1810 Prentiss Mellen, Federalist US Senator, early Abolitionist, 1st Maine Chief Justice, signed letter & postal cover to William Sullivan, Boston

1810 Prentiss Mellen, Federalist US Senator from Massachusetts, 1st Chief Justice of Maine following it's statehood in 1820, addressed to William Sullivan, Boston. 

Cover postmarked Portland, ME, APR, addressed to William Sullivan, Counsellor at Law, Boston, docketed "P. Mellen, April 10, 1810 - Representative Election" as well as "Prentiss Mellen - Portland, 1810."  

Contextual setting for letter:   Prentiss Mellen is writing in early April, 1810 in reaction to recent 1810 election results and specifically to the 1810 Massachusetts gubernatorial election that was held on April 2, 1810.  Incumbent Federalist Governor Christopher Gore was defeated by Democratic-Republican nominee Elbridge Gerry (signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution).  After this letter in 1812, Elbridge Gerry signed the notorious bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. known today as the practice of district map  "Gerrymandering".

Interior Letter transcription of what appears to be final page of his letter:

"This having a federal Senate, our new Governor surrounded as he will be by federal Consullers will have precious little reason tossing/hopping[?] aloud for joy at this unexhalted elevation -- I am almost sick of effort in such a course - or rather with such materials to work with, as the deluded people of our country-- tis literally the days of female things. -- Yours sincerely, [signed] Prentiss Mellen"

William Sullivan (1774-1839) was a prominent Boston lawyer and legal advisor, Federalist politician, and author. Sullivan was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1795, served in the Massachusetts General Court (MA Legislature) from 1804-1830, and was a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention (1830). From 1830, he devoted most of his career to writing about political institutions of the United States.  Books, The Political Class Book (1831), The Moral Class Book (1831).

Prentiss Mellen (1764-1840) served as a US Senator from Massachusetts (1818-1820) and was appointed Maine's first chief justice (the Maine Supreme Judicial Court) after it gained statehood in 1820.  In the 1780s he was a tutor for the family of James Otis, Jr. (1765 Stamp Act Congressman and early abolitionist who argued that blacks also had the inalienable rights to life, liberty and property), and he studied law with fellow Federalist Congressman Shearjashub Bourne.  Mellen served on the Massachusetts Governor's Council from 1808-1809 and 1817.  He was a presidential elector in 1817.  Prentis Mellen was the first President of the abolitionist Anti-Slavery Society formed in Portland in 1833 with Abolitionists Samuel Fessenden and Gershom Cox. [announced in The Abolitionist: or record of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, Boston, Printed by Garrison & Knapp, 1833, 95].

Condition, weak/splitting folds with edge chipping as pictured.