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THE PAPERS OF ROBERT TREAT PAINE
 

 Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814) is best remembered today as a signer of the Declaration of Independence. However, his position as a public figure in Massachusetts stretched over more than thirty years, beginning in 1770, when he stood as co-counsel for the Crown in the Boston Massacre Trials, and continuing until 1804 when he resigned from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts due to declining health. In this long career during a most important phase of Massachusetts and American history, Paine also served on numerous local and statewide committees, in the House of Representatives and on the governor's Council for Massachusetts, in the Provincial Congress, in the Continental Congress, as the attorney general of Massachusetts, and as a delegate to the state's constitutional convention.

 The printed edition of The Papers of Robert Treat Paine is a selected edition from the Robert Treat Paine collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society along with items located in repositories across the country. The published Papers include correspondence to and from Paine beginning with his days at Harvard and continuing until the end of his life. Specifically, all correspondence between Paine and family members and friends, and all correspondence with fellow lawyers will be published in full. Also included are Paine's letters to clients and the corresponding incoming letters. However, as a rule, letters from clients which are not followed up by letters by Paine and which do not relate to other published correspondence will not be included. Also included are representative examples of his allegorical writings, an example of his sermons, and an example of his Harvard undergraduate club writings.

 Not published in this edition are documents considered by the editors to be routine, casual or repetitive (such as powers of attorney, deeds, mortgages, papers relating to the settlement of his father's insolvent estate, formal documents signed by Paine in his capacities of justice of the peace, attorney general, or attorney). Also excluded are Paine's dairies because of the paucity of information, often noting only the weather and seldom more than the most cursory of narration. For example, while in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, he simply noted: cool the Independence of the States voted declared.  Diary entries will, however, be used for annotation purposes; and a typescript of the entire diary can be consulted at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

 A microfilm edition of the complete Robert Treat Paine Papers was published by the Massachusetts Historical Society and includes a full item listing of the contents and a name index.
 

 Volume I (1746-1756) and Volume II (1757-1774), edited by Stephen T. Riley and Edward W. Hanson, were published in 1992.

 Further volumes forthcoming.

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