Lee, Richard Henry, Signer of the Declaration of Independence from Virginia

Autograph letter signed ("Richard Henry Lee"), 5 pages (8 7/8 x 7 1/4 in.; 225 x 184 mm), New York, 1 September 1787, to an unnamed correspondent [Edmund Randolph] in the Virginia delegation to the Constitutional Convention; guarded at gutter margin. Blue half-morocco drop-box, red morocco spine labels, gilt.

New Jersey Historical Society (sale, Sotheby's New York, 26 October, 1983, lot 75)

Letters of Delegates to Congress, vol. 24, pp. 420-422

Lee, writing from the Continental Congress, congratulates Randolph at the Philadelphia Convention: "I am happy to hear that your business in Convention is near a close — You have had a hard time of it — And I hope you will be rewarded with the thanks of this and future generations."

Lee reports  "... it appears that in May last our Treasurer tendered Mr. Hopkins Indents for something more than 170,000 dollars upon the requisition of 1786 — that he refused to receive them because they were not accompanied with the proper proportion of specie."

He then provides a complete accounting of annual Continental requisitions on Virginia and payments made both in bills of credit ("indents") and in cash. He points out that if the payments had been properly allocated to years where cash was not required, instead of to 1786, then they could be legally accepted.