Philada. May [7] 17821
Dear Sir
The letter inclosed2 herewith came to my hands from the Eastern post. I forward it not knowing how far its contents
may interest you.
The parliamentary intelligence published in the gazette of this morning shews that some revolution in the Councils of the Legislative branch
has taken place, which will probably have some effect on those of the Executive. But as the delusive idea of a federal if not a political
connection with this Country founded on the ruins of its connection with France, still pervades their policy, no conclusion whatever can be
drawn from it that will justify the smallest relaxation in our public measures. The efficacy of conciliatory overtures seems to be as
foolishly & obstinately persisted in by one party as that of Military coercion has been by the other; and if the former should be
indulged in their favorite experiment, it is more probable that their disappointment & vexation will make them converts to the views of
the latter, than that both parties will lay aside their prejudices & embrace the terms we hold out to them.
A letter from Mr. Jay & two from Mr. Carmichael were recd. yesterday.3 They all speak the same language
with that recd. from the former a little before you left us.4 The success of the Spanish arms at Minorca will we are told be followed by redoubled efforts against
Gibralter.
We have several times repeated our call for the order on the Western Cessions, and have in every instance experienced a repetition of the
same indecent obstructions & evasions of which you were a witness, & which nothing will explain but the cause to which we have from
the beginning imputed them.5 It will neither be consistent with the respect we owe to our own public characters nor
with the dignity of those we serve, to persist longer in fruitless applications to Congress for an answer. We shall therefore wind up the
business as well as we can in a few days, and transmit a state of it for the G. Assembly, who will certainly be fully justified in taking
any course with respect to their Western claims which the interest of the State shall prescribe.
I am Dr [Sr., yr.] sincere frd. & hble sert.
Receiver’s copy, Lee Family Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Madison, Papers (Hutchinson), 4:217 – 18.
1 Madison’s reference to the receipt “yesterday” of a letter from John Jay that was read in Congress on May 6, and the similarity between
passages found in this document and the Virginia delegates’ letter to Benjamin Harrison of this date leave little doubt that he wrote it on
May 7.
3 John Jay’s letter of February 6 was received and read in Congress on May 6, but there is no similar entry in Secretary Thomson’s dispatch book
noting the receipt of letters from William Carmichael at this time. However, Madison’s descriptions here and in the following entry
indicate that Carmichael’s letters were his dispatches to Congress of February 18 and 27, 1782. See PCC, item 88, fols. 195 – 206, item 185,
3:26; Madison, Papers (Hutchinson), 4:21nn.5 and 6; and Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, 5:150 – 51, 173 – 76, 204 – 5.
4 That is, Jay’s letter of October 3, 1781, which was read in Congress on March 18 (the day Edmund Randolph left for Virginia), and reported on
by a committee chaired by Madison on April 22, a few days before Lee’s departure. See Madison, Papers (Hutchinson), 4:111nn.1 and 2,
168 – 70, 218n.7.