SIEGE OF BOSTON – A LETTER from General LEE to General BURGOYNE, dated June 7, 1775; received at Boston July 5. Printed from the New-York Gazetteer, July 6. [Boston: 1775.]

SIEGE OF BOSTON – A LETTER from General LEE to General BURGOYNE, dated June 7, 1775; received at Boston July 5. Printed from the New-York Gazetteer, July 6. [Boston: 1775.]

A rare broadside bearing Charles Lee's plea to John Burgoyne not to take up arms against the colonies, and the British general's response defending Crown policy. An exchange of personal letters between Lee and his former commander (the irascible general served under Burgoyne in Portugal in 1762) written in the first months of the Siege of Boston. The exchange opens with Lee's letter of 7 June 1775 (ten days before Bunker Hill), in which he attempts to dissuade Burgoyne from taking up arms against the Colonists. Lee summarizes the causes of the war, and asks Burgoyne to state them to British generals Howe and Clinton. Burgoyne replies with a statement of the Crown's position on the rebellion and asks Lee to meet him on Boston Neck. The broadside closes with Lee's final response written at Washington's Cambridge headquarters on 11 July: "Would be extremely happy in the interview so kindly proposed. But as he perceives that General Burgoyne has already made up his mind on this great subject; and as it is impossible that he [Gen. Lee] should ever alter his opinion, he is apprehensive that the interview might create those jealousies and suspicions so natural to a people struggling in the dearest of all causes, that of their liberty." Evans 42858. Bristol B4025 (recording six copies in institutional holdings). Ford 1839.

Folio broadside (432 x 353mm) printed in three columns with wide margins (short tear in the fold at upper right).