Richard Henry Lee to John Dunlap

I have said that the news of Burgoyne’s surrender arrived in Paris December 4th, 1777, when Doctor Lee had no Secretary; and that February 21st, misprinted by you 11th, cannot be termed "about that time," so as to answer the malignant purposes of the published insinuation. But Mr. Deane himself had an acting Secretary, living under the same roof express with the Commissioners at Passy, who went off express for London the very day the news arrived. An appeal for the truth of this is made to Mr. Austin, who carried the dispatches to France, and to other Americans who were in Paris or in London at that juncture. Whatever of infamy was in that transaction was charged upon Mr. Lee in common with his colleagues, as may be seen by Thornton’s unlucky letter long concealed from Mr. Lee. "Lord North told Mr. Hartley last Saturday, the 3d of January, 1778, that he knew of several persons who had come to London from Messrs. Franklin, Deane, and Lee; and that Doctor Bancroft had been sent by those gentlemen on stock-jobbing business." Worse may be seen by the following certificate, dated Paris, the 11th of April 1778: "I do hereby certify, that I was shown a letter in London, dated the 27th of January last, which I was told was written by Doctor Bancroft to Mr. Wharton, informing him, that he might depend upon it, he had it from the very best authority that the treaty with the Court of France was to be signed the 5th or 6th of February, and desiring him to make his speculations accordingly; in the above words, or words to that effect. I do also certify, that I have seen Doctor Bancroft’s hand writing on other occasions, and that I believe the above-mentioned letter to have been written by him."

Rowland