76 CHARLES LEE 



from Franklin said, " I rejoice that you are going to 

 Canada " ; and another from Benjamin Rush observed, 

 " I tremble only at the price of victory . . . ; should 

 your blood mingle with the blood of Wolfe, Montcalm, 

 and Montgomery, posterity will execrate the Plains of 

 Abraham to the end of time." But on the 3d of 

 March Lee wrote to Washington : " My destination is 

 altered. Instead of going to Canada, I am appointed 

 to command to the southward. . . . As I am the only 

 general officer on the continent who can speak and 

 think in French, I confess it would have been more 

 prudent to have sent me to Canada, but I shall obey 

 with alacrity." The reason for this change was the 

 discovery that Clinton's expedition was aimed at some 

 point in the Southern states. Its effect upon Lee's 

 fortunes was much more favourable than he supposed. 

 In Canada, even if he had possessed all the genius for 

 which people gave him credit, he could never have 

 held his ground against Carleton's fine army, outnum- 

 bering him four to one ; at the South, on the other 

 hand, circumstances played into his hands and enabled 

 him very cheaply to increase his reputation. He went 

 first to Virginia, where he stayed till the middle of May, 

 with headquarters at Williamsburg. The burning 

 political question that spring was whether the colonies 

 should unite in a declaration of independence, and on 

 this point Lee expressed himself with his customary 

 emphasis. To Edward Rutledge he wrote, " By the 

 eternal God ! if you don't declare yourselves inde- 

 pendent, you deserve to be slaves." At the hesitating 

 action of the Maryland convention in March he lost 

 all patience. " What ! " he cried, " when an execrable 



1 Lee Papers, I. 312-314; 343. 



