Description:

Paine Robert

Robert Treat Paine, Declaration Signer, Combats Sugar Smuggling in Boston

Robert Treat Paine, autograph document signed, Libel in Admiralty, October 1785, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 2 pp., 7.75" x 12.75". Expected folds; very good.

Excerpts

“Be it Remembered that  on the said first Tuesday of October James Lovell of Boston in the County of Suffolk Esq. Naval Officer for the Port of Boston in the said County, comes into Court and as well for the Commonwealth as for himself & all concerned in the seizure herein mentioned Libells and gives the Justices of the said Court to understand and be informed that on the seventeenth day of September in the Year aforesaid at Boston aforesaid and in the Port aforesaid he seized and took into his possession the sloop Yarmouth her tackle Apparrel furniture Cable anchors boats & her Appurtenances whereof Isaac Philips junr was late Master; and also that on the same day in the County of Suffolk aforesaid, he the said Naval Officer seized and took into his possession Eight Hogsheads of brown sugar Containing Eight Thousand Weight, and the said James Lovel Esq Naval Officer as aforesaid avers that the same Eight Hogsheads of sugar were on the Sixteenth day of the same September imported and brought into this Commonwealth and into the Port & county aforesaid on board the said sloop Yarmouth the said Isaac Philips master from parts beyond sea, and that the same eight hogsheads of sugar nor any part thereof were not entered in the Manifest of the Cargo of the said sloop when she was entered at the Naval office of the Port aforesaid that the same Eight Hogsheads of sugar were unladen from the said sloop in the Port aforesaid...without a permit therefor...since the passing the Acts of this Commonwealth imposing a Duty on Sugars and were found in a store and Warehouse in the Port aforesaid....”

“Wherefore the said James Lovel Naval Officer aforesaid prays the advisement of the said Court in the premises & that the said sloop her tackle apparel & appurtenances as aforesaid and also the said Eight Hogsheads of sugar may be adjudged forfeited to the use of the Commonwealth aforesaid according to the laws of the same

RT Paine

Hoc Libellant”.


The sloop Yarmouth, under the command of Isaac Phillips, arrived in Boston from the Danish West Indian island of St. Thomas on September 17, 1785. James Lovell (1737-1814), a close friend of both John and Abigail Adams, had been appointed naval officer for the port of Boston in July 1784, and he held that position until 1787. He was appointed again to the post in 1789 and held it until his death. When the Yarmouth unloaded eight hogsheads of sugar without paying the import duties, Lovell seized both the ship and its cargo.

In October, Robert Treat Paine, as Massachusetts Attorney General, filed this libel in the Suffolk County Court of Common Pleas. The court agreed to hold the ship and sugar and to publish a notice that “all persons claiming Property in the Sloop Yarmouth, and eight Hogsheads of Sugar, seized as forfeited, are hereby Notified to appear at the next Court of Common Pleas to be held at Boston” on January 3 to “shew Cause (if any they have) why the same Sloop and Sugar should not be decreed to remain forfeit.”

Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814) was born in Boston and attended the Boston Latin School. At the age of 14, he entered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1749. He then taught at the Boston Latin School. He began the study of law in 1755 and was admitted to the bar in 1757. He served in the Massachusetts General Court from 1773 to 1774, in the Provincial Congress from 1774 to 1775, and represented Massachusetts at the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776. There, he signed both the Olive Branch petition and the Declaration of Independence. He served as Massachusetts attorney general from 1777 to 1790 and as associate justice of the state supreme court from 1790 to 1804.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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