Lee, Richard Henry (1732-1794) to William Lee
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC03719 Author/Creator: Lee, Richard Henry (1732-1794) Place Written: Virginia Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 19 June 1771 Pagination: 3 p. : address : docket ; 32 x 21 cm. Order a Copy
Signed with initials "RHL". Describes the Regulator movement in North Carolina, a rebellion by backcountry farmers against lawyers, whose high legal fees and manipulation of debt laws were hurting them. North Carolina Governor William Tryon, although he claimed to agree with the insurgents, resorted to suppression by force: he "fell upon the unsuspecting multitudes and made great slaughter with cannons." The royal governor needed more than a thousand troops to defeat the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771.
Richard Henry Lee was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a leader of the patriot cause in Virginia.
...you may know, that the Lawyers, bad everywhere, but in Carolina worse than bad, having long abused the people in the most infamous manner, at length brought things to such a pass, that a bond of £500 was taken for a single fee in trifling causes, and this bond put in suit and recovered before the business was done for which the fee was paid. Grieved in [2] this manner without being able to obtain redress, the people were at length driven by repeated injuries to do what otherwise they would never have thought of. The Governor himself in his speech to the Assembly acknowledges the grievances and recommends enquiry & redress, but instead of accompanying the redress with an Act of Amnesty, the constant political remedy among wise and humane statesmen in like cases, [text loss] to render with fire and sword the poor abused injured people. But the story goes, that when the Parties met, after some small intercourse, it was at length agreed by the Governor to allow a certain space of time for the Insurgents to consider about laying down their Arms, and that before the allowed time was elapsed, he fell upon the unsuspecting multitude, and made great slaughter with his Cannon....
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