Philadelphia, April 20th, 1782.
Reverend Sir,
I had yesterday the honour of receiving from the hand of the Rev. Dr. Elliot, your very obliging letter of the 28th ult., together with a diploma for an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the university over which you preside with so much deserved reputation.
I beg sir, you will be assured, and that you will assure the visiters and fellows of the university, that I have the highest sense of the honour they have conferred upon me.
1
Laudari a laudatis varis would be flattering to a person infinitely less deserving of praise than I can possibly think myself. It was with peculiar pleasure I read a diploma, conceived in language pure and elegant enough to have flowed from an ancient pen.
Liberty and letters sir, are so inseparably connected, that a lover of the one cannot but see with sincere satisfaction the cultivation and prosperity of the other. It is to the light which literature had diffused that we owe the assertion of our liberties, and to the continuance of the same we must owe their establishment and permanency. The eminent share which the university of Cambridge had in diffusing these salutary lights, by her example and instructions, has made her proportionally respected; and a perseverance in the same course will render her an honour and blessing to these United States. For an institution of such utility it is patriotism to pray, esto perpetua.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences hath done me great honour in admitting me into their society, instituted for the best of purposes by gentlemen capable of fulfilling them.
2
I entreat you sir, to lay before them the due sense I have of the favour with which they have distinguished me, and to assure them that I shall ever be happy in contributing every thing within the compass of my poor abilities, to promote the valuable object of the institution.
Do me the favour sir, of accepting my thanks for the very polite and obliging manner in which you have signified the proceedings of the university and of the academy, and my best wishes for your health and prosperity.
I have the honour of being, reverend sir, with the utmost respect and esteem, your obedient servant,
Arthur Lee
MS not found; reprinted from Richard Lee,
Life of Arthur Lee, LL.D., 2 vols. (Boston: Wells and Lilly, 1829), 1:178 - 79. Addressed: "To the Rev.Joseph Willard, President of the University of Cambridge, and Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences."
1 Harvard College had awarded Lee an honorary LL.D. on December 19, 1781. Louis W. Potts, Arthur Lee: A Virtuous Revolutionary (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), pp. 253 - 54.
2 Lee was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston after he submitted a scientific paper on the effects of lightning striking the house in Philadelphia rented by the French minister La Luzerne. Ibid., pp. 253 - 54. See also Daniel Carroll to Thomas Sim Lee, March 28, 1782.