New York May 20. 1785
My dear Sir,
I thank you for your favor introducing Mrs. Macauley Graham to me.1 This excellent Lady made but a short stay here, being desirous of returning from the South, before the sickly season comes on in that climate. I hope we shall shortly finish our plan for disposing of the western Lands to discharge the oppressive public debt created by the war & I think that if this source of revenue be rightly managed, that these republics may soon be discharged from that state of oppression and distress that an indebted people must invariably feel. The late arrival here of a Ship from Canton in China after a successful voyage of 14 Months from this port, is a proof of American enterprise, and will probably mortify, as much as it will injure our old Oppressors, the British.2
I beg my respects to Mrs. Adams, and I sincerely wish a long continuance of health and happiness to you,
being most truly dear Sir Your affectionate friend,Richard Henry Lee3
Receiver's copy, Samuel Adams Papers, New York Public Library.
1 See Adams, Writings (Cushing), 4:314 - 15: and Lee to Washington, May 3, note 3.
2 See Rufus King to Elbridge Gerry, May 12, note.
3 Lee also wrote to his nephew, Thomas Lee Shippen, on May 22 concerning some purchases, concluding: "I believe it is only for that eye which sees all things to come, that can conjecture when Congress will adjourn. It seems clear however that it will not be before August, if they adjourn at all. Whilst they continue to sit I am bound you know - & when they adjourn I shall make great haste to Virginia. However, I hope you may go up the North River, because, by that means I shall have the happiness of seeing you here once more before I quit this City. We have past the Land Ordinance for selling the Country N. W. of Ohio, so far as the Indian purchases go, for payment of the debts of the United States." Shippen Family Papers, DLC. Lee, Letters (Ballagh), 2:360 - 61.