Sender: Richard Henry Lee’s Recipient: North Carolina Delegates
[c. 4 April 1779]1Gentlemen,
I have read your joint letter to the Delegates of South Carolina & its inclosure2 with all the attention that they deserve, nor will you suppose I read them without such emotions as they are well calculated to produce.
I presume it will not be denied, that the interest of each state in the Union is essentially involved in the interest, safety, and prosperity of the whole. As little do I suppose it will be contested that the safety and security of the whole depends greatly upon Marine force, that this force cannot be obtained without Seamen, and that the North American fisheries furnish the United States their principal Nursery of Seamen. The importance of this object to maritime and commercial nations is so well understood, that it has been the fertile source of great contention between France and Britain, nations removed three thousand miles from these fisheries, and who besides their other numerous resources for Seamen, possess valuable fisheries near their own Coasts. How infinitely more important must this object be to these United States from its contiguity to their Shores, and from its being the capital source from whence we are to supply our future Navy. The acknowledgement of our Independency by Great Britain is one thing, and the secure possession of that independency is another. The former may result from the present distress of our Enemies and the accumulated force opposed to them. But the latter must be maintained by the proper strength of the United States.
If when Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and the Jersies were invaded by such force as threatened the ruin of these States, they had offered to treat with the common enemy, in terms injurious to the interests of our States, or to the Union, we should not have thought such local and selfish considerations however powerfully pressed, a sufficient justification for a perfidious desertion of the Union, by offering to withdraw their aid from an opposition to the Common foe. Having considered this important subject in all the lights my judgement could place it, I agreed with the proposition for stating it as an Ultimatum "that the right of fishing on the Coasts and Banks of North America be reserved to the United States as fully as they enjoyed the same when subject to Great Britain, excepting always what shall have been excepted by the treaty of Paris between France and the United States - The whole to be explained by the Treaties of Utrecht and of Paris with Great Britain, and of Paris with the United States."
I have yet heard no reason to change my opinion and I hope gentlemen you will not imagine that a Mind resting on the strong ground of reason and public utility can be shaken by arguments in terrorem however highly colored.
But I will proceed to consider such parts of your letter as you seem principally to rely on for justifying what I cannot avoid esteeming a very strange and unusual proceedure. I call it strange and unusual for the Delegates of one State to attempt depriving those of another of their free right of voting in Congress by arguments drawn from threats of yielding their Country a prey to the enemy if they shall differ in opinion upon questions of great and general concern. You have thought proper to write the Delegates of S.C. that the questions above stated and on which I voted in the affirmative involves "a right which we deem more extensive than can with justice be insisted on, and which our Allies by their engagements are not bound to assist us in contending for, and which the Minister Plenipotentiary of France assures us his Court cannot agree to continue the war for." The first of this paragraph is matter of opinion on your part, which a Majority in Congress have already determined against, and the latter part of the same paragraph I will take leave to contrast with the following authentic documents.
1st. The 8th article of the Treaty of Alliance.
"Neither of the two parties shall conclude either Truce or Peace with Great Britain, without the formal consent of the other f irst obtained, and they mutually engage not to lay down their arms, until the Independence of the United States shall have been formally or tacitly assured, by the treaties that shall terminate the war."
2dly. The sense of Congress on this subject expressed in their resolution of Jany. 14. 1779.3
Whereas &c &c.
3dly. The written official declaration of the Minister Plenipotentiary of France to Congress on the 9th of February last. "The King my Master on his part, is invariably determnined not to seperate his interest from those of America and to support the cause of the United States as his own."4
When therefore, the most public and the most authentic records oppose themselves to your reasons, the world, and our Constituents will judge between us, whenever you incline Gentlemen to make the appeal.
As a Member of Congress, am I to found my opinion upon the open official declarations of the Minister to Congress, or disregarding these, to rest upon the opinions of particular gentlemen drawn from private conversations, where the expressions may be mistaken, or not rightly remembered? I can have, I ought to have, no hesitation in a case of this sort.
Upon the whole gentlemen I think your letter to the Governor of North Carolina contains matter very improper to be sent for many reasons, but if you should Continue to think otherwise and conclude to send it, I trust to the wisdom of the Gentleman to whom it is addressed, and to the justice of the State at the head of which he is so deservedly placed, that they will forbear to withdraw their aid from a Sister State invaded, for reasons on one side of the question only adduced to them, and because among others it is supposed that as I have given my opinion in favor of a question that appears to me to involve the most essential interest of the U. States, that therefore I have discovered resources in South Carolina which enable her to wage war with her single strength against the power of Great Britain?
I am &c.
Henry Laurens PapersSouth Carolina Historical Society
1 This document appears to be the draft of a letter intended for the North Carolina delegates from Henry Laurens in response to their letter to him of 2 April. But as it is the work of Richard Henry Lee - i.e., numerous deletions and interlined insertions clearly indicate that this text was actually composed by Lee - one can only conjecture how he came to be involved in Laurens’ correspondence with the North Carolina delegates over the fisheries issue. It is clear from numerous other documents that the two men frequently collaborated on foreign policy issues, particularly those involving Arthur Lee, for the Laurens Papers contain many letters from Arthur Lee to Richard Henry as well as transcripts by Richard Henry of other documents related to the Deane-Lee controversy. And transcripts - in the hand of Laurens’ secretary Moses Young - of five documents (dated 3 and 4 April) relating to Laurens’ controversy with the North Carolina delegates at this time are in the Lee Family Papers, ViU. It therefore seems obvious that when Laurens received a letter from the North Carolina delegates threatening to withhold aid from South Carolina because of his support of New England claims to the northern fisheries, he consulted Richard Henry for advice in preparing a response.
Interestingly enough, Lee’s draft is much more detailed than Laurens’ reply and rehearses a number of issues ignored by the latter in the letter he actually returned to the North Carolina delegates, for which see the preceding entry.
2 See North Carolina Delegates to Henry Laurens, 2 April 1779 (not in printed text).
3 JCC, 13:62 - 63.
4 See Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, 3:40; and PCC, item 94, fols. 109 - 10.