U
mi~
r !~
MORRIS.
THE affairs of Morris, Nicholson and Greenleaf can be likened unto a fabric so compactly and complexly woven as to be beyond finite skill to separate and sort the threads. It behooves then to tell something of the associates.
Robert Morris voted against the resolution and was absent when the declaration was adopted; yet, with the advocates, signed the engrossed Declaration of Independence and gave to its support his hand and his heart. Washington, the Commander-in-Chief; Franklin, the Minister Plenipotentiary at France; Morris, Superintendent of Finance, Agent of the Marine and at times everything exclusive of the foreign and military service, are the central figures. In war it is men and money. Morris provided the money. Without that one man the wheels of the American Revolution would have stopped and not rolled on to the emancipation. As financier of the Revolution he was indispensable, so manifest by the unanimous call of party, friend and foe, to recall resignation. In financial manipulation, he used his ability, sagacity, energy and enterprise, and other people's money, and not his own, the ebullitions of adulatory sketch writers to the contrary notwithstanding. Washington, Morris and Hamilton were in harmony and in frequent consultation on affairs of state. Washington offered Morris the Secretaryship of Treasury; he promptly declined and recommended Hamilton. To the potent papers, one, the declaration "that these Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States;" the other, ''this Constitution for the United States of America,'' are six signatures alike-one, that of Robert Morris.
©â_ _MORRIS-24
Memorable is Rufus Choate's banquet witticism : *
Pennsylvania's two most distinguished citizens, Robert Morris, a native of Great Britain, and Benjamin Franklin, a native of Massachusetts.
Robert Morris's birth-place is Liverpool and birth-date January 31, 1734. At fourteen years of age he entered the mercantile house of the Willings at Philadelphia. At twenty, he and Thomas Willing formed the new firm, Willing and Morris, or Willing, Morris and Co., or subsequently so styled. The stock was as diverse as the heterogeneous commodities of a cross-
j\
roads emporium and as varied as a modern department store. They imported and exported from and to every mart in the world; they bought and sold bills of exchange and engaged in other branches of banking. The business was comprehensive enough to include the barter in human chattels. Morris never concealed that to him public office meant no relinquishment of private pursuit. The operations of the war gave opportunity for enrichment, and Morris never was slow either in business or politics. As Financier-General he acquired additional credit and he actually circulated his own notes throughout the continent as currency and even had the assurance to have the Assembly of Virginia and perhaps the legislatures of other colonies enact them current in payment of tax.* Before the termination of the war his firm was favorably known in the considerable trading towns in Europe, and he, himself, was reputed to be the possessor of prodigious wealth.
Of his personal appearance and manner of living, I will now let others say:
Marquis de Chastellux, 1781, writes:
Mr. Morris is a large man, very simple in his manners; but his mind is subtle and acute, his head perfectly well organized, and he is as well versed in public affairs as in his own. He was a member of Congress in 1776, and ought to be reckoned among those personages who have had the greatest influence in the revolution of America. * * * His house is handsome, resembling perfectly the houses in London; he lives there without ostentation, but not without expense, for he spares nothing which can contribute to his happiness, and that of Mrs. Morris, to whom he is much attached. A zealous republican, and an epicurean philosopher, he has always played a distinguished part at table and in business.
* From address of Charles H. Hsrt-Robe?* Mo~is.
fThe Financier and Finances of the American Revolution.-Prof WiII:am Graham Sumn~r.
: Travels in North America, in the years I7~8I82, by the Marquij d~ Chas~1lux, trans. lated from the French, by an English gen~eman, who resided in America at that period. with notes by the transistor.
i
~ive of
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rans.
with
25-MORRIS
The Marquis' translator supplements : *
The house the Marquis speaks of, in which Mr. Morris lives, belonged formerly to Mr. Richard Penn; the Financier has made great additions to it, and is the first who has introduced the luxury of hot-houses and ice-houses on the continent. He has likewise purchased the elegant country house formerly occupied by the traitor Arnold, nor is his luxury to be outdone by any commercial voluptuary of London.
Prince de Broglie, 1782, writes:
M. de Ia Luzerne conducted me to the house of Mrs. Morris to take tea. She is the wife of the Financier of the United States. Tite house is simple, but neat and proper. The doors and tables are of superb mahogany, carefully treated. The locks and trimmings are of copper, charmingly neat. The cups were arranged symmetrically. The mistress of the house appeared well. Her costume was largely of white. I got some excellent tea ; and I think that I should still have taken more, if the Ambassador had not charitably warned me, when I had taken the twelfth cup, that I must put my spoon across my cup whenever I wanted this species of torture by hot water to stop; "since, " said he to me, "it is almost as bad manners to refuse a cup of tea when it is offered to you as it would be indiscreet for the master of the house to offer you some more, when the ceremony of the spoon has shown what your intentions are in respect to this matter." Mr. Morris is a large man, who has a reputation for honourableness and intelligence. It is certain that he has great credit at least, and that he has been clever enough while appearing often to make advances of his own funds for the service of the Republic, to accumulate a great fortune and to gain several millions since the Revolution began. He appears to have much good sense. He talks well, so far as I could judge, and his large head seems as well adapted for governing a great empire as that of most men.
W.Sullivan, Public Men of Ike Revolulion, records:
In hisperson (as now recollected) he was nearly six feet in stature; of large, full, well-formed, vigorous frame, with clear, smooth, florid complexion. His loose, gray hair was unpowdered; his eyes were gray, of middle size, and uncommonly brilliant. He wore, as was common at that day, a full suit of broad cloth of the same color, and of light mixture. His manners were gracious and simple, and free from formality which generally prevails. He was very affable, and mingled in common conversation with the young.
Samuel Breck, in his Recolledions, recalls:
There was a luxury in the kitchen, table, parlour and street equipage of Mr. and Mrs. Morris that was to be found nowhere else in America. Bingham's was more gaudy, but less comfortable. It was pure and unalloyed which the Morrises sought to place before their friends, without the abatements that so frequently accompany the displays of fashionable life. No badly cooked or cold dinners at their table; no pinched fires upon their hearths; no paucity of waiters; no awkward loons in their drawing-rooms.
*Travels in North America in the years t78~81-82, by the Marq~is d~ Chasidlux, trsn~ lated irom the French by an English genileman, who resided in America at that period. with notes by the trsnslator.
T
L
MORRIS- 26
On December 23, 1784, Congress resolved that the seat of government should be at the falls of the Delaware; and on February 10, 1785, Morris with two others was appointed commissioners to execute the resolution by purchasing land, platting the city and planning the buildings. Morris about this time acquired a large tract on the Delaware opposite Trenton, the future Morrisville; it is a reasonable conjecture he had in view appreciation because of the locating near by the Federal City.
In 1790 Morris bought a tract near Geneva and the Genesee River and next year sold it to an English company for a third of a million dollars, realizing a great percentage of profit. His biographer makes the fit remark : "This was a piece of fatal good fortune."
In 1791 Morris bought of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a third of a million lands in western New York having an area of four million acres in which others were concerned to the extent of six hundred thousand acres. In 1792 and '793 he sold all this immense territory, retaining to himself a half million acres, called Morris's Reserve, to a Holland company, comprising among its capitalists the bankers who negotiated the loans of the United States in that country.
Between '790 and '793 Morris owned all of the State of New York west of the Seneca Lake except a strip, north and south, through the center of that region. Morris says had he confined his speculations to this section he would have been the richest man in the country.
In '794, Morris had a share in the Virginia Yazoo Company. Morris and Nicholson formed the Asylum (on the Susquehanna) Company to buy a million acres in Pennsylvania. Morris and others had a half interest in the Tennessee Company. These enterprises are mentioned merely to give an idea of the scope of Morris's operations.
And Morris bought from the waters of the furious Genesee to the sluggish Savannah, anywhere, everywhere, in enormous stretches, whose areas are described in acres, tens of thousands. A century passed and now, when a tract in the Carolinas or the Virginias is subject of negotiation, the lawyer from the metropolis must need travel through primeval forest whose solemn stillness is unbroken save by the cawing of the inhabitants of the air and the reverberating music of the axe to the
F
L
27~MoRR15
'¼
remote little brick courthouse, there to ascertain if the title is a continuous chain from the original owner-Robert Morris.
February 20, 1795, Morris, Nicholson and Greenleuf formed the celebrated North American Land Company. The number of shares was thirty thousand and the capital three million dollars. The three promoters conveyed land to the comp~'ny at fifty cents an acre. The land was located in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky, six million acres in all, and two million of which in Georgia. Morris was the President of the Board of Managers.
Although but half a dollar an acre was the consideration paid by the company and that in its stock the alluring prospectus valued it at £100 an acre and assured the reader:
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The proprietor of back lands gives himself no other trouble about them than to pay the taxes, which are inconsiderable. As Nature left them, so will they lie till circumstances give them value. The proprietor is then sought out by the settler who has chanced to pitch upon them, or who has made any improvement thereon, and receives from him a price which fully repays his original advance with great interest.
What a fallacy! It is the reverse. The taxes are onerous. The settler never pays anything or seeks anybody. He assumes squatter's sovereignty, and maintains it peaceably if he can, forcibly, if he must, but maintains it.
George Washington Parke Custis is the authority that Morris requested Washington to go into the North American Land Company; that Washington not only refused but remonstrated with him for heavily speculating at his age-three score. Morris repued "I can never do things in the small; I must be either a man or a mouse."
Mr. Morris had of his own volition yielded his residence to President Washington and taken that of a tory refugee, Galloway, most conspicuous in the ante-revolutionary days. In 1795, Morris purchased the square within the bounds of Chestnut, Walnut, Seventh and Eighth streets.
Major Charles Pierre L'Enfant, so it is published, at the Financier's dinner of state suggested a great house. His suggestion was rewarded by an engagement to devise the structure and supervise the construction. The Major was a man of big ideas. What others saw in ordinary vision, he did through a magnifying glass. Morris was on the tongue of everybody-his political preferment, his speculative success. The Major
1
N;
'I
MORRIS-28
thought Morris ought in keeping with his repute have the grandest house in the states; and so he gave his ideas full sweep.
The requisitions on Morris came with a regularity provoking or rather maddening. His pride swayed his prudence. The work went on and he to meet the requirements made severe sacrifice, or, as one Callender published
A person is just now building, at an enormous expense, a palace in Philadelphia. His bills have bug been on the market at eighteen pence or a shilling per pound.
Isaac Weld, an English traveller, 1795, says *
The most spacious and most remarkable one amongst them stands in Chesnutstreet, but it is not yet quite finished. At present it appears a huge mass Of red brick and pale blue marble, which bids defiance to simplicity and elegance. This superb mansion, according to report, has already cost upwards of fifty thousand guineas, and stands as a monument of the increasing luxury of the city of Philadelphia.
The erraticalness of Major L'Enfant is portrayed partially in Mr. Morris's letters which too contradict comment and nega tive criticism in publications anent the " magnificent house."
MAJOR C. P. L'ENFANTP~ILADA Septr 24th 1795.
SIR
I have iust now at 2 o'clock received your note dated yesterday. My sole motive for being urgent proceeds from an anxiety to get a roof over the West Wing of the House. 1 am now paying above £IOOO p ann Rent, and having sold the House I live in, the owner may want it, before I have a place to go into. My intention if the West wing is covered is to get into it next Summer or Spring, which I know will be impossible if it is not covered in this Winter. I am incapable of doi,tg injustice to your fame or fortune no motives of that kind influenced my Conduct. You gave me afsurance six weeks ago that the House should be covered this Fall. I have not the command of my time to look after it myself and therefore depended upon your afsurances consequently when I came yesterday and found both by my own observation & by the answers Obtained to questions which I put to Mr. Wallace that there was no chance of getting the whole building covered, I desired to know from you "to my satisfaction" whether the West Wing could be covered in the time proposed or not, declaring my intention to have it run up with Brick should delay in waiting for marble be likely to prevent the covering of it. To this question you very abruptly told me to ask Miller if he could do his work in time and that a roof could not be put on without the Outside Wall. This answer I think was extremely improper from you to me. I certainly have a right to enquire, to examine and to be satisfied and if you do not think I am entitled to receive
* Travels through the States of North America during the years 1793, 1796. 1797. -Isaac
WeZd, junior.
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29-MORRIs
satisfaction from you, it is high time to part, my declaration that I would run Brick Walls rather than not have the Building covered is not new.~I told you the same thing at the time you afsured me it should be covered this Fall, therefore it could be no surprize upon you now. I never desired that you should sacrifice your interest in any respect on my Acct & if you have done so it has been your own act not mine. I do not wish you to sacrifice any thing to or for me but if I am to pay, I am entitled to every information I may think proper to ask, and I have an unquestionable right to expedite my building & lefse'i my expense if I choose so to do.-I am therefore determined to have the Roof put on the West Wing as early this Fall as pofsible, and aitho it was not my intention or desire to have the marble you have introduced into this building, yet an inclination to indulge your genius, induced me to permit so much of it (before I knew the extent to which you meant to carry it) as seemed to call for the remainder. Had you executed my intentions instead of your own, my family would now have inhabited the House instead of being liable to be turned out of Doors.-- After all, I prefer that the West Wing & of course the whole building should go on under your directions but with this proviso, that you will positively have it covered this Fall. If not I would rather abandon all the marble & finish with Brick, therefore if you agree, follow it up & get the thing done, if you do not agree my orders to the builders must be obeyed~-l am with sincerity yours &c
ROBT. MORRIS.
I
MAJOR L'ENFANT
SIR
It is with astonishment I see the work of last fall now pulling down in order to put up more marble on my House, on which there is already vastly too much.-The delay and accumulation of Expence becomes intolerable.-The difficulty & Cost of getting Money is vastly greater than you can conceive, and -if you persist in exposing yourself to Censure & me to ridicule by alterations and additions, you will force me to abandon all Expectations of getting into the House & to stop the Work, which I am unwilling to do if it can be avoided & which can only be prevented by Oeconomy and Dispatch.
I am Sir
PHILA 15 Augt 1796
Yrs
ROBT. MORRIS.
The house was never completed. the windows boarded. No sign was everybody knew it as Morris's Folly.
The Major befriended the Financier by loan of bank stock, and in response to an importunity for repayment, Mr. Morris, October 18, 1797, writes
The roof was closed and nailed thereon because
I am in as great need as you are and equally desirous of acquiring relief for both, my endeavors shall be increasing and the moment I secure it shall be announced to you with joy and satisfaction.
'ac* Reproduced. The Hl*tonc Manajons and Buildings of Philadelphia. Thompson Wesicoti, p.357.
MORRI5-30
The Major was a creditor for his services although he presented no account; and Morris, i8oo, writes
Various circumstances render me little solicitous on the score of his services but he lent me thirteen shires of bank stock disinterestedly, a "d on this point I feel the greatest anxiety that he should get the same number of shares with the dividends, for want of which he has suffered great distress.
The Syracusan friends and their fidelity to friendship is a tradition or a type of unselfish devotion. The friendship of these brother Americans, Morris and Nicholson, is as real as rare. The gradual culture of their reciprocity through the ups and downs of business alliance had its fruition in adversity. Theirs was not
A shade that follows wealth or fame, And leaves the wretch to weep,
it was as firm as the rocks of Gibralter. Nicholson's action in sending all his available money to Morris on his commitment to prison and that of Morris in making prompt return of it, excites admiration for their devotion and sympathy for their calamities.
To illustrate the affectionate relation I will quote from Mr. Morris's letters, sentences few, comparatively speaking, for great is the number of letters extant. When Mr. Nicholson made his prolonged stay in the city of Washington, Mr. Morris daily wrote-come, come, yet stay if the exigencies there require and I here will parry the creditors' attacks. Mr. Morris frequently dubs Mr. Nicholson "the great lawyer" in playful sarcasm of pretention to legal knowledge. With September, 1797, the letters are from the " Hills," * his citadel where he fortified himself from the "cormorants" who would torment his soul and from the "myrmidons" of the law who would murder his liberty.
N
D
Ja
Sc
Sc
4
'795.
January
i.I very sincerely wish that the opening of a New Year 1795 may be more propitious to your views & wishes than the close of '794 hath been, and to begin it well, I tell you in answer to your note of yesterday that I will most cheerfully give my name upon the notes you mention and to any others necefsary to relieve you from the present situation.
1796.
August29. We must work like Men to clear away these cursed Incum
brances & satisfy the Cormorants.
Se
Se
* Reproduced. The ilistoric Mansions and Buildings of Philadelphia.- W'£koI~ p.368.
i
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31-MORRIS
he preis services
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ry to Ye-
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368.
For he telleth stories against John the manufactorer, who undertaketh to build Houses and leaveth them unbuilt, even altho' he hath promised to raise them unto the third story & put a roof thereon-Still they do not rise above the Surface of the Earth but various and numerous are the Tales and Traditions against not only John but Robert-Know thou these men. Adieu, may truth prevail, & Robert & John obtain the voice of impartial Justice ought to bestow.
We must depend on ourselves, put the World at defiance and set ourselves on the Front Seat of the Worlds amphitheatre * * * May the Father of the universe receive you into the Holy Tabernacle after you can bid adieu to this Terrestrial Globe, fi~e from
the reproaches of your own Conscience or of your fellow man. December 4 I find a number of your notes are coming in for Payment, and of
course go to the Fraternity of "Notarius Publicus," and as the Supreme Court is now sitting, honorable mention will be made of our names.
November 22.
'797.
January
August
September 13.
September i8.
September 27.
September 30.
i.I do most devoutly pray that the present may prove more propitious to you and me than the last year did, and I am sure there
are few if any mortals in this~World that stand more in need of fortunes favors-We must therefore throw ourselves in the way
and by Exertions conciliate her good will.
31.I have felt as melancholy as a Gib Cai ever since you went and the news Papers lie here unread and untouched. * * * I
rejoiced when I found you had got Safe to Castle Defence.
Your letter No.8 of yesterday is written with more animation & Spirit than the others. Oh what a charming delightful thing is a gleam of hope, how it clears the Soul & drives away that ftiend of Hell, despair.
You are a great Lawyer & therefore I put a question? Can the Sheriff upon the rejection of the special bail legally make forcible entry into the Defendts castle, or has the Defent a right to Shoot & consider well before you answer, and if necessary you can take the opinion of other counsel, which even if less able may be usefull, as perhaps the opinions to be given may tend to the preservation of the Body and the Soul will take care of itself.
You need not fear that I should suspect you were going to quit writing to me. I shall not suspect that to happen until you quit your existence or untill I do, and I think even then, if there was an Office door under which the letters would be thrust I would not rest in quiet on the other side of the River Styx.
If our afflictions are as heavy & follow as quick as those of Job we must follow him & bear them with patience & resignation this I can do perfectly as to myself but when I think of my family my Soul is wrung to the quick here I must Stop this Subject comes home to my feelings which are too Strong to proceed and I lay dowp the pen.
IS
November 20.
MORRIS-32
October3Good Morning to you, my good friend, What is the matter is
your ink out, Quills exhausted, or paper quite done, excuse those
questions they arise out of circumstance of my not having heard
from you all day.
October4.Your note of this day just received tells me that you pofsefs
your liberty, that is the liberty of locking up yourself:
October25.While I am writing I receive your further notes of today-num~
bers 7, 8 and 9. 1 wish to God these notes would take up those
which bear promise of payments. They are numerous already,
but if they would answer the other purpose, you would want
more copying~presses and half a dozen paper-mills. * * *
To number 9 1 answer that they will have done advertising and
selling our property after it is all sold and gone. Two hundred
thousand acres of my land in North Carolina, which cost me
$27,000, are sold for one year's taxes. By Heaven, there is no
bearing with these things! I believe I shall go mad. Every
day brings forward scenes and troubles almost insupportable,
and they seem to be accumulating, so that they will like a tor
rent carry everything before them. God help us! for men will
not. We are abandoned by all but those who want to get from
us all we yet hold.
NovemberI.Your several favours of this day (if distressing Billets can be called
favours) No I to 6 were brought out. * * * I have sworn
to let no body inside my House and not to go outside of the
walls myself: If I see them it is out of a window, I being up
stairs and they down. When I snuff the open air it is on the
top. * * * Suils again, a curse on all sujis say 1: If they
were good comfortable Winter Suits one might dispose of them,
the more the better; but these damned suits wherein a Lawyer
is the Taylor are neither good for man, Woman, Child or Beast.
November15.1 am as sensible as you are how carefull we should be of preserv
ing the liberty to imprison ourselves, but some risque we must
run if necessary to see each other.
November20.I hope in the mean time that your apprehensions of what was to
happen today are not realized, but that on the contrary your
dwelling is as quiet and peaceable as Castle Defiance, where no
attack has been made except by the North Wester & the Frost
this Cold Morning.
DecemberII.For my part I begin to think the best way to get clear of the
whole Host of them is to submit and take up quarters in Pruen
Street at once, nothing 'here can be worse than this continual
harafsment & torment which we or least I now suffer.
December12.I fear my good friend it will be long before we sit down under
our own Vines and Fig trees, altho' it may not be long before
we get among the Pruens.
December14.But you must not go to Pruen street. Parry the present diffi
culties, and fortune will smile hereafter, but if the key is once
turned on you by the hand under any authority but your own
God only knows when that door shall be opened to you; per-
4
33-MORRIs
is
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se
nt
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December 17.
December 21.
1798.
January
haps never, until you shall be insensible to the affairs of the world.
The peace of your family & all future happinefs depend so much on the enjoyment of the small degree of liberty which you now have, that I am agitated to the last degree in waiting to know the result of your attempts, may the Great Ruler of the Universe order & dispose events in your favour as well as in favour of those that depend upon your exertion & mine.
Good heavens what Vultures Men are in regard to each other. I never in the days of prosperity took advantage of any persons distrefses and I suppose what I now experience is to serve as a
lefson where to see the folly of humane and generous conduct.
1.I redprocate all your good wishes upon the coming in of this New Year, but it enters with a gloomy shade over our affairs
that does not auger well.
Januaryit. Confidence has furled her banners, which no longer wave over
the heads of M. and N.
January25.As you are a Great & sometimes a good Lawyer I ask you to
consider the subject well and give me your advice but I fear all
the common Lawyers are against us.
January31.My mind is so much disturbed about going to Prison that I do
not get along with businefs, indeed I hardly think it worth while
any longer to submit to the drudgery of it, for if I am once
locked up by any body but myself I shall consider my ruin as
sealed, and if so, why should I any longer submit to the racks &
tortures occasioned by the importunities and insatiable avarice of
Creditors that I never knew or dealt with, I will not do it, but if
I keep my present position my exertions shall be continued to
make the most of my affairs in the hope of paying everything
and of having a suitable surplus for the benefit of my family.
February5.1 got safe here and found it the only place of calmnefs and quiet
my foot was in all yesterday, it has made me more averse to the
City than ever and I detest Pruen Street more than ever, there
fore keep me from it if pofsible my Dr friend.
February5.If writing notes could relieve me you would do it sooner than
any man in the world, but all you have said in these now before
me, No 5 to 9 inclusive amount when summed up to nothing.
My money is gone my furniture is to be sold, I am to go to
prison & my family to starve-good night.
February&AIth9' I am expecting to hear what kind of reception and an
swers your circular letter has met with, I cannot say that I have
conceived the smallest degree of hope from that measure, on the
contrary I consider my fate as fixed, hard and cruel it is. The
punishment of my imprudence in the use of my name and lofs of
credit is perhaps what I deserve, but it is neverthelefs severe on
my family and on their account I feel it most tormentingly, on
their account I would do any thing to avert what I foresee must
]Ù_ _MO RRI S-34
I,
happen next Week, except an act that would still affect them
more deeply-I will try to see you before I go to Prison and in
the mean time I remain your distrefsed friend.
February15.1 am here in custody of a Sheriffs officer in my own house
Charles Eddy is the most hardened Villian God ever made. I
believe that if I had had bank notes at the Hills to the amount
of his brothers bail for me he would not have taken them, not
being a legal tender, he was positively determined to carry me to
Pruen Street last night but the Sheriff humanely relieved me from
his rascally clutches. As I believe you want money as much, ifnot
more than I do at this moment I return the forty dollars received
in your note of this day, with thanks for the kind intention.
Februaryi6.Morris went to prison.
February20.My confinement has so far been attended with disagreeable and
uncomfortable circumstances, for having no particular place
allotted for me, I feel myself an intruder in every place into
which I go. I sleep in another persons bed, I occupy other
peoples rooms, and if I attempt to sit down to write it is at the
interruption and inconvenience of some one who has acquired a
prior right thereto. *
May15.1 get frighted as I go through my memorandums at the number
and amount of our notes. Then I leave off the work and lay
the papers aside, not for them to cool, but that my mind may
do it. I received your letter of yesterday, by which I see the
prison scene has madeits impression on your mind. You must
come every Sunday; and it will grow so familiar that you will
think little of it so long as you keep out on week days.
1799.
January30.
I am looking forward with fear and trembling to the 18th day of February, when another quarter's rent will be due and must be paid or my sponsor will be called upon, and that would be worse than to be turned into the street.
During his imprisonment, probably in i8oo, he relieved the monotony by writing something explanatory of his enterprises and stating his open accounts. The document in two parts was published as an exhibit in litigation. The explanation exhibits a heedlessness and recklessness in buying, mortgaging and disposing beyond belief; and it discloses he became lost to a knowledge of his transactions and to the extent of his liabilities.
This examinant thinks that he could in this place detail circumstances in extenuation of his own conduct that might tend to protect him in some degree against the charges of rashness and imprudence which, with appearance of justice, hath been imputed to these speculations; but as recrimination would be no use, and
* Mr. Morris similarly writes to Mr. Fltzslino,,a:
I feel like an lntmder every where; sleeping in other people's "eas and sitting in other people's rooms. I s'n writing on 0th Cr people's paper with other people's lnk,-the pen is my own; that and the clothes I wear are all I claim samine here.
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‰Ú_ _35-MORRIs
as all the parties have suffered the severest penalties that opinion and law could inflict, he must continue, as he hitherto hath done, to submit to his fate, and meet it with that fortitude which is supported by consciousness that he neither intended evil to himself or to any creditor or other person whatever, that any one should lose or suffer by operations in which he had a concern is to him a most distressing and mortif~ing circumstance.
To me nothing in the memoirs of Morris is more pathetic than the mention in the schedule of scanty supplies, for furniture he had none, of some wine belonging to his daughter in the care of his wife.
There is some bottled wine which I do not consider as mine, but I choose to mention it that I may avoid suspicion or reproach. This wine is what remained in a quarter cask which I gave to my daughter Maria at the same time that I gave one to her sister some years ago, destined to be used on a particular occasion. The cask leaked, and the remainder was bottled.
+
In the bankruptcy proceedings debts were proven to the amount of three million dollars ($2,948,711.11). Very likely the smaller proportion of the actual indebtedness as no assets were visible. Mr. Morris was " restored to home and family" August 26, i8ox. The prison period is three years, six months and ten days.
Morris was a martyr. His privation of liberty tended to the liberties of unfortunate thousands. His imprisonment has been charged to the ingratitude of the republic. Only one course was there to save him and that public subscription. His debts were three millions sure and perhaps millions more. A great sum now and many fold greater then. The tax was too severe for public generosity. However public beholdment to The Financier of the American Revolution aroused attention to the inhumane institution and the Debtor's Prison ceased to be.
Mrs. Morris through the assistance of Gouverneur Morris was enabled to secure from the Holland company an annuity for an unreleased dower of fifteen hundred dollars. She provided therewith a home on Twelfth street between Chestnut and Market. Here Morris passed his declining years. In his days of dire distress he struggled to retain certain greatly prized tokens and with what success or ill-success he tells in the solemnity of a testamentary writing-an appendix hereto. He is buried beneath Christ Church on Second street. A tablet reads: "The family Vault of William White and Robert Morris. The latter1 who was Financier during the Revolution, died the 8th of May, i8o6, aged 73 years."