Robert Treat Paine, American Founder

(Updated June 24, 2025)

Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814) was an American Founder who was signer of the Declaration of Independence. He also served as the first Attorney General of Massachusetts, and a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Letters

Robert Treat Paine, To Joseph Palmer (July 6, 1776)¹

The day before yesterday the Declaration of American Independency was voted by twelve colonies…Thus the issue is joined; and it is our comfortable reflection, that if by struggling we can avoid that service subjection which Britain demanded, we remain a free and happy people; but if, through the frowns of Providence, we sink in the struggle, we do but remain the wretched people we should have been without this Declaration. Our hearts are full, our hands are full; may God, in whom we trust, support us.

Footnotes

1. Paul H. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789: May 16-August 15, 1776 (Washington, D.C.:  Library of Congress, 1978), 399. ↩︎