Page images
PDF
EPUB

As to Hamilton, Mr. Sullivan wrote: Alexander Hamilton, when appointed Secretary of the Treasury, was about thirty-three years of age. He resumed the practice of the law in the city of New York, in the year 1795, at the age of thirty-eight. In December of that year his appearance was this: He was under middle size; thin in person, but remarkably erect and dignified in his deportment. His hair was turned back from his forehead, powdered, and collected in a club behind. His complexion was exceedingly fair, and varying from this only by the almost feminine rosiness of his cheeks. His might be considered, as to figure and color, an uncommonly handsome face. When at rest, it had rather a severe and thoughtful expression; but when engaged in conversation, it easily assumed an attractive smile.-Sullivan.

As to Treason.

The third section of the third article of the Constitution of the United States is in part as follows: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

In the convention which formed the Constitution, Luther Martin, of Maryland, proposed the following: "Provided that no act or acts done by one or more of the States against the United States, or by any citizen of any one of the United States under the authority of one or more of the said States, shall be deemed treason or punished as such; but in case of war being levied by one or more of the States against the United States, the conduct of each party toward the other and their adherents respectively, shall be regulated by the laws of war and of nations." This provision was not adopted. See Elliott's Debates, Vol. I, p. 382.

AARON BURR.

Though Aaron Burr is not mentioned in this journal, yet as his fortunes were so intimately associated with Hamilton, a brief description by the same person is given as he appeared in December, 1795. He was probably about Hamilton's age. He was of about the same stature as Hamilton; a thin man, but differently formed. His motions in walking were not, like Hamilton's, erect, but a little stooping, and far from graceful. His face was short and broad; his black eyes uncommonly piercing. His manner gentle and seductive. But he had a calmness and sedateness, when these suited his purpose; and an eminent authority of manner, when the occasion called for this. He was said to have presided with great dignity in the Senate; and especially at the trial of Judge Chase. Though eminent as a lawyer, he was said not to be a man of distinguished eloquence, nor of luxuriant mind. His speeches were short and to the purpose.-Sullivan, 262.

ROBERT MORRIS.

Robert Morris was born at Liverpool, England, in 1733. After the death of his father, which happened from a casualty, he was placed in the counting house of Charles Willing, a merchant in Philadelphia. After he had arrived at full or legal age, he became a partner with Thomas Willing, a son of his patron. This mercantile connection continued for nearly forty years. After difficulties had arisen with England, he and his partner, though largely engaged in business, signed the non-importation agreement of 1765, and sustained other patriotic measures. After the Revolutionary war had begun, Mr. Morris was elected a member of the Assembly of Pennsylvania; and in 1775, he was elected by it a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was opposed to Independence when the proposition was made, and voted against Mr. Lee's resolution on the 1st of July, 1776. This was from an opinion that it was premature; and he was absent from the convention on the 2d and 4th of July, with Dickinson, Biddle and Allen; so that the vote of the State on the 4th was carried by Franklin, Morton and Wilson against Humphreys and Willing. The new convention of the State retained Mr. Morris, but superseded Dickinson, Humphreys, Willing and Allen, and appointed, in their stead, Messrs. Ross, Smith, Rush, Clymer and Taylor; and when the Declaration had been engrossed, Mr. Morris, on the 2d of August, signed it. He remained in Congress until the end of the session of 1787-8, and served upon important committees, the principal one being the committee charged with the spending of money in the secret service; and during his service in Congress on various occasions, he pledged his individual credit, to a considerable extent, for the public service. His service in that respect continued throughout the war, and specially after appointment as Superintendent of Finance on the 20th of February, 1781. He performed a service of special importance in procuring the pecuniary means to enable General Washington to move his forces to the South, where at Yorktown occurred the last important battle scene of the Revolution. Mr. Morris was a member of the convention to frame the National Constitution; and was subsequently elected one

of the Senators in the first Senate. He there drew the longer term, and was a member of it from 1789 till the 4th of March, 1795.

He was, for many years, prosperous as a merchant, and was considered as having acquired very considerable wealth. He subsequently became embarrassed. He attributed his first embarrassment to the failure of two commercial houses in Dublin and London in the year 1793, by which he suffered largely.

He was seized with the then prevailing mania for speculation in lands. The country called the Genessee country, lying west of the Seneca Lake in New York, was originally claimed against New York by the State of Massachusetts, under an unreasonable claim that her charter bounds extended to the western sea or the Pacific ocean. As to the claim see remarks hereafter.

In the year 1786 commissioners were appointed by the States of Massachusetts and New York to settle their respective claims both as to soil and jurisdiction; and, on the 16th of December of that year, the soil west of the Seneca Lake was ceded by Massachusetts and the jurisdiction over it to New York. In 1787 or '88 Messrs. Gorham and Phelps purchased from Massachusetts the whole territory which had been ceded to it. Subsequently, however, the Legislature of Massachusetts took back from Gorham & Phelps the four million of acres west of the Genessee river. In November, 1790, Mr. Morris purchased, from Gorham & Phelps, twelve hundred thousand acres of the territory which they had retained, and to which the Indian title had been extinguished. The purchase money is supposed by his son to have been seventy thousand pounds. In 1791 Mr. Morris sold to Pulteney and another the land which he had bought from Gorham & Phelps for about seventy thousand pounds sterling. In 1791 Mr. Morris, for himself and others, who subsequently disappointed him, purchased from Massachusettes the four million of acres which that State had received back from Gorham & Phelps. The purchase money is supposed to have been one hundred thousand pounds in Massachusetts money.

In the year 1792-3 and 4, Mr. Morris entered warrants in the Land Office of Pennsylvania for about 160,000 acres. In April, 1794, he entered into an association with John Nicholson, then Controller of the State of Pennsylvania, for the purchase of about a million of acres of land in Pennsylvania-the association being called The Asylum Company. In February, 1795, the North American Land Company was formed between Morris, Nicholson & Greenleaf, which was designed to dispose of about six millions of acres of land in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina and Georgia. These extensive purchases and arrangements and

other monetary engagements led to the bankruptcy of Mr. Morris. It may also be noted that in the year 1791 he purchased the whole square of ground on Chestnut street, Philadelphia, extending from Seventh to Eighth street, and from Chestnut to Walnut, except a lot of about fifty feet front on the corner of Seventh street, and extending in depth about 250 feet on Seventh street. For this ground he was to pay £10,000. He engaged C. Enfant, a French architect, to erect for him a splendid dwelling house on Chestnut street on this ground, and it has been said that his expenditure in the erection of this house contributed materially to his subsequent embarrassment; but Mr. Westcott, in his book entitled, The Historic Mansions of Philadelphia, contradicts this opinion, and states that the expenditure on the building of this house did not much exceed thirty thousand dollars.

Among the first of his creditors in instituting suit against Mr. Morris was the Bank of Pennsylvania, and levy was made on the lot on Chestnut street previously described, and it was sold at a sacrifice. Mr. Morris was arrested, and was confined in prison. The first bankrupt law was passed on the 4th of April, 1800, and was to take effect on the 1st of July following. John Nicholson was also arrested and died in prison; but subsequently two thirds in number and amount of the creditors of Mr. Morris agreed to his discharge, and he was released from imprisonment in the latter end of 1801. It is stated that he was imprisoned on process to June term, 1798, and, if so, he was in prison for more than three years. The amount of debts proved against Mr. Morris, according to the report of the commissioners of bankruptcy, was nearly three millions of dollars. He died on the 7th of May, 1806, aged seventythree years. During the life of Mrs. Morris she received from the Holland Land Company an annuity of $2,000, in consideration of her release of dower in certain lands sold by Mr. Morris to that company. One of the sons of Mr. Morris was elected sheriff of Philadelphia in 1841, but died before he had been a year in office.

Mr. Sullivan, in his book relative to "Public Men of the Revolution," describes Mr. Morris as follows: In his person (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 broadcloth, of the same color, and of light mixture. His manners were gracious and simple, and free from the formality which generally prevailed. He was very affable, and mingled in the common conversation even of the young.

« PreviousContinue »