Just now I received your Excellency's favours of the 20 Current, with inclosed Copy of a letter from the Commissioners of the Massachusets Bay now at Albany to your Excellency complaining of the detainer of one Joseph Paine, in Albany goal at m.y Sute ; in which they are pleased to say, that this man was arrested for a supposed Traspass, on Lands claimed by that Government, altho' an hireling and at work in the field of another man ; In which I think these Gentlemen are misinform'd the truth is, that this Pain was a wood cutter for my Deceased father at his Ironworks above 12 years agoe, & begd of him to lett him have a small farm near the works for him & his old woman to live on wliich after some time was granted, & where he lived unmolested untill 1753, when he whent in defyance of me with his Son in Law into my woods which had been in the

MANOR OF LIVINGSTON. 81 !>

possession of my Grandfather my fatlier & self since the year 1686 & for which I have i-egular pattents under the Great Seal of this Province ready to be produced and there Girdled, & cutt down several thousands of trees fit to make Coal for my Ironworks, to my ver}' great damage, & told the men I sent to forbid him, that the Lands were his & he would go on &distroy the timber as he pleased & Robert Livingston kiss his a -- s. so that it appears by this Impertinent answer he was principle & not an hireling and accordingly was arrested & for want of sufficient Bail clap'd in Goal & some time after I obtained a judgment of Court against him for said damage agreable to the laws of this Province.