Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
To the honorable the Senate and honorable the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled October 1786.
Robert Treat Paine Esqr. Attorney General for the said Comonwealth humbly represents, that it is with surprize & uneasiness that he finds that “unreasonable & unnecessary Grants to him in his office” are mentioned by some among the Greivances which this Comonwealth labours under but your memorialist is satisfied that if the matter is fully examined it will appear, that so far from there being any Greivance to Government in any Grants made him, that he is really the Sufferer, and that nothing but the Influence of that regard to the Commonwealth and its best Interests which first induced him to neglect the opportunity of making his fortune by his business & engage in their service, prevented his complaining of it as such: in order that this matter may appear in its true light your memorialist will now state the whole of it from his first entring into the office to this time; and however irksome it may be to persons holding lucrative offices to expose their Gains, least it should produce Envy, to me it is disagreeable on a very different account, as I must expose to the World in how poor a situation I am.
From the time of my appointment in June 1777 to January 1783 (to which time the last settlement of my accounts related) was five years and an half, all the money I received, and all the Grants that were made me, including the Grant of £1063.12/ made in March 1784, amount to £1504.2.5.: £217 of which was expended in necessary travelling expences on the business exclusive of horse hire, so that the nett allowance I had was short of 216£ pr. ann., which was not more than two thirds of what it necessarily cost me & would cost any body of moderate Rank & Station 382 to mantain a family during that time, those who doubt this will be better Satisfied when they keep an account of their expences: the business which I did and for which this allowance was made and the nature & circumstances of it are set forth in a memorial & account presented to the honble. General Court March 1784: these are the Grants which some abroad have mentioned as a Greivance, 447£ of which still remains unpaid with out carrying Interest.
Since January 1783 I have had no Salary or Grant made for Services, all the pay I receive arises from bills of Cost for business done, taxed according to the fee table. Some of these bills are paid by the persons who are convicted, but as there are a large proportion of convicts who can pay nothing, and as some are acquitted and some run away and avoid Trial, the Laws of this Commonwealth have provided that the bills of Costs in such cases should be paid out of the fines & forfeitures in the hands of the Sherriff & if they have none, then to be paid out of the public Treasury. Since January 1783 I have received about £640, about 140£ of which has been expended in riding the Circuits, this is about 124£ pr. ann., for my fees on a great number of bills of Costs in the several Counties; not one farthing of which I am well satisfied was drawn out of the public Treasury, but was paid either by the persons convicted or out of fines & forfeitures in the hands of the Sherriffs according to Law, the amount of which has been much lessned by the General Court remitting some fines & forfeitures after the Law had ajudged them due; this is all I have received for services since January 1783, but there remains due to me for business done in the severall Counties since that time about the sum of 880£, for a large part of which bills of cost are taxed & remain unpaid for want of fines & forfeitures in the hands of the Sherriffs, & which if not paid will reduce my support to a mere pittance indeed, and if it is all paid will amount to but about 380£ pr. ann. including travelling Expences; but while this is coming in I am obliged to support my Family from money that should be laid by for my Children: it would be very tedious & difficult to represent the quantity & nature of the business done since January 1783, it would be a very long black Catalogue containing above thirty capital Trials for the most heinous Crimes, a great number of prosecutions for cheats, forgeries, adulteries, Riots, Thefts Seditions & misdemeanors of many kinds so as to engross my time & attention as to be unable to attend to any other business, having no assistant, but the whole business resting upon me from the Argument in court, down to the Druggery of a Clerk: beside this there 383 is a great deal of business done by me for which no provision is made for an allowance, such as a multitude of crimes which are inquired into most diligently but no prosecution takes place for want of sufficient Evidence, and many important Consultations with officers of Government.
Your Memorialist takes this opportunity to represent to this honble. Court another Species of business which he has performed under the Express Direction of Government & for which he has never received one farthing of Allowance; and that is the conducting of the prosecutions against the Estates of the Absentees, a business of great perplexity application & Unthankfullness & which have deprived him of large gratuities he might have received on the other side. I here present an account of it stated according to the Act made for that purpose, tho when your Memorialist was prosecuting this obnoxious business against great opposition, he was encouraged to expect much greater reward than what that act allows
| To 204 Libells or Complaints drawn & filed in the Several Courts of Common Pleas in this Commonwlth. agreeable to the act for confiscating the Estates of certain persons called Absentees, at 6£ according to the act made June 16.1779 which is preambled to be at 8 for 1. by wch. 6£ is equal to 15/ | 163. 0.0 |
| To carrying 105 of the said Libells through the Court of Common Pleas where the claim was not contested at £6. equall. 15/ | 78.15.-- |
| To carrying 8 of said Libells through the Common Pleas where the same were contested & contesting the same at £10 equal 25/ | 10.--.-- |
| To carrying 2 through the Supreme Court & arguing the same at 20£ equal to 50/ | 5.-- -- |
| £246.15.0 |
Your Memorialist therefore humbly apprehends that if the State of his Office is examined with good Judgment, it will appear that instead of the Grants made to him being a Greivance to Goverment, that there really is due to him a large Sum for important Services performed: if any comparison is made between the expence of this office now & before the war, it must be observed that crimes of all sorts and of the most dangerous kind have encreased in a most alarming manner and to that degree, that it is impossible to conduct the business of that department without an officer 384 who spends his time in it in such a manner as to be unable to attend to other business & such an officer must be supported.
As I am pointed at by some of the uneasy members of Society as the Subject of a Greivance, I hope yr. honors will indulge me to observe, that when I undertook the office, it was not from an Idea of making greater gain than I could otherwise do; every one knows, who knew any thing of my then Circumstances, that I left exceedingly better business, & have lost it irrecoverably, by every Station of the business being filled up, and that had I continued in my own business, I had this day been able to live at ease, without being obliged to give an account of my profits to gratify reasonable or unreasonable men; whereas by means of my close application to the executing this office, if it were not for the small remains of what I earned before the War, I could not now Support my Family: I wish not to enlarge on this point, for I flatter myself there are multitudes who best know me & who know that I undertook the office from the same American Principles that induced me so early & earnestly to engage in the contest with Great Britain; I submit the matter to your Honors, hoping that Justice will be done to me & my Family, and that my Just dues will not be witheld from me to redress any supposed Greivence founded on Misrepresentation