directed to the good of his country. When Mr. Jefferson declined the appointment of a minister to France, Dr. Lee was appointed to his place, and he joined his colleagues, Dr. Frankand Mr. Deane, at Paris, in December 1776. He assisted in negotiating the treaty with France. In the year 1779, he and Mr. Adams, who had taken the place of Deane, were recalled, and Dr. Franklin was appointed sole minister to France. His return had been rendered necessary by the malicious accusations with which Deane had assailed his public conduct.

In the preceding year Deane had left Paris; agreeably to an order of congress, and came to this country in the same ship with the French minister Gerard. On his arrival, as many suspicions hovered around him, he thought it necessary to repel them, by attacking the character of his colleague Dr. Lee. In an inflammatory address to the public he vilified him in the grossest terms, charging him with obstructing the alliance with France, and disclosing the secrets of congress to British noblemen. He at the same time impeached the conduct of his

brother, William Lee, Esq., agent for congress at the courts of Vienna and Berlin. Dr. Lee also was not on very good terms with Dr. Franklin, whom he believed to be too much under the influence of the French court. Firm in his attachment to the interest of his country, honest, zealous, he was inclined to question the correctness of all the commercial transactions in which the philosopher had been engaged. These dissensions among the ministers produced corresponding divisions in congress; and Monsieur Gerard had so little respect for the dignity of an ambassador, as to become a zealous partisan of Deane. Dr. Lee had many friends in congress, but Dr. Franklin more. When the former returned to America in the year 1780, such was his integrity, that he did not find it difficult to reinstate himself fully in the good opinion of the public. In 1784 he was appointed one of the commissioners for holding a treaty with the Indians of the Six Nations. He accordingly went to Fort Schuyler, and executed this trust in a manner which did him much honour. In February 1790 he was ad

mitted a counsellor of the supreme court of the United States, by a special order. After a short illness, he died, December 14th, 1792, at Urbanna, in Middlesex county, Virginia. He was a man of uniform patriotism, of a sound understanding, of great probity, of plain manners, and strong passions.

During his residence for a number of years in England, he was indefatigable in his exertions to promote the interests of his country. To the abilities of a statesman he united the acquisitions of a scholar. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society. Besides the Monitor's Letters, written in the year 1769, which have been mentioned, he published" Extracts from a letter to congress in answer to a libel by Silas Deane," 1780; and "Observations on certain commercial transactions in France," laid before congress 1780.

American Biography.

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No. XXII.

JOHN MITCHELL, M.D. F.R.S., a botanist and physician, came from England to Virginia in the former part of the last century. His residence was chiefly at Urbanna, a small town on the Rappahannock, about seventy-three miles from Richmond. He appears to have been a man of observation, acuteness, and enterprise, as well as learning. He was a great botanist, and seems to have paid particular attention to the Hybrid productions. He wrote, in the year 1743, the causes of the different colours of people in different climates, which was published in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 43. He attributes the difference of the human complexions to the same causes which have been assigned by the reverend Dr. Smith, viz. the influence of climate and modes of life; and he thinks that the whites have degenerated more from the original complexion in Noah and his family, than the Indians or even negroes. The colour of the decendants of Ham, he considers a blessing, rather than a curse as without it they could not well inhabit Africa.

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He also published an essay on the preparations and uses of the various kinds of potash, in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 45; a letter concerning electrical cohesion in Vol. 51; and a useful work on the general principles of botany, containing descriptions of a number of new genera of plants, 4to. 1769. It is believed that he was also the author of the map of North America, published in the year 1755, which was accompanied by a large pamphlet, entitled "The contest in America;" and followed by another, "The present state of Great Britain and America," 1767. His manuscripts on the yellow fever, as it appeared in Virginia in the year 1742, fell into the hands of Dr. Franklin, by whom they were communicated to Dr. Rush.

American Biography.