Our Man in London

Controlling the narrative is at the center of this month's microcast. As tensions escalate between Britain and the colonies, Americans residing and working in London experienced a unique set of difficulties, especially Americans involved in the production and dissemination of political intelligence. In a letter dated 6 March 1785, Arthur Lee underlined for John Adams, "how powerful a political instrument the press is," and how "the readers of News-papers swallow intelligence much more greedily, than any of the rest of their contents." In the wake of events at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Arthur and the Americans manage to steal a march on their British counterparts, scoring a significant public relations victory at the head of the impending war. One consequence of that victory is the subject of this month's letter dated 22 December 1775, which finds Dr. Arthur Lee put out by some mail gone missing. 

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Transcript

Stratford Mail

I.

Welcome to Stratford Mail, a Production of Stratford Hall Historic Preserve, where we give voice to Stratford Hall’s people, places and past to engage, educate, and inspire. Find us on the web at stratfordhall.org. I’m Director of Research Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey.

Today we’ll be reading a letter of complaint dated December 22, 1775 from Arthur Lee to the American Secretary of London, Lord Germain, and a short response from a bureaucrat working in Germain’s Office. 

Arthur Lee, the youngest son of Thomas and Hannah Lee of Stratford was a lawyer living and practicing in London, a friend and colleague of English Radicals, a spy communicating political intelligence to friends and allies back home in America, and an unrivalled Propagandist flooding the papers with pro-American writing. His incendiary political activism did not go unnoticed and led to the awkward circumstances that prompted the following letter.   

Letter

22 December 1775

No 2 Garden Court

Middle Temple

My Lord,

It is some days since I was informed, that letters for me from America, were seizd, by an Officer of the Customs, and transmitted to your Lordship. I have waited this long, out of respect to your Lordship, and in expectation, that, when the Letters had been examined, you would have had the goodness to send them as they were addressed. 

My Lord, I have the best reason to believe, that those letters were from my nearest and most dear connections in that country. Your Lordship will, therefore, I trust, feel some indulgence for the impatience with which I have waited, and the anxiety with which I now request the Letters, which may be in your possession and addressed to me. I hope and believe, your Lordship, has too much humanity, to exasperate the griefs of those, who are nearly connected in that unhappy country, by withholding from them, in a season of such calamity, all intelligence concerning their friends and their affairs. 

I have the honor of being, My Lord, your Lordship’s most obedient, humble Servant, Arthur Lee

Interpretation: 

From 1768 to 1776 Arthur Lee produced a storm of political journalism in service to the American cause, much of which appeared in newspapers and inflamed passions on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1775, the Virginia Gazette celebrated the “amiable Doctor Lee” and his “excellent pieces in vindication of the colonies,” but across the Atlantic Member of Parliament for Colchester Charles Gray complained that “the American Party with Arthur Lee as a writer, have got possession of the newspapers.” 

Arthur’s writing reflected his access to political intelligence from family and friends back home and from well-placed allies in England. In a 1784 diary entry, Arthur reminisced: In the field of politics from the politician in the cider-cellar to the peer in his palace I had access and influence. His transatlantic intelligence networks were a source of irritation to his majesty George III’s government, who sometimes found themselves struggling to control the narrative. Such was the case when Arthur and his informants scooped the British government with news of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Articles in the London Evening Post and the Public Advertiser on the 29th and 31st of May 1775, respectively, meant that British folks first encountered these earthshaking events from a colonial point of view.  

Central to that view was the claim that the British had fired first; Arthur Lee deposited signed affidavits to that effect with the Lord Mayor of London, John Wilkes, who was a friend of Lee. Arthur issued a standing invitation for folks to validate what they read in the papers with an inspection of the originals at the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House. 

Secretary of State for the American Colonies, Lord Dartmouth, did not receive General Thomas Gage’s debriefs about Lexington and Concord until June 10. Gage echoed the colonial account with the notable exception that the colonists fired first. Three weeks later Lord Dartmouth wrote to Gage: 

On the 10th of last month in the morning, Lieutenant Nunn arrived at my office with your despatch containing an account of the transaction on the 19th of April of which the public had before received intelligence by a schooner, to all appearances sent by the enemies of government, on purpose to make an impression here by representing the affair between the King’s troops and the rebel Provincials in a light the most favorable to their own view.

 Their industry on this occasion had its effect, in leaving for some days a false impression upon people’s minds, and I mention it to you with a hope that, in any future event of importance, it will be thought proper … to send your dispatches by one of the light vessels of the fleet. 

By November 10, Lord Dartmouth was stepped down and replaced by George Germain, who in the wake of being scooped by American agents seems to have pursued the additional expedient of intercepting the mail of Arthur Lee. In his complaint Arthur presents himself to Lord Germain as a concerned friend of and kinsman to people under threat and in danger; how could Lord Germain in all decency thwart the communication of loved ones in a time of crisis? On the very day that Arthur complains to Lord Germain about the confiscation of his mail, Parliament passes the Prohibitory Act in an attempt to stem the widening rebellion by strangling trade and exploiting the seeming economic fragility of the colonies. The next day Arthur received the following response:

Response

December 23 1775

Whitehall

Arthur Lee, Esq

Sir, I am directed by Lord George Germain to acquaint you that all Letters whatever from Persons in America to their Correspondents here which have been brought to His Lordship’s Office, have been sent to the General Post Office to be forwarded in the proper Channel to the Persons to whom they are addressed.

Conclusion

As hostilities escalated Arthur would be compelled to abandon the country he once likened to Eden and take up a new post as commissioner to the court of France, but that’s a topic for a different day. Thank you for following Stratford Mail. From Stratford Hall Historic Preserve in Westmoreland County Virginia, I’m Director of Research Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey, signing off as Arthur Lee often did, adieu

Credits:
Music is William Ross Chernoff's "In Shadows"
AI voices courtesy of Narakeet (except Dr. Steffey)

© Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey, 2023