This circular letter was a companion piece to the commissioners’ memorandum to the French and Spanish courts below, November 23, and had been equally long under consideration. Lee presented his draft of the letter to his colleagues on the 9th. An argument developed over how to interpret the old maxim that free ships make free goods: Lee’s draft had apparently defined all goods carried by neutrals but belonging to the enemy as contraband. Deane insisted, citing Gérard for his authority, that neutrals were immune from capture regardless of what they carried. Franklin sided with Lee, and the two pointed out that conceding the broad immunity would remove a main inducement to the Bourbon powers to conclude an American commercial alliance.5 At some point, then or later, the argument must have been settled by the wording used here, which like many compromises is imprecise: neutrals may be seized when carrying enemy personnel or supplies “or other contraband Goods.” On the 18th Lee tried, without success, to get his colleagues to finish the letter, and two days later asked the Spanish Ambassador’s opinion about sending it; Aranda seems to have approved.6 On the evening of the 21st, after a meeting of the commissioners, Lee spoke of having with him “the draught of a letter he purposed sending to the ports in Spain, to warn the American vessels from violating the rights of neutral nations.”7 This can only refer to the present letter; it was presumably put into final form and signed that same evening.