Taunton Decr. 23d. 1786 Dear,

I recd. your Letter1 sometime since, & have been twice on purpose to see Capt. Ingle but Could not find him at home neither have I seen him to speak with him since I was at Boston. I Should before now have seen him but there has been no horse tract to his house Since the Snow.

I have Called upon Solo. Wetherell for your & my own Rates & he was to bring an acct. of them but I Suppose the Snow has prevented—but you need not Care about that for I will send you an acct. in season, if not Ill pay them & take your Certificate for the same.

385

I will see Capt. Ingle and Wetherell as soon as it is passing for horses—& do as you wou’d wish.

WE are all in health & hope you & good family are so to whom present my Complts. & believe me to be your friend &c.

Seth Padelford

I have Entered an action or two for Jany. Court if there should be an appearance agt. me I wish you to answer for me the Clerk will Inform you if there is.

RC ; brackets mark a hole in the manuscript.

1.

Not located.

Keene Decr. 25. 1786 Sir,

Mr. Smith1 has been reading Law with me2 the usual time required by the establishd Rules in the several Counties in this State, to be spent in a Lawyer’s office in order to be admitted as an Attorney. And there is no objection made agt. his being admitted in this County, on Account of any Deficiency in his Natural Abilities, or Understanding of the Law. But some objections have been made against him on account of his Character in the Common Wealth of Massachusetts. And as you are well acquainted with him I should take it as a favour if you would send me an Answer to the following Question, viz. is the Character of Mr. Smith in the Common Wealth of Massachusetts So bad in your opinion that he ought not to be admitted as an Attorney, provided that he is in other Respects suitably qualified for admission? By granting my Request you will much oblige your Huml. Servt.

Danl. Newcomb

RC ; addressed: “The Honble. Robt. Treat Paine Esqr. Boston”; endorsed.

1.

Jeremiah Smith (1759–1859) was a 1780 graduate of Queen’s College (now Rutgers) and read law with Shearjashub Bourne in Sandwich, Mass., with William Pynchon in Salem, Mass., and finally with Newcomb in Keene, N.H. After this initial concern for Smith’s qualifications, he was admitted to the New Hampshire 386 bar, practiced in Peterborough and Exeter, served in Congress, was U.S. district attorney for the state, and later became judge of probate (Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire, 58–59).

2.

Daniel Newcomb (1747–1818) was originally from Norton, Mass., and graduated from Harvard (A.B., 1768). He read law with Jonathan Sewall and John Lowell and moved to Keene, N.H., where he practiced law from 1778. He briefly sat as judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Cheshire County and as a justice of the Superior Court. Newcomb’s “talents were above mediocrity, but not pre-eminent” (Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire, 51; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 17:60–63).