Boston 5 June 1764 Dear Sir,

I Thank you for the Agreeabell News you wright me1Concerning my Family which however worrys my mind some that I cannot come Directly Home. How ever Judge it will not be safe for me Sooner then Mundy or Tusday Next. I am troubled with Severail Boills not very Large also an Inflamation in one of my Eyes that has been Extreemly Teadeous. I am now growing Better of it but Cant bair the Light. I have Been Quight I'll for five Days Back so that I am not so Stought as might be Expected. My Doct. thinks I Shall geet saffly thro' it. I Beleve I should come more Comfortable Home In a Chair than a Horse Back. However if you can Perswaid any of the Scholars to stay till Munday I shall be able to ride Horse Back if you send my Horse Down By any of the Scholars give a Charge that they Dont over wride. I should be a Most Afraid to venter any of them with my Horse in a Chair. However I submit all to your Better Judgment. My Bill is very High I shall want at Least Eight Dollers more then I have, from your Friend and Humble Servt.

WM. MCKINSTRY

P:S Please to Borrow Mr. Adams's Large Sadelbaggs and send Down. Please to Rember me to Mrs Mckinstry tell her I hope with safty to see her a Tusday night.

RC ; addressed: "To Robart Treat Pain Esqr. In Taunton"; endorsed.

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Not located.

Charlestown 8th. June 1764. Dearly Beloved Bror. Robert,

I suppose before this Time you have seen & read with a proper Mixture of Indignation & Contempt, the low, pitiful, Grubstreet, Billinsgate, rascally, dastardly, Indian-like, c-rs-d, d-'d impudent attack upon our right, noble selves. Be he Captain or Doctor, I set him down for a mean cowardly Scoundrel—a base born Son of Darkness—a Savage Sculking D—l.1

And what vex's me to the Guts, more than this unknown Whelp's Impudence, is the egregious Stupidity of some of my Countrymen, who are so303blinded by the Father of this notable Lyar, the God of this World, as really to to think it a smart performance. I have no patience to hear the dirtyest of all the dirty Scrouls that ever the dirtyest Jokes produced, trumpeted up as the Mirror of Wit. All this Novanglian Geniuses have in their Turns been guess'd at as the Author of a scurrilous piece, for which, had any porter on the Docks scribled it, he ought to have been strip'd of his Badge, & kick'd into the Kennel.

I have sent a few Lines to the press calling on him for his Name, which is all the notice I think proper to take of it, unless I can find him out; but if I do, I dont know but I shall make a Journey to Taunton purely to join with you in lampooning the Dog. I am in a hurry, or should write many Things to you. Pray let me have a Line from you that I may know what your Feelings are upon this Occasion. If you find out the Author let me know him—& if I am so lucky as to ken him, you may depend on a Line post haste from Your Friend & Bror.

JON: SEWALL

RC ; addressed: "To Robert Treat Paine Esqr. In Taunton"; endorsed.

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The letters by "Philanthropos," which attacked William Greenleaf and his defenders, was dated at Cambridge May 25, 1764, and appeared in the Boston Gazette of May 28, June 18, and July 16, 1764. Sewall submitted his challenge to reveal the identity of "Philanthropos" on June 11, signing as "S.P."

Sewall himself used the pseudonym "Philanthrop" for a series of articles defending Governor Bernard, published in the Boston Evening Post between Dec. 1, 1766, and Mar. 2, 1767 (Adams, Diary, 1:329).