1. Lee’s letter of 17 October, after being spread on the journal of Congress two days later, was then referred for report to a committee of which JM was chairman (Jones to JM, 2 October, n. 10; Lee to JM, Bee, and Clark, 21 and 27 October 1780, n. 2; JM to Pendleton, 7 November 1780, n. 4). The committee’s recommendations reached Congress on 30 October (Journals of the Continental Congress, XVIII, 994), but it delayed action upon them for about one month.

2. Arthur Lee had been a commissioner of the United States at the court of Louis XVI. Lee informed Congress that his fellow commissioner, Silas Deane, had misused public funds. Although each man had staunch supporters in Congress, its members unanimously agreed on 10 June 1779 that, since Deane was back in the United States, Lee should also “repair forthwith” to Philadelphia to attend a congressional inquiry into the truth of his charges (ibid., XIV, 712, 714). Lee knew of this action by mid-September (Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1889). description ends , III, 329), but he delayed his return because he was also the agent of the United States to the Spanish court. On 25 December 1779 he heard that Congress had vacated this commission on 13 October, or about two weeks after it had appointed John Jay as minister plenipotentiary to Spain. Lee thereupon wrote to Congress that he would come home as soon as Jay arrived (ibid., III, 447; Journals of the Continental Congress, XV, 1113, 1166). About mid-January 1780, or some ten days before Jay reached Cadiz, the Comte de Vergennes, on behalf of his sovereign, presented Lee “with a gold enamelled snuff-box, containing the picture of the king of France, set with diamonds” (Richard Henry Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, LL.D.… [2 vols.; Boston, 1829], I, 168; Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence description begins Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1889). description ends , III, 462). After a long delay before taking ship from France, Lee finally arrived in Philadelphia in early October 1780 (ibid., IV, 85).

3. Congress struck out the remaining lines of this paragraph before adopting the report (Journals of the Continental Congress, XVIII, 1115). This pallid sort of vindication, unaccompanied by a blanket approval of Lee’s expense accounts, naturally failed to placate him or to end his controversy with Deane and the Board of Treasury.

4. According to the printed journal (ibid.), the report of the committee ended with this sentence. The manuscript of the resolutions, however, includes the next paragraph also. It, too, was adopted by Congress.

5. William Lee, a brother of Arthur Lee, served as commissioner of Congress at the courts of Berlin and Vienna. Between May 1778 and December 1779 his secretary was Samuel Witham Stockton (ca. 1747–1794), who also held many offices in New Jersey, including those of secretary of the convention to ratify the Federal Constitution and secretary of state in 1794. On 14 October 1780 Congress and Stockton arrived at a settlement of his account (ibid., XVII, 454–55; XVIII, 926–27; New Jersey Archives description begins William A. Whitehead et al., eds., Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey (1st ser., 42 vols.; Newark, Trenton, Paterson, 1880–1949). description ends , XXV, 470 n.).