The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Volume 2
A. Lee to Florida Blanca.^*

[Note *: * MSS. Dep. of State; 1 Sparks, Dip. Rev. Corr., 408. See introduction, § § 86 ff.]

Vitoria, March 17, 1777.

Mr. Lee wishes to state to his excellency the Count de Florida Blanca what he has understood from his excellency the Marquis de Grimaldi, to be the intentions of his majesty relative to the United States of America.

That for very powerful reasons his majesty can not at this moment enter into an alliance with them or declare in their favor; that, nevertheless, they may depend upon his majesty's sincere desire to see their rights and liberties established, and of his assisting them as far as may be consistent with his own situation; that for this purpose the house of Gardoqui,^† at Bilboa, would send them supplies for their army and navy from time to time; that they would find some ammunition and clothing deposited for them at New Orleans, the communication with which would be much secured and facilitated by their taking possession of Pensacola; that their vessels should be received at the Havana upon the same terms with those of France, and that the ambassador at Paris should have directions immediately to furnish their commissioners with credit in Holland. The marquis added, that his majesty would do these things out of the graciousness of his royal disposition, without stipulating any return, and that if upon inquiry any able veteran officers could be spared from his Irish brigade the States should have them.

[Note †: † See index, title Gardoqui.]

These most gracious intentions Mr. Lee has communicated to the Congress of the United States in terms as guarded as possible, without mentioning names, so that the source of those aids, should the dispatches fall into the enemy's hands, can only be conjectured from the manner in which they are mentioned. And, for further security, the captain has the strictest orders to throw the dispatches into the sea should he be taken.

Mr. Lee is sensible that these intentions are measured by the magnanimity of a great and opulent prince, and becoming the character of so illustrious a monarch as the King of Spain. He is satisfied they will raise the strongest sentiments of gratitude and veneration in the breasts of those whom they regard. At the same time he trusts that the Spanish nation will receive no inconsiderable retribution from the freedom of that commerce the monopoly of which contributed so much to strengthen and aggrandize her rival and her foe; nor can anything give more lasting satisfaction to the royal mind than the reflection of having employed those means which God has put into his hands in assisting an oppressed people to vindicate those rights and liberties which have been violated by twice six years of incessant injuries and insulted supplications; those rights which God and nature, together with the convention of their ancestors and the constitution of their country, gave to the people of the States. Instead of that protection in those rights which was the due return for sovereignty exercised over them, they have seen their defenseless towns wantonly laid in ashes, their unfortified country cruelly desolated, their property wasted, their people slain; the ruthless savage, whose inhuman war spares neither age nor sex, instigated against them; the hand of the servant armed against his master by public proclamation, and the very food which the sea that washes their coast furnishes forbidden them by a law of unparalleled folly and injustice. Proinde quasi injuriam facere id demure esset imperio uti. Nor was it enough that for these purposes the British force was exhausted against them, but foreign mercenaries were also bribed to complete the butchery of their people and the devastation of their country. And that nothing might be wanting to make the practices equivalent to the principles of this war, the minds of these mercenaries were poisoned with every prejudice that might harden their hearts and sharpen their swords against a people who not only never injured or offended them, but who have received with open arms and provided habitations for their wandering countrymen. These are injuries which the Americans can never forget. These are oppressors whom they can never again endure. The force of intolerable and accumulated outrages has compelled them to appeal to God and to the sword. The King of Spain, in assisting them to maintain that appeal, assists in vindicating the violated rights of human nature. No cause can be more illustrious, no motive more magnanimous.^*

[Note *: * At the bottom of this letter and of the memorial to the court of Spain Mr. Lee signs himself "Commissioner Plenipotentiary from the Congress of the United States of America." But this must have been for the greater formality, as he had not yet received any appointment to Spain from Congress, but only went there by advice of the commissioners in Paris.--Sparks.]

Arthur Lee.