Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
This gratefully acknowledges your friendship in your exertions before the Comtee., in the case of my petition, so long pending. My character will, in some degree, be restored to its deserts; & my family not suffer so much from the evil reports of my enemies, as they might have done, in case the prayer had not been granted; & if you had not open’d the eyes of the blind, they wou’d not have seen their duty to me, & the public. I have not the presumption to place myself upon the list of the most enlightened patriots; but I flatter myself, that my public conduct has not been void of merit; & as the merit, & demerit of my public actions, must be best known to myself, so far at least as respects their motives, I do not hesitate to affirm, that the aggregate of all my other merits was by no means equal to that of my conduct on the Secret expe. Whether I was inspired by wisdom or cowardice, the public derived more benefit (at least by preventing evil 362 negatively) from my conduct in this single instance, than from all my other public conduct. With respectful regards to Mrs. Paine, & Mrs. Eunice; & love to the Children, I remain your friend &c.
Mr. Samuel Lethbridge junr. has informed me1 of a fraud & forgery, which I am of opinion calls for a legal inquiry. By my Advice, he waits upon you—and I can very freely recommend him to your attention, as a person who by his character, property and connections is well intitled to it. I have informed myself of the circumstances, and I think that they amount to proof. But you are the proper judge of their weight.
Commonwealth v. Timothy Sherman the defendant pleaded guilty, was fined £30, ordered to recognize in £100 for three years and to pay costs (Supreme Judicial Court Minute Books, Worcester County, Apr. 1786. Massachusetts Judicial Archives, Boston, Mass.).
Fisher Ames (1758–1808) graduated from Harvard (A.B., 1774) and began to practice law in Boston. He began to gain prominence through his public newspaper writings, starting with responses to Shays’s Rebellion in 1786. He became a leading Federalist and served several terms in the U.S. Congress. Later, when RTP served as a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, Ames, not known for a pleasant disposition himself, referred to “the unpleasantness of Judge Payne’s manners and temper. He is almost intolerable.” After an uncomfortable scene in his court, Ames said that “no man could get there, unless he came with a club in one hand and a speaking-trumpet in the other” (American National Biography; Fisher Ames to John Worthington, Feb. 3, 1798, Grenville H. Norcross autograph collection, 1489–1937, MHS; Fisher Ames, Works of Fisher Ames, ed. Seth Ames [Boston, 1854], 1:225).