Lee, Arthur definition of Lee, Arthur in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Lee, Arthur, 1740–92, American Revolutionary diplomat, b. Westmoreland co., Va.; brother of Francis L. Lee, Richard H. Lee, and William Lee. Educated in Great Britain, he returned to Virginia to practice medicine, but soon decided to study law and went (1768) to London. There, like William Lee, he became a partisan of John Wilkes Wilkes, John, 1727–97, English politician and journalist. He studied at the Univ. of Leiden, returned to England in 1746, and purchased (1757) a seat in Parliament.
..... Click the link for more information. and a political pamphleteer. In 1770 he became agent for Massachusetts in London. After the outbreak of the American Revolution, he was made a commissioner for the Continental Congress to seek foreign aid. In 1777 he went to Spain, but was unable to obtain a formal treaty; he was also refused recognition at the Prussian court in Berlin. With Benjamin Franklin 2)). The phenomenon of electricity interested him deeply, and in 1748 he turned his printing business over to his foreman, intending to devote his life to science. His experiment of flying a kite in a thunderstorm, which showed that lightning is an electrical discharge (but which
..... Click the link for more information. and Silas Deane Deane, Silas, 1737–89, political leader and diplomat in the American Revolution, b. Groton, Conn. A lawyer and merchant at Wethersfield, Conn., he was elected (1772) to the state assembly and became a leader in the revolutionary cause.
..... Click the link for more information. he helped persuade Pierre de Beaumarchais Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de (pyĕr ōgüstăN` karôN` də bōmärshā`)
..... Click the link for more information. to act as agent for supplying aid to the rebellious colonials. In Paris, however, he quarreled with Franklin and Deane, and his unfavorable reports to Congress resulted in the recall of Deane and a halt on payments to Beaumarchais. In 1779 he was recalled. He later served in the Continental Congress.

Bibliography

See B. J. Hendrick, The Lees of Virginia (1935).