Apr 17, 2012 - Sale 2276

Sale 2276 - Lot 63

Price Realized: $ 11,400
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
"WHAT THEY CANNOT CARRY OFF THEY DESTROY" LEE, RICHARD HENRY. Autograph Letter Signed, to Brigadier General George Weedon, reflecting on the increasingly bitter character of the war, and the tenuous position of Virginia's Northern Neck. 4 pages, 4to, on a single folded sheet; docketing on final page. "Chantilly" [Westmoreland County, VA], 10 May 1781
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On the progress of the war: "It is to be hoped that the pride of Great Britain will with her power be reduced e'er long within the bounds of moderation. . . . In the mean time, it seems as if we should be left to struggle against the pride, the power, and the rancor of the British court. It is now a war of inveterate malice on her part against us, so that what they cannot carry off they destroy."
Lee also describes Virginia's Northern Neck, "containing very many slaves, much tobacco public & private, with abundant stocks of all kinds, this affording the enemy the double temptation of greatly profiting themselves and ruining a considerable tract of country, whilst we are in a manner cut off from the aid of our fellow citizens by water enclosures possessed by the enemies vessels. . . . We may be swept from Fredericksburg to Fleets Bay, 80 or 90 miles, with infinite ease."