tleman told me, the Alleghany had within thirty years of his memory, carried away one hundred yards. The place, I believe, will never be very considerable."

He was next called to the Board of Treasury, in association with Samuel Osgood and Walter Livingston, in which he continued from 1784 to 1789. Within that period, he served in a legislative committee to revise the laws of Virginia. On the dissolution of the Treasury Board, he once more sought the relief of retirement, and established himself on a farm on the Rappahannock.

"One of the most abundant sources of enjoyment which contributed to his pleasures in private life, was his correspondence with his political, literary, and scientific friends in America and Europe. Among these, were many distinguished men in England, Burke, Barré, Wyndham, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Sir William Jones, and the Earl of Buchan, in Scotland; on the continent, the Marquis of Rosignan, Baron de Breteuil, Count de Mousteir, Abbés D'Arnou and Raynal, the Duke of Rochefoucault, and other persons of literary and political eminence. He enjoyed the correspondence of most of the distinguish

ed men of the United States."

Like the father of his country, he fixed upon agricultural occupation, the most natural and congenial rest, after the toils of his active life; but, as in his case, this prospect was prematurely closed. Whilst assisting in the planting of an orchard, in December, 1792, the cold and rain to which he was exposed produced an attack of pleurisy, that proved fatal on the 12th of the month, when he was but 52 years of Mr. Lee's person was finely proportioned; his face handsome; his manners and conversation attractive. He was not married. His biographer states, that he was "an enthusiastic admirer" of, and a "favourite with," the other sex; and quotes one of his journals for the reasons he assigned for his bachelorship-they are certainly too romantic to be of native growth :

age.

"With my sentiments of love and marriage, I am not likely to find a wife. An Emma, an Eloise, or a Constantia, would alone answer the high enthusiastic ideas I possess of wedded love. I am afraid I should regard any one, unactuat ed by their ardent and absolute sentiments of love, as a house-keeper; not as the wife of my bosom, from whose glowing tenderness, love would 'light his constant lamp,' 'would reign and revel.' I am convinced that love is the most cordial drop that heaven has poured into the cup of man. But as it is precious, it is rare. I have seen ladies whom I sincerely loved; but the tempest of my fortune bore me from them before I had time to know their real disposi tions, or woo them to approve my pleaded reason; for they were like Eve, 'endued with a conscience of their worth,' that would be wooed, and not unsought be won."

Mr. Lee's abilities as a diplomatist, were characterized by indefatigable zeal, the purest integrity, and political skilfulness. In his negotiations, he was open and direct, and above all tracasserie. His earnestness in the cause sometimes led him to measures of boldness and bluntness, which temporizing men would have industriously avoided. He was present in the House

of Commons, when Mr. Wedderburne, (Lord Loughborough) charged the colonists with preventing British merchants from recovering their just debts: upon the rising of the house, Lee sent Wedderburne a note, contradicting the accusation, and calling on him to retract it publicly, on penalty of being published "as a propagator of mischievous calumnies against America." Of the same species, are his letter to Lord North on the treatment of American prisoners, signed by the Commissioners, (vol. i. 102,) his memoir to the king of Prussia, (i. 91,) and his interruption of the philosophical disquisition of Turgot, whom he found calculating the freezing point in a thermometer; and upon his expressing his preference of Reaumur's scale to Fahrenheit's, Mr. Lee abruptly "told him that finances were what required most of our attention now; we want a system of finance." But these are honourable traits, however singular as departures from the obsequiousness usually witnessed in bureaux. Mr. Lee's genius, like that of his associate, Franklin, was eminently practical, and the ardour of his patriotism could ill brook the delays and flourishes which the comparative insignificance of ordinary subjects of diplomacy may render harmless.

His good sense and talents are amply developed in his correspondence, and corroborated by the frequency with which it was sought by the most conspicuous men of the revolution, and the deference paid to his views. The second volume of his Life contains letters from a large and honourable list of correspondents, who seem to have placed the highest value on his friendship. The principle expressed in a letter from John Adams, was eminently exemplified in Mr. Lee's course :

"As to jobs, I never had and never will have any thing to do in any, let the consequence to me and my family be what it will. The trusts with which you and I have been honoured by our country, are too sacred to be tarnished by the little selfish intrigues, in which the little insects about a court are eternally buz. zing. If I had neither a sense of duty, nor the pride of virtue, nor any other pride; if I had no higher principle or quality than vanity, it would mortify this, in an extreme degree, to sully and debase so pure a cause by any such practices."

The same patriot, writing from the Hague, in 1785, on the politics of Holland, says :

"A spirit of opposition has pervaded this middle rank of citizens; volunteer corps are formed and disciplining. You observe their children even going through the exercise in playing about the streets, and every thing among them makes us recollect the year 1775 in America. This party views America with a venerat ing partiality, and so much attached are they to our opposition, that they seem fond of imitating us wherever they can, and of drawing parallels between the similar circumstances in the two countries. Not long ago an officer of one of the patriotic corps, lost the spirit of opposition, and went over to the opposite interest; he was immediately branded with the opprobrious name of the American Arnold."

There are several letters from Samuel Adams, full of fire and

intrepidity. Those from John Dickinson, are more calm in their style, but equally decided in their tone: he indeed confesses, in 1769, that he had no idea of our happiness, unless we are dependent on Great Britain ;" and continues to hope that the event of separation would be unnecessary :

"No force, no emigration, is necessary for our protection. Divine providence has put it into our power, properly to resent the indignities offered us, the injustice done us, in a manner suitable to our loyalty for our prince, our affection for our parental country. Homespun clothes are all the armour, spades and ploughshares the weapons we shall use in this holy war. So gentle and so effectual are the means we shall employ. Yet, to speak freely, my heart bleeds at the prospect of our success. How mournful a reflection is it, that a just regard for ourselves must wound Great Britain, the mother of brave, generous, humane spirit, the chief bulwark of liberty on this globe, and the blessed seat of unspotted religion."

He says, in another epistle

"My countrymen have been provoked, but not quite enough. Thanks to the excellent spirit of administration, I doubt not but proper measures will be pursued for provoking them still more. Some future oppression will render them more attentive to what is offered to them; and the calm friend of freedom, who faithfully watches and calls out on a new danger; will be more regarded than if he endeavours to repeat the alarm on an attack that is thought to have been in some measure repelled. I do not despair. Our mercenaries have been defeated. Our native troops are firm. Afflicted I am, and ever shall be, that so considerable a class of men as the mercantile should have failed. But there is a spirit and a strength in the land-holders of this continent, sufficient to check the insolence of any infamously corrupt minister; and so the most daring of them, perhaps sooner than he expects, may find."

And in writing an account of the Lexington murder, by the army of General Gage, he concludes with the firmness of a patriot:

"We are a united, resolved people; are, or quickly shall be, well armed and disciplined; our smiths and powder-mills are at work day and night; our supplies from foreign parts continually arriving. Good officers, that is, well-experi enced ones, we shall soon have, and the navy of Great Britain cannot stop our whole trade. Our towns are but brick and stone, and mortar and wood. They, perhaps, may be destroyed. They are only the hairs of our heads. If sheared ever so close, they will grow again. We compare them not with our rights and liberties. We worship as our fathers worshipped, not idols which our hands have made."

We find the following notice of our late countryman, Benjamin West, in a letter from Mr. Lee to Edward Rutledge :

"I am very desirous of engaging Mr. West to exert his faculties, in immortalizing the conduct of the ladies in Charleston, on canvass, with their husbands and friends, when they were sent to St. Augustine. It appears to me that a conduct so noble, so virtuous, and so patriotic, as never to have been exceeded, seldom equalled, should be perpetuated by a pencil the most powerful that the present age has produced. Such is the pencil of Mr. West. You will oblige me, sir, if you will give me such a description of that event, together with any anecdotes touching it, as you may think will aid the painter in expressing it well. Should Mr. West enter into the plan, such of the ladies and gentlemen as were present at that scene, and have good pictures of themselves, would perhaps take the trouble of sending them to Mr. West, in order that from the resemblance of persons, the piece may be more interesting, at least for some generations."

Among the friendships formed by Mr. Lee, whilst pursuing his studies in the Temple, was that of Sir William Jones, then also a student, and untitled. There are two letters of his in the present collection, and we eagerly copy the greatest part of that from Bengal, dated September 28, 1788.

"My dear Sir, I am just escaped from Calcutta to my cottage, about a hundred miles from it, where I can repose but a few days, after a degree of judicial labour, of which an English bar can afford no example. We have been sitting seven hours a day, sometimes whole nights, for three months together; and that without any assistance from juries, except in criminal cases. The length of our sittings has left us hardly any vacation; and I have so large an arrear of letters for the ships of the season, that I must divide my mornings between all my friends, and write concisely to each, with a promise of longer letters the next

season.

"The interesting picture you give of your country, has both light and shade in it; but though some rocks and thickets appear, to obstruct the foreground, I see the distant prospect brighten, and have a sanguine hope that I shall live to admire your constitution, in all the blaze of true liberty and universal justice. If young Englishmen had any English spirit, they would finish their education by visiting the United States, instead of fluttering about Italy; and strive to learn rather political wisdom from republicans, than to pick up a few superficial notions of the fine arts, from the poor thralls of bigotry and superstition. If I live, I seriously intend to make the tour of your states, before I retire to my Sabine farm; and my wife, who is much better than when I wrote last, often speaks of the scheme with delight.

"I have read the original of Halheld's book, which is not properly a code, but a short compendium or digest, compiled about ten or twelve years ago by eleven Brahmans, of whom only five are now living. The version was made by Halheld from the Persian, and that by a Musselman writer from the Bengal dialect, in which one of the Brahmans, (the same who has corrected my Sanscrit copy) explained it to him. A translation in the third degree from the original, must be, as you will easily imagine, very erroneous. The texts quoted in the original, are ascribed to the Gods; that is, they are of indefinite antiquity; but I cannot believe any of them to be more than three thousand years old. I am superintending a new work of the same kind, but more extensive, on the plan of Justi nian's Digest, which some of the most learned of the native lawyers are compiling; they are stimulated to diligence by handsome monthly salaries. I shall not, if my health continues firm, think of leaving Asia, until I see the completion of a work, which will be the standard of justice among ten millions of men; and will, I trust, secure their inheritable property to their descendants."

When in Edinburgh, Mr. Lee became acquainted with Earl Buchan, then Lord Cardross, and they cherished an enduring esteem for each other throughout their careers. In 1775, the earl wrote,

"I have, for a long time, had views of becoming a vassal of my kinsman Fairfax, on the banks of the Potomac. I should be much obliged to you for information relating to his unsettled tracts, and the circumstances to be attended to in such speculations."

There are several agreeable letters from Dr. Richard Price, and from the Marquis de Rosignan; in the letters of the latter are some pithy sentences.

"If one has the jaundice, I consult him no more on colours, I know beforehand that he sees every thing yellow. Unfortunately, moral jaundice is far more universal among our species, than physical jaundice."

"The wicked do more business than those that are honest, because they do not hesitate about the means."

With Lord Shelburne, (Marquis of Lansdown,) he was in habits of intimacy whilst residing in England, frequently spending weeks at his mansion. There are letters of his from 1769 to 1791; we extract a passage from one of the latest:

"Dear Sir,-Your nephew will tell you that it has not been my fault, that I have not seen more of him. He may depend on my attention and services. He will of course inform you of events here as they pass. But you know the causes of them far better than he can tell you, for the data continue exactly the same as you remember them. The character of the reign has suffered not the least variation; and though Lord Rockingham is no more, his party persevere exactly in the principles you remember, fighting up, as they called it, against the king and people, unconvinced by above twenty years' experience, of the impossibility of arriving at their end by such means; and still more so, of the unworthiness of that end, which you know too well, to make it necessary for me to dwell on the description. As to myself, I stand more single than ever; and the utmost to which I aspire is, by so much dint of character as the respective parties may leave me, or rather as consistency of conduct may procure me in spite of parties, and great moderation of conduct, to avert great calamities; or at least to blunt the edge of them, as far as I am able. I have no great virtue to boast of in adopting this line, for you are fully sensible that the reign is not disposed to delegate a regular course of power to any one, and I never had a passion for emolument."

Many of the political letters are almost unintelligible, in consequence of the obscure and allusive manner in which they were unavoidably written, and sometimes cyphered, lest they should fall into tory hands; but even these help to describe the dangers and difficulties of the times. We have not selected much from the documents, and the exclusively political correspondence, because their interest, in a great measure, depends upon their being read entire and consecutively; and with regard to all historical materials like those furnished in the present volumes, we would rather quicken than allay the curiosity of the public.

ART. IX.-History of the Republic of San Marino. By MELCHIOR DEL FICO. Naples.

THIS is the only complete digest of the annals of a commonwealth, insignificant as to size and power, but celebrated in modern story almost in proportion to its diminutiveness. San Marino is the dwarf among the republican sovereignties-an object of wonder for its longevity, and of admiration for its moral qualities. The volume of the learned Neapolitan is a goodly quarto, elegantly and zealously written. A distinguished American-George Washington Erving, Esq.-who represented his country, as minister plenipotentiary, in Spain, during many

VOL. VI.-NO. 12.

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