Details
WASHINGTON, GEORGE, President. Autograph letter signed ("G:Washington") to Colonel Henry ("Light-Horse Harry") Lee (1756-1818) in Alexandria; Mount Vernon, 12 December 1788. 1 page, 4to, 238 x 192 mm. (9.3/8 x 7 in.), slightly browned in vertical strip at right side, address panel on verso in Washington's hand.
HORSE PEDIGREES, LAND IN KENTUCKY AND THE "NEW GOVERNMENT" UNDER THE CONSTITUTION
A fine, rather formal letter to a fellow Virginian (the father of Robert E. Lee) whom Washington mistrusted in spite of Lee's wartime services to the American cause. The letter, in several places, is a fine demonstration of Washington's tact and careful expression. The future President, home from the Constitutional Convention, which closed in September, has purchased frontier land from his neighbor, Lee, and sold him livestock in return: "If you desire a more formal Pedigree than the Enclosed [not present], return the one sent and another shall be framed by the time you send for Magnolia [a horse], when a Bill of sale shall also be forwarded. And as you have it not in your power at present (for want of the Papers) to pass a Deed of Conveyance to me, for the 5000 Acres of Land in Kentucke [sic], agreably to your Memorandum, I should be slag to receive some instrument (in case of accidents by which to establish my claim to it."
Washington comments on Lee's decision to leave Congress: "Your intention to decline offering yourself for the Westmoreland district since you have received proof of Mr. John Page's doing it [announcing his candidacy], is an unequivocal proof if proof was wanting, of your friendly disposition to the New Government; but whether it is the most effectual way of serving it, is another question. Whether Mr. Page's interest, or yours, is best in the District (I am not sufficuiently informed to decide) but of one thing I am sure and that is, that these matters (to stand upon equal ground with the opponents of the Constitution) ought to be the result of previous consultation and arrangement...." Published in Writings, ed. J.C. Fitzpatrick.
Provenance: Anonymous owner (sale, Christie's, 14 December 1984, lot 240).
HORSE PEDIGREES, LAND IN KENTUCKY AND THE "NEW GOVERNMENT" UNDER THE CONSTITUTION
A fine, rather formal letter to a fellow Virginian (the father of Robert E. Lee) whom Washington mistrusted in spite of Lee's wartime services to the American cause. The letter, in several places, is a fine demonstration of Washington's tact and careful expression. The future President, home from the Constitutional Convention, which closed in September, has purchased frontier land from his neighbor, Lee, and sold him livestock in return: "If you desire a more formal Pedigree than the Enclosed [not present], return the one sent and another shall be framed by the time you send for Magnolia [a horse], when a Bill of sale shall also be forwarded. And as you have it not in your power at present (for want of the Papers) to pass a Deed of Conveyance to me, for the 5000 Acres of Land in Kentucke [sic], agreably to your Memorandum, I should be slag to receive some instrument (in case of accidents by which to establish my claim to it."
Washington comments on Lee's decision to leave Congress: "Your intention to decline offering yourself for the Westmoreland district since you have received proof of Mr. John Page's doing it [announcing his candidacy], is an unequivocal proof if proof was wanting, of your friendly disposition to the New Government; but whether it is the most effectual way of serving it, is another question. Whether Mr. Page's interest, or yours, is best in the District (I am not sufficuiently informed to decide) but of one thing I am sure and that is, that these matters (to stand upon equal ground with the opponents of the Constitution) ought to be the result of previous consultation and arrangement...." Published in Writings, ed. J.C. Fitzpatrick.
Provenance: Anonymous owner (sale, Christie's, 14 December 1984, lot 240).