Robert Morris, who had charge of the financial affairs of the thirteen
States during the Revolutionary War, and afterwards extended his
business beyond that of any other person in the country, became bankrupt
at last, spent four years of his old age in a debtor's prison, and owed
his subsistance, during his last illness, to a small annuity rescued by
his wife from the wreck of their fortunes.
Morris was English by birth, a native of Lancashire, where he lived
until he was thirteen years of age. Emigrating to Philadelphia in 1747,
he was placed in the counting-house of one of the leading merchants,
with whose son he entered into partnership before he had completed his
twenty-first year. This young firm, Willing, Morris & Co., embarked
boldly and ably in commerce, until at the beginning of the Revolution it
was the wealthiest commercial firm in the Colonies south of New England,
and only surpassed in New England by two. When the contention arose
between the Mother country and the colonies, his interest was to take
the side of the Mother country. But he sided with the Colonies--to the
great detriment of his private business. He served in Congress during
nearly the whole of the War, and was almost constantly employed in a
struggle with the financial difficulties of the situation.
I do not see how the revolution could have been maintained unless some
such person could have been found to undertake the finances. When
all other resources gave out he never refused to employ his private
resources, as well as the immense, unquestioned credit of his firm, in
aid of the cause. On several occasions he borrowed money for the use
of the government, pledging all his estate for the repayment. In 1780,
aided by the powerful pen of Thomas Paine, he established a bank through
which three million rations were provided for the army. Fortunately, he
was reputed to be much richer than he was, and thus he was several times
enabled to furnish an amount of assistance far beyond the resources of
any private individual then living in America.
His greatest achievement was in assisting General Washington in 1781
to transport his army to Virginia, and to maintain it there during
the operations against Lord Cornwallis. In the spring of that year the
revolution appeared to be all but exhausted. The treasury was not merely
empty, but there was a floating debt upon it of two millions and a half,
and the soldiers were clamorous for their pay. The Superintendent of
Finance rose to the occasion. He issued his own notes to the amount of
fourteen hundred thousand dollars by which the army was supplied with
provisions and the campaign carried on to the middle of August.
Then General Washington, in confidence, revealed to Robert Morris his
intention to transport his army to Virginia. To effect this operation
the general required all the light vessels of the Delaware and
Chesapeake, six hundred barrels of provisions for the march, a vast
supply in Virginia, five hundred guineas in gold for secret service, and
a month's pay in silver for the army. When this information reached the
superintendent he was already at his wits' end, and really supposed that
he had exhausted every resource.
"I am sorry to inform you," he wrote to the general, "that I find money
matters in as bad a situation as possible."
And he mentions in his diary of the same date that, during a recent
visit to camp, he had had with him one hundred and fifty guineas; but
so many officers came to him with claims upon the government, that he
thought it best to satisfy none, and brought the money home again.
After unheard-of exertions, he contrived to get together provisions and
vessels for the transportation. But to raise the hard money to comply
with General Washington's urgent request for a month's pay for the
troops, was beyond his power. At the last moment he laid the case before
the French admiral, and borrowed for a few weeks from the fleet treasury
twenty thousand silver dollars. Just in the nick of time, Colonel
Laurens arrived from France with five hundred thousand dollars in cash,
which enabled Morris to pay this debt, and to give General Washington
far more efficient support than he had hoped.
To Robert Morris we owe one of the most pleasing accounts of the manner
in which the surrender of Cornwallis was celebrated at Philadelphia. He
records that on the third of November, 1781, on the invitation of the
French Minister, he attended the Catholic Church, where _Te Deum_
was sung in acknowledgment of the victory. Soon after, all the flags
captured from the enemy were brought to Philadelphia by two of General
Washington's aids, the city troop of Light Horse going out to meet them
several miles. The flags were twenty-four in number, and each of them
was carried into the city by one of the light horsemen. Morris concludes
his account of this great day with affecting simplicity:
"The American and French flags preceded the captured trophies, which
were conducted to the State House, where they were presented to
Congress, who were sitting; and many of the members tell me, that
instead of viewing the transaction as a mere matter of joyful ceremony,
which they expected to do, they instantly felt themselves impressed
with ideas of the most solemn nature. It brought to their minds the
distresses our country has been exposed to, the calamities we have
repeatedly suffered, the perilous situations which our affairs have
almost always been in; and they could not but recollect the threats
of Lord North that he would bring America to his feet on unconditional
terms of submission."
When the war was over, the finances of the country did not improve. In
conjunction with General Washington and Robert R. Livingston, Secretary
of Foreign Affairs, he hit upon a plan to recall the State legislatures
to a sense of their duty. He engaged Thomas Paine, at a salary of eight
hundred dollars a year, to employ his pen in reconciling the people to
the necessity of supporting the burden of taxation, in setting forth, in
his eloquent manner, the bravery and good conduct of the soldiers whose
pay was so terribly in arrears, and in convincing the people of the need
of a stronger confederated government.
"It was also agreed," says Morris in his private diary, "that this
allowance should not be known to any other persons except General
Washington, Mr. Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, and myself, lest the
publications might lose their force if it were known that the author is
paid for them by government."
The expedient did not suffice. The States were backward in voting
contributions, and, in 1784, Robert Morris resigned his office after
discharging all his personal obligations incurred on account of the
Government. He then resumed his private business. He was the first
American citizen who ever sent to Canton an American vessel. This was in
1784, and he continued for many years to carry on an extensive commerce
with India and China.
Unhappily, in his old age, for some cause or causes that have never been
recorded, he lost his judgment as a business man. About 1791, he formed
a land company, which bought from the Six Nations in the State of
New York a tract of land equal in extent to several of the German
Principalities of that time, and they owned some millions of acres in
five other States. These lands, bought for a trifling sum, would have
enriched every member of the company if they had not omitted from their
calculations the important element of _time_. But a gentleman sixty
years of age cannot wait twenty years for the development of a
speculation. Confident in the soundness of his calculations and
expecting to be speedily rich beyond the dreams of avarice, he erected
in Philadelphia a palace for his own abode, of the most preposterous
magnificence. The architect assured him that the building would cost
sixty thousand dollars, but the mere cellars exhausted that sum. He
imported from Europe the most costly furniture and fine statuary for
this house.
But ardent speculators do not take into consideration the obvious and
certain truth that no country enjoys a long period of buoyancy in money
affairs. Hamilton's financial schemes led to such a sudden increase of
values as to bring on a period of the wildest speculation; which was
followed, as it always is, by reaction and collapse. Then came the
threatened renewal of the war with Great Britain, followed by the long
imbroglio with France, which put a stop to emigration for years. The
Western lands did not sell. The bubble burst. Robert Morris was ruined.
He was arrested in 1797 upon the suit of one Blair McClenachan, to whom
he owed sixteen thousand dollars, and he was confined in the debtors'
prison in Philadelphia, as before mentioned, for four years. Nor would
he have ever been released but for the operation of a new bankrupt law.
A paragraph from one of his letters, written when he had been in prison
two weeks, few people can read without emotion. These are the words of a
man who had been a capitalist and lived in luxury more than forty years:
"I have tried in vain," he wrote, "to get a room exclusively to myself,
and hope to be able to do so in a few days, but at a high rent which I
am unable to bear. Then I may set up a bed in it, and have a chair
or two and a table, and so be made comfortable. Now I am very
uncomfortable, for I have no particular place allotted me. I feel like
an intruder everywhere; sleeping in other people's beds, and sitting in
other people's rooms. I am writing on other people's paper with other
people's ink. The pen is my own. That and the clothes I wear are all
that I can claim as mine here."
Released in 1802, he lived with his wife in a small house on the
outskirts of the city, where he died in 1806 aged seventy-two.
It was often proposed in Congress to appropriate some of the money
belonging to the industrious and frugal people of the United States
to pay the debts of this rash speculator; and many writers since have
censured the government for not doing something for his relief. The
simple and sufficient answer is, that Congress has no constitutional
power to apply the people's money to any such purpose. The government
holds the public treasure _in trust_. It is a trustee, not a proprietor.
It can spend public money only for purposes which the constitution
specifies; and, among these specified purposes, we do _not_ find the
relief of land speculators who build gorgeous palaces on credit.