sum. mon inquiry as to the news. "The yet I cannot help believing that on two most important news," replied Morris, separate occasions there was a special "is that I require a certain sum in interposition of Providence in my favor, specie, and that you must let me have and which prevented the disbanding it." This brought his friend to a state of my army. I had, on more than one of serious reflection. "Your security," occasion, surmounted difficulties which continued Morris, "is to be my note it at first appeared impossible to overand my honor." "Robert," replied the come; but at length, while seated in my friend, "thou shalt have it." Again, tent, overwhelmed by the gloomy apat the close of the year, when Wash-prehensions of a fate which seemed ington had prolonged the period of inevitable, I was visited by a gentleenlistment of his troops by the promise man whom I had occasionally seen of a bounty, to which the military about the camp, but who had never chest was entirely unequal, he sought particularly attracted my notice. 'You the aid of Morris. The request reached appear, General,' said the visitor, 'to him late at night; he was up before be in much distress; under the impres any one could be found to assist him, sion that it may arise from a want of in the morning, to forward the desired money, I have ventured to approach you, to tender to you offers for your relief. I have now in my possession thirty thousand pounds, which is at your command, and for which I will take your draft on the financier.' Half astonished, I accepted of his proffered unexpected relief, when he left the camp, and I saw no more of him, until a subsequent occasion, when I was placed in the same painful dilemma. He again at this time called upon me, furnished me with the required funds, and took my drafts, and I never saw him again. Why do you smile, Mr. Morris?' he added, as the story was concluded. 'Did you never suspect who sent this person to you, and employed him to watch your motions?" 'No,' replied the General. 'Did it never occur to you that he was employed by me?' 'By you, sir! and did you distrust me? My confidence in you,' replied Morris, 'was greater than in almost any human being. I knew Two anecdotes are related of Morris, in connection with the southern campaigns, which pleasantly illustrate his sagacity. Gates, it is said, consulted him at Philadelphia, on taking the command. "I fear," was the prophetic remark of Morris, "you would sink under the complicated perplexities you would have to encounter. I advise you to remain satisfied with the laurels you have earned at Saratoga. I fear they may wither if you accept the command." The saying is well known of the event of this expedition, in the disastrous battle of Camden, that Gates there exchanged his northern laurels for southern cypresses. The other story is of General Greene, who after the termination of his campaign, called at the Office of Finance, on Mr. Morris, and relating the story of his difficulties, is reported to have said: "I am not superstitious, Mr. Morris, and 1 that your mental resources were such ing all the ammunition that could be that you could surmount difficulties, obtained north of the Delaware, had in and extricate yourself from embarrass- the magazine for an army, engaged in a ments under which any other man siege and preparing for a fight, no more would sink; but I knew at the same than twenty-seven half barrels of pow time, that if this money were left. at der, with a gift from Connecticut of your disposal, you would use it before thirty-six half barrels more," and the time of your greatest and most the more comprehensive statements of indispensable necessity arrived; there- Washington of these pauper campaigns, fore, being limited in the sum of money as they may be termed, deficient in appropriated to your army, and sorely everything but men, we may form some pressed myself on every hand, I found estimate of the honor of victory. it incumbent upon me to provide for its being advanced to you only when it became impossible for you to do with out it.'" 1 The details of Morris' administration of the finances are thickly sown in the records of Congress. He was a member of the Committee of Commerce, of the An anecdote like this is a forcible Committee of Finance, and when it illustration of the disadvantages under became necessary to vest responsible which the battles of the Revolution power in a single individual, in place were fought. Nothing enhances the of the cumbrous agency of a board, he triumphant issue of the contest so was, in 1781, appointed Superintendent much as the simple statement of the of Finance. The letters which he wrote scantiness of the means with which it to Congress in acceptance of this was undertaken. When we read of arduous station, show at once the matusoldiers standing up at Bunker's Hill rity of his views and the depth of his against the amply equipped regiments patriotism. He looked to the esta of Great Britain, with a supply of pow-blishment of financial credit out of the der no more than a schoolboy would chaos of bankruptcy, by the simplest take in his powder-horn for a day's means of honesty and good faith. "The sporting, and that, as Mr. Bancroft tells whole business of finance," he said, us, of those eastern operations, "the "may be comprised in two short but Americans, with companies incomplete comprehensive sentences-to raise the in number, enlisted chiefly within six public revenues by such modes as may weeks, commanded many of them, by be most easy and most equal to the officers unfit, ignorant, and untried, people, and to expend them in the most gathered from four separate colonies, frugal, fair, and honest manner." He inwith no reciprocal subordination but sisted upon the funding of the national from courtesy and opinion, after collect- debt, that the interest might be promptly paid. But, obvious as the policy of this measure was, it was long before the This is given as an authoritative version of the anecdote, by the writer of an interesting paper of Revolutionary Remir iscences connected with the life of Robert Morris, in the Whig Review, for July, 1847. 'History of the United States, VII. 415. jealousy or inefficiency of Congress involving the labor of an entire permitted its adoption. In fact, it was modern bureau, Morris was charged only under the Constitution that it was with the burden of the Navy Departaccomplished. Looking to the per- ment. It was, hardly less than its sonal hazards of fortune and character companion of the Treasury, a wearisome at stake, he wrote: "In accepting the work. With what good hope and office bestowed on me, I sacrifice much heart Morris did what could be done, of my interest, my ease, my domestic may be read in his efforts to aid and enjoyments and internal tranquillity. equip the naval hero, Paul Jones, who If I know my own heart, I make these frequently expressed his gratitude. sacrifices with a disinterested view to After the death of that brilliant officer, the service of my country. I am ready whose valor would have distinguished to go still further; and the United any service, the sword presented to States may command everything I him by Louis XVI. was given by the have except my integrity, and the loss heirs of Jones to Morris, in acknow of that would effectually disable me ledgment of his services to their rela from serving them more." These are tive. words to be literally interpreted. In the events of the war which fol One of the first acts of Morris was to lowed his appointment, Morris proved call his friend, Gouverneur Morris, to his insight into military affairs by his his side, and, with the advice of Hamil- urgent advice to Washington, at head· ton, lay before Congress the plan of the quarters, to substitute for the projected Bank of North America, as the most attack upon New York the movement efficient aid to the public and to indi- against Cornwallis at Yorktown. The viduals, in enabling them to anticipate advice might have been given by many; their resources. The bank was char- from Morris it came with double force, tered the last day of the year. Hercu- for, without his aid, the troops could lean efforts were made by Morris to hardly, it was apprehended, be induced promote its subscriptions of stock and to march there. He secured a timely draw specie to its vaults; he succeeded loan from the French minister, which in establishing its credit, greatly to the he was enabled to grant only by the relief of the army, in the wretched opportune arrival of supplies from pecuniary condition of the country. It France, and with this assistance was was the partial realization of one of the enabled to speed the soldiers on their most cherished ideas of Morris' career. way. Morris, it is said, pledged his He had made some similar attempts personal credit to the amount of one before, and when afterwards, in 1785, million four hundred thousand dollars its charter was assailed, he accepted in equipping and forwarding the troops office in the Pennsylvania legislature on this expedition. That he was that he might engage in its defence. enabled to do this was owing to the Nor was this all. In addition to confidence in his financial ability, and the financial operations of Congress, the resources of his private business, which had been carried on in the counsels. Washington offered him the partnership during the whole period post of Secretary of the Treasury, of the war. which he declined in favor of his friend Hamilton. Victory, however, did not fill the treasury, or lighten the duties of the Secretary of Finance. Eloquent and incessant were his appeals to the States, by every motive of duty and policy, to furnish their quotas of the national obligations, and pay the duties levied on imports. Again and again he appealed. All appeared ineffectual. Finally, having long borne these profitless burdens, annoyed by State jealousies and State deficiencies, he determined, early in 1783, upon resignation. Congress would not, however, surrender his services; fresh resolves of aid were passed, and he continued to toil on, till he was at length released in November, 1784. His parting address to the inhabitants of the United States concluded with a plea for Union. "The inhabitants of a little hamlet," he says, "may feel pride in the sense of separate independence. But if there be not one government, which can draw forth and direct the efforts, the combined efforts, of United America, our independence is but a name, our freedom a shadow, and our dignity a dream." Three years later, he sat in the Convention which put these doubts to rest by the formation of the Constitution. Upon the adoption of that instrument, he was chosen senator to the first Congress, at New York, where he again distinguished himself by his financial The commercial operations of Morris were carried on after the war with renewed activity. He engaged extensively in the East India trade; sending, in 1784, the Empress of China from New York to Canton, the first Ameri can vessel seen at that port. He also first marked out a course to China by which the periodical winds of those eastern seas might be avoided, and sent a vessel which proved the correctness of the theory. pur It is sad to state, after this recital of laborious, disinterested services rendered to the country, that the last years of Robert Morris were passed in deep pecuniary embarrassment, and even as a prisoner for debt. A gigantic specu lation which he entered into in the chase of lands in western New York, stripped him of all his property. An annuity of fifteen hundred dollars paid by Gouverneur Morris to Mrs. Robert Morris, a sister of Bishop White, the wife of his youth, in consideration of her relinquishing a right of dower in certain lands, was all that was left to the support of his family. Neither his country nor his State, to whom his own liberality had been so freely extended, ever came forward to discharge their debt of gratitude. The aged financier lingered to his seventy-third year, the survivor of his friend Hamilton, dying May 8, 1806. HENRY LAURENS. indebted to him.1 There are other anecdotes of his mercantile career, indicative of his kindness and generosity. He was an exemplary head of a family, obedient in his Bible instructions to Tis eminent South Carolinian, who | pared with the speculative mania of ingrafted the loftiest graces of patriot- the present day, that on the dissolution ism upon the integrity of the mer- of a partnership of twenty-three years, cantile character, came of that old involving large transactions, he was Huguenot stock, which sent more than willing to take all outstanding debts one distinguished representative to the as cash, at a discount of only five camp and Senate Chamber in the na- per cent. Where is the merchant of tional struggle. His family, driven twenty-three years' standing who would from France by the self-devoted policy now do the same? He carried exact of the state, came to New York, where dealing to a punctilio, refusing, it is they tarried for a time before making said, to draw bills of exchange, till he Charleston their residence. Henry had first received an acknowledgment Laurens was born in the latter city in writing from those on whom he in 1724. His education appears to designed to draw, that they were have been well provided for, probably directed mainly to mercantile pursuits, to which he was regularly trained in the house of Thomas Smith, of Charleston, and afterwards of a Mr. Crockatt, of London. Returning from the English the lessons of his forefathers. Such metropolis, he formed a partnership was Henry Laurens, when, a widower, with Mr. Austin, of Charleston. His retired from business with a large mercantile character was of the highest estate, in 1771, he took his sons to honor and simplest integrity. Industry England, according to the fashion of was one of his sterling virtues, and the wealthy families of his State, to with it was united punctuality. He provide for their education in the Old rose early and prepared his corres- World. pondence, while others were asleep. It is mentioned as proof of his know ledge of human nature, and we may add that the fact bears witness also to the honesty of the times and sober methods of conducting affairs, com His residence in Great Britain at that time must have brought him into contact with Franklin, while his mercantile experience rendered him a sen 'Life of Laurens. Delaplaine's Repository. |