74 CHARLES LEE 



he had been the hero of a dozen great battles, if he 

 had rescued Portugal from the Spaniard and Poland 

 from the Turk, he could not have claimed or obtained 

 more deference in this country than he did. And no 

 one treated him with higher consideration, or showed 

 more respect for his opinions, than the grand and 

 modest hero, all unconscious of his own Titanic 

 powers, who rode beside him. 



On arriving at Cambridge, Lee was placed in com- 

 mand of the left wing of the army, with his head- 

 quarters at Winter Hill, in what is now Somerville. 

 The only incident that marked his stay at Cambridge 

 was a correspondence with his old friend Burgoyne, 

 then lately arrived in Boston, which led to a scheme 

 for a conference between Lee and Burgoyne, with a 

 view to the restoration of an amicable understanding 

 between the colonies and the mother country. The 

 proposal came from Burgoyne, and Lee treated it 

 with frankness and discretion. He laid the matter 

 before the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, and 

 when that body mildly signified its disapproval but 

 left it for Lee to decide, he sent a polite note to Bur- 

 goyne declining the interview. This was in July. 

 Four months afterward there came from the Old 

 World a warning that Lee was not a man of trust- 

 worthy character. A provisional government had then 

 been formed in Massachusetts with the president of the 

 council for its executive head, and James Otis, in one 

 of the last of his lucid intervals, then occupied that 

 position. On the I4th of November Otis sent a letter 

 to Lee, quite touching for its high-minded simplicity. 

 The council had come into possession of a letter from 

 Ireland, making very unfavourable mention of Lee. 



