1. For a lively sketch of her and her husband, Capt. Nathaniel Treadwell, see JA, Diary and Autobiography , 2:38.

2. JA had been engaged by Col. Elisha Doane, a wealthy Cape Cod shipowner, and his son-in-law, Shearjashub Bourne, to defend them in a case about to come before a maritime court sitting in Portsmouth. The case was that of Penhallow and Treadwell v. Brig Lusanna and Cargo. Doane was the owner and Bourne had been supercargo of Lusanna, which had been captured by a New Hampshire privateer under circumstances strongly indicating that she had been trading with the enemy. The case was in the courts for many years because the question of the authority of the Continental Congress, as opposed to that of individual states, was at issue; it was not in fact settled until the United States Supreme Court rendered a final decision in 1795, which was in favor of JA's clients. But JA's connection with it was brief, his argument for the Doanes in Portsmouth in Dec. 1777 being probably his last appearance as a practicing lawyer. See his recollections of the trial as given in his Diary and Autobiography , 4:2–3, and the editorial note there. His MS minutes of the case are in M/JA/6, Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185, and will presumably be printed in JA, Legal Papers .

3. On 13 Oct. the General Court repealed the “regulatory” (or price-fixing) acts that had proved so objectionable and unworkable, and passed an act to draw in the state's badly depreciated bills of credit (Mass., Province Laws , 5:733–737).