Arthur Lee was an American physician and diplomat. He was commissioned as agent of Massachusetts in England and France in 1770. He was appointed correspondent of Congress in London in 1775 and commissioner to France in 1776 and to Spain in 1777. He also served as a delegate to the Continental Congress.
Background
Arthur Lee was of the fourth generation of the Lees of Virginia, being the great-grandson of Richard Lee, the first American immigrant, grandson of the second Richard and Lettice Corbin, and son of Thomas Lee, whose wife was Hannah Ludwell, daughter of Col. Philip Ludwell of "Green Spring. " Born at "Stratford, " the family seat in Westmoreland County, Virginia, built by his father, he was the eleventh child of his parents and the brother of Richard Henry, Francis Lightfoot, and William Lee. The father having died when Arthur was only about ten years of age, the boy came under the guardianship of his eldest brother.
Education
He attended Eton College in England for his academic education. From Eton he passed to the University of Edinburgh, where he studied general science, polite literature, and medicine, and received in 1764 the degree of M. D. (List of the Graduates in Medicine in the University of Edinburgh from MDCCV. to MDCCCLXVI. , 1867, p. 8).
Career
After traveling a few months in Europe Lee returned to Virginia and began the practice of medicine in Williamsburg (1766). Shortly after his return to America he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society (May 29, 1766). He did not, however, linger long at physic. America was just then deeply stirred by the Stamp Act agitation, and politics lured him with a stronger appeal. Accordingly, forsaking medicine for the law, the mounting block to politics, he returned to London in 1768, where he studied in Lincoln's Inn and the Middle Temple, subsequently establishing himself there in the practice of his new profession. His admission to the bar was in the spring of 1775, not in 1770, as usually stated (Jones, post, p. 123).
Whatever his other aptitudes and tastes, he soon discovered an eager pen. With the appearance of Dickinson's "Farmer's Letters, " Lee set about writing a similar series, "The Monitor's Letters, " designed, as he expressed it, to aid the "Farmer's Letters" in their operation "in alarming and informing" his countrymen. These, ten in number, were first printed in Rind's Virginia Gazette (February 25-April 28, 1768), at a time when Lee was in America. In London he found an alluring field for his controversial talents. At the beginning of 1769 the English political world was set agog by the "Junius Letters, " and Lee, dipping his pen into the Junius bottle, proceeded to write a series of letters, some addressed to sundry British statesmen, others to the people of England, wherein, with a copious use of sarcasm and invective, he discussed American affairs, and signed himself "Junius Americanus. " In some similar communications he used the signature "Raleigh. " Though Jefferson, for one, had a poor opinion of the "Monitor's Letters" (P. L. Ford, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, IX, 1898, p. 418), Lee's writings won him a considerable repute among political leaders in America, one consequence of which was that in 1770, mainly through the influence of Samuel Adams, he was chosen as agent of Massachusetts in London. The essay which probably deserves most consideration is An Appeal to the Justice and Interests of the People of Great Britain, ostensibly "By an Old Member of Parliament, " published in 1774 and followed in 1775 by a Second Appeal.
In the meantime, Arthur Lee, together with his mercantile brother, William, plunged into London politics. In this activity he was the intimate associate as well as the political confrère of the notorious John Wilkes, for whom he conceived a great admiration. He procured the insertion in the famous Middlesex Petition of a resolution protesting against the obnoxious American measures, and the chief burden of much that he wrote was that the cause of Middlesex was the cause of Englishmen everywhere. During this period he nourished hopes that he might himself become a member of Parliament. In November 1775, he was asked by the committee of secret correspondence of the Continental Congress to become its confidential correspondent in London, and he made a characteristic beginning of his diplomatic career by casting suspicions upon some of the men who had appointed him. In October 1776, he was appointed (in place of Jefferson, who had declined) one of three commissioners, to negotiate a treaty with France and solicit aid.
Joining his colleagues, Franklin and Deane, in Paris at the end of December, he found Deane, in France since July as the secret commercial agent of Congress, busily engaged in procuring supplies, and France not yet disposed to treat with the United States openly. Therefore, since he seemed not to be needed in Paris, with the advice of Franklin and Deane, he betook himself to Spain (February 1777) to see what he could do there. He was not permitted to proceed as far as Madrid, but he did succeed in obtaining through a commercial house substantial aid from the Spanish government. He next journeyed to Berlin (May to July 1777), where also he was refused recognition and succeeded only in having his papers filched. Returned to Paris, he resumed making complaints against his colleagues. He even had the temerity at this time (October 4, 1777) to suggest to Samuel Adams and Richard Henry Lee that he be made sole minister to France and that Franklin and Deane be sent to some less important corners of Europe. The chief controversy with Deane was whether or not the supplies which France was secretly furnishing the United States through Beaumarchais and his fictitious commercial house, Roderigue Hortalez & Company, were to be paid for. On the face of the evidence they were, but Lee, on the basis of conversations with Beaumarchais before Deane's coming, asserted that they were a gift and persistently pressed this contention upon Congress. Moreover, as he viewed Deane's numerous commercial transactions, his perfervid imagination saw many instances of guilt where there was at worst only error, and accusations of fraud and peculation, mounting in virulence with each increment and repetition, were poured into the ears of his friends in Congress.
His distrust of Franklin, which had had earlier beginnings, deepened, now that Franklin usually supported Deane, and the charges against him became scarcely less severe than those against Deane. Deane, Beaumarchais, Franklin, and a crew of others, he declared, were plundering the public. "I am more and more satisfied, " he wrote to his brother, Richard Henry, Sept. 12, 1778, "that the old doctor is concerned in the plunder, and that in time we shall collect the proofs" (Life, II, p. 148, in cipher). This was characteristic: accusations following close upon the heels of suspicion; proofs to be collected in time. While these troubles were yet in their infancy, Congress, in May 1777, selected two more commissioners, William Lee and Ralph Izard. The former was appointed to the courts of Berlin and Vienna, the latter to the court of Tuscany, but they were destined to remain for the most part in Paris to confound wisdom and to add their grumblings to the general confusion. Arthur Lee was about the same time commissioned to the court of Spain, but he also remained in Paris.
Congress had sown "militia diplomacy"; it reaped what might well be called guerrilla or sniping diplomacy. Despite, however, the bickerings among the representatives of the United States at the French capital, but thanks mainly to the success of arms at Saratoga, treaties of alliance and of amity and commerce were negotiated with France and signed by all three commissioners (February 6, 1778). So far as Deane was concerned, this was nearly his last diplomatic act; for, largely in consequence of Lee's charges, he had been recalled (December 8, 1777), and upon his return to America was harried for several months by Congress, then dismissed.
In the midst of his ordeal, however, he turned upon his arch pursuer with counter charges, out of which came at least one significant development, namely, that Arthur Lee did not have the confidence of the French minister, Vergennes. As a consequence of all this Congress was split into two hostile factions, the supporters of Lee and the supporters of Deane. After mulling over these charges and counter charges through a good many months, Congress finally came to the solemn conviction that, whatever the truth, the "suspicions and animosties" which had arisen among the commissioners were "highly prejudicial to the honor and interests of these United States" (Journals, April 15, 1779). Then came Arthur Lee's turn to be superseded (September 27, 1779). William Lee and Ralph Izard had preceded him in dismissal. Franklin alone had successfully run the gauntlet.
Lee returned to America in September 1780, was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1781, then to the Continental Congress, in which he served until 1784. But he was unhappy even in Congress, where, he declared, he could only lament what he could not prevent (letter to Samuel Adams, April 21, 1782, Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, vol. VI, forthcoming), and where it was his fate to be frustrated in his favorite objects (Madison to Randolph, October 8, 1782, Ibid. ). Under the appointment of Congress he was one of the commissioners who negotiated the Indian treaties of Fort Stanwix (October 22, 1784) and Fort McIntosh (January 21, 1785). In July 1785, he was appointed by Congress to the treasury board and, despite Jefferson's prediction (Writings, IV, 1894, p. 53), held that office until the inauguration of the new government. He opposed the adoption of the Constitution. The few remaining years of his life were spent on his estate, "Lansdowne, " Middlesex County, Virginia. He was never married.