Richard Henry Lee to Lord Shelburne

The wisdom and goodness, with which your lordship has patronised America, claims the reverence of all its inhabitants. As an individual of this country I am greatly honoured by any service that will be acceptable to your lordship; and now take the liberty to send you a Virginia almanac, and the last Virginia Gazette, containing the proceedings of our late Assembly. These proceedings my lord, may, to some, appear the over flowings of a seditious and disloyal madness: but your lordship’s just and generous attachment to the proper rights and liberty of mankind, will discover in them, nothing more than a necessary and manly assertion, of social privileges founded in reason, guaranteed by the English constitution, and rendered sacred by a possession of near two hundred years, that is, my lord, from the first settlement of North America, until a late period. When your lordship afforded the Americans your protection, it was given to a people, who are certainly loyal, very warmly attached to their mother country, and who wish its prosperity, with unfeigned heartiness. I have the honour to be,

your lordship’s most obedient and humble servant.

R. H. Lee

The Right Honourable the Earl of Shelburne. in London.