Life
He was the son of Hon. Thomas Lee (1690–1750) and Hannah Harrison Ludwell (1701–1750). His brothers, Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794), Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734–1797) and William Lee (1739–1795), were also Revolutionary-era diplomats.
He attended Eton College in England and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1765. He then studied law in London, and he practised there from 1770 to 1776. During this time Lee wrote many influential pamphlets and essays opposing slavery and British continental policies. He wrote one of his more famous works "An Essay in Vindication of the Continental Colonies of America" in 1764. Lee was against the Townshend acts and became a major proponent of American resistance to the British.
In 1770, he was named Massachusetts correspondent to Britain and France and at this time he began corresponding with Sam Adams, and they became lifelong friends although they probably didn't meet personally until sometime after 1780. He did not while in London appreciate the extravagant lifestyle of Benjamin Franklin, and he told Sam Adams he would never be a good negotiator between a free people and a tyrant.
During the American Revolution he was dispatched as an envoy of the Continental Congress to Spain and Prussia to gain their support for the rebel cause, but he was unsuccessful in his endeavors.
Later, in Paris, after helping to negotiate the Treaty of Alliance (1778) with France, he fell out with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane. He persuaded Congress to recall Deane to America, but he was himself recalled soon afterward.
In addition to his diplomatic duties, Lee was arguable one of Americas first spies and gathered information in France and Britain. He also successfully identified Edward Bancroft, secretary to the American legation in Paris, as a spy. Virginia sent Lee as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1782.
Arthur Lee built and lived at Lansdowne, a mansion which still stands in Urbanna, Virginia, a small waterfront town on Virginia's Middle Peninsula. It is presently a private residence, and he is buried in a small family graveyard adjacent to the building.
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