罗伯特·特鲁·潘恩，签名者

罗伯特·特雷特·潘恩于1731年出生于波士顿, 托马斯·潘恩的儿子, 一个举家迁往波士顿并成为商人的牧师, 和尤尼斯·特蕾莎·潘恩. Bob Paine attended Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard College in the Class of 1749. 他尝试在学校教书和传教，并四处旅行, including a whaling voyage to Greenland and service as a chaplain in the French and Indian War, 在决定成为律师之前. Paine moved his law practice from Boston to Taunton, Massachusetts in 1761. In 1770, just as he was—at the age of 39—about to marry 25-year-old Sally Cobb in Taunton, the patriot leadership of Boston recruited him to aid in the prosecution of the British soldiers who had been accused of murder after the Boston Massacre. The trials that followed were for Paine and his co-counsel Samuel Quincy a "windmill adventure," but Paine's quixotic role did not damage his legal or political career (a description of 罗伯特·特鲁特·潘恩's 利记APP官网手机版波士顿大屠杀的大量笔记 可用).

罗伯特·特鲁特·潘恩 was elected first to the Massachusetts General Court (the colonial legislature) in 1773 and then a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774, 在哪里, 革命开始后, he de投票 much energy and time to encouraging the production of cannon and gunpowder—and attempted to bring order and decorum to meetings of Congress. 1776年7月, he drafted "rules and orders for the government of this house" including a prohibition on reading "any printed Paper" while Congress was in session or speaking—or even whispering—while another member had the floor. 不幸的是, in all of his attention to good order in Congress and the manufacture of munitions, he de投票 little time to his diary or his correspondence—other than letters that he exchanged with Henry Knox about cannon founding. 在很大程度上, we know of letters that Paine wrote in the first days of July 1776 only by references to them in the letters of his wife, 莎莉·科布·潘恩, 以及他的其他家庭成员, 以及1776年7月6日写给约瑟夫·帕尔默的一封信 这只存在于一个诱人的简短摘录中 出版于19世纪.

What is not included in Paine's diary entries and surviving correspondence from July 1776 is evidence about how he overcame a bitter feud with fellow Massachusetts delegate and long-time rival John 亚当斯 to work together in the Continental Congress to promote the move for Independence. 就在几个月前, a "malicious and slanderous" letter from James Warren to John 亚当斯 had accidently fallen into Paine's hands, 揭示了他那些更激进的同事对他的看法. Paine's diary entries are so cryptic that it is difficult to know how to interpret them: when he writes, "各州投票并宣布独立," is he referring to the vote in Congress for Independence on 2 July? Or to a separate, but unrecorded vote to approve the Declaration on 4 July? 8月2日，《利记手机官网》正式签署, 潘恩所记录的只是那天“非常热”."

Although 罗伯特·特鲁特·潘恩 was reelected to the Continental Congress in 1777 and 1778, he remained in Massachusetts 在哪里 he was briefly the speaker of the House of Representatives and then the first attorney general of Massachusetts from 1777-1790. 潘恩夫妇养育了八个孩子, first in Taunton and later in Boston 在哪里 they lived after the Revolution. After serving as attorney general during the crisis of Shays' Rebellion, Paine was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 在哪里 he served until 1804. 年龄并没有使“大熊”变得成熟。, as Judge Paine was known by young lawyers who appeared before him, although his old foe John 亚当斯 was saddened by Paine's death in 1814. It marked the end of the "triumvirate" of surviving Massachusetts signers of the Declaration of Independence: Paine, 亚当斯, 还有埃尔布里奇·格里. With the death of Vice President Elbridge Gerry a few months later, John 亚当斯 was left the sole survivor of the Massachusetts delegation. 亚当斯活了下来, to die—along with fellow patriot and president Thomas Jefferson—on the fiftieth anniversary of the 宣言 1826年7月4日宣布独立.