“Let not that man be trusted who can voilate private faith”

The Massachusetts Whigs were flabbergasted by the evidence that Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., was corresponding with someone behind enemy lines.

By the fall of 1775, those men had worked alongside Dr. Church for a decade. He had helped to compose instructions for representatives, correspondence to Whigs in Britain, and political verse for engravings.

The doctor had delivered the Massacre memorial oration in 1773. He had represented Boston in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and then the General Court, serving on the most sensitive committees.

His fellow legislators had chosen Church to take important documents to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and then to escort Gen. George Washington across the state from Springfield. He was serving as the top doctor in the Continental Army.

Church’s erstwhile colleagues wrote to each other in astonishment.

One group of Massachusetts Patriots who didn’t express such surprise, however, were the Massachusetts Whigs’ wives.

Those women had noted Church’s habit of extramarital affairs, rumored as early as 1769. By 1774 he was maintaining a mistress outside of Boston. To other men’s wives, the doctor’s betrayal of Sarah Church made it easy to believe he’d betrayed his political movement as well.

Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John on October 9:

You have doubtless heard of the viliny of one who has professd himself a patriot, but let not that man be trusted who can voilate private faith, and cancel solem covanants, who can leap over moral law, and laugh at christianity.

Mercy Warren, wife of Massachusetts house speaker James Warren, added her voice three days later:

I fear a Late Instance of perfidy and Baseness in one who Rancked Himself among the Friends to the Rights of society and the Happiness of the Community Will occasion many Inviduous Reflections from the Enemies of the American Cause.

I was Ever sorry that there should be one among the Band of patriots Whose Moral Character was Impeachable for when the Heart is Contaminated, and the Obligations of private Life Broken through, And the man has thrown of[f] the Restraints Both of Honour and Conscience with Regard to His own Domestic Conduct, what Dependance is to be Made on the Rectitude of His public Intentions.

Abigail Greenleaf, wife of the publisher Joseph Greenleaf, wrote to her brother Robert Treat Paine on 14 October:

How Sir, did you receive the news of the Perfidy & treachery of Docter Church? Was it not in Silent astonishment? It will I believe, bow down the grey hairs of his Father & Mother, with Sorrow to the grave. His Poor wife too, is an object of the Pitty, & Compassion of every one. She still Loves him, tho, he has treated her in so base a manner. If she looses her senses I think twill not be strange; but it will be melancholy.

Abigail Adams came back to the topic on 21 October:

What are your thoughts with regard to Dr. Church? Had you much knowledg of him? I think you had no intimate acquaintance with him.

“A foe to God was ne’er true Friend to man
Some sinister intent taints all he does.”

The wise response to such questions from a spouse was of course: ‘I agree with you, dear. I barely knew the man. You’re so right.’

Abigail Paine: college boy's big sister

In 1746, Abigail Paine was a twenty-one-year-old Boston woman. Despite her intelligence, she had no chance to go to Harvard College, as her brother Robert Treat Paine did that year. He was only fifteen, but the mid-teens was the usual age for boys to enter college in this period.

Young Bob Paine seems to have kept in touch with his older sister and the rest of the family in a way parents might recognize today: by sending his laundry home. Here are extracts from some of the early letters from The Papers of Robert Treat Paine, vol. 1.

Abigail to Bob, 20 Oct: "Father is much Concern'd that you have no wood and wou'd have you Come down, we shall Send the horse this affernoon or in the morning if we have any Opertunity for their is a Nesessity of your Coming or Sending your Linnin for Wednesday is our Wash."

20 Nov: "Dear Brother, I am oblidg'd to you for Sending your Linnin to us but I am Sorry that you Could not afford us your Company when it desir'd it So Strongly but I'll Suspend my resentments till I see you and hear your reason. I have sent you one Shirt which will Last till thanksgiving, I pray that you wou'd bring all your Linin & Stockings for I did not Recive but three shirts & necks & 2 Caps."

The following March, Abigail told her little brother, "I have Sent you a peice of Cake and wish you Cou'd have more of it. If I Cou'd Come up, I wou'd bring one to keep your birth day." What a swell sister! She also reminded Bob, "I pray that you wou'd Send me all your dirty Linnen & Some more Berries."

In 1749, Abigail married a man working for her merchant father, Joseph Greenleaf. He became a lawyer and justice of the peace in Abington, then in the early 1770s moved to Boston and became involved in the Patriot cause. He wrote for (and helped fund) the Massachusetts Spy, then started the Royal American Magazine. Greenleaf remained politically active through and after the war, though he never achieved the prominence of his brother-in-law.

Abigail and Joseph Greenleaf had seven children, six surviving to adulthood. Abigail died in 1809, her husband a year later.