Richard Henry Lee to Thomas Lee Shippen

May be perfectly sure that there must have been very satisfactory reason for his letter by my Son, Augt 20 remaining so long unanswered. I had no doubt but that you had left Philadelphia to avoid the dreadful plague that so severely visited the City, but since you had not informed me of the place of your retreat, I was absolutely at a loss to know where to direct for you. As I do not suppose that your discretion will permit you to be so very early in your return to Town as I observe some of the fugitives have been, because of remaining infection continuing until heavy rains, cold and cleansing winds shall have purified the air of the City from the malignant poison with which it has abounded. God grant that none of our friends may have suffered from this plague. But you realy delay my happiness by delaying to inform me that the "tremendous abscess" which prevented your progress eastward has been effectually removed. This being done, it is possible that your constitution may be invigorated, by the purification it must have undergone. When you give me the pleasure just now solicited, I shall thank you for a minute detail of all that Congress have done in the affair of Genet. If something effectual is not done in that business farewell forever to the respectability and dignity of our government. I have no doubt, but that if one half of what has been done here had been practised at Constantinople - The Delegate would quickly have had a place in the prison o the Seven Towers.

It seems to me that every latter issue from that source out-tops greatly what went before in folly & scurrility. Do you not think that rude & shocking indecencies has been completely mistaken for courage? For what are prosecutions to [avail] against Messrs. Jay & King, when the Mans own letters, published by himself, contain ideas exactly the same with the publication objected to. And so nineteenth twentieths of the Americans will surely agree. You know that once a french Minister (Duke de Choiseul) wishing to ratify a paltry malice, obtained a declaration from a french Academy that

Imperial Majesty

was not good french - Armed with this authority the Minister refused, what the rest of Europe granted, to acknowledge that Title assumed by the present Empress of Russia - Perhaps the Jacobins in France have obtained from the same respectable source a Commission for the Delegate declaring that he alone understands our language & that it must be presumption in any to discover similar ideas where there may be any difference or dissimilitude of language: It being known to all who understand English, especially to the Possessor of the above commission, that no two english words can be found that convey the same idea. This point being secured, if any American shall presume to understand his native language, and to discover in the Delegates publication the very ideas precisely, tho differently worded, & more larded with Sophistry; he shall for his audacity be prosecuted by the Attorney General of the U.S. under a Mandamus from the self erected Foreign Sovereign of this Union. We have already seen attempts made & proposals come forward to engross the time of Congress, of the federal Court, & of other Courts with the frivolous fancies of this delegate. In fact, I believe that nothing in diplomatic history can be found, equal to the public disturbance that has been excited by this man; who, when first he arrived here, found such universal and cordial attachment to his Nation; that the enthusiasm was so boundless as to carry the people into a practise new & equally improper, that was, to carry Addresses to the Plenipotentiary; a practise that he knows, is not in use among the most polished & civilized Nations of Europe. But this person, even before his credentials were presented & admitted, whilst yet no more than a private Man, began to assume powers & practises that nothing could justify, a rude and violent breach of hospitality, that being practised here, in a Neutral Country afforded Causa belli to all the powers at war with France - This he either knew, or ought to have known, to be in direct opposition to his duty. It is very remarkable that two American Citizens, Hodge & Cunninghame, were imprisoned in France in the year 1776 or 77 for doing the same thing - to wit for fitting out a Privateer in France, & they were compelled to deliver up their prizes to the English. The commerce of these Southern States nearly ruined by the piracies of these Vessels - These things, & the extravagant & boundless indecencies offered to the Government were causes equal to the extraordinary effect that has taken place - to wit the detestation of every untwined & impartial American nearly. I have troubled you so far, because we have been used to discourse of politics together, & because I solemnly think the dignity & independence of our Country is committed unless proper measures are taken with this Man -

I shall be glad to have your opinion which always hath great weight with me. Pray is it true as suggested in the Newspapers that the Misbehavior of the Plenepo caused him to be driven from Poland?

The Presidents Speech appears to me to be well conceived, considering the factious fractious spirit with which some among us appear to be animated, it was certainly wise to take the judgement of Congress, which judgement, although it will not stop the Ravings of some evil Spirits, it will render their effusions harmless - Indeed they are pretty much so at present, altho the Press has teemed here (under the Signitures of Agricola, plain Republican, true Republican &c &c)