Taunton June the 4 1779 My Dear,

Mr. Crosman Set out for Boston this after noon with the Chaise for you he expects to return with you1 I Should not Sent the Chaise till tomorrow but Mr. Crosman Chose to go to day. You write that things are very dear I hope not So dear as here. Coffe is 4 doll lb. & Sugar 3 & every things els is as dear. I hope you will be at home by monday night. I wish you would examine the Chaise wheels & have it mended their Some of the Spokes work which Should be mended. Our family are pretty well. Give my kind Love to Mr. Greenleafs family & tell them their web is not done yet but I hope it will be Soon & Shall take all the care that is needfull about it.

In haste yours Sally Paine

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

92 1.

RTP noted in his diary for June 7: “Rode home in my chaise took out of the Almshouse at Boston a Boy named Willm. Dun. 7 yr. old last Jany.” Dunn had entered the almshouse at the age of two, “a Child of Eliza. Bennets,” on Aug. 31, 1774. He was indentured to RTP to learn husbandry and remained in the Paine household until 1790 when RTP sold the indenture following a runaway attempt (Lawrence Towner, “The Indentures of Boston’s Poor Apprentices, 1734–1805,” in Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 43:456; Eric Nellis and Anne Decker Cecere, eds., The Eighteenth-Century Records of the Boston Overseers of the Poor. Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 69:252).

Passed June 7, 1779

Whereas one Robert Allen,1 late a Captain in the Continental Regiment raised by this State, late commanded by Col. Ichabod 2 Alden deceased, is apprehended upon a Charge of Forgery and defrauding several Towns within this State of large Sums of Money, upon Pretence of having inlisted divers Soldiers into the Continental Service on their Account, and as the Attorney-General has informed this Court that the Witnesses against the said Allen cannot at present be had, by reason of their residing at a distance from Boston, where the said Allen is now committed to Gaol for further examination; and whereas there was found upon the said Allen, when he was formerly apprehended and made his Escape, a considerable Sum of Money which by the Council was ordered into the keeping of the Sheriff of the County of Suffolk, and another Sum of Money, together with a Loan Office Certificate has now also been found upon him; and whereas it is highly reasonable that the Government should be reimbursed the Costs and Expences they have been at in apprehending the said Allen, and may further expend in prosecuting him upon the said Charges: Therefore

Resolved, That the said Allen be and remain committed unto the Gaol aforesaid until the Attorney-General may have an opportunity to procure the Witnesses against said Allen, provided that he shall not stand committed for that Cause after the next Term of the Superior Court of Judicature, &c. to be held at Boston in and for the County of Suffolk. And be it further

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Resolved, That the Sheriff for the same County be and he hereby is directed to receive and retain in his Hands all the said Monies and Certificate, to the End that the Costs, Charges and Expences aforementioned be paid and satisfied out of the same, and the Residue, if any, be subject to the future Order of the Court.3

Printed as Chapter 58 [1779–1780] in The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1779–1780 (Boston, 1922), 30.

1.

Robert Allen was commissioned as captain in the 7th Massachusetts Continental Regiment under Col. Ichabod Alden, on Jan. 1, 1777. He resigned on Sept. 3, 1778 (Heitman, Officers of the Continental Army, 59, 61).

2.

Brackets reproduced from the 1922 printed edition of Acts and Resolves, which supplied Alden’s first name from Mass. Soldiers and Sailors of the Rev. War, 1:107.

3.

This case was not heard at the subsequent session of the court, which occurred on Aug. 31 or thereafter (Superiour Court of Judicature Minute Books, Suffolk County, Aug. 1779. Massachusetts Judicial Archives, Boston, Mass.).