Arthur Lee, a virtuous revolutionary

"An American by birth but a Briton by training, Arthur Lee (1740-1792) led an embattled life. As a member of a leading Virginia family, Lee took on a series of critical diplomatic roles, first as a colonial spokesman and penman in Britain, then as strategist in oppositional politics, and finally as an emissary from the Continental Congress to the courts of France, Spain, and Prussia. The feisty and ubiquitous Lee forced his contemporaries to consider whether America should rebel and then what mission the emerging republic should pursue in international affairs. For him, however, the American Revolution was a multiact tragedy, for most of the ultimate decisions went against his counsel. The controversies, large and small, that made up Lee's career are enticing to the historian and layman not only because he participated at pivotal points in Anglo-American history, but also because comprehension of Lee's personality illustrates the complex and contradictory motives of American patriots. Lee's perspective, a sense of paranoia, was all-consuming. As Louis W. Potts demonstrates, in the initial phases of the Revolution this viewpoint was highly persuasive, but later it was rejected"--Jacket.