Delegates to Congress . Letters of delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, Volume 4, May 16 1776-August 15 1776
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Richard Henry Lee to To: Thomas Ludwell Lee


My Dear Brother,

(1)
Philadelphia, 28th May 1776

   This is Post morning and I am obliged on a Committee of conference (2) with the Generals Washington, Gates, & Mifflin by 9 on the operations of this Campaign, so that I cannot possibly write to many of my friends and particularly Colo Mason. Pray make my compliments to him, let him have the news sent, and apologize for me. Colo Nelson is not arrived, but I suppose he will by this day sennight, about which time I shall sett out for Virginia, and after resting at home a day or two, will attend the Convention at Williamsburg.(3) The sensible and spirited resolve of my Countrymen on the 15th has gladdened the heart of every friend to human nature in this place, and it will have a wonderful good effect on the misguided Councils of these Proprietary Colonies.(4) What a scene of determined rapine and roguery do the German treaties present to us, and Ld Dartmouths answer to the Duke of Graftons motion, 16th March, has shut the mouths of all Gapers after Commissioners.(5) The transport Prize taken to the Eastward is extremely apropos. The vessel and Cargo are valued at £50,000. We are not without hopes of getting some more of the same flock, if fortune should have separated them from the Shepherd, they will most probably fall. This is the Campaign that we shall be most tried in probably, and we should endeavour as far as human care can go to be more invulnerable than Achilles, not exposing even the heel, where the stake is so immense. We have not lately heard from Canada, but we hope for better news soon than our last. A potent push will assuredly be made there this Summer by our enemies, and if we can prevent


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them from communicating with the Upper Country, and thereby debauching the Indians, we shall answer every good purpose there. The Roebuck is gone from here crippled, but the Liverpoole remains thinly manned and in want of provisions. It is to be hoped that the death of the King of Portugal will produce something in Europe favorable to us. Let no consideration interrupt your attention to the making of Common Salt, Salt Petre & Arms; and every kind of encouragement should be given to all sorts of useful manufacture.

   Farewell my dear brother,Richard Henry Lee.

   [P.S.] Our brothers in London were well, the 13. Febry. last. I write Gen. Lee by this post-do see that the letter is forwarded from Williamsburg.(6) R. H. Lee.


Note:

   MS not found; reprinted from NYHS Collections, 5 (1872): 47-48.



1 Thomas Ludwell Lee (ca. 1730 77), who represented Stafford County at the Virginia Convention then convened at Williamsburg, had been appointed on May 15 to the committee charged with drafting a declaration of rights and a plan of government for Virginia. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography; and Am. Archives, 4th ser. 6:1524.



2 The May 29 report of the Committee of Conference, in Lee's hand, is in PCC, item 19, 6:185-87; and JCC, 4:399-401. For further information on the work of this committee, see JCC, 4:406 14.



3 Although Thomas Nelson was not mentioned in the journals until June 12, he listed expenses for "Attendance from 9th June 76 till Aug. 11th, 62 days" in his later account with Virginia. Emmet Collection, NN. Lee left Philadelphia on June 13. See Lee to Washington, June 13, 1776.



4 Lee had been at work for some time in the struggle to change "the misguided Councils of these Proprietary Colonies." The following undated note in the hand of Benjamin Rush among the Lee Family Papers, ViU, subscribed only "Wednesday evening" but obviously written on May 22. 1776, illustrates the shape of such activities.

   "A Memorial will be presented by our assembly tomorrow to the Congress," Rush wrote, "praying an explanation of your resolve of the 15th instant. The Motion for the Application (which came from one of the Allens) Shews a design to enslave the people of Pennsylvania. I conjure you by your past & present affection for our common mistress not to desert us in this trying exigency. 4/5 of the inhabitants of our colony will fly to the ultima ratio before they will submit to a new government formed by the present Assembly. Please to circulate the papers you will receive herewith [not found] among all the Southern delegates tomorrow morning. Mr. Hews must not be neglected. Yours Affectionately, B R-h."

   Rush's note had been prompted by the Pennsylvania Assembly's appointment on May 22 of a committee charged with drafting a memorial to Congress to clarify the May 15 resolve recommending new governments and to obtain "an Explanation in such Terms as will not admit of any Doubt, whether the Assemblies and Conventions, now subsisting in the several Colonies, are or are not the Bodies, to whom the Consideration of continuing the old, or adopting new Governments, is referred." The committee had been appointed in response to receipt of a petition from "the Inhabitants of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia," which had itself been a reaction to Congress' resolve of the 15th, and Rush obviously assumed that the assembly would the next day adopt a


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memorial to Congress prepared by the committee. Although his note betrays a sense of alarm, he had nothing to fear. The committee reported "an Essay" on May 24, which was "read by Order, and referred to further Consideration," but no further action was ever taken upon it. The campaign to overthrow proprietary government in Pennsylvania was already well under way, and even a series of petitions from several counties protesting Congress' resolution of May 15 could not divert the movement against the traditional order. Ironically, the next petition from Pennsylvania laid before Congress was not from the assembly but from the Philadelphia committee. Dated May 24 and signed by chairman Thomas McKean, it was elicited by the discovery "that the Assembly of this Province are about to present a Memorial to your honourable body, in consequence of a Remonstrance delivered to them from a number of the inhabitants of the City of Philadelphia, in which they are said to request an explanation of your resolve of the 15th instant." See Pa. Archives, 8th ser. 8:7516, 7519, 7521ff.; JCC, 4:390; Am. Archives 4th ser. 6:560-61; and David Hawke, In the Midst of a Revolution (Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), pp. 156-57.

   Rush's note to Lee, a patent attempt to ensure that Congress would ignore any such memorial from the assembly, is additional evidence that this movement was receiving important support from many delegates in Congress. The reference to Joseph Hewes is especially interesting since little other evidence survives to indicate that on this issue he might be enlisted to support the position taken by men of Rush's and Lee's persuasion.



5 During a debate in the House of Lords on a conciliatory resolution offered by the duke of Grafton, Lord Dartmouth, former secretary of state for America, had declared that "this country cannot . . . consent to lay down our arms, or suspend the operations now carrying on, till the Colonies own our legislative sovereignty; and, by the acts of duty and obedience, show such a disposition as will entitle them to the favour and protection of the parent State." Am. Archives, 4th ser. 6:323.



6 See Lee to Charles Lee, May 27, 1776.