the United American States; and it being of great importance to these states that such parricides should receive adequate punishment: Therefore
Resolved that the Attorney General of this State be and he hereby is directed at the next Superior Court of Judicature &c, to be holden at Northampton within & for the Counties of Hampshire & Berkshire, to bring forward process for High Treason against all such persons, inhabitants of this State, as have been taken in arms with the enemies of these United States, and are now confined in the goals in the Counties of Hampshire & Berkshire. And the Justices of said Court are hereby directed to hear and determine thereon agreeable to the Act of this State against Treason &c.1
The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, 1777–1778 (Boston, 1918), 357.
The General Court ordered RTP to prosecute under the Act against Treason and Misprison of Treason, passed Feb. 1, 1777. The act charged that anyone residing in or passing through the state fell under the protection of its laws and thus owed allegiance to the state. Whoever should “levy war, or conspire to levy war” or give aid or comfort to enemies of Massachusetts would be “deemed and adjudged guilty of treason against this state, and shall suffer the pains of death, without benefit of clergy” (The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay [Boston, 1886], Chapter 32 in Province Laws [1776–1777], 5:615–620).