Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
There shall be no Difficulty about your Appearance to the Action Brimmer vs. Sprout1 on Friday, the Court I suppose will do Business next week when Mr. Brimmer would wish to have the Cause tried; the Case was thus Mr. Brimmer bought divers Articles of Judge Olivers at Vendue among the Rest were these Chairs at £11 the Acct. was footed & paid the goods delivered & at Bs Risque when he was about to transport them to Plymouth Sprout2 discovered an Error in the Calculation of £8:10/ which Mr. Watson who recd. the Goods & was in Doubt whether it was real or not offered to become accountable for & that Mr. Brimmer should pay but Sprout with some Insinuations as to the Credit of them both refused there was an Article in the Invoice of the very Price with the Amount of the Error this Mr. Watson urged Sprout to detain if he would detain anything but he refused & took the Chairs. Brimmer in particular want of the Chairs & at the same Time offended at the Treatment he recd., brings this Action, let the Chairs be deld. at Plymo. where they would at that Time have been carried without any further Expence to him & the Costs paid & Mr. B. wishes for no more & stands ready to account for the Error if there is one—& I will be his Bondsman for the Payment. I write in Haste Representatives Room House just forming. Your Friend & Bror.
Zebedee Sprout v. Martin Brimmer was heard at the Feb. 1779 term of the Superiour Court of Judicature for Suffolk County, and the jury awarded Brimmer damages of £29. The case concerned the sale of furniture from the estate of Judge Peter Oliver (1713–1791), a loyalist who had left Massachusetts in 1776. Martin Brimmer (1742–1804), a Boston merchant, was married to Sarah Watson of Plymouth, a granddaughter of Judge Oliver. RTP represented Brimmer in this case but left only cursory notes concerning it (Superiour Court of Judicature Minute Books, Suffolk County, Feb. 1779. Massachusetts Judicial Archives, Boston, Mass.; NEHGR 12[1858]:338).
Zebedee Sprout (1742–1810) represented Middleborough in the state legislature between 1778 and 1784 and served on the Plymouth County committee on confiscated loyalist estates (Schutz, Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court, 345).
PassedJanuary 9, 1779
Resolved that the Attorney General be and he hereby is impowered and directed to file and support a claim in the Maritime Court, in behalf of this State, against the Ship Somerset and appurtenances, said to be wrecked on some part of the shore in the County of Barnstable.1
The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1777–1778 (Boston, 1918), 547.
RTP noted in his diary on Mar. 29: “tryal of Ship Somersett british 74 guns ship argued for State.” Three days later, on Apr. 1, he “argued for the Marlborough’s Prize.”
The case of Simeon Spencer et al. v. the Ship Somerset was appealed from the Maritime Court to the Superiour Court of Judicature at its June 1779 session for Essex County. The jury determined that:
the said Ship Sommersett and her Cargo & effects were the property of the King of Great Britain, said Ship being his Ship of War and employed in committing hostilities against the united States of America and that sd. Ship was by the act of God cast on the shores of this State near the Towns of Truro & Province Town in the County of Barnstable and there stranded—and the Jury adjudge one half of the neat proceeds of sd. Ship her Cargo & Effects to the Government and People of this State, one sixth part thereof to Simeon Spencer & others claiming under him, one twelfth part thereof to Sylvanus Snow & others claiming under him, and the remainder thereof being one fourth to Seth Nickerson & others claiming under him, the said Seth Nickerson & others first paying out of sd. remainder to Samuel Smalley, John Hill, John Ridley, Abraham Coan, Elisha Dyer, Richd. Stevens, Barzillai Smith, Constant Hopkins, Taylor Small, Josa. Payne junr. & Wm. Dyer each such sum of money as will amount to a single share of the one twelfth part adjudged to Sylvanus Snow & others claiming under him. (Superiour Court of Judicature Minute Books, “Book Containing Appeals from the Maritime Court,” June 1779–Oct. 1788. Massachusetts Judicial Archives, Boston, Mass.)