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630 body in Petersburg, Va., he was elected bishop. During the civil war his church prosecuted its work under great embarrassment and increasing poverty, during which the energy and hopefulness of Bishop Paine were a constant inspiration. Sub- sequently it rose above its embarrassment, and his contemporaries attributed this in large measure to his efforts. He was greatly interested in missions. Bishop Paine received the degree of A. M. from the University of Nashville, and that of D. D. from Wesleyan university in 1842. He published " The Life and Times of Bishop McKendree " (2 vols., 1859), which is essential to any that wish to study that period in the history of the Methodist church. His only other publication of importance was a small controversial work against Hopkinsianism. PAINE, Robert Treat, signer of the Declara- tion of Independence, b. in Boston, Mass., 11 March, 1731; d. there, 11 May, 1814, His father, Thomas (b. about 1697; d. in 1757), was for several years pastor of a church in Wey- mouth, Mass., but, owingto impaired health, resigned his charge and engaged in mer- cantile pursuits in Boston. He pub- lished an ■' Ordi- nation Sermon " (1719); a "Lec- ture on Origi- nal Sin " (1724) ; and a " Lecture on Earthquakes " (1728). The son was graduated at Harvard in 1749. went to Europe on mercantile business, studied theology, acted as chaplain of the troops on the northern frontier in 1755, and subsequently preached in the pulpits of the regular clergy in Boston and in its vicinity. He then studied law, supporting himself by teach- ing, was admitted to the bar in 1759, and practised for a time in Boston. He afterward removed to Taunton, Mass., and was a delegate from that town in 1768 to the convention that was called at Bos- ton after the dissolution of the general court by Sir Francis Bernard, governor of Massachusetts, for refusing to rescind the circular letter to the other colonies requesting them to act in concert for the public good. In 1770 he came more prominently into public notice by conducting with ability and ingenuity, in the absence of the attorney-general, the prosecution against Capt. Thomas Preston and his men for firing on inhabitants of Boston on 5 March, 1770. In 1773-'4 he was a delegate from Taunton to the general assembly of Massachusetts, and was one of the members that were chosen to conduct the impeachment of Peter Oliver, then chief justice of the province, who was charged with receiving his stipend from the king instead of a grant from the assembly. He was a delegate to the Provincial congress in 1774-5, and to the Continental congress trom 1774 till 1778, serving on important committees and signing the Declara- tion of Independence. In the autumn of 1775 he was appointed one of a committee of three to visit Gen. Philip Schuyler's army on the northern fron- tier. During his term in congress he was chair- man of a committee to make contracts for muskets and bayonets and for encouraging the manufac- ture of fire-arms, and held important offices in Massachusetts, being in 1777 speaker of the house of representatives and attorney-general. In 1778 he was one of a committee on the part of Massa- chusetts to meet others from the northern states in New Haven to regulate the price of labor, pro- visions, and manufactures, and presented the case to the legislature, which soon passed a bill to pre- vent oppression and monopoly. In 1779 he was a member of the executive council and a delegate to the State constitutional convention and the adop- tion of the new constitution. In the following year he was chosen attorney-general of Massachusetts. He held this office until 1790, v/hen he became a judge of the supreme court, which post he re- signed in 1804. In that year he was again a state councillor. His legal attainments were great, and he was an able and impartial judge, an excellent scholar, and noted for the brilliancy of his wit. Mr. Paine received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard in 1805, and was a founder of the Ameri- can academy of arts and sciences in 1780. — His son, Robert Treat, poet, b. in Taunton, Mass., 9 Dec, 1773 : d. in Boston, Mass., 13 Nov., 1811, was origi- nally named Thomas, but in 1801 assumed the name of his father, by act of legislature. He was accustomed to say that he now had a " Christian " name, alluding to the deistic doctrines of his namesake. Thomas Paine. He was graduated at Harvard in 1792, and entered a counting-house in Boston. During this period he was a frequent contributor to the " Massachusetts Gazette." In 1794 he established a semi-weekly newspaper called the " Federal Orrery," which he conducted for two years without discretion or profit, and in which appeared " The Jacobiniad " and " The Lyars," whose personalities made him many ene- mies and occasioned assaults upon his person. In 1792 professional actors made their fii'st appear- ance in Boston, and, in order to avoid collision with the law forbidding " stage plays," their perform- ances were termed dramatic recitations. This law was repealed in 1793, and in the next year the Federal theatre was built and opened with a prize prologue by Paine, who became intimate with those connected with the stage, and married an actress. This led to a disagreement with his father and his exclusion from fashionable society. Resigning the office of " master of ceremonies," which post had been created for him at the theatre, he removed to Newburyport and studied law under Theophilus Parsons, with whom he practised in Boston in 1802. Although he achieved success and had brill- iant prospects, he resumed his intimacy with act- ors, wrote criticisms of the theatre, and returned to his unsettled mode of life, passing his latter days in destitution and misery. On taking his degree of A. M. at Cambridge in 1795, he delivered a poem entitled " The Invention of Letters," con- taining some lines on Jacobinism, which he spoke, notwithstanding they had been crossed out by the college authorities. It is dedicated to Washington and closes with a rapturous eulogy of him. For this composition he received $1,500, or more than $5 a line. He gained |1,200 on the publication of "The Ruling Passion" in 1797. and |750 for the famous song " Adams and Liberty." written in 1798 at the request of the Massachusetts chari- table fire society. When he showed this to a friend in whose house he was visiting, his host pronounced it imperfect, as the name of Washington was. omitted, and declared that Paine should not ap- proach the sideboard, on which wine had just been placed, until he had written an additional stanza. In a few moments Paine wrote the verse, which is considered the best in the song. In 1799 he de-