Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
We have just recd. yrs.1 of Decr. 2d2 by Capt. Holbrook, by the date I suppose it was expected that Nancy should have gone to Plymouth & returned before Thanksgiving, but if she comes now she must be absent at that time which would be most inconvenient for us, & disagreable to her. Capt. Holbrook thought it not as important for her to go now, and says there will be other opportunities soon so we concluded that it was best for her to tarry till after Thanksgiving. She has never said one word about going home & behaves very well—we expected an opportunity would have offered Soon after you left Boston & accordingly kept the other Girl a fortnight to supply Nancy’s place during her absence but finding she was not sent for we dismissed her to another place. We do not wish to depart from the proposall of her visiting her mother but wish her mother to 355 consider whether the coldness of the Season may not render it inconvenient for her to come this Winter & impracticable for her to return in a short time, for her long absence will much incomode us, however she shall come the next coaster if desired.
P:S. pray
Ephraim Spooner (1735–1818) of Plymouth was a merchant, town clerk, and judge. He was an associate justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas from 1775 to 1790 and then judge of the Plymouth County Court of Common Pleas until his retirement from the bench in 1811. Spooner was also deacon of the First Church in Plymouth for many years (Records of the Town of Plymouth [Plymouth, 1903], 3:4; Thomas Spooner, Records of William Spooner of Plymouth, Mass., and His Descendants [Cincinnati, 1883], 1:136–138).
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The last year that Coll. Barber was in the Naval Office, He proposed to me, That we should give you an equal share with us of all Seisures. I then thought the Proposition hard on my part, as the amount of his Fees, I knew, were much greater than my Commissions—Besides He paid no Clerk, & I paid two—But I consented.
When Mr. Lovell came into office I said nothing to him of the matter—and the other Day when I went to make a Division of the Molasses Seisure, He said He could by no means consent to such a Deduction, For the Court had taken away Seven twelfths of his Fees, & out of the remaining five He had to pay a Deputy five hundred Dollars per annum, besides other Expenses. And one argument made use of by the members of Court when they secured to Government 7/12th of his Fees, was the benefit of Seisures to the Naval Officer. But the benefit will be very small, in ordinary seisures, to the officers, after paying the Informer his part—and an Informer we have to pay for every Seisure yet made, except the molasses.
Mr. Lovell consented that I should send you an equal Share of the money from Bartlet & Stevens—But in all other Cases, we shall expect to Fee 356 you as any other Persons would do, & dispose of the money arising from Seisures as the Law directs.