The Viennese in 1778 certainly knew a lot about William Lee; the same cannot be said of historians nowadays. The noterirty which the younger brother of Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee and older brother to Arthur Lee enjoyed in 1778 never outlasted the exploits of his more famous family members. However, the stir which William caused above is just one example in a life as filled with adventure, misfortune, and importance as any other revolutionary or as one to rival the exceptional life of Maria von Born.
The escapade in Vienna was one of many in the transatlantic life of William Lee. His upbringing at his ancestral home at Stratford Hall on the Northern Neck of Virginia was short-lived. From his time as a merchant and politician in London — where he became the first American alderman of the city — to joining his younger brother in Paris in the service of his new nation, Lee led one of the most mobile lives in the Age of Revolution.
After his diplomatic mission to Vienna as the first representative between the United States and the Habsburgs, Lee ventured in the same capacity to the Prussian capital Berlin. Whereas most Americans experienced the revolutionary war in North America, Lee darted across Europe as much as John Adams, if not more. Eventually he, his wife and children settled in Brussels for the remainder of the conflict.
Recent books like Janet Polasky's Revolutions Without Borders bring to light these nomadic experiences but William Lee is surprisingly downplayed and absent. For far too long he has lived in the shadows of his other Lee relatives. From my work on his role in early US-Habsburg relations, I have collected documents related to his life and aim one day to complete a more robust account of one of the most active American revolutionaries in the creation of the United States.