Wharton, Anne Hollingsworth. Salons Colonial and Republican. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1900.
Wharton, Francis. The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States. 6 vols. Edited under Direction of Congress. Published in conformity with Act of Congress of August 13, 1888. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1889.
Periodicals
American Mercury
Connecticut Gazette
Essex Gazette
Freeman’s Journal
Massachusetts Centinel
New York Journal
Pennsylvania Gazette
(Philadelphia) Independent Gazetteer
Virginia Gazette
Archives
Archives de l’Ancien Régime, Département de la Maison du roi, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Quai d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Archives des Affaires Étrangères et Papiers Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Quai d’Orsay, Paris, France.
Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, France.
National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives, Washington, DC. Founders Online. https://founders.archives.gov.
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA.
Notes
Introduction
1. John Adams to Richard Bland Lee, August 10, 1819, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, 10 vols., ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1856), 10:382.
CHAPTER 1 Evolution of a Dynasty
1. Joseph Randall, An Account of the Academy at Heath, near Wakefield, Yorkshire (London: Gough [?], 1750), 3.
2. Wilcomb E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1972), 95.
3. Ibid.
4. Michel Denis et Noël Blayau, Le XVIIIe Siècle (Paris: Armand Colin, 2002), 70.
5. Burton J. Hendrick, The Lees of Virginia: Biography of a Family (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1935), 89.
6. Richard H. Lee, Memoir of the Life of Richard Henry Lee and His Correspondence, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1825), 1:8–9.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 11.
9. Harlow Giles Unger, The Unexpected George Washington: His Private Life (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 26–27.
10. Ibid., 27–28.
11. Philip Ludwell to George Washington (henceforth GW), August 8, 1755, The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, 1748-August 1755, 10 vols., ed. W. W. Abbott (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1983), 1:356–357. [Hereafter PGWCol.]
12. Richard Henry Lee to James Abercrombie, August 27, 1762, Richard Henry Lee, The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 2 vols., ed. James Curtis Ballagh (New York: Macmillan Company, 1911), 1–2. [Hereafter RHL, Letters.]
13. RHL to Thomas Cummings, August 27, 1762, Letters, 1:2–4.
14. Richard R. Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor: The Forging of American Independence, 1774–1776 (New York: Basic Books, 2013), 33, citing Jack P. Greene, “Foundations of Political Power in the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1720–76,” William and Mary Quarterly 3, no. X (1959): 485–506.
CHAPTER 2 Egyptian Bondage
1. Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, August 12, 1756.
2. Edmund Randolph, History of Virginia (Charlottesville: Virginia Historical Society, 1970), 167–168.
3. William Wirt Henry, Patrick Henry: His Life, Correspondence and Speeches, 3 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 1:111.
4. Lee, Memoir, 1:17.
5. Ibid., 18–19.
6. Ibid., 23.
7. William Wirt in S. G. Goodrich, Biography of Eminent Men (New York: Nafis and Cornish, 1840), 131.
8. Ibid.
9. Edmund Burke, “Speech on American Taxation,” April 19, 1774, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, 12 vols. (London: Holdsworth and Ball, 1834), 1:174.
10. Ibid.
11. John Locke, The Two Treatises of Civil Government (London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1698), ch. 2, sect. 4.
12. William Wirt Henry, Patrick Henry, 1:86. Edmund Randolph recalled the speech differently, saying Henry actually retreated at the end of his attack. Here is how Randolph recalled this part of the speech: “‘Caesar,’ cried he, ‘had his Brutus; Charles the first his Cromwell, and George the third…’ ‘Treason, sir,’ exclaimed the Speaker, to which Henry instantly replied, ‘and George the third, may he never have either.’” Edmund Randolph, History of Virginia, 169. But another burgess who heard Henry’s speech rebuts Randolph: “If Henry did speak any apologetic words, they were doubtless uttered almost tongue in cheek to give him some legal protection.” Randolph, History of Virginia, 169n38–170n.
13. From Henry manuscript, in Moses Coit Tyler, Patrick Henry, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898), 85.
14. RHL to Arthur Lee, July 4, 1765, Letters, 1:10–11.
15. RHL to the editor of the Virginia Gazette, July 25, 1766.
16. Ibid.
17. RHL to Arthur Lee, July 4, 1765, Letters, 1:10–11.
18. The American Colonies Act of 1766.
19. Pennsylvania Gazette, December 10, 1767.
20. RHL to John Dickinson, July 25, 1768, Letters, 1:29–30.
21. Soame Jenyns, MP, The Works of Soame Jenyns, 2 vols. (Dublin: P. Wogan et al., 1791), 1:333.
CHAPTER 3 No Liberty, No King!
1. RHL to Arthur Lee, May 19, 1769, Letters, 1:34–35.
2. RHL to William Lee, July 12, 1772, Letters, 1:69–74.
3. Ibid., 69–76.
4. William Lee to Court of Common Council, July 5, 1775, Letters of William Lee, 1766–1783, 3 vols., ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (Brooklyn, NY: Historical Printing Club, 1891), 1:33–34.
5. Peter D. G. Thomas, John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 165.
6. Richard Henry Lee, The Life of Arthur Lee, LLD, 2 vols. (Boston: Wells and Lille, 1829), 1:255.
7. Junius Americanus in Richard Henry Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, 1:20–21.
8. RHL to Mrs. Macaulay, November 29, 1775, Letters, 1:160–164.
9. Committee of Secret Correspondence to Arthur Lee, December 12, 1775, Francis Wharton, The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, 6 vols. (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1889), 2:63–64.
10. John Adams, December 17, 1773, Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols., ed. L. H. Butterfield (New York: Atheneum, 1964), 2:85–87.
11. RHL to Samuel Adams, April 14, 1774, Letters, 1:106–108.
12. GW to George William Fairfax, June 10[–15], 1774, PGWCol, 10:94–101.
13. RHL to Arthur Lee, June 26, 1774, Letters, 1:114–118.
14. RHL to Samuel Adams, June 23, 1774, Letters, 1:111–113.
15. Ibid.
16. William Lee to RHL, September 22, 1775, Letters of William Lee, 1766–1783, 3 vols., ed. Worthington Chauncy Ford (Brooklyn, NY: Historical Printing Club, 1891), 1:171–175.
17. RHL to William Lee, June 29, 1774, Letters, 1:118–122.
18. Benjamin Franklin to James Parker, March 20, 1750, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 38 vols. to date [in progress], ed. Leonard W. Labaree et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959–present), IV:117–121.
19. Ibid., 221.
20. John Adams, Works of John Adams, 9:347.
21. John Adams, Diary and Autobiography, 3:308.
22. Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, Salons Colonial and Republican (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1900), 133–134.
23. John Adams, September 3, 1774, Diary and Autobiography, 2:120–122.
24. Joseph Galloway, as transcribed by John Adams in “Notes of Debates in the Continental Congress, September 28, 1774,” Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 2:141–144.
25. Ibid.
26. Richard Henry Lee’s “Proposed Resolution,” October 3, 1774, Lette
rs of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789, 26 vols., ed. Paul H. Smith (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1976), 1:140.
27. Richard Henry Lee’s “Proposed Motion for Quitting the Town of Boston,” October 7–8, 1774, ibid., 1:160–161.
CHAPTER 4 Poet, Playwright, Watchmaker, Spy
1. John Jay, cited in James Duane’s “Notes of Debates,” October 15–17, 1774, Letters of Delegates, 1:180.
2. RHL to William Lee, September 20, 1774, Letters, 1:123–124.
3. Ibid.
4. John Adams, September 17, 1774, Diary and Autobiography, 2:134–135.
5. RHL, “Letter of Congress to Colonial Agents,” October 26, 1774, Letters, 1:125–126.
6. RHL to Samuel Adams, February 4, 1775, Letters, 1:127–130.
7. Ibid.
8. RHL to Arthur Lee, February 24, 1774, Letters, 1:130–131.
9. Edmund Burke, March 12, 1775, Second Speech on Conciliation with America: The Thirteen Resolutions, Burke, Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, 1:177.
10. Robert Douthat Meade, Patrick Henry, Practical Revolutionary (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1969), 3.
11. Ibid.
12. William Wirt Henry, Patrick Henry, 1:257–258.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., 267–268, citing the description of “an old Baptist clergyman who was one of the auditory.”
15. Ibid., 266. No actual transcript of Henry’s speech exists, and the words shown here represent a reconstruction by Henry’s first biographer William Wirt, who extrapolated its contents from recollections—forty years after the event—by those present at St. John’s Church, including Judge John Tyler, an intimate of Henry; Thomas Jefferson; Edmund Randolph; and Judge St. George Tucker, among others. Hardly a friend of Henry, Jefferson did not alter a word in Wirt’s reconstruction of the speech and reiterated his appraisal of Henry as the greatest orator in history. In any case, word-for-word accuracy is less important here in terms of history than an accurate presentation of Henry’s meaning, his passion, and his eloquence.
16. GW to John Augustine Washington, Marsh 25, 1775, PGWCol, 10:308–309.
17. Harlow Giles Unger, John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000), 191.
18. RHL to Landon Carter, April 24, 1775, Letters, 1:132–134.
19. RHL to William Lee, May 10, 1775, Letters, 1:134–135.
20. RHL to Arthur Lee, February 24, 1775, Letters, 1:130–132.
21. Essex Gazette, April 25, 1775, Boston Public Library.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Dr. Joseph Warren to the President of Congress, June 2, 1775, Journals of the Continental Congress, 34 vols., ed. Worthington C. Ford (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1904–1937), 2:77–78.
26. Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practices, 1763–1789 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1971), 84–85.
27. John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1992), 124.
28. John Adams, Works of John Adams, 2:416–417.
29. RHL to Francis Lightfoot Lee, May 21, 1775, Letters, 1:136–140.
30. RHL to GW, September 25, 1775, PGWRS, 2:51–53.
CHAPTER 5 An Indispensable Necessity
1. Louis-Léonard de Loménie, Beaumarchais et son temps: études sur la société en France au XVIII siècle d’après des documents inédits (Genève: Réédition Slatkine, 1970), 226; see also Harlow G. Unger, Improbable Patriot: The Secret History of Monsieur de Beaumarchais, the French Playwright Who Saved the American Revolution (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2011), 84–87, 91–94.
2. Loménie, Beaumarchais et son temps, 266.
3. Henri Doniol, Histoire de la Participation de la France à l’établissement des États-Unis d’Amérique, 5 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1886), 1:407.
4. The Speech of the Right Hon. John Wilkes, Esq. Lord Mayor, in Arthur H. Cash, John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 319.
5. RHL, Letter of Congress to the Lord Mayor of London, July 8, 1875, Letters, 1:141–143.
6. RHL [Marine Committee] to Silas Deane, November 7, 1775, Letters, 1:154–155.
7. GW to RHL, July 10, 1775, Memoir, 1:1–3.
8. Ibid.
9. Journals of the Continental Congress, July 8, 1775, Library of Congress.
10. RHL to GW, August 1, 1775, Letters, 1:145–147.
11. GW to RHL, August 29, 1775, Memoir, 1:3–5.
12. RHL to GW, September 26, 1775, Letters, 1:149–151.
13. RHL to William Lee, September 5, 1775, Letters, 1:147–149.
14. RHL to GW, September 26, 1775, Letters, 1:149–151.
15. Ibid.
16. GW to RHL, August 29, 1775, W. W. Abbott, ed., The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary Series, multivolume, in progress (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1985–present), 1:372–374. [Hereafter PGWRS.]
17. Ibid.
18. Richard Henry Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, 1:52.
19. Ibid.
20. RHL to GW, November 13, 1775, Letters, 1:155–157.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., 155–158.
24. GW to RHL, November 17, 1775, Memoir, 2:7–8.
25. GW to RHL, December 26, 1775, Memoir, 2:8–10.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, Addressed to the Inhabitants of America… (Philadelphia: T. Bell, 1776).
29. RHL to GW, October 27, 1776, PGWRS, 7:40–41.
30. Arthur Lee [to Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden], February 13, 1776, Francis Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 2:71–74.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Doniol, Histoire de la Participation, 1:243–249.
34. RHL to Patrick Henry, April 20, 1776, Letters, 1:176–180.
35. Ibid.
36. RHL to Landon Carter, June 2, 1776, Letters, 1:192–200.
37. RHL to Edmund Pendleton, May 12, 1776, Letters, 1:190–192.
38. Doniol, Histoire de la Participation, 1:243–249.
39. A. Hortalez & Co. [Beaumarchais] to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, August 18, 1776, Francis Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 2:129–132.
40. RHL to Landon Carter, June 2, 1776, Letters, 1:197–200.
41. RHL, “The Virginia Resolution for Independence, June 7, 1776,” Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: National Archives).
CHAPTER 6 The Enemy of Everything Good
1. Ibid.
2. John Adams, Autobiography, part 1, “John Adams,” through 1776, sheet 38 of 53 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, www.masshist.org/digitaladams.
3. John Adams, Diary and Autobiography, 3:397.
4. Thomas Jefferson, “Notes of the Proceedings in the Continental Congress, 7 June–1 August, 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov.
5. Beeman, Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor, 356.
6. Ibid.
7. See Appendix B, Jefferson, “Notes of the Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”
8. Jefferson, “Notes of Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”
9. William Wirt, in Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Virginia (Charleston, SC: Wm. R. Babcock, 1852), 510.
10. Lee, Memoir, 1:172–173.
11. Ibid.
12. Jefferson, “Notes of the Proceedings in the Continental Congress.”
13. RHL to Samuel Adams, June 18, 1779, Letters, 2:72.
14. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. Thomas Hollis (London: A. Millar et al., 1764), sect. 6, 7ff.
15. From the original document in the National Archives, Washington, DC.
16. Jefferson, “Notes of the Proceedings in
the Continental Congress.”
17. RHL, “The Virginia Resolution for Independence.”
18. RHL to Landon Carter, July 21, 1776, Letters, 1:208–209.
19. Ibid., July 24, 1776.
20. Ibid.
21. RHL to General Charles Lee, July 6, 1776, Letters, 1:205–206.
22. Connecticut Journal, November 27, 1776.
23. John Sanderson, Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Company, 1820–1827), 722.
24. Thomas Jefferson to RHL, July 8, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives.
CHAPTER 7 A Most Bloody Battle
1. Douglas Southall Freeman, George Washington: A Biography, 7 vols., completed by John Alexander Carroll and Mary Ashworth (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948–1957), 4:194n.
2. Joseph Reed, in ibid., 4:198.
3. RHL to Patrick Henry, September 15, 1776, Letters, 1:214–217.
4. RHL to Samuel Adams, July 29, 1776, Letters, 1:211–212.
5. James Monroe, The Autobiography of James Monroe (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1959), 24.
6. RHL to GW, October 27, 1776, Letters, 1:220–221.
7. RHL to Patrick Henry, December 18, 1776, Letters, 1:229–230.
8. GW to John Augustine Washington, November 16–19, 1776, PGWRS, 7:102–105.
9. RHL to Patrick Henry, December 18, 1776, Letters, 1:229–230.
10. Ibid., January 9, 1777, 246–249.
11. Ibid., January 17, 1777, 250–251.
12. RHL [Marine Committee to Marine Agents in Maryland], Letters, 1:249–250.
13. RHL to Arthur Lee, February 17, 1777, Letters, 1:256–258.
14. RHL to [his sons Thomas and Ludwell], May 10, 1777, Letters, 1:287–288.
15. RHL to Arthur Lee, June 30, 1777, Letters, 1:305–306.
16. GW to RHL, May 17, 1777, PGWRS, 9:453–454.
17. Ibid.
18. RHL to GW, May 22, 1777, Memoir, 2:17–18.
19. GW to RHL, June 1, 1777, Memoir, 2:18–19.
20. RHL to Patrick Henry, May 26, 1777, Letters, 1:297–302.
21. William Wirt, in Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Virginia (Charleston, SC: Wm. R. Babcock, 1852), 511.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Arthur Lee to Committee of Secret Correspondence, February 18, 1777, Francis Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 2:272–273.
First Founding Father Page 27
