To Mr Stockton I refer you for further information relative to the general state of political affairs in this quarter of the world, and expecting shortly another opportunity, I shall write again, when I hope to be able to give you very pleasing accounts of the progress of my negotiations in this country. I have not received any letter or intelligence from you of a later date than May last, therefore I have no reply to make. I have the honor to be, &c. WILLIAM LEE. TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS. Paris, March l6th, 1779. Sir, I have just had communicated to me the copies of two letters from Mr Silas Deane, addressed to Mr President Laurens, dated Philadelphia, October the 12th, 1778, and a separate paper relative to the 11th and 12th articles in the Treaty of Commerce between His Most Christian Majesty and the United States of America;[56] in which letters, so far as respects me personally, he has asserted nearly the same groundless charges as in his letter to the public, which has been already so fully replied to, and proved to be utterly repugnant to truth. Had Mr Deane made these very extraordinary assertions only once, he might have had some shadow of excuse, though it is a very bad one, by pleading a weak memory; but a deliberate repetition of them, after an interval of time amply sufficient for recollection, shows a heart and designs of such a complexion as all good men should avoid and guard against. Mr Deane concludes with the following assertions, by way of summary of all that he had before advanced. 1st. “That Mr William Lee never had a commission for the commercial agency.” What Mr Deane may style a _commission_ I do not know, but he knew by a letter to himself from Mr John Ross, in July, 1777, of which he knows I have a copy, that I had as sufficient authority to act in the commercial agency as Mr Thomas Morris, and that I did act in that department accordingly. But if Mr Deane knew I was not a commercial agent, how can he palliate so bold and daring an imposition on His Most Christian Majesty and his Ministers, as to represent me in that character to them, which he did do in the letter signed by him to his Excellency Count de Vergennes in February, 1778, requesting that the late Mr Thomas Morris’s papers might be put into my possession, as then being the sole commercial agent of Congress. But, indeed, we ought not to be surprised at any imposition whatever on the part of Mr Deane, since he imposed himself on the King of France, his Ministers, and the whole world, as a Commissioner of Congress, on the 20th of March, 1778, when he confesses that on the 4th of that month he received a resolution of Congress, recalling him to America. I also refer for his conviction to the letters and proceedings of the Secret Committee.