It is not that they can add to the cruelties they have already exercised; desolation and massacre have marked their steps wherever they could approach. The sending of those captives, whom they pretend now to be their fellow subjects, into perpetual slavery in Africa and India; the crowding of their captives into dungeons, where thousands perish by disease and famine; the compelling of others, by chains and stripes, to fight against their country and their relations; the burning of defenceless towns; and the exciting of the savages, by presents and bribes, to massacre defenceless frontier families, without distinction of age or sex, are extremities of cruelty already practised, and which they cannot exceed. But the recovery of what they called their rights, and the reduction of those who had renounced as they alleged a just supremacy, was then avowedly the object of the war. These cruelties were, it was pretended, incidental severities, and necessary to the attainment of a just object. But now destruction alone is the object. It is not profit to themselves, but injuries to others, which they are pursuing. Desolation for the pleasure of destroying is their only purpose. They will sacrifice to disappointed vengeance what their injustice lost, and their power cannot regain. There cannot be a greater violation of those laws, which bind civilized nations together, which are the general property, and which distinguish their wars from those of savages and barbarians, than this manifesto. All civilized nations are called upon, as well by their own interests as those of humanity, to vindicate its violated laws. Your Excellency will therefore permit me to hope, that so daring and dangerous a procedure will call forth a declaration from the king of Spain, whose pre-eminent character among princes for piety, wisdom, and honor, will render him a fit avenger of the common cause of mankind. It is not America only, that is wronged by this savage proclamation, but the feelings of humanity, the dictates of religion, the laws of God, and of nations. Your Excellency will also give me leave to request, that this representation may be laid before his Majesty, and enforced with such arguments as your Excellency’s greater knowledge, and the favor you have had the goodness to manifest for our just cause may suggest. I have the honor to be your Excellency’s very humble servant, ARTHUR LEE. [40] This letter was forwarded to Count de Florida Blanca, through the agency of Count d’Aranda, Spanish Ambassador in France. TO THE BARON DE SCHULENBURG. Paris, December 25th, 1778. Sir,