oland and Turkey to enable him to take
precedence of English officers accustomed to command English troops, and
it declined to put him above such officers, and to give him the place he
desired. Lee was not a man of mild temper. He became very angry at the
treatment he received, and, abandoning his native country again, he went
to Russia, where the Czar gave him the command of a company of wild
Cossacks. But he did not remain long with the Cossacks. Perhaps they
were not wild and daring enough to suit his fancy, although there are
very few fancies which would not be satisfied with the reckless and
furious demeanor generally attributed to these savage horsemen.

He threw up his command and went to Hungary, and there he did some
fighting in an entirely different fashion. Not having any opportunity to
distinguish himself upon a battlefield, he engaged in a duel; and of
course, as he was acting the part of a hero of romance, he killed his
man.

Hungary was not a suitable residence for him after the duel, and he went
back to England, and there he found the country in a state of excitement
in regard to the American Colonies. Now, if there was anything that Lee
liked, it was a state of excitement, and in the midst of this political
hubbub he felt as much at home as if he had been charging the ranks of
an enemy. Of course, he took part against the government, for, as far as
we know, he had always been against it, and he became a violent
supporter of the rights of the colonists.

He was so much in earnest in this matter, that in 1773 he came to
America to see for himself how matters stood. When he got over here, he
became more strongly in favor of the colonists than he had been at home,
and everywhere proclaimed that the Americans were right in resisting the
unjust taxation claims of Great Britain. As he had always been ready to
lay aside his British birthright and become some sort of a foreigner, he
now determined to become an American; and to show that he was in
earnest, he went down to Virginia and bought a farm there.

Lee soon became acquainted with people in high places in American
politics; and when the first Congress assembled, he was ready to talk
with its members, urging them to stand up for their rights, and draw
their swords and load their guns in defense of independence. It was
quite natural, that, when the Revolution really began, a man who was so
strongly in favor of the patriots, and had had so much military
e