We print the letter as sent. It shows a self-restraint quite lacking in the original draft, in which Lee answered in heat what he must have considered the gratuitous censure in Franklin’s letter of the same day, and defended his conduct in Nantes: he was not authorized to deliver Thomas Morris’ private papers to Ross, or Ross to receive them; he himself had not examined any of them, public or private; he would have looked at the public ones had not Ross’s interference decided him to bring the whole lot to Paris; if Franklin still insists on absenting himself when they are opened, the commissioners should stipulate in writing what ought to be done with them. As for Ross, “if unauthorized and uninterested persons are thus permitted to obstruct the public business, the public interest must inevitably receive material Injury.”6