Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
Agreable to your desire, I will give you a narritive of our proceedings1 at Portsmo. Exeter & Since; the morning you left us, the Jury in their Verdict found the facts True as alledged in the Libel, after which Mr. Lowell Demanded an Appeal to Congress & tendered Security to prosecute & Argued the matter very learnedly but an appeal was Denied by the Court, and a Record made of it. We then spoke for the Copies which will be here next Wednesday night, Mr. Lowell is now drawing the Complaint & next week they are to go forward by Genl. Heaths2 Packett and to be Delivd. the post by Genl. Hancock (who is very friendly) & will assist us to the Utmost. We write Mr. Jos. Reed3 & Mr. Lewis4 at Philadelphia to assist as Counsell there, Genl. Hancock also writes for us to recommend us, to them. This Sir is the outlines of our proceedings; when leaveing Exeter Judge Thornton5 came to the Door & wished us a good Journey, but we took no notice of him; to Add Insult to Ravage the proprietors have advertised the Brig & Cargo for Sale in the Boston Newpapers. When the trial comes on at Congress I shall go, & we expect you will render us Every assistance in your power to have the matter Brought to a Close, as doubtless you will be at Congress before the trial. They seem to despise Congress & say they shall take no notice of what they do, I am under no apprehensions on that head, if Congress will take up the matter. I have nothing more material to say, therefore am respectfully
The continuing case of Penhallow v. Lusanna. See Bourne to RTP, Nov. 17, 1777, RTP 3:418–419. RTP took the appeals on this case and noted in his diary: Mar. 11: “PM began the tryal of the libel vs. Brigg Lusanna”; Mar. 13: “this Evening the Cause given to the Jury”; Mar. 14: “at 11 oClock Jury came in & informed the Court they could not agree. the papers taken from them & the Cause continued.” And at the continuation on Sept. 2, 1778: “Case of Doan’s Claim of Brig Lusanna came on”; Sept. 4: “finished arguing sd. cause in Evning.”
From Exeter, RTP proceeded to Providence, R.I., where he argued a similar maritime case, “the cause Jenks & Hoy as Libellants vs. Sloop Fancy Jona. Payson & al claimant” (RTP Diary, Sept. 8, 1778).
Maj. Gen. William Heath (1737–1814) of Roxbury served in the Massachusetts militia at the start of the Revolution and in the Continental Army from its establishment to 1783. He served as commander of the Eastern District (Mar. 1777–June 1779) and of the Lower Hudson District (June 1779–1783). He 51 later became an outspoken Massachusetts Federalist and supported the ratification of the U.S. Constitution (American National Biography).
Joseph Reed (1741–1785) graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1757 and was admitted to the bar in 1763. In 1770 he moved to Philadelphia, where he was a member of the Committee of Correspondence in 1774 and president of the Pennsylvania convention in 1775. He went to Cambridge, Mass., as Washington’s aide-de-camp and military secretary in July 1775 and served as adjutant general of the Continental Army from June 1775 to Jan. 1777. Reed returned to the Continental Congress in 1778 and was president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania from 1778 to 1781 (American National Biography).
William Lewis (1751–1819) entered the bar in Philadelphia in 1773. Under President Washington, Lewis later became a federal appointee as district attorney (1789) and district judge (1792) (Henry Simpson, The Lives of Eminent Philadelphians [Philadelphia, 1859], 655–657).
Matthew Thornton (1714–1803), a physician, was a member of the fourth and fifth Provincial Congresses of New Hampshire and represented that state in the First Continental Congress. In 1771 he became chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Hillsborough County, and served from 1776 to 1782 as a judge of the Superior Court (Charles H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire [Boston, 1894], 28–29).