Philadelphia April 21st 1782
My dear friend,
I cannot lose so good an opportunity as that of Dr Eliot, of enquiring after your health & hoping you are happy.
The Session of the Assembly of Virginia in May, calls me from Congress for a month or two to attend my duty there.
1 Indeed I do not see of what material use my attendance here can be, where I can only lament what I can not prevent, and make vain efforts to redeem an infatuated Majority from the bondage of folly & private interest. For what can be expected from an Assembly in which a Member is allowd to sit, who is avowedly an Agent for the Enemies to our cause & Country, an Insolvent & a profligate Adventurer. I mean Mr. Samuel Wharton.2 This man, Sir, that in a Petition on the table of Congress3 declares himself insolvent, not only sits & votes, but treats the Members with magnificent Dinners. I am perfectly persuaded that it is the interest of the Companies which this Man is an Agent for and a member of to reduce us to the domination of G. Britain, because their Members being chiefly British & of great influence they woud by that means be secure of obtaining the Lands which it is impossible they should do while we are independant. And as these Agents are using every art to seduce us & to sow dissention among the States, I think they are more dangerous than the Enemy’s Arms. Every motion relative toVermont & the Cessions of the other States is directed by the interests of these Companies. I have in vain movd for a purifying declaration, from each member that he is not concerned in them. The Motion was evaded by three days chicane, & remains undecided.4
As to Vermont, I am clear we have no power to admit them into the confederation, & I am doubtful of the policy of it, if the power were unquestionable. The small States are already combining to dismember the large Ones. The addition of another will be a dangerous accession, & the disposal of property in quotaing each being by Votes not by interest, it will enable the small States to throw the whole burthen of the war upon the large Ones. But your Delegates do not think with me, which I lament. Sure I am that with the admission of this little State the confederation will end; its present inequality being as much as it can bear.
5
Please to remember me to Mrs. Adams, to Genl. Ward, Mr. Bowdouin & his Family.
I do not believe your fellow-Citizens will ever part with you again, & therefore dispair of seeing you here.
I am with unalterable esteem & affection, dear Sir, yr. most Obedt. Servt.
A. Lee
Receiver’s copy, Samuel Adams Papers, New York Public Library.
1 Lee, who had obtained a leave of absence on April 9, remained to vote in Congress on the 20th. He apparently did not leave Philadelphia until April 24. See JCC, 22:177, 204; and James Madison to Edmund Pendleton, April 23, 1782, note 4.
2 Delaware delegate Wharton had earned Lee’s contempt because of his activities as agent for the Indiana Company.
3 Not identified.
4 For Lee’s April 18 motion that all delegates declare whether they were "personally interested" in the claims of any of the land companies, see JCC, 22:191 - 94; and Madison, Papers (Hutchinson), 4:158 - 59.
5 Lee’s concern had also been articulated recently by South Carolinian Pierce Butler, who was then in Philadelphia. In an April 5 letter to James Iredell of North Carolina, Butler pointed to a decline in congressional authority and decried the lack of southern unity, which he felt was underscored by North Carolina’s failure to maintain representation in Congress. "So greatly altered is this once august body," Butler lamented, "that as little as possible is intrusted to them, And yet, among them are many individuals of the strictest honor, and great worth; but, as a body, there is little dependence to be placed on them. The Northern interest is all prevalent; their members are firmly united, and carry many measures disadvantageous to the Southern interest. They are laboring hard to get Vermont established as an independent State, which will give them another vote, by which the balance will be quite destroyed. In the midst of these great struggles between the Northern and Southern interests, the issue of which is of such consequence to the Carolinas and Georgia, your State remains totally unrepresented. Unpardonable neglect! We of the South, who consider ourselves as embarked in the same vessel with you, complain loudly of the desertion of our sister. This Vermont business is a shameful and scandalous affair. Governor Clinton, of the State of New York by a meritorious vigilance, has intercepted letters and papers that reflect no credit on some individuals of Congress. I believe it is beyond a doubt that Witherspoon and some others have received large tracts of land, at least grants of them, from the Vermonters, to support their claim in Congress. Some inhabitants of this town, it is said, and generally believed are concerned in encouraging the Vermonters to support their claim, even by arms. Where will villainy stop? In my opinion, Congress are not authorised to admit them as an independent State. The Confederation expressly excludes every part of America, except Canada. There are men in the world that care not what engagements or compacts they violate, if they can but accomplish their own ends." McRee, Iredell Correspondence, 2:9.