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american ^tatesimen 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 JOHN T. MORSE, JR. 
 

Slmerican ^tate^men 
 
 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
 
 ^m^M^^^ 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YOKK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1892 
 

 Copyright, 1888, 
 By THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped aud Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 -c 
 
 Two generations ago the average American 
 biographer was certainly a marvel of turgid and 
 aimless verbosity ; and the reputations of our 
 early statesmen have in no way proved their 
 vitality more clearly than by surviving their 
 entombment in the pages of the authors who 
 immediately succeeded them. No one of the 
 founders of the Constitution has suffered more 
 in this respect than has he who was perhaps 
 the most brilliant, although by no means the 
 greatest, of the whole number, — Gouverneitr 
 Morris. 
 
 Jared Sparks, hitherto Morris's sole biogra- 
 pher, wrote innumerable volumes on American 
 history, many of which are still very valuable, 
 and some of them almost indispensable, to 'the 
 student. The value, however, comes wholly 
 from the matter; Mr. Sparks is not only a 
 very voluminous writer, but he is also a quite 
 g abnormally dull one. His " Life of Gouv- 
 
 erneur Morris" is typical of most of his work. 
 
 ?^€>0\ 
 
vi INTROD UC TION. 
 
 He collected with great industry facts about 
 Mr. Morris, and edited a large number of his 
 letters and state papers, with numerous selec- 
 tions, not always well chosen, from his Diary. 
 Other merits the book has none, and it has 
 one or two marked faults. He failed to un- 
 derstand that a biographer's duties are not 
 necessarily identical with those of a professional 
 eulogist ; but for this he is hardly to blame, as 
 all our writers then seemed to think it neces- 
 sary to shower indiscriminate praise on every 
 dead American — whether author, soldier, 
 politician, or what not — save only Benedict 
 Arnold. He was funnily unconscious of his 
 own prolix dullness ; and actually makes pro- 
 fuse apologies for introducing extracts from 
 Morris's bright, interesting writings into his 
 own drearily platitudinous pages, hoping that 
 " candor and justice" will make his readers par- 
 don the " negligence " and " defects of style," 
 which the extracts contain. He could not resist 
 the temptation now and then to improve Mor- 
 ris's English, and to soften down, or omit any- 
 thing that he deemed either improper or beneath 
 the stilted "dignity" of history. For example, 
 Morris states that Marie Antoinette, when pur- 
 sued by the Parisian fishwives, fled from her 
 bed " in her shift and petticoat, with her stock- 
 ings in her hand ; " such particularity struck 
 
INTROD U CTION. vii 
 
 Mr. Sparks as shockingly coarse, and with much 
 refinement he replaced the whole phrase by 
 " in her undress." An oath he would not per- 
 mit to sully his pages on any terms ; thus when 
 Morris wrote that Pennsylvania would find Sir 
 Henry Clinton *' a most damnable physician," 
 Mr. Sparks simply left out the offending sen- 
 tence altogether. This kind of thing he did 
 again and again. 
 
 Still he gives almost all of Morris's writings 
 that are of political interest. It is, however, 
 greatly to be desired that we should have a 
 much more complete edition of his letters and 
 Diary, on account of the extremely interesting 
 descriptions they contain of the social life of the 
 period, both in America and in Europe. As 
 regards his public career, and his views and 
 writings on public subjects, we already have 
 ample material, much of which has appeared 
 since Sparks's biography was written, and some 
 of which is here presented for the first time. 
 
 Morris's speeches in the Constitutional Con- 
 vention have been preserved, in summarized 
 form, by Madison in his " Debates : " of these, of 
 course, Sparks was necessarily ignorant. Miss 
 Annie Carey Morris has written two articles in 
 " Scribner's Magazine " for January and Febru- 
 ary, 1887, on her grandfather's life in Paris 
 during the French Revolution, giving some new 
 
VIU INTR OD UCTWN. 
 
 and interesting details. A good article ap- 
 peared in " Macmillan's Magazine " for No- 
 vember, 1885, the writer evidently having been 
 attracted to the subject by the way in which 
 Taine made Morris's writings a basis for so 
 much of his own great work on the Revolution. 
 Decidedly the best piece upon Morris that has 
 yet been written, however, is the admirable 
 sketch by Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge in the " At- 
 lantic Monthly" for April, 1886. 
 
 My thanks are especially due the Hon. John 
 Jay for furnishing me many valuable letters, 
 hitherto unpublished, of both Jay and Morris ; 
 and for giving me additional information about 
 Morris's private life, and other matters. All 
 the letters here quoted that are not given by 
 Sparks are to be found either in the Jay MSS. 
 or the Pickering MSS. Mr. Jay also furnished 
 me with the account of the way in which Louis 
 Philippe was finally persuaded to pay the debt 
 he owed Morris. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 > 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Introduction ••••• v 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 His Youth : Colonial New York 1 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The Outbreak of the Revolution : Morris in 
 THE Provincial Congress 28 
 
 CHAPTER III. \ 
 
 Independence : Forming the State Constitution . 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 In the Continental Congress 76 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Finances : The Treaty of Peace 99 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Formation of the National Constitution . 125 
 
X CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 FiBST Stat in France 169 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 Life in Fabis • • . 197 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Mission to England : Return to Paris .... 227 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Minister to France 252 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 Stat in Europe 300 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Service in the United States Senate .... 320 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Northern Disunion Movement among the 
 Federalists 347 
 
GOUVEEITEUE MOEEIS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HIS YOUTH; COLONIAL NEW YOEK. 
 
 When, on January 31, 1752, Gouverneur 
 Morris was born in the family manor-house at 
 Morrisania, on the lands where his forefathers 
 had dwelt for three generations, New York col- 
 ony contained only some eighty thousand in- 
 habitants, of whom twelve thousand were 
 blacks. New York city was a thriving little 
 trading town, whose people in summer suffered 
 much from the mosquitoes that came back with 
 the cows when they were driven home at night- 
 fall for milking ; while from among the locusts 
 and water-beeches that lined the pleasant, quiet 
 streets, the tree frogs sang so shrilly through 
 the long, hot evenings that a man in speaking 
 could hardly make himself heard. 
 
 Gouverneur Morris belonged by birth to 
 that powerful landed aristocracy whose rule 
 was known by New York alone among all the 
 
2 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 northern colonies. His great-grandfather, who 
 had served in the Cromwellian armies, came to 
 the seaport at the mouth of the Hudson, while 
 it was still beneath the sway of Holland, and 
 settled outside of Haerlem, the estate being 
 invested with manorial privileges by the original 
 grant of the governor. In the next two gener- 
 ations the Morrises had played a prominent 
 part in colonial affairs, both the father and 
 grandfather of Gouverneur having been on the 
 bench, and having also been members of the 
 provincial legislature, where they took the 
 popular side, and stood up stoutly for the rights 
 of the Assembly in the wearisome and inter- 
 minable conflicts waged by the latter against 
 the prerogatives of the crown and the powers 
 of the royal governors. The Morrises were 
 restless, adventurous men, of erratic temper 
 and strong intellect ; and, with far more than 
 his share of the family talent and brilliancy, 
 young Gouverneur also inherited a certain 
 whimsical streak that ran through his char- 
 acter. His mother was one of the Huguenot 
 Gouverneurs, who had been settled in New 
 York since the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes ; and it was perhaps the French blood 
 in his veins that gave him the alert vivacity 
 and keen sense of humor that distinguished 
 him from most of the great Revolutionary 
 statesmen who were his contemporaries. 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 6 
 
 He was a bright, active boy, fond of shooting 
 and out -door sports, and was early put to 
 school at the old Huguenot settlement of New 
 Rochelle, where the church service was still 
 sometimes held in French ; and he there learned 
 to speak and write this language almost as 
 well as he could English. Thence, after the 
 usual preparatory instruction, he went to King's 
 College — now, with altered name and spirit, 
 Columbia — in New York. 
 
 The years of his childhood were stirring 
 ones for the colonies ; for England was then 
 waging the greatest and most successful of her 
 colonial contests with France and Spain for the 
 possession of eastern North America. Such 
 contests, with their usual savage accompani- 
 ments in the way of Indian warfare, always 
 fell with especial weight on New York, whose 
 border lands were not only claimed, but even 
 held by the French, and within whose bounda- 
 ,ries lay the great confederacy of the Six Nations, 
 the most crafty, warlike, and formidable of all 
 the native races, infinitely more to be dreaded 
 than the Algonquin tribes with whom the 
 other colonies had to deal. Nor was this war 
 any exception to the rule ; for battle after bat- 
 tle was fought on our soil, from the day when, 
 unassisted, the purely colonial troops of New 
 York and New England at Lake George de- 
 
4 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 stroyed Baron Dieskau's mixed host of Frencli 
 regulars, Canadian militia, and Indian allies, 
 to that still more bloody day when, on the 
 shores of Lake Champlain, Abercrombie's great 
 army of British and Americans recoiled before 
 the fiery genius of Montcalm. 
 
 When once the war was ended by the com- 
 plete and final overthrow of the French power, 
 and the definite establishment of English 
 supremacy along the whole Atlantic seaboard, 
 the bickering which was always going on be- 
 tween Great Britain and her American sub- 
 jects, and which was but partially suppressed 
 even when they were forced to join in common 
 efforts to destroy a common foe, broke out far 
 more fiercely than ever. While the colonists 
 were still reaping the aftermath of the contest 
 in the shape of desolating border warfare 
 against those Indian tribes who had joined in- 
 the famous conspiracy of Pontiac, the Roj^al 
 Parliament passed the Stamp Act, and thereby 
 began the struggle that ended in the Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 England's treatment of her American sub- 
 jects was thoroughly selfish ; but that her con- 
 duct towards them was a wonder of tyranny, 
 will not now be seriously asserted ; on the 
 contrary, she stood decidedly above the general 
 European standard in such matters, and cer- 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 5 
 
 tainly treated her colonies far better than 
 France and Spain did theirs ; and she herself 
 had undoubted grounds for complaint in, for 
 example, the readiness of the Americans to 
 claim military help in time of danger, together 
 with their frank reluctance to pay for it. It 
 was impossible that she should be so far in ad- 
 vance of the age as to treat her colonists as 
 equals ; they themselves were sometimes quite 
 as intolerant in their behavior towards men of 
 a different race, creed, or color. The New Eng- 
 land Puritans lacked only the power, but not 
 the will, to behave almost as badly towards the 
 Pennsylvania Quakers as did the Episcopalian 
 English towards themselves. Yet granting all 
 this, the fact remains, that in the Revolution- 
 ary War the Americans stood towards the Brit- 
 ish as the Protestant peoples stood towards 
 the Catholic powers in the sixteenth century, 
 as the Parliamentarians stood towards the 
 Stewarts in the seventeenth, or as the up- 
 holders of the American Union stood towards 
 the confederate slave-holders in the nineteenth ; 
 that is, they warred victoriously for the right 
 in a struggle whose outcome vitally affected 
 the welfare of the whole human race. They 
 settled, once for all, that thereafter the people 
 of English stock should spread at will over 
 the world's waste spaces, keeping all their old 
 
6 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 liberties and winning new ones ; and they took 
 the first and longest step in establishing the 
 great principle that thenceforth those Europe- 
 ans, who by their strength and daring founded 
 new states abroad, should be deemed to have 
 done so for their own profit as freemen, and not 
 for the benefit of their more timid, lazy, or 
 contented brethren who stayed behind. 
 
 The rulers of Great Britain, and to a large 
 extent its people, looked upon the American 
 colonies as existing primarily for the good of 
 the mother country : they put the harshest re- 
 strictions on American trade in the interests 
 of British merchants ; they discouraged the 
 spread of the Americans westward ; and they 
 claimed the right to decide for both parties the 
 proportions in which they should pay their 
 shares of the common burdens. The English 
 and Americans were not the subjects of a com- 
 mon sovereign ; for the English were them- 
 selves the sovereigns, the Americans were the 
 subjects. Whether their yoke bore heavily or 
 bore lightly, whether it galled or not, mattered 
 little ; it was enough that it was a yoke to war- 
 rant a proud, free people in throwing it off. 
 We could not thankfully take as a boon part 
 only of what we felt to be our lawful due. 
 " We do not claim liberty as a privilege, but 
 challenge it as a right," said the men of New 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 7 
 
 York, through their legislature, in 1764 ; and 
 all Americans^ felt with them. 
 
 Yet, for all this, the feeling of loyalty was 
 strong and hard to overcome throughout the 
 provinces, and especially in New York. The 
 Assembly wrangled with the royal governor; 
 the merchants and shipmasters combined to 
 evade the intolerable harshness of the laws of 
 trade that tried to make them customers of 
 England only ; the householders bitterly re- 
 sented the attempts to quarter troops upon 
 them ; while the soldiers of the garrison were 
 from time to time involved in brawls with the 
 lower ranks of the people, especially the sail- 
 ors, as the seafaring population was large, and 
 much given to forcibly releasing men taken 
 by the press-gang for the British war- ships; 
 but in spite of everything there was a genu- 
 ine sentiment of affection and respect for the 
 British crown and kingdom. It is perfectly 
 possible that if British statesmen had shown 
 less crass and brutal stupidity, if they had 
 shown even the wise negligence of Walpole, 
 this feeling of loyalty would have been strong 
 enough to keep England and America united 
 until they had learned how to accommodate 
 themselves to the rapidly changing conditions ; 
 but the chance was lost when once a prince 
 like George the Third came to the throne. It 
 
8 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 has been the fashion to represent this king as 
 a well meaning, though dull person, whose 
 good morals and excellent intentions partially- 
 atoned for his mistake"fe of judgment; but such 
 a view is curiously false. His private life, it is 
 true, showed the very admirable but common- 
 place virtues, as well as the appalling intellec- 
 tual littleness, barrenness, and stagnation, of 
 the average British green-grocer; but in his 
 public career, instead of rising to the level of 
 harmless and unimportant mediocrity usually 
 reached by the sovereigns of the House of 
 Hanover, he fairly rivaled the Stuarts in his 
 perfidy, wrongheadedness, political debauchery, 
 and attempts to destroy free government, and 
 to replace it by a system of personal despotism. 
 It needed all the successive blunders both of 
 himself and of his Tory ministers to reduce the 
 loyal party in New York to a minority, by 
 driving the moderate men into the patriotic 
 or American camp ; and even then the loyalist 
 minority remained large enough to be a for- 
 midable power, and to plunge the embryonic 
 state into a ferocious civil war, carried on, as in 
 the Carolinas and Georgia, with even more bit- 
 terness than the contest against the British. 
 
 The nature of this loyalist party and the 
 strength of the conflicting elements can only be 
 understood after a glance at the many nation- 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 9 
 
 alities that in New York were being blended 
 into one. The descendants of the old Dutch 
 inhabitants were still more numerous than those 
 of any other one race, while the French Hu- 
 guenots, who, being of the same Calvinistic faith, 
 were closely mixed with them, and had been in 
 the land nearly as long, were also plentiful ; 
 the Scotch and Scotch- or Anglo-Irish, mostly 
 Presbyterians, came next in point of numbers ; 
 the English, both of Old and New England, 
 next ; there were large bodies of Germans ; 
 and there were also settlements of Gaelic 
 Highlanders, and some Welsh, Scandina- 
 vians, etc. Just prior to the Revolution there 
 were in New York city two Episcopalian 
 churches, three Dutch Reformed, three Pres- 
 byterian (Scotch and Irish), one French,(two 
 German (one Lutheran and one Calvinistic, al» 
 lied to the Dutcli Reformed) ; as well as places 
 of worship for the then insignificant religious 
 bodies of the Methodists, Baptists (largely 
 Welsh), Moravians (German), Quakers and 
 Jews. There was no Roman Catholic church 
 until after the Revolution ; in fact before that 
 date there were hardly any Roman Catholics 
 in the colonies, except in Maryland and Penn- 
 sylvania, and in New York they did not ac- 
 quire any strength until after the War of 1812. 
 This mixture of races is very clearly shown 
 
10 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 by the ancestry of the half-dozen great men 
 brought forth by New York during the Revo- 
 lution. Of these, one, Alexander Hamilton, 
 stands in the very first class of American states- 
 men ; two more, John Jay and Gouverneur 
 Morris, come close behind him ; the others, 
 Philip Schuyler, Robert Livingston, and George 
 Clinton, were of lesser, but still of more than 
 merely local, note. They were all born and 
 bred on this side of the Atlantic. Hamilton's 
 father was of Scotch, and his mother of French 
 Huguenot, descent ; Morris came on one side 
 of English, and on the other of French Hu- 
 guenot, stock ; Jay, of French Huguenot blood, 
 had a mother who was Dutch ; Schuyler was 
 purely Dutch ; Livingston was Scotch on his 
 father's, and Dutch on his mother's, side ; the 
 Clintons were of Anglo-Irish origin, but mar- 
 ried into the old Dutch families. In the same 
 way, it was Herkomer, of German parentage, 
 who led the New York levies, and fell at their 
 head in the bloody fight against the Tories and 
 Indians at Oriskany ; it was the Irishman 
 Montgomery who died leading the New York 
 troops against Quebec ; while yet another of 
 the few generals allotted to New York by the 
 Continental Congress was MacDougall, of 
 Gaelic Scotch descent. The colony was already 
 developing an ethnic type of its own, quite 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 11 
 
 distinct from that of England. No American 
 state of the present day, not even Wisconsin 
 or Minnesota, shows so many and important 
 "foreign," or non-English elements, as New- 
 York, and for that matter Pennsylvania and 
 Delaware, did a century or so ago. In fact, in 
 New York the English element in the blood 
 has grown greatly during the past century, 
 owing to the enormous New England immi- 
 gration that took place during its first half ; 
 and the only important addition to the race 
 conglomerate has been made by the Celtic Irish. 
 The New England element in New York in 
 1775 was small and unimportant; on Long 
 Island, where it was largest, it was mainly 
 tory or neutral ; in the city itself, however, it 
 was aggressively patriotic. 
 
 Recent English writers, and some of oUr own 
 as well, have foretold woe to our nation, "be- 
 cause the blood of the Cavalier and the Round- 
 head is being diluted with that of " German 
 boors and Irish cotters." The alarm is need- 
 less. As a matter of fact the majority of the 
 people of the middle colonies at the time of 
 the Revolution were the descendants of Dutch 
 and German boors and Scotch and Irish cot- 
 ters ; and in a less degree the same was true 
 of Georgia and the Carolinas. Even in New 
 England, where the English stock was purest, 
 
12 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 there was plenty of other admixture, and two 
 of her most distinguished Revolutionary fami- 
 lies bore, one the Huguenot name of Bowdoin, 
 and the other the Irish name of Sullivan. 
 Indeed, from the very outset, from the days of 
 Cromwell, there has been a large Irish admix- 
 ture in New England. Wlien our people 
 began their existence as a nation, they already 
 differed in blood from their ancestral relatives 
 across the Atlantic much as the latter did 
 from their forebears beyond the German Ocean ; 
 and on the whole, the immigration since has not 
 materially changed the race strains in our na- 
 tionality ; a century back we were even less 
 homogeneous than we are now. It is no doubt 
 true that we are in the main an offshoot of the 
 English stem ; and cousins to our kinsfolk of 
 Britaift we perhaps may be; but brothers we 
 certainly are not. 
 
 But the process of assimilating, or as we 
 should now say, of Americanizing, all foreign 
 and non-English elements was going on almost 
 as rapidly a hundred years ago as it is at pres- 
 ent. A young Dutchman or Huguenot felt it 
 necessary, then, to learn English, precisely as 
 a young Scandinavian or German does now ; 
 and the churches of the former at the end of 
 the last century were obliged to adopt English 
 as the language for their ritual exactly as the 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 13 
 
 churches of the latter do at the end of this. 
 The most stirring, energetic, and progressive 
 life of the colony was English ; and all the 
 young fellows of push and ambition gradually 
 adopted this as their native language, and then 
 refused to belong to congregations where the 
 service was carried on in a less familiar speech. 
 Accordingly the Dutch Reformed churches 
 dwindled steadily, while the Episcopalian and 
 Presbyterian swelled in the same ratio, until 
 in 1764 the former gained a new and lasting 
 lease of life by reluctantly adopting the pre- 
 vailing tongue ; though Dutch was also occa- 
 sionally used until forty years later. 
 
 In fact, during the centuiy that elapsed be- 
 tween the final British conquest of the colony 
 and the Revolution, the New Yorkers — Dutch, 
 French, German, Irish, and English — had 
 become in the main welded into one peopleT 
 they felt alike towards outsiders, having chronic 
 quarrels with the New England States as well 
 as with Great Britain, and showing, indeed, 
 but little more jealous hostility towards the 
 latter than they did towards Connecticut and 
 New Hampshire. 
 
 The religious differences no longer corre- 
 sponded to the differences of language. Half 
 of the adherents of the Episcopalian Church 
 were of Dutch or Huguenot blood ; the leading 
 
14 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ministers of the Dutch Church were of Scotch 
 parentage ; and the Presbyterians included 
 some of every race. The colonists were all 
 growing to call themselves Englishmen ; when 
 Mayor Cruger, and a board of aldermen with 
 names equally Dutch, signed the non-importation 
 agreement, they prefaced it by stating that they 
 claimed "their rights as Englishmen." But 
 though there were no rivalries of race, there 
 were many and bitter of class and religion, the 
 different Protestant sects hating one another 
 with a virulence much surpassing that with 
 which they now regard even Catholics. 
 
 The colony was in government an aristocra- 
 tic republic, its constitution modeled on that of 
 England and similar to it; the power lay in 
 the hands of certain old and wealthy families, 
 Dutch and English, and there was a limited 
 freehold suffrage. The great landed families, 
 the Livingstons, Van Rennselaers, Schuylers, 
 Van Cortlandts, Phillipses, Morrises, with their 
 huge manorial estates, their riches, their abso- 
 lute social preeminence and their unquestioned 
 political headship, formed a proud, polished, 
 and powerful aristocracy, deep rooted in the 
 soil ; for over a century their sway was un- 
 broken, save by contests between themselves or 
 with the royal governor, and they furnished 
 the colony with military, political, and social 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 15 
 
 leaders for generation after generation. They 
 owned numerous black slaves, and lived in state 
 and comfort t)n their broad acres, tenant-farmed, 
 in the great, roomy manor-houses, with wain- 
 scoted walls and huge fireplaces, and round 
 about the quaint old gardens, prim and formal 
 with their box hedges and precise flower beds. 
 They answered closely to the whig lords of 
 England, and indeed were often connected with 
 the ruling orders abroad by blood or marriage ; 
 as an example, Staats Long Morris, Gouver- 
 neur's elder brother, who remained a royalist, 
 and rose to be a major-general in the British 
 army, married the Duchess of Gordon. Some 
 of the maiiors were so large that they sent 
 representatives to the Albany legislature, to 
 sit alongside of those from the towns and 
 counties. (^ 
 
 Next in importance to the great manoiial 
 lords came the rich merchants of New York ; 
 many families, like the Livingstons, the most 
 prominent of all, had representatives in both 
 classes. The merchants were somewhat of the 
 type of Frobisher, Hawkins, Klaesoon, and other 
 old English and Dutch sea- worthies, who were 
 equally keen as fighters and traders. They 
 were shrewd, daring, and prosperous ; they were 
 often their own ship -masters, and during the 
 incessant wars against the French and Spaniards 
 
16 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 went into privateering ventures with even more 
 zest and spirit than into peaceful trading. 
 Next came the smaller landed proprietors, who 
 also possessed considerable local influence; such 
 was the family of the Clintons. The law, too, 
 was beginning to take high rank as an honor- 
 able and influential profession. 
 
 Most of the gentry were Episcopalians, theirs 
 being practically the state church, and very 
 influential and wealthy ; some belonged to the 
 Calvinistic bodies, — notably the Livingstons, 
 who were in large part Presbyterians, while cer- 
 tain of their number were prominent members 
 of the Dutch congregations. It was from among 
 the gentry that the little group of New York 
 revolutionary leaders came; men of singular 
 purity, courage, and ability, who, if they could 
 not quite rank with the brilliant Virginians of 
 that date, nevertheless stood close behind, 
 alongside of the Massachusetts men and ahead 
 of those from any other colony ; that, too, it 
 must be kept in mind, at a time when New 
 York was inferior in wealth and population to 
 Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or Virginia, and 
 little, if at all, in advance of Maryland or Con- 
 necticut. The great families also furnished the 
 leaders of the loyalists during the war ; such 
 were the De Lanceys, whose influence around 
 the mouth of the Hudson was second to that of 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 17 
 
 none others ; and the Johnsons, who, in man- 
 sions that were also castles, held half -feudal, 
 half-barbaric sway over the valley of the upper 
 Mohawk, where they were absolute rulers, ready 
 and willing to wage war on their own account, 
 relying on their numerous kinsmen, their armed 
 negro slaves, their trained bands of Gaelic re- 
 tainers, and their hosts of savage allies, drawn 
 from among the dreaded Iroquois. 
 
 The bulk of the people were small farmers in 
 the country, tradesmen and mechanics in the 
 towns. They were for the most part members 
 of some of the Calvinistic churches, the great 
 majority of the whole population belonging to 
 the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed congre- 
 gations. The farmers were thrifty, set in their 
 ways, and obstinate ; the townsmen thrifty also, 
 but restless and turbulent. Both farmers and 
 townsmen were thoroughly independent and 
 self-respecting, and were gradually getting more 
 and more political power. They had always 
 stood tenaciously by their rights, from the days 
 of the early Stuart governors, who had com- 
 plained loudly of the " Dutch Republicans." 
 But they were narrow, jealous of each other, as 
 well as of outsiders, and slow to act together. 
 
 The political struggles were very bitter. 
 The great families, under whose banners they 
 were carried on, though all intermarried, were 
 
18 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 divided by keen rivalries into opposing camps. 
 Yet they joined in dreading too great an ex- 
 tension of democracy ; and in return were sus- 
 pected by the masses, who grumblingly fol- 
 lowed their lead, of hostility to the popular 
 cause. The Episcopalians, though greatly in 
 the minority, possessed most power, and ha- 
 rassed in every way they dared the dissent- 
 ing sects, especially the Presbyterians — for 
 the Dutch Reformed and Huguenot churches 
 had certain rights guaranteed them by treaty. 
 The Episcopalian clergy were royalists to a 
 man, and it was in their congregations that the 
 main strength of the Tories lay, although these 
 also contained many who became the stanchest 
 of patriots. King's College was controlled by 
 trustees of this faith. They were busy trying 
 to turn it into a diminutive imitation of Ox- 
 ford, and did their best to make it, in its own 
 small way, almost as much a perverse miracle 
 of backward and invariable wrong-headedness 
 as was its great model. Its president, when the 
 Revolution broke out, was a real old wine-bib- 
 bing Tory parson, devoted to every worn-out 
 theory that inculcated humble obedience to 
 church and crown ; and he was most summarily 
 expelled by the mob. 
 
 Some important political consequences arose 
 from the fact that the mass of the people be- 
 longed to some one or other of the branches of 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 19 
 
 the Calvinistic faith — of all faiths the most re- 
 publican in its tendencies. They were strongly 
 inclined to put their republican principles into 
 practice as well in state as in church; they 
 tended towards hostility to the crown, and were 
 strenuous in their opposition to the extension of 
 the Episcopal power, always threatened by 
 some English statesmen ; their cry was against 
 " the King and the Bishops." It is worth not- 
 ing that the Episcopalian churches were shut 
 up when the Revolution broke out, and were 
 reopened when the British troops occupied the 
 city. The Calvinistic churches, on the con- 
 trary, which sided with the revolutionists, were 
 shut when the British came into New York, 
 were plundered by the troops, and were not re- 
 opened until after the evacuation. ('^ 
 
 Thus three parties developed, although the 
 third, destined to overwhelm the others, had 
 not yet come to the front. The first consisted 
 of the royalists, or monarchists, the men who 
 believed that power came from above, from the 
 king and the bishops, and who were aristo- 
 cratic in their sympathies; who were Ameri- 
 cans only secondarily, and who stood by their 
 order against their country. This party con- 
 tained many of the great manorial families and 
 also of the merchants ; and in certain places, as 
 in Staten Island, the east end of Long Island, 
 
20 GOU VERNE UR MORRIS. 
 
 the upper valley of the Mohawk, and part of 
 Westchester County, the influence of the upper 
 classes combined with the jealousy and igno- 
 rance of large sections of the lower, to give it a 
 clear majority of the whole population. The 
 second party was headed by the great families 
 of Whig or liberal sympathies, who, when the 
 split came, stood by their country, although 
 only very moderate republicans ; and it held 
 also in its ranks the mass of moderate men, who 
 wished freedom, were resolute in defense of 
 their rights, and had republican leanings, but 
 who also appreciated the good in the system 
 under which they were living. Finally came 
 the extremists, the men of strong republican 
 tendencies, whose delight it was to toast Pym, 
 Hampden, and the regicides. These were led by 
 the agitators in the towns, and were energetic 
 and active, but were unable to effect anything 
 until the blunders of the British ministers threw 
 the moderate men over to their side. They fur- 
 nished none of the greater revolutionary lead- 
 ers in New York, though the Clintons came 
 near the line that divided them from the second 
 party. 
 
 The last political contest carried on under 
 the crown occurred in 1768, the year in which 
 Morris graduated from college, when the last 
 colonial legislature was elected. It reminds 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 21 
 
 US of our own days when we read of the fears 
 entertained of the solid German vote, and of 
 the hostility to the Irish, who were hated and 
 sneered at as " beggars " by the English party 
 and the rich Episcopalians. The Irish of those 
 days, however, were Presbyterians, and in blood 
 more English than Gaelic. St. Patrick's Day 
 was celebrated then as now, by public proces- 
 sions, as well as otherwise ; but when, for in- 
 stance, on March 17, 1766, the Irish residents 
 of New York celebrated the day by a dinner, 
 they gave certain toasts that would sound 
 strangely in the ears of Milesian patriots of the 
 present time, for they included " The Protes- 
 tant Interest," and " King William, of glorious, 
 pious, and immortal memory." 
 
 The royalist or conservative side in this con- 
 test in 1768 was led by the De Lanceys, their 
 main support being drawn from among the 
 Episcopalians, and most of the larger mer- 
 chants helping them. The Whigs, including 
 those with republican leanings, followed the 
 Livingstons, and were drawn mainly from the 
 Presbyterian and other Calvinistic congrega- 
 tions. The moderate men on this occasion 
 went with the De Lanceys, and gave them the 
 victory. In consequence the colonial legislature 
 was conservative and loyal in tone, and anti- 
 republican, although not ultra-tory, as a whole ; 
 
22 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 and thus when the revolutionary outbreak began 
 it went much slower than was satisfactory to the 
 patriot party, and its actions were finally set 
 aside by the people. 
 
 When Morris graduated from college, as 
 mentioned above, he was not yet seventeen 
 years old. His college career was like that of 
 any other bright, quick boy, without over much 
 industry or a passion for learning. For mathe- 
 matics he possessed a genuine taste ; he was par- 
 ticularly fond of Shakespeare ; and even thus 
 early he showed great skill in discussion and 
 much power of argument. He made the ora- 
 tion, or graduating address, of his class, choosing 
 for the subject "Wit and Beauty; " it was by 
 no means a noteworthy effort, and was couched 
 in the dreadful Johnsonian English of the 
 period. A little later, when he took his mas- 
 ter's degree, he again delivered an oration, — 
 this time on "Love." In point of style this 
 second speech was as bad as the first, disfigured 
 by cumbrous Latinisms and a hopeless use of 
 the superlative ; but there were one or two 
 good ideas in it. 
 
 As soon as he graduated, he set to work to 
 study law, deciding on this profession at once 
 as being best suited for an active, hopeful, am- 
 bitious young man of his social standing and 
 small fortune, who was perfectly self-confident 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 23 
 
 and conscious of his own powers. He soon 
 became interested in his studies, and followed 
 them with great patience, working hard and 
 ma,stering both principles and details with ease. 
 He was licensed to practice as an attorney in 
 1771, just three years after another young man, 
 destined to stand as his equal in the list of New 
 York's four or five noted statesmen, John Jay, 
 had likewise been admitted to the bar ; and 
 among the very few cases in which Morris was 
 engaged of which the record has been kept is 
 one concerning a contested election, in which 
 he was pitted against Jay, and bore himself 
 well. 
 
 Before this, and while not yet of age, he had 
 already begun to play a part in public affairs. 
 The colony had been ' run in debt during ihe 
 French and Indian wars, and a bill was brought 
 forward in the New York Assembly to provide 
 for this by raising money through the issue of 
 interest-bearing bills of credit. The people, in- 
 dividually, were largely in debt, and hailed the 
 proposal with much satisfaction, on the theory 
 that it would " make money more plenty ; " 
 our revolutionary forefathers being unfortu- 
 nately not much wiser or more honest in their 
 ways of looking at the public finances than we 
 ourselves, in spite of our state repudiators, na- 
 tional greenbackers, and dishonest silver men. 
 
24 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Morris attacked the bill very forcibly, and 
 with good effect, opposing any issue of paper 
 money, which could bring no absolute relief, 
 but merely a worse catastrophe of bankruptcy 
 in the end ; he pointed out that it was nothing 
 but a mischievous pretense for putting off the 
 date of a payment that would have to be met 
 anyhow, and that ought rather to be met at once 
 with honest money gathered from the resources 
 of the province. He showed the bad effects 
 such a system of artificial credit would have on 
 private individuals, the farmers and tradesmen, 
 by encouraging them to speculate and go deeper 
 into debt; and he criticised unsparingly the 
 attitude of the majority of his fellow-citizens 
 in wishing such a measure of relief, not only 
 for their short-sighted folly, but also for their 
 criminal and selfish dishonesty in trying to 
 procure a temporarj^ benefit for themselves at 
 the lasting expense of the community ; finally 
 he strongly advised them to bear with patience 
 small evils in the present rather than to remedy 
 them by inflicting infinitely greater ones on 
 themselves and their descendants in the future. 
 
 At the law he did very well, having the 
 advantages of his family name, and of his own 
 fine personal appearance. He was utterly 
 devoid of embarrassment, and his perfect self- 
 assurance and freedom from any timidity or 
 
niS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 25 
 
 sense of inferiority left his manner without the 
 least tinge oi awkwardness, and gave clear 
 ground for his talents and ambition to make 
 their mark. 
 
 However, hardworking and devoted to his 
 profession though he was, he had the true 
 family restlessness and craving for excitement, 
 and soon after he was admitted to the bar, he 
 began to long for foreign travel, as was natural 
 enough in a young provincial gentleman of his 
 breeding and education. In a letter to an 
 old friend (William Smith, a man of learning, 
 the historian of the colony, and afterwards its 
 chief justice), in whose office he had studied 
 law, he asks advice in the matter, and gives 
 as his reasons for wishing to make the trip 
 the desire " to form my manners and address 
 by the example of the truly polite, to rub off 
 in the gay circle a few of the many barbarisms 
 which characterize a provincial education, and 
 to curb the vain self-sufficiency which arises 
 from comparing ourselves with companions who 
 are inferior to us." He then anticipates the 
 objections that may be made on the score of 
 the temptations to which he will be exposed 
 by saying : " If it be allowed that I have a 
 taste for pleasure, it may naturally follow that 
 I shall avoid those low pleasures which abound 
 on this as well as on the other side of the At- 
 
26 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 lantic. As for these poignant joys which are 
 the lot of the affluent, like Tantalus I may grasp 
 at them, but they will certainly be out of my 
 reach." In this last sentence he touches on his 
 narrow means ; and it was on this point that 
 his old preceptor harped in making his reply, 
 cunningly instilling into his mind the danger 
 of neglecting his business, and bringing up the 
 appalling example of an " Uncle Robin," who, 
 having made three pleasure trips to England, 
 " began to figure with thirty thousand pounds, 
 and did not leave five thousand ; " going on 
 " What ! ' Virtus post nummos ? Curse on in- 
 glorious wealth ? ' Spare your indignation. I, 
 too, detest the ignorant miser ; but both virtue 
 and ambition abhor poverty, or they are mad. 
 Rather imitate your grandfather [who had 
 stayed in America and prospered] than your 
 uncle." 
 
 The advice may have had its effect ; at any 
 rate Morris stayed at home, and, with an occa- 
 sional trip to Philadelphia, got all he could out 
 of the society of New York, which, little pro- 
 vincial seaport though it was, was yet a gay 
 place, gayer then than any other American city 
 save Charleston, the society consisting of the 
 higher crown officials, the rich merchants, and 
 the great landed proprietors. Into this society 
 Morris, a handsome, high-bred young fellow, 
 
HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 27 
 
 of easy manners and far from puritanical 
 morals, plunged with a will, his caustic wit 
 and rather Brusque self-assertion making him 
 both admired and feared. He enjoyed it all 
 to the full, and in his bright, chatty letters to 
 his friends pictures himself as w^orking hard, 
 but gay enough also : " up all night — balls, 
 concerts, assemblies — all of us mad in the 
 pursuit of pleasure." 
 
 But the Revolution was at hand ; and both 
 pleasure and office-work had to give way to 
 something more important. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION: MOR- 
 RIS IN THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS.' 
 
 During tlie years immediately preceding 
 the outbreak of the Revolution, almost all 
 people were utterly in the dark as to what 
 their future conduct should be. No respon- 
 sible leader thought seriously of separation 
 from the mother country, and the bulk of the 
 population were still farther from supposing 
 such an event to be possible. Indeed it must 
 be remembered that all through the Revolu- 
 tionary War not only was there a minority 
 actively favorable to the royal cause, but there 
 was also a minority — so large that, added to 
 the preceding, it has been doubted whether it 
 was not a majoritj^ — that was but lukewarm in 
 its devotion to the American side, and was kept 
 even moderately patriotic almost as much by 
 the excesses of the British troops and blunders 
 of the British generals and ministers, as by the 
 valor of our own soldiers, or the skill of our 
 own statesmen. We can now see clearly that 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 29 
 
 the right of the matter was with the patriotic 
 party ; and \t was a great thing for the whole 
 English-speaking race that that section of it 
 which was destined to be the most numerous 
 and powerful should not be cramped and fet- 
 tered by the peculiarly galling shackles of 
 provincial dependency ; but all this was not 
 by any means so clear then as now, and some 
 of our best citizens thought themselves in honor 
 bound to take the opposite side, — though of ne- 
 cessity those among our most high-minded men, 
 who were also far-sighted enough to see the true 
 nature of the struggle, went with the patriots. 
 
 That the loyalists of 1776 were wrong is 
 beyond question ; but it is equally beyond 
 question that they had greater grounds for 
 believing themselves right than had the men 
 who tried to break up the Union three quarters 
 of a century later. That these latter had the 
 most hearty faith in the justice of their cause 
 need not be doubted ; and he is but a poor 
 American whose veins do not thrill with pride 
 as he reads of the deeds of desperate prowess 
 done by the confederate armies ; but it is 
 most unfair to brand the " tory " of 1776 with 
 a shame no longer felt to pertain to the " rebel" 
 of 1860. Still, there is no doubt, not only that 
 the patriots were right, but also that they were 
 as a whole superior to the tories; they were 
 
30 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the men with a high ideal of freedom, too fond 
 of liberty, and too self-respecting, to submit to 
 foreign rule ; they included the mass of liard- 
 working, orderly, and yet high-spirited yeomen 
 and freeholders. The tories included those of 
 the gentry who were devoted to aristocratic 
 principles ; the large class of timid and pros- 
 perous people (like the Pennsylvania Quak- 
 ers) ; the many who feared above all things 
 disorder ; also the very lowest sections of the 
 community, the lazy, thriftless, and vicious, 
 who hated their progressive neighbors, as in 
 the Carolinas ; and finally the men who were 
 really principled in favor of a kingly govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Morris was at first no more sure of his sound- 
 ings than were the rest of his companions. 
 He was a gentleman of old family, and be- 
 longed to the ruling Episcopalian Church. He 
 was no friend to tyranny, and he was a 
 thorough American, but he had little faith in 
 extreme democracy. The Revolution had two 
 sides ; in the northern Atlantic States at least it 
 was almost as much an uprising of democracy 
 against aristocracy as it was a contest between 
 America and England ; and the patriotic Amer- 
 icans, who nevertheless distrusted ultra-demo- 
 cratic ideas, suffered many misgivings when 
 they let their love for their country overcome 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 31 
 
 their pride of caste. The " Sons of Liberty," 
 a semi-secret society originating among the 
 merchants, and very powerful in bringing dis- 
 content to a head, now showed signs of degen- 
 erating into a mob ; and for mobs Morris, like 
 other clear-headed men, felt the most profound 
 dislike and contempt. 
 
 Throughout 1774 he took little part in the 
 various commotions, which kept getting more 
 and more violent. He was angered by the 
 English encroachments, and yet was by no means 
 pleased with the measures taken to repel them. 
 The gentry, and the moderate men generally, 
 were at their wits' ends in trying to lead the 
 rest of the people, and were being pushed on 
 farther and farther all the time ; the leadership, 
 even of the revolutionary party, still rested in 
 their hands ; but it grew continually less abso- 
 lute. Said Morris : " The spirit of the English 
 constitution has yet a little influence left, and 
 but a little. The remains of it, however, will 
 give the wealthy people a superiority this time ; 
 but, would they secure it, they must banish all 
 schoolmasters and confine all knowledge to 
 themselves. . . . The gentry begin to fear this. 
 Their committee will be appointed; they will 
 deceive the people, and again forfeit a share of 
 their confidence. And if these instances of 
 what with one side is policy, with the other per- 
 
32 GOU VERNE UR MORRIS. 
 
 fid}^ shall continue to increase and become more 
 frequent, farewell, aristocrac}^ I see, and see 
 it with fear and trembling, that if the dispute 
 with Britain continues, we shall be under the 
 worst of all possible dominions ; we shall be 
 under tlie dominion of a riotous mob. It is 
 the interest of all men, therefore, to seek for 
 reunion with the parent state." He then goes 
 on to discuss the terms which will make this 
 reunion possible, and evidently draws ideas 
 from sources as diverse as Rousseau and Pitt, 
 stating, as preliminaries, that when men come 
 together in society, there must be an implied 
 contract that " a part of tbeir freedom shall be 
 given up for the security of the remainder. 
 But what part? The answer is plain. The 
 least possible, considering the circumstances 
 of the society, which constitute what may be 
 called its political necessity ; " and again : " In 
 every society the members have a right to the 
 utmost liberty that can be enjoyed consistent 
 with the general safety ; " while he proposes 
 the rather wild remedy of divorcing the taxing 
 and the governing powers, giving America the 
 right to lay her own imposts, and regulate her 
 internal police, and reserving to Great Britain 
 that to regulate the trade for the entire empire. 
 Naturally there was no hope of any com- 
 promise of this sort. The British ministry 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 33 
 
 grew more imperious, and the Colonies more 
 defiant. At last the clash came, and then 
 Morris's thorough Americanism and inborn 
 love of freedom and impatience of tyranny over- 
 came any lingering class jealousy, and he cast 
 in his lot with his countrymen. Once in, lie 
 was not of the stuff to waver or look back ; but 
 like most other Americans, and like almost all 
 New Yorkers, he could not for some little time 
 realize how hopeless it was to try to close the 
 breach with Great Britain. Hostilities had 
 gone on for quite a while before even Wash- 
 ington could bring himself to^^^b^jiave jthat a 
 lasting separation was ine^ 
 
 The Assembly, electee 
 vious chapter, at a moi 
 royalist in tone. It coto^ned several ^t^iic^i -^ 
 patriots, but the majority^^k«>(Ugh imwilling^^v 
 to back up the British ministers in all tlieir '^ 
 doings, were still more hostile to the growing 
 body of republican revolutionists. They 
 gradually grew wholly out of sympathy with 
 the people ; until the latter at last gave up all 
 attempts to act through their ordinary repre- 
 sentatives, and set about electing delegates who 
 should prove more faithful. Thereupon, in 
 April, 1775, the last colonial legislature ad- 
 journed for all time, and was replaced by suc- 
 cessive bodies more in touch with the general 
 
34 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 sentiment of New York ; that is, by various 
 committees, by a convention to elect delegates 
 to the Continental Congress, and then by the 
 Provincial Congress. The lists of names in 
 these bodies show not only how many leading 
 men certain families contributed, but also how 
 mixed the lineage of such families was ; for 
 among the numerous Jays, Livingstons, Lud- 
 lows, Van Cortlandts, Roosevelts, Beekmans, 
 and others of Dutch, English, and Huguenot 
 ancestry appear names as distinctly German, 
 Gaelic-Scotch, and Irish, like Hoffman, Mul- 
 ligan, MacDougall, Connor.^ 
 
 1 The habit of constantly importing indentured Irish ser- 
 vants, as well as German laborers, under contract, prevailed 
 throughout the colonies ; and the number of men thus im- 
 ported was quite sufficient to form a considerable element in 
 the population, and to add a new, although perhaps not very- 
 valuable, strain to our already mixed blood. In taking up at 
 random the file of the New York Gazette for 1766, we find 
 among the advertisements many offering rewards for runaway 
 servants ; such as " three pounds for the runaway servant Con- 
 ner O'Rourke," " ten pounds for the runaway Irish servant, 
 Philip Maginnis," " five pounds apiece for certain runaway 
 German miners — Bruderlein, Baum.Ostmann, etc. — imported 
 under contract ; " all this mixed in with advertisements of 
 rewards of about the same money value for" the mulatto man 
 named Tom," or the " negroes Nero and Pompey." Still, in 
 speaking of the revolutionary armies, the word " Irish " must 
 almost always be understood as meaning Presbyterian Irish ; 
 the Catholic Irish had but little hand in the war, and that little 
 was limited to furnishing soldiers to some of the British 
 regiments. The Presbyterian Irish, however, in the revolu- 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 35 
 
 To the Provincial Congress, from thenceforth 
 on the regular governmental body of the col- 
 ony, eighty-one delegates were elected, includ- 
 ing Gouverneur Morris from the county of 
 Westchester, and seventy were present at the 
 first meeting, which took place on May 22 at 
 New York. The voting in the Congress was 
 done by counties, each being alloted a certain 
 number of votes roughly approximating to its 
 population. 
 
 Lexington had been fought, and the war had 
 already begun in Massachusetts ; but in New 
 York, though it was ablaze with sympathy for 
 the insurgent New Englanders, the royal author- 
 ity was still nominally unquestioned, and there 
 had been no collision with the British troops. 
 Few, if any, of the people of the colony as.yet 
 aimed at more than a redress of their grievances^ 
 and the restoration of their rights and liberties ; 
 they had still no idea of cutting loose from 
 Great Britain. Even such an avowedly popular 
 and revolutionary body as the Provincial Con- 
 gress contained some few out and out tories and 
 
 tionary armies, played a part as manful and valiant as, and 
 even more important than, that taken by the Catholic Irish 
 .soldiers Avho served so bravely during the great contest be- 
 tween the North and South. The few free Catholic Irish 
 already in America in 177G were for the most part heartily 
 loyal ; but they were not numerous enough to be of the least 
 consequence. 
 
36 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 very man}^ representatives of that timid, waver- 
 ing class, which always halts midway in any 
 course of action, and is ever prone to adopt half- 
 measures, — a class which in any crisis works 
 quite as much harm as the actively vicious, and 
 is almost as much hated and even more despised 
 by the energetic men of strong convictions. The 
 timid good are never an element of strength 
 in a community; but they have always been 
 well represented in New York. During the 
 Revolutionary War it is not probable that 
 much more than half of her people were ever 
 in really hearty and active sympathy with the 
 patriots. 
 
 Morris at once took a prominent place in the 
 Congress, and he showed the national bent of 
 his mind wheu he seconded a resolution to the 
 effect that implicit obedience ought to be ren- 
 dered to the Continental Congress in all mat- 
 ters pertaining to the general regulation of the 
 associated colonies. The Assembly, how^ever, 
 was by no means certain how far it would be 
 well to go ; and the majority declined either to 
 approve or disapprove of the proceedings of the 
 late Continental Congress. They agreed to sub- 
 scribe to the association, and recommended the 
 same course to their constituents ; but added 
 that they did not believe the latter should be 
 forced to do so. 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE RF.VOLUTION. 37 
 
 Still, with all their doubting and faint-heart- 
 edness, they did set about preparing for resist- 
 ance, and for at least the possibility of con- 
 certed action with the other colonies. The first 
 step, of course, was to provide for raising funds ; 
 this was considered by a committee of which 
 Morris was a member, and he prepared and 
 drew up their report. In the state of public 
 feeling, which was nearly a unit against " tax- 
 ation without representation " abroad, but was 
 the reverse of unanimous as to submitting even 
 to taxation with representation at home, it was 
 impossible to raise money by the ordinary 
 method ; indeed, though the mass of active pa- 
 triots were willing to sacrifice much, perhaps 
 all, for the cause, yet there were quite as many 
 citizens whose patriotism was lukewarm enougli 
 already, and could not stand any additional 
 chilling. Such people are always willing to 
 face what may be called a staved-off sacrifice, 
 however; and promises to pay in the future what 
 they can, but will not pay in the present, come 
 under this head. Besides, there would have 
 been other difficulties in the way, and in fact it 
 was impossible to raise the amount needed by 
 direct taxation. Accordingly Morris, in his re- 
 port on behalf of the committee, recommended 
 an issue of paper money, and advised that this 
 should not be done by the colony itself, but that 
 
38 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the Continental Congress should strike the 
 whole sum needed, and apportion the several 
 shares to the different colonies, each of them 
 being bound to discharge its own particular 
 part, and all together to be liable for whatever 
 any particular colony was unable to pay. This 
 plan secured a wide credit and circulation to 
 the currency, and, what was equally desirable, 
 created throughout the colonies a common in- 
 terest and common responsibility on a most im- 
 portant point, and greatly strengthened the 
 bonds of their union. Morris even thus early 
 showed the breadth of his fnr-seeing patriotism; 
 he was emphatically an American first, a New 
 Yorker next ; the whole tone of his mind was 
 thoroughly national.. He took the chief part 
 in urging tlie adoption of the report, and made 
 a most telling speech in its favor before the 
 Assembly, a mixed audience of the prominent 
 men of the colony being also present. The 
 report was adopted and forwarded to the Con- 
 tinental Congress ; Morris was felt on all sides 
 to have already taken his place among the lead- 
 ers, and from thenceforth he was placed on al- 
 most every important committee of the Pro- 
 vincial Congress. 
 
 This body kept on its course, corresponding 
 with the other colonies, exchanging thinly 
 veiled threats with the Johnsons, the powerful 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 39 
 
 Tory over-lords of the upper Mohawk, and pre- 
 paring rather feebly for defense, being ham- 
 pered by a total lack of funds or credit until 
 the continental currency was coined. But they 
 especially busied themselves with a plan of 
 reconciliation with England ; and in fact VP'ere 
 so very cautious and moderate as to be re- 
 proached by their chosen agent in England, 
 Edmund Burke, for their "scrupulous timidity." 
 The Congress, by the way, showed some symp- 
 toms of an advance in toleration, at least so far 
 as the Protestant sects went ; for it was opened 
 and closed by ministers of the Episcopalian, 
 Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, and 
 other sects, each in turn ; but, as will shortly 
 be seen, the feeling against Catholics was quite 
 as narrow-minded and intense as ever. This 
 was natural enough in colonial days, when 
 Protestantism and national patriotism were 
 almost interchangeable terms ; for the heredi- 
 tary and embittered foes of the Americans, the 
 French and Spaniards, were all Catholics, and 
 even many of the Indians were of the same 
 faith ; and undoubtedly the wonderful increase 
 in the spirit of tolerance shown after the Revo- 
 lution was due in part to the change of the 
 Catholic French into our allies, and of the Pro- 
 testant English into onr most active foes. It 
 must be remembered, however, that the Catholic 
 
40 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 gentry of Maryland played the same part in 
 the Revolution that their Protestant neighbors 
 did. One of the famous Carroll family was 
 among the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence ; and on the other hand, one of the 
 Cliftons was a noted loyalist leader. 
 
 Morris took a prominent part, both in and 
 out of committee, in trying to shape the plan 
 of reconciliation, although utterly disapprov- 
 ing of many of the ways in which the subject 
 was handled; for he had all the contempt 
 natural to most young men of brains, decision, 
 and fiery temper, for his timid, short-sighted, 
 and prolix colleagues. The report was not all 
 to his taste in the final shape in which it was 
 adopted. It consisted of a series of articles 
 recommending the repeal of the obnoxious 
 statutes of the Imperial Parliament, the reg- 
 ulation of trade for the benefit of the whole 
 empire, the establishment of triennial colonial 
 legislatures, and also asserting the right of the 
 colonies to manage their internal polity to 
 suit themselves, and their willingness to do 
 their part, according to their capacities, for the 
 general defense of the empii-e. The eighth ar- 
 ticle contained a denial of the right of " Great 
 Britain, or any other earthly legislature or 
 tribunal, to interfere in the ecclesiastical or 
 religious concerns of the colonies," together 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 41 
 
 with a" protest against the indulgence and es- 
 tablisbment of popery all along their interior 
 confines ; " this being called forth by what was 
 known as the " Quebec Bill," whereby the 
 British Parliament had recently granted extraor- 
 dinary powers and privileges to the Canadian 
 clergy, with the obvious purpose of conciliating 
 that powerful priesthood, and thereby convert- 
 ing — as was actually done — the recently con- 
 quered French of the St. Lawrence valley into 
 efficient allies of the British government against 
 the old Protestant colonies. 
 
 This eightli article was ridiculous, and was 
 especially objected to by Morris. In one of his 
 vigorous, deliciously fresh, and humorous letters, 
 dated June 30, 1775, and addressed to John 
 Jay, then in the Continental Congress, ^h^ 
 writes : — ^^ 
 
 The foolish religious business I opposed until I was 
 weary ; it was carried by a very small majority, and 
 my dissent entered. . . . The article about religion 
 is most arrant nonsense, and would do as well in a 
 high Dutch Bible as the place it now stands in. 
 
 I drew a long report for our committee, to which 
 they could make no objections excepting that none of 
 them could understand it. ... I was pleased at the 
 rejection, because, as I observed to you before, I think 
 the question ought to be simplified. 
 
 I address this letter to you, but I shall be glad [if] 
 
42 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 you will read it to Livingstone, for I intend it for 
 both of you ; make my compliments to him, and tell 
 him that I shall write to him when I have time to 
 write a good letter — this is a damned bad one, and 
 would not exist, if I did not think it a duty to my- 
 self to show my friends that I had no hand in that 
 foolish religious business, I am, as you well know, 
 your friend, etc. 
 
 Morris did not believe in a colonial assem- 
 bly making overtures for a reconciliation, as he 
 thought this was the province of the Continen- 
 tal Congress. The majority was against him, 
 but he was a clever politician and parliamen- 
 tary tactician, as well as a great statesman, and 
 he fairly outwitted and hoodwinked his oppo- 
 nents, persuading them finally to adopt the re- 
 port in the form of a mere expression of opinions 
 to be sent to their congressional delegates, with 
 a prayer that the latter would '' use every effort 
 for the compromising of this unnatural quarrel 
 between the parent and child." In this shape it 
 was forwarded to the delegates, who answered 
 that they would do all in their power to com- 
 promise the quarrel, and added a postscript, 
 written by Jay himself, to the effect that they 
 deemed it better not to make any mention of 
 the religious article before the Congress, as 
 they thought it wise to bury " all disputes on 
 ecclesiastical points, which have for ages had 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 43 
 
 no other tendency than that of banishing peace 
 and charity from the world." 
 
 While all this was pending, and though 
 Bunker Hill had been fought, and the war was 
 in full progress round Boston, New York yet 
 maintained what might almost be described as 
 an attitude of armed neutrality. The city was 
 so exposed to the British war-ships in the bay, 
 and the surrounding population was so doubt- 
 ful, that the patriot party dared not take the 
 deciding steps, especially as so many of its 
 members still clung to the hope of a peaceful 
 settlement. Morris announced frankly that he 
 did not believe in breaking the peace until they 
 were prepared to take the consequences. In- 
 deed, when the few British troops left the city to 
 join the garrison in Boston, he strongly opposed 
 the action of the Sons of Liberty, who gathered 
 hastily together, and took away the cartloads 
 of arms and ammunition that the soldiers were 
 taking with them. The Congress, to their 
 honor, discouraged, to the best of their power, 
 the rioting and mobbing of Tories in the city. 
 
 In fact. New York's position was somewhat 
 like that of Kentucky at the outbreak of the 
 Civil War. Her backwardness in definitely 
 throwing in her lot with the revolutionists 
 was clearly brought out by a rather ludicrous 
 incident. General Washington, on his way 
 
44 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, 
 
 to take command of the continental army 
 round Boston, passed through New York the 
 same day the royal governor, Tryon, arrived 
 by sea, and the authorities were cast into a 
 great quandary as to how they should treat two 
 such kings of Brentford when the one rose was 
 so small. Finally they compromised by send- 
 ing a guard of honor to attend each ; Mont- 
 gomery and Morris, as delegates from the 
 Assembly, received Washington and brought 
 him before that bod}^, which addressed him in 
 terms of cordial congratulation, but ended with 
 a noteworthy phrase, — that " when the con- 
 test should be decided by an accommodation 
 w^ith the mother country, he should deliver up 
 the important deposit that had been confided 
 to his hands." 
 
 These words give us the key to the situation. 
 Even the patriots of the colony could not re- 
 alize that there was no hope of an " accommo- 
 dation " ; and they were hampered at every 
 step by the fear of the British frigates, and of 
 the numerous Tories. The latter were very bold 
 and defiant ; when Congress tried to disarm 
 them, they banded themselves together, bade 
 the authorities defiance, and plainly held the 
 upper land on Staten Island and in Queens 
 County. New York furnished many excellent 
 soldiers to the roj^al armies during the war, and 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 45 
 
 from among her gentry came the most famous 
 of the Tory leaders, — such as Johnson and 
 De Lancey, whose prowess was felt by the hap- 
 less people of their own native province ; De 
 Peyster, who was Ferguson's second in command 
 at King's Mountain ; and Cruger, who, in the 
 Carolinas, inflicted a check upon Greene him- 
 self. The Tories were helped also by the jeal- 
 ousy felt towards some of the other colonies, 
 especially Connecticut, whose people took the 
 worst possible course for the patriot side by 
 threatening to " crush down " New York, and 
 by finally furnishing an armed and mounted 
 mob which rode suddenly into the city, and 
 wrecked the office of an obnoxious loyalist 
 printer named Kivington. This last proceed- 
 ing caused great indignation, and nearly made 
 a split in the revolutionary camp. 
 
 New York had thus some cause for her in- 
 action ; nevertheless, her lack of boldness and 
 decision were not creditable to her, and she laid 
 herself open to just reproaches. Nor can 
 Morris himself be altogether freed from the 
 charge of having clung too long to the hope 
 of a reconciliation and to a policy of half 
 measures. He was at that time chairman of 
 a legislative committee which denounced any 
 projected invasion of Canada (therein, how- 
 ever, only following the example of the Con' 
 
46 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 m 
 
 tinental Congress), and refused to allow Ethan 
 Allen to undertake one, as that adventurous 
 partisan chieftain requested. But Morris was 
 too clear-sighted to occupy a doubtful position 
 long ; and he now began to see things clearly 
 as they were, and to push his slower or more 
 timid associates forward along the path which 
 they had set out to tread. He was instrumen- 
 tal in getting the militia into somewhat better 
 sbape; and, as it was found impossible to get 
 enough continental money, a colonial paper 
 currency was issued. In spite of the quarrel 
 with Connecticut, a force from that province 
 moved in to take part in the defense of New 
 York. 
 
 Yet, in the main, the policy of the New York 
 Congress still continued both weak and change- 
 able, and no improvement was effected when it 
 was dissolved and a second elected. To this 
 body the loyalist counties of Richmond and 
 Queens refused to return delegates, and through- 
 out the colony affairs grew more disorderly, and 
 the administration of justice came nearly to a 
 standstill. Finding that the local congress 
 seemed likely to remain unable to make up 
 its mind how to act, the continental leaders at 
 last took matters into their own hands, and 
 marched a force into New York city early in 
 February, 1776. This had a most bracing 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 47 
 
 effect upon the provincial authorities ; yet they 
 still continued to allow the British war-ships in 
 the bay to be supplied with provisions, nor was 
 this attitude altered until in April Washington 
 arrived with the main continental army. He 
 at once insisted that a final break should be 
 made ; and about the same time the third Pro- 
 vincial Congress was elected. Morris, again 
 returned for Westchester, headed the bolder 
 spirits, who had now decided that the time had 
 come to force their associates out of their wa- 
 vering course, and to make them definitely cast 
 in their lot with their fellow A mericans. Things 
 had come to a point which made a decision 
 necessary ; the gathering of the continental 
 forces on Manhattan Island and the threaten- 
 ing attitude of the British fleet and army made 
 it impossible for even the most timid to keep 
 on lingering in a state of uncertainty. So the 
 Declaration of Independence was ratified, and 
 a state constitution organized ; then the die was 
 cast, and thereafter New York manfully stood 
 by the result of the throw. 
 
 The two Provincial Congresses that decided 
 on this course held their sessions in a time of 
 the greatest tumult, when New York was 
 threatened hourly by the British ; and long 
 before their work was ended they had hastily to 
 leave the city. Before describing what they 
 
48 GOUVERNFMR MORRIS. 
 
 did, a glance should be taken at the circum- 
 stances under which it was done. 
 
 The peaceable citizens, especially those with 
 any property, gradually left New York ; and 
 it remained in possession of the raw levies of 
 the continentals, while Staten Island received 
 Howe with open arms, and he was enabled 
 without difficulty to disembark his great force 
 of British and German mercenaries on Long 
 Island. The much smaller, motley force op- 
 posed to him, unorganized, ill armed, and led 
 by utterly inexperienced men, was beaten, with 
 hardly an effort, in the battle that followed, and 
 only escaped annihilation through the skill of 
 Washington and the supine blundering of 
 Howe. Then it was whipped up the Hudson 
 and beyond the borders of the State, the broken 
 remnant fleeing across New Jersey ; and though 
 the brilliant feats of arms at Trenton and 
 Princeton enabled the Americans to reconquer 
 the latter province, southern New York lay 
 under the heel of the British till the close of 
 the war. 
 
 Thus Morris, Jay, and the other New York 
 leaders were obliged for six years to hold up 
 their cause in a half-conquered State, a very 
 large proportion of whose population was luke- 
 warm or hostile. The odds were heavy against 
 the patriots, because their worst foes were those 
 
TEE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 49 
 
 of their own household. English writers are 
 fond of insisting upon the alleged fact that 
 America only won her freedom by the help of 
 foreign nations. Such help was certainly most 
 important, but, on the other hand, it must be 
 remembered that during the first and vital years 
 of the contest the revolutionary colonists had to 
 struggle unaided against the British,their mercen- 
 ary German and Indian allies, Tories, and even 
 French Canadians. When the French court 
 declared in our favor the worst was already 
 over ; Trenton had been won, Burgoyne had 
 been captured, and Valley Forge was a memory 
 of the past. 
 
 We did not owe our main disasters to the 
 might of our foes, nor our final triumph to 
 the help of our friends. It was on our own 
 strength that we had to rely, and it was with 
 our own folly and weakness that we had to 
 contend. The revolutionary leaders can never 
 be too highly praised ; but taken in bulk the 
 Americans of the last quarter of the eighteenth 
 century do not compare to advantage with the 
 Americans of the third quarter of the nineteenth. 
 In our Civil War it was the people who pressed 
 on the leaders, and won almost as much in spite 
 of as because of them ; but the leaders of the 
 Revolution had to goad the rank and file into 
 line. They were forced to contend not only 
 
50 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 with the active hostility of the Tories, but with 
 the passive neutrality of the indifferent, and 
 the selfishness, jealousy, and short-sightedness 
 of the patriotic. Had the Americans of 1776 
 been united, and had they possessed the stub- 
 born, unyielding tenacity and high devotion to 
 an ideal shown by the North, or the heroic con- 
 stancy and matchless valor shown by the South, 
 in the Civil War, the British would have been 
 driven off the continent before three years 
 were over. 
 
 It is probable that nearly as great a propor- 
 tion of our own people were actively or pas- 
 sively opposed to the formation of our union 
 originally as were in favor of its dissolution in 
 1860. This was one of the main reasons why 
 the war dragged on so long. It may be seen 
 by the fact, among others, that when in the 
 Carolinas and Georgia a system of relentless 
 and undying partisan warfare not only crushed 
 the Tories, but literally destroyed them from off 
 the face of the earth, then the British, though 
 still victorious in almost every pitched battle, 
 were at once forced to abandon the field. 
 
 Another reason was the inferior military 
 capacity of the revolutionary armies. The con- 
 tinental troops, when trained, were excellent; 
 but in almost every battle they were mixed 
 with more or less worthless militia; and of the 
 
THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 51 
 
 soldiers thus obtained all that can be said is 
 that their officers could never be sure that 
 they would fight, nor their enemies that they 
 would run away. The revolutionary troops 
 certainly fell short of the standard reached 
 by the volunteers who fought Shiloh and Get- 
 tysburg. The British rarely found them to be 
 such foes as they afterwards met at New Or- 
 leans and Lundy's Lane. Throughout the 
 Revolution the militia were invariably leaving 
 their posts at critical times ; they would grow 
 either homesick or dejected, and would then 
 go home at the very crisis of the campaign ; 
 they did not begin to show the stubbornness 
 and resolution to '' see the war through " so 
 common among their descendants in the con- 
 tending Federal and Confederate armies. ^^ 
 
 The truth is that in 1776 our main task was 
 to shape new political conditions, and then to 
 reconcile our people to them ; whereas in 1860 
 we had merely to fight fiercely for the preser- 
 vation of what was already ours. In the first 
 emergency we needed statesmen, and in the 
 second warriors ; and the statesmen and warriors 
 were forthcoming. A comparision of the men 
 who came to the front during these, the two 
 heroic periods of the Republic, brings out this 
 point clearl3^ 
 
 Washington, alike statesman, soldier, and 
 
52 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 patriot, stands alone. He was not only the 
 greatest American; lie was also one of the 
 greatest men the world has ever known. Few 
 centuries and few countries have ever seen his 
 like. Among the people of English stock there 
 is none to compare with him, unless perhaps 
 Cromwell, utterly different though the latter 
 was. Of Americans, Lincoln alone is worthy 
 to stand even second. 
 
 As for our other statesmen : Franklin, Hamil- 
 ton, Jefferson, Adams, and their fellows, most 
 surely stand far above Seward, Sumner, Chase, 
 Stanton, and Stevens, great as were the services 
 which these, and those like them, rendered. 
 
 But when we come to the fighting men, all this 
 is reversed. Asa mere military man Washing- 
 ton himself cannot rank with the wonderful 
 war-chief who for four years led the Army of 
 Northern Virginia ; and the names of Wash- 
 ington and Greene fill up the short list of 
 really good Revolutionary Generals. Against 
 these the Civil War shows a roll that contains 
 not only Lee, but also Grant and Sherman, 
 Jackson and Johnson, Thomas, Sheridan, and 
 Farragut, — leaders whose volunteer soldiers 
 and sailors, at the end of their four years* ser- 
 vice, were ready and more than able to match 
 themselves against the best regular forces of 
 Europe. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 INDEPENDENCE : FORMING THE STATE 
 CONSTITUTION. 
 
 The third Provincial Congress, which came 
 together in May, and before the close of its 
 sessions was obliged to adjourn to White Plains, 
 had to act on the Declaration of Independence, 
 and provide for the foundation of a new state 
 government. 
 
 Morris now put himself at the head of the 
 patriotic party, and opened the proceedings by 
 a long and very able speech in favor of adojit- 
 ing the recommendation of the Continental 
 Congress that the colonies should form new 
 governments. In his argument he went at 
 length into the history and growth of the dis- 
 pute with Great Britain, spoke of the efforts 
 made in the past for reconciliation, and then 
 showed clearly how such efforts were now not 
 only hopeless, but also no longer compatible 
 with the dignity and manhood of Americans. 
 He sneered at those who argued that we ought 
 to submit to Great Britain for the sake of the 
 
54 GO U VERNE UR MORRIS. 
 
 protection we got from her. " Great Britain 
 will not fail to bring us into a war with some 
 of her neighbors, and then protect us as a 
 lawyer defends a suit : the client paying for it. 
 This is quite in form, but a wise man would, I 
 think, get rid of the suit and the lawyer to- 
 gether. Again, how are we to be protected ? 
 If a descent is made upon our coasts and the 
 British navy and army are three thousand miles 
 off, we cannot receive very great benefit from 
 them on that occasion. If, to obviate this 
 inconvenience, we have an army and navy con- 
 stantly among us, who can say that we shall 
 not need a little protection against tliemf^'' He 
 went on to point out the hopelessness of expect- 
 ing Great Britain to keep to any terms which 
 would deprive Parliament of its supremacy over 
 America ; for no succeeding Parliament could 
 be held bound by the legislation of its prede- 
 cessor, and the very acknowledgment of British 
 supremacy on the part of the Americans would 
 bind them as subjects, and make the supremacy 
 of Parliament legitimate. He bade his hearers 
 remember the maxim " that no faith is to be 
 kept with rebels ; " and said : " In this case, or 
 in any other case, if we fancy ourselves hardly 
 dealt with, I maintain there is no redress but 
 by arms. For it never yet was known that, 
 when men assume power, they will part with it 
 again, unless by compulsion." 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 55 
 
 He then took up the subject of independence, 
 showed, for the benefit of the good but timid 
 men who were frightened at the mere title, 
 that, in all but name, it already existed in New 
 York, and proved that its maintenance was 
 essential to our well-being. "My argument, 
 therefore, stands thus : As a connection with 
 Great Britain cannot again exist without en- 
 slaving America, an independence is absolutely 
 necessary. I cannot balance between the two. 
 We run a hazard in one path, I confess ; but 
 then we are infallibly ruined if we pursue the 
 other. . . . We find the characteristic marks 
 and insignia of independence in this society, 
 considered in itself and compared with other 
 societies. The enumeration is conviction. Coin- 
 ing moneys, raising armies, regulating com- 
 merce, peace, war : all these things you are not 
 only adepts in, but masters of. Treaties alone 
 remain, and even those you have dabbled at. 
 Georgia you put under the ban of empire, and 
 received her upon repentance as a member of 
 the flock. Canada you are now treating with. 
 France and Spain you ought to treat with, and 
 the rest is but a name. I believe, sir, the Ro- 
 mans were as much governed, or rather op- 
 pressed, by their emperors, as ever any people 
 were by their king. But emperor was more 
 agreeable to their ears than king. [So] some, 
 
66 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 nay, many, persons in America dislike the word 
 independence." 
 
 He then went on to show how independence 
 would work well alike for our peace, liberty, and 
 security. Considering the first, he laughed at 
 the apprehensions expressed by some that tlie 
 moment America was independent all the powers 
 of Europe would pounce down on her, to parcel 
 out the country among themselves ; and showed 
 clearly that to a European power any war of 
 conquest in America would be " tedious, ex- 
 pensive, uncertain, and ruinous," and that none 
 of the country could be kept even if it should 
 come to pass that some little portion of it were 
 conquered. *'But I cannot think it will ever 
 come to this. For when I turn my eyes to the 
 means of defense, I find them amply sufficient. 
 We have all heard that in the last war America 
 was conquered in Germany. I hold the con- 
 verse of this to be true, namely, that in and 
 by America his Majesty's German dominions 
 were secured. ... I expect a full and lasting 
 defense against any and every part of the 
 earth." After thus treating of the advantages 
 to be hoped for on the score of peace, he turns 
 attention '' to a question of infinitely greater im- 
 portance, namely, the liberty of this country ; " 
 and afterwards passes to the matter of security, 
 which, "so long as the system of laws by which 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 67 
 
 we are now governed shall prevail, is amply pro- 
 vided for in every separate colony. There may 
 indeed arise an objection because some gentle- 
 men suppose that the different colonies will 
 carry on a sort of land piracy against one an- 
 other. But how this can possibly happen when 
 the idea of separate colonies no longer exists I 
 cannot for my soul comprehend. That some- 
 thing ver}^ like this has already been done I 
 shall not deny, but the reason is as evident as 
 the fact. We never yet had a government in 
 this country of sufficient energy to restrain the 
 lawless and indigent. Whenever a form of 
 government is established which deserves the 
 name, these insurrections must cease. But who 
 is the man so hardy as to affirm that they will 
 not grow with our growth, while on every occa- 
 sion we must resort to an English judicature 
 to terminate differences which the maxims of 
 policy will teach them to leave undetermined ? 
 By degrees we are getting beyond the utmost 
 pale of English government. Settlements are 
 forming to the westward of us, whose inhabi- 
 tants acknowledge no authority but their own." 
 In one sentence he showed rather a change of 
 heart, as regarded his former aristocratic lean- 
 ings ; for he reproached those who were " ap- 
 prehensive of losing a little consequence and 
 importance by living in a country where all 
 
58 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 are on an equal footing," and predicted that we 
 
 should " cause all nations to resort hither as an 
 asylum from oppression." 
 
 The speech was remarkable for its incisive 
 directness and boldness, for the exact clearness 
 with which it portrayed things as they were, 
 for the broad sense of American nationality 
 that it displayed, and for the accurate forecasts 
 that it contained as to our future course in cer- 
 tain particulars, — such as freedom from Euro- 
 pean wars and entanglements, a strong but 
 purely defensive foreign policy, the encourage- 
 ment of the growth of the West, while keeping 
 it united to us, and the throwing open our doors 
 to the oppressed from abroad. 
 
 Soon after the delivery of this speech news 
 came that the Declaration of Independence had 
 been adopted by the Continental Congress ; and 
 Jay, one of the New York delegates to this 
 body, and also a member of the Provincial 
 Congress, drew up for the latter a resolution 
 emphatically indorsing the declaration, which 
 was at once adopted without a dissenting voice. 
 At the same time the Provincial Congress 
 changed its name to that of " The Convention of 
 the Representatives of the State of New York." 
 
 These last acts were done by a body that had 
 been elected, with increased power, to succeed 
 the third Provincial Congress and provide for 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 59 
 
 a new constitution. Just before this, Morris had 
 been sent to the Continental Congress in Phila- 
 delphia to complain that the troops from New 
 England were paid more largely than those 
 from the other colonies ; a wrong which was at 
 once redressed, the wages of the latter being 
 raised, and Morris returned to New York in 
 triumph after only a week's absence. 
 
 The Constitutional Convention of New York 
 led a most checkered life ; for the victorious 
 British chevied it up and down the State, hunt- 
 ing it in turn from every small town in which 
 it thought to have found a peaceful haven of 
 refuge. At last it rested in Fiskhill, such an 
 out-of-the-way place as to be free from danger. 
 The members were obliged to go armed, so as 
 to protect themselves from stray marauding 
 parties; and the number of delegates in at- 
 tendance alternately dwindled and swelled in 
 a wonderful manner, now resolvinor themselves 
 into a committee of safety, and again resuming 
 their functions as members of the convention. 
 
 The most important duties of the convention 
 were intrusted to two committees. Of the first, 
 which was to draft a plan for the Constitution, 
 Morris, Jay, and Livingston were the three 
 leading members, upon whom all the work fell ; 
 of the second, which was to devise means for the 
 establishment of a state fund, Morris was the 
 chairman and moving spirit. 
 
60 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 He was also chairman of a committee which 
 was appointed to look after the Tories, and pre- 
 vent them from joining together and rising ; 
 and so numerous were they that the jails were 
 soon choked with those of their number who, 
 on account of their prominence or bitterness, 
 were most obnoxious to the patriots. Also a 
 partial S3^stem of confiscation of Tory estates 
 Avas begun. So greatly were the Tories feared 
 and hated, and so determined were the at- 
 tempts to deprive them of even the shadow of 
 a chance to do harm, by so much as a word, that 
 the convention sent a memorial, drafted by 
 Morris, to the Continental Congress, in which 
 they made the very futile suggestion that it 
 should take *' some measures for expunging 
 from the Book of Common Prayer such parts, 
 and discontinuing in the congregations of all 
 other denominations all such prayers, as inter- 
 fere with the interests of the American cause." 
 The resolution was not acted on ; but another 
 part of the memorial shows how the Church 
 of England men were standing by the mother 
 country, for it goes on to recite that *' the 
 enemies of America have taken great pains to 
 insinuate into the minds of the Episcopalians 
 that the church is in dangler. We could wish 
 the Congress would pass some resolve to quiet 
 their fears, and we are confident that it would 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 61 
 
 do essential service to the cause of America, at 
 least in this State." 
 
 Morris's position in regard to the Tories was 
 a peculiarly hard one, because among their 
 number were many of his own relatives, in- 
 cluding his elder brother. The family house, 
 where his mother resided, was within the 
 British lines ; and not only did he feel the dis- 
 approval of such of his people as were loyalists, 
 on the one side, but, on the other, his letters 
 to his family caused him to be regarded with 
 suspicion by the baser spirits in the American 
 party. About this time one of his sisters died ; 
 the letter he then wrote to his mother is in the 
 usual formal style of the time, yet it shows marks 
 of deep feeling, and he takes occasion, while 
 admitting that the result of the war was un- 
 certain, to avow, with a sternness unusua^fto 
 him, his intention to face all things rather than^ 
 abandon the patriot cause. "The worst that 
 can happen is to fall on the last bleak moun- 
 tain of America ; and he who dies there in 
 defense of the injured rights of mankind is 
 happier than his conqueror, more beloved by 
 mankind, more applauded by his own heart." 
 The letter closes by a characteristic touch, when 
 he sends his love to " such as deserve it. The 
 number is not great." 
 
 The committee on the constitution was not 
 
62 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ready to report until March, 1777. Then the 
 convention devoted itself solely to the considera- 
 tion of the report, which, after several weeks' 
 discussion, was adopted with very little change. 
 Jay and Morris led the debate before the 
 convention, as they had done previously in 
 committee. There was perfect agreement upon 
 the general principles. Freehold suffrage was 
 adopted, and a majority of the freeholders of the 
 State were thus the ultimate governing power. 
 The executive, judicial, and legislative powers 
 were separated sharply, as was done in the 
 other States, and later on in the Federal Con- 
 stitution as well. The legislative body was 
 divided into two chambers. 
 
 It was over the executive branch that the 
 main contest arose. It was conceded that this 
 should be nominally single headed ; that is, 
 that there should be a governor. But the 
 members generally could not realize how dif- 
 ferent was a governor elected by the people 
 and responsible to them, from one appointed by 
 an alien and higher power to rule over them, as 
 in the colonial days. The remembrance of the 
 contests with the royal governors was still fresh ; 
 and the mere name of governor frightened 
 them. They had the same illogical fear of the 
 executive that the demagogues of to-day (and 
 some honest but stupid people, as well) profess 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 63 
 
 to feel for a standing army. Men often let 
 the dread of the shadow of a dead wrong 
 frighten them into courting a living evil. 
 
 Morris himself was wonderfully clear-sighted 
 and cool-headed. He did not let the memory 
 of the wrong -doing of the royal governors 
 blind him ; he saw that the trouble with them 
 lay, not in the power that they held, but in the 
 source from which that power came. Once the 
 source was changed, the power was an advan- 
 tage, not a harm, to the State. Yet few or none 
 . of his companions could see this ; and they 
 nervously strove to save their new State from 
 the danger of executive usurpation by trying 
 to make the executive practically a board of 
 men instead of one man, and by crippling it so 
 as to make it ineffective for good, while at the 
 same time dividing the responsibility, so that 
 no one need be afraid to do evil. Above all, 
 they were anxious to take away from the gov- 
 ernor the appointment of the military and civil 
 servants of the State. 
 
 Morris had persuaded the committee to leave 
 the appointment of these officials to the gov- 
 ernor, the legislature retaining the power of 
 confirmation or rejection ; but the convention, 
 under the lead of Jay, rejected this proposi- 
 tion, and after some discussion adopted in its 
 place the cumbrous and foolish plan of a 
 
64 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 "council of appointment," to consist of the 
 governor and several senators. As might have 
 been expected, this artificial body worked noth- 
 ing but harm, and became simply a peculiarly 
 odious political machine. 
 
 Again, Morris advocated giving the governor 
 a qualified veto over the acts passed by the 
 legislature ; but instead of such a simple and 
 straightforward method of legislative revision, 
 the convention saw fit to adopt a companion 
 piece of foolishness to the council of appoint- 
 ment, in the shape of the equally complicated 
 and anomalous council of revision, consisting of 
 the governor, chancellor, and judges of the su- 
 preme court, by whom all the acts of the legis- 
 lature had to be revised before they could 
 become laws. It is marvelous that these two 
 bodies should have lived on so long as they did 
 — over forty years. 
 
 The convention did one most praiseworthy 
 thing in deciding in favor of complete religious 
 toleration. This seems natural enough now ; 
 but at that time there was hardly a European 
 state that practiced it. Great Britain harassed 
 her Catholic subjects in a hundred different 
 ways, while in France Protestants were treated 
 far worse, and, in fact, could scarcely be re- 
 garded as having any legal standing whatever. 
 On no other one point do the statesmen of the 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 65 
 
 Revolution show to more marked advantage 
 when compared with their European compeers 
 than in this of complete religious toleration. 
 Their position was taken, too, simply because 
 they deemed it to be the right and proper one ; 
 they had nothing to fear or hope from Catholics, 
 and their own interests were in no wise ad- 
 vanced by what they did in the matter. 
 
 But in the New York convention toleration 
 was not obtained without a fight. There al- 
 ways rankled in Jay's mind the memory of the 
 terrible cruelty wrought by Catholics on his 
 Huguenot forefathers ; and he introduced into 
 the article on toleration an appendix, which dis- 
 criminated against the adherents of the Church 
 of Rome, denying them the rights of citizen- 
 ship until they should solemnly swear before 
 the supreme court, firsfc, " that they verily be- 
 lieve in their conscience that no pope, priest, or 
 foreign authority on earth has power to absolve 
 the subjects of this State from their allegiance 
 to the same ; " and, second, " that they renounce 
 . . . the dangerous and damnable doctrine that 
 the Pope or any other earthly authority has 
 power to absolve men from sins described in 
 and prohibited by the Holy Gospel." This 
 second point, however important, was of purely 
 theological interest, and had absolutely nothing 
 to do with the state constitution ; as to the 
 5 
 
Q6 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 first proposition, it might have been proper 
 enough had there been the least chance of a 
 conflict between the Pope, either in his temporal 
 or his ecclesiastical capacity, and the United 
 States ; but as there was no possibility of such 
 a conflict arising, and as, if it did arise, there \ 
 
 would not be the slightest danger of the United ■ 
 
 States receiving any damage, to put the sen- 
 tence in would have been not only useless, but 
 exceedingly foolish and harmful, on account of 
 the intense irritation it would have excited. • 
 
 The whole clause was rejected by a two to 
 one vote, and then all the good that it aimed 
 at was accomplished by the adoption, on the 
 motion of Morris, of a proviso that the tolera- » 
 
 tion granted should not be held to " justify ^ 
 
 practices inconsistent with the peace and safety ^ 
 
 of this State." This proviso of Morris re- 
 mains in the Constitution to this day ; and thus, 
 while absolute religious liberty is guaranteed, 
 the State reserves to itself full right of protec- 
 tion, if necessary, against the adherents of any 
 religious body, foreign or domestic, if they 
 menace the public safety. 
 
 On a question even more important than 
 religious toleration, namely, the abolition of 
 domestic slavery, Jay and Morris fought side 
 by side ; but though the more enlightened of 
 their fellow- members went with them, they 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 67 
 
 were a little too much in advance of the age, 
 and failed. They made every effort to have a 
 clause-introduced into the constitution recom- 
 mending to the future legislature of New York 
 to abolish slavery as soon as it could be done 
 consistently vrith the public safety and the 
 rights of property; "so that in future ages every 
 human being who breathes the air of this State 
 shall enjoy the privileges of a free man." Al- 
 though they failed in their immediate purpose, 
 yet they had much hearty support, and by the 
 bold stand they took and the high ground they 
 occupied they undoubtedly brought nearer the 
 period when the abolition of slavery in New 
 York became practicable. 
 
 The Constitution was finally adopted by the 
 convention almost unanimously, and went into 
 effect forthwith, as there was no ratificatioa by 
 the people at large. 
 
 As soon as it was adopted a committee, which 
 included Morris, Jay, and Livingston, was ap- 
 pointed to start and organize the new govern- 
 ment. The courts of justice were speedily put 
 in running order, and thus one of the most cry- 
 ing evils that affected the State was remedied. 
 A council of safety of fifteen members — again 
 including Morris — was established to act as 
 the provincial government, until the regular 
 legislature should convene. An election for 
 
68 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 governor was also held almost immediately, 
 and Clinton was chosen. He was then serving 
 in the field, where he had done good work, and, 
 together with his brother James, had fought 
 with the stubborn valor that seems to go with 
 Anglo-Irish blood. He did not give up his 
 command until several months after he was 
 elected, although meanwhile keeping up con- 
 stant communication with the council of safety, 
 through whom he acted in matters of state. 
 
 Meanwhile Burgoyne, with his eight or nine 
 thousand troops, excellently drilled British 
 and Hessians, assisted by Tories, Canadians, 
 and Indians, had crossed the northern frontier, 
 and was moving down towards the heart of 
 the already disorganized State, exciting the 
 wildest panic and confusion. The council of 
 safety hardly knew how to act, and finally sent 
 a committee of two, Morris being one, to the 
 headquarters of General Schuyler, who had the 
 supreme command over all the troops in the 
 northern part of New York. 
 
 On Morris's arrival he found affairs at a very 
 low ebb, and at once wrote to describe this con- 
 dition to the president of the council of safety. 
 Burgoyne's army had come steadily on. He 
 first destroyed Arnold's flotilla on Lake Cham- 
 plain. Then he captured the forts along the 
 Lakes, and utterly wrecked the division of the 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 69 
 
 American army that bad been told off to defend 
 tbem, under the very unfortunate General St. 
 Clair. "He was now advancing tbrough tbe great 
 readies of wooded wilderness towards the head 
 of tbe Hudson. Schuyler, a general of fair 
 capacity, was doing what he could to bold tbe 
 enemy back ; but bis one efficient supporter was 
 tbe wilderness itself, through which the British 
 army stumbled painfully along. Schuyler had 
 in all less than five thousand men, half of them 
 short service continental troops, tbe other half 
 militia. Tbe farmers would not turn out until 
 after harvest home ; all the bodies of militia, 
 especially those from New England, were very 
 insubordinate and of most fickle temper, and 
 could not be depended on for any sustained 
 contest ; as an example. Stark, under whose 
 nominal command the northern New England- 
 ers won the battle of Bennington, actually 
 marched off bis whole force the day before the 
 battle of Stillwater, alleging the expiration of 
 tbe term of service of his soldiers as an excuse for 
 what looked like gross treachery or cowardice, 
 but was probably merely sheer selfish wrong- 
 headedness and mean jealousy. Along tbe Mo- 
 hawk valley the dismay was extreme, and tbe 
 militia could not be got out at all. Jay was so 
 angered by tbe abject terror in this quarter that 
 be advised leaving the inhabitants to shift for 
 
70 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 themselves ; sound advice, too, for when the 
 pinch c:ime and they were absolutely forced 
 to take arms, they did very fairly at Oriskany. 
 It was even feared that the settlers of the re- 
 gion which afterwards became Vermont would 
 go over to the enemy ; still, time and space were 
 in our favor, and Morris was quite right when 
 he said in his first letter (dated July 16, 1777) : 
 ''Upon the whole I think we shall do very 
 well, but this opinion is founded merely upon 
 the barriers which nature has raised against 
 all access from the northward." As he said of 
 himself, he was " a good guesser." 
 
 He outlined the plan which he thought the 
 Americans should follow. This was to harass 
 the British in every way, without risking a 
 stand-up fight, while laying waste the country 
 through which they were to pass so as to render 
 it impossible for an army to subsist on it. For 
 the militia he had the most hearty contempt, 
 writing : " Three hundred of the militia of 
 Massachusetts Bay went off this morning, in 
 spite of the opposition — we should have said, en- 
 treaties — of their officers. All the militia on the 
 ground are so heartily tired, and so extremely 
 desirous of getting home, that it is more than 
 probable that none of them will remain here 
 ten days longer. One half was discharged two 
 days ago, to silence, if possible, their clamor ; 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 71 
 
 and the remainder, ofl&cers excepted, will soon 
 discharge themselves." 
 
 The council of safety grew so nervous over the 
 outlook that their letters became fairly queru- 
 lous ; and they not unnaturally asked Morris to 
 include in his letters some paragraphs that could 
 be given to the public. To this that rather 
 quick-tempered gentleman took exceptions, and 
 replied caustically in his next letter, the open- 
 ing paragraph being : "We have received yours 
 of the 19th, which has afforded us great pleas- 
 ure, since we are enabled in some measure to 
 collect from it our errand to the northward, 
 one of the most important objects of our journey 
 being, in the opinion of your honorable body, 
 to write the news," and he closes by stating 
 that he shall come back to wait upon them, and^ 
 learn their pleasure, at once. C^ 
 
 Meanwhile the repeated disasters in the norths 
 had occasioned much clamor against Schuyler, 
 who, if not a brilliant general, had still done 
 what he could in very trying circumstances, 
 and was in no wise responsible for the various 
 mishaps that had occurred. The New England 
 members of Congress, always jealous of New 
 York, took advantage of this to begin intrigu- 
 ing against him, under the lead of Roger 
 Sherman and others, and finally brought about 
 his replacement by Gates, a much inferior man, 
 
72 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 with no capacity whatever for command. Mor- 
 ris and Jay both took up Schuyler's cause very 
 warmly, seeing cleail}^ in the first place, that 
 the disasters were far from ruinous, and that a 
 favorable outcome was probable; and, in the 
 second place, that it was the people themselves 
 who were to blame and not Schuyler. They 
 went on to Philadelphia to speak for him, but 
 they arrived just a day too late. Gates having 
 been appointed twenty-four hours previous to 
 their coming. 
 
 When Gates reached his army the luck had 
 already begun to turn. Burgoyne's outlying 
 parties had been destroyed, his Indians and 
 Canadians had left him, he had been disap- 
 pointed in his hopes of a Tory uprising in liis 
 favor, and, hampered by his baggage -train, he 
 had been brought almost to a stand-still in the 
 tangled wilds through which he had slowly 
 ploughed his way. Schuyler had done what he 
 could to hinder the foe's progress, and had kept 
 his own army together as a rallying point for 
 the militia, who, having gathered in their har- 
 vests, and being inspirited by the outcome of the 
 fights at Oriskany and Bennington, flocked in 
 by hundreds to the American standard. Gates 
 himself did literally nothing ; he rather hin- 
 dered his men than otherwise ; and the latter 
 were turbulent and prone to disobey orders. 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 73 
 
 But they were now in fine feather for fight- 
 ing, and there were plenty of them. So Gates 
 merely sat still, and the levy of backwoods 
 farmers, all good individual fighters, and with 
 some excellent brigade and regimental com- 
 manders, such as Arnold and Morgan, fairly 
 mobbed to death the smaller number of dispirited 
 and poorly led regulars against whom they were 
 pitted. When the latter were at last fought 
 out and forced to give in, Gates allowed them 
 much better terms than he should have done ; 
 and the Continental Congress, to its shame, 
 snatched at a technicality, under cover of which 
 to break the faith plighted through its general, 
 and to avoid fulfilling the conditions to which 
 he had so foolishly agreed. 
 
 Morris and Jay, though unable to secure the 
 retention of Schuyler, had, nevertheless, by their 
 representations while at Philadelphia, prevailed 
 on the authorities largely to reinforce the army 
 which was about to be put under Gates. Morris 
 was very angry at the intrigue by which the 
 latter had been given the command ; but what 
 he was especially aiming at was the success of 
 the cause, not the advancement of his friends. 
 Once Gates was appointed he did all in his 
 power to strengthen him, and, with his usual 
 clear-sightedness, he predicted his ultimate suc- 
 cess. 
 
74 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Schuyler was a man of high character and 
 public spirit, and he behaved really nobly in 
 the midst of his disappointment ; his conduct 
 throughout affording a very striking contrast to 
 that of McClellan, under somewhat similar cir- 
 cumstances in the Civil War. Morris wrote him, 
 sympathizing with him, and asking him to sink 
 all personal feeling and devote his energies to 
 the common weal of the country while out of 
 power just as strenuously as he had done when 
 in command. Schuyler responded that he 
 should continue to serve his country as zeal- 
 ously as before, and he made his words good ; 
 but Gates Avas jealous of the better man whose 
 downfall he had been the instrument of accom- 
 plishing, and declined to profit by his help. 
 
 In a later letter to Schuyler, written Sep- 
 tember 18, 1777, Morris praised the latter very 
 warmly for the way he had behaved, and com- 
 mented roughly on Gates' littleness of spirit. 
 He considered that with such a commander 
 there was nothing to be hoped for from skillful 
 management, and that Burgoyne would have to 
 be simply tired out. Alluding to a rumor that 
 the Indians were about to take up the hatchet 
 for us, he wrote, in the humorous vein he 
 adopted so often in dealing even with the most 
 pressing matters : " If this be true, it would be 
 infinitely better to wear away the enemy's army 
 
INDEPENDENCE. 75 
 
 by a scrupulous and polite attention, than to 
 violate the rules of decorum and the laws of 
 hospitality by making an attack upon strangers 
 in our own country ! " He gave Schuyler the 
 news of Washington's defeat at the battle of 
 Brandywine, and foretold the probable loss of 
 Philadelphia and a consequent winter campaign. 
 In ending he gave a thoroughly characteris- 
 tic sketch of the occupations of himself and his 
 colleagues. "The chief justice (Jay) is gone 
 to fetch his wife. The chancellor (Livingston) 
 is solacing himself with his wife, his farm, and 
 his imagination. Our senate is doing, I know 
 not what. In assembly we wrangle long to 
 little purpose. . . . We have some principles 
 of fermentation which must, if it be possible, 
 evaporate before business is entered upon." _^ 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGEESS. 
 
 At the end of 1777, while still but twenty- 
 five years old, Morris was elected to the Con- 
 tinental Congress, and took his seat in that 
 body at Yorktown in the following January. 
 
 He was immediately appointed as one of a 
 committee of five members to go to Washing- 
 ton's headquarters at Valley Forge and ex- 
 amine into the condition of the continental 
 troops. 
 
 The dreadful suffering of the American army 
 in this winter camp was such that its memory 
 has literally eaten its way into the hearts of 
 our people, and it comes before our minds with 
 a vividness that dims the remembrance of any 
 other disaster. Washington's gaunt, half- 
 starved continentals, shoeless and ragged, shiv- 
 ered in their crazy huts, worn out by want 
 and illness, and by the bitter cold ; while the 
 members of the Continental Congress not only 
 failed to support them in the present, but 
 even grudged them the poor gift of a promise 
 
7^- THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, 77 
 
 of half-pay in the future. Some of the del- 
 egates, headed by Samuel Adams, were actu- 
 ally caballing against the great chief himself, 
 the one hope of America. Meanwhile the 
 States looked askance at each other, and each 
 sunk into supine indifference when its own 
 borders were for the moment left unthreatened 
 by the foe. Throughout the Revolutionary 
 War our people hardly once pulled with a will 
 together ; although almost every locality in 
 turn, on some one occasion, varied its lethargy 
 by a spasm of terrible energy. Yet, again, it 
 must be remembered that we were never more 
 to be dreaded than when our last hope seemed 
 gone ; and if the people were unwilling to 
 show the wisdom and self-sacrifice that would 
 have insured success, they were equally deter- 
 mined under no circumstances whatever to ac- 
 knowledge final defeat. 
 
 To Jay, with whom he was always intimate, 
 Morris wrote in strong terms from Valley 
 Forge, painting things as they were, but with- 
 out a shadow of doubt or distrust ; for he by 
 this time saw clearly enough that in American 
 warfare the darkest hour was often followed 
 close indeed by dawn. "The skeleton of an 
 army presents itself to our eyes in a naked, 
 starving condition, out of health, out of spirits. 
 But I have seen Fort George in 1777." The 
 
78 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 last sentence refers to what he saw of Schuy- 
 ler's forces, when affairs in New York State 
 were at the blackest, just before the tide be- 
 gan to turn against Burgoyne. He then went 
 on to beseech Jay to exert himself to the ut- 
 most on the great question of taxation, the 
 most vital of all. Morris himself was so good a 
 financier that revolutionary financial economics 
 drove him almost wild. The Continental Con- 
 gress, of which he had just become a member, 
 he did not esteem very highl}?^, and dismissed 
 it, as well as the currency, as having '' both 
 depreciated." The State of Pennsylvania, he 
 remarked, was " sick unto death ; " and added 
 that " Sir William [the British general] would 
 prove a most damnable physician." 
 
 Most wisely, in examining and reporting, he 
 paid heed almost exclusively to Washington's 
 recommendations, and the plan he and his 
 colleagues produced was little more than an 
 enlargement of the general's suggestions as 
 to filling out the regiments, regulating rank, 
 modeling the various departments, etc. In fact, 
 Morris now devoted himself to securing the ap- 
 proval of Congress for Washington's various 
 plans. 
 
 In urging one of the most important of tliese 
 he encountered very determined opposition. 
 Washington was particularly desirous of secur- 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 79 
 
 ing a permanent provision for the officers by 
 the establishment of a system of half-pay, stat- 
 ing that without some such arrangement he 
 saw no hope whatever for the salvation of the 
 cause ; for as things then were the officers were 
 leaving day by day ; and of those who went 
 home on furlough to the Eastern and Southern 
 States, many, instead of returning, went into 
 some lucrative employment. This fact, by 
 the way, while showing the difficulties with 
 which Washington had to deal, and therefore 
 his greatness, since he successfully dealt with 
 them, at the same time puts the officers of the 
 Revolution in no ver}^ favorable light as com- 
 pared with their descendants at the tipie of 
 the great rebellion ; and the Continental Con- 
 gress makes a still worse showing. ^ ^^ 
 When Morris tried to push throughx^ 
 measure providing for half-pay for life he was 
 fought, tooth and *nail, by many of his col- 
 leagues, including, to their lasting discredit be 
 it said, every delegate from New England. 
 The folly of these ultra-democratic delegates 
 almost passes belief. They seemed incapable 
 of learning how the fight for liberty should be 
 made. Their leaders, like Samuel Adams and 
 John Hancock, did admirable service in excit- 
 ing the Americans to make the struggle ; but 
 once it was begun, their function ended, and 
 
80 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 from thence onward tliey hampered almost as 
 much as they helped the patriot cause. New 
 England, too, had passed through the period 
 when its patriotic f("rvor was at white heat. It 
 still remained as resolute as ever ; and if the 
 danger had been once more brought home to 
 its very door-sill, then it would have risen 
 again as it had risen before ; but without the 
 spur of an immediate necessity it moved but 
 sluggishly. 
 
 The New Englanders were joined by the 
 South Carolina delegates. Morris was backed 
 by the members from New York, Virginia, and 
 the other States, and he won the victory, but 
 not without being obliged to accept amend- 
 ments that took away some of the good of the 
 measure. Half-pay was granted, but it was only 
 to last for seven years after the close of the 
 war ; and the paltry bounty of eighty dollars 
 was to be given to every s(Jldier who served out 
 his time to the end. 
 
 At the same period Morris was engaged on 
 numerous other committees, dealing chiefly 
 with the finances, or with the remedy of abuses 
 that had crept into the administration of the 
 army. In one of his reports he exposed 
 thoroughly the frightful waste in the purchase 
 and distribution of supplies, and, what was 
 much worse, the accompanying frauds. These 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 81 
 
 frauds had become a most serious evil ; Jay, in 
 one of his letters to Morris, had already ur- 
 gently requested him to turn his attention es- 
 pecially to stopping the officers, in particular 
 those of the staff, from themselves engaging in 
 trade, on account of the jobbing and swindling 
 that it produced. The shoddy contractors of 
 the Civil War had plenty of predecessors in the 
 Revolution. 
 
 When these events occurred, in the spring of 
 1778, it was already three 3^ears after the fight 
 at Lexington ; certainly, the continental armies 
 of that time do not compare favorably, even 
 taking all difficulties into account, with the 
 Confederate forces which, in 1864, three years 
 after the fall of Sumter, fronted Grant and 
 Sherman. The men of the Revolution failed 
 to show the capacity to organize for fighting 
 purposes, and the ability to bend all energies 
 towards the attainment of a given end, which 
 their great-grandsons of the Civil War, both at 
 the North and the South, possessed. Yet, after 
 all, their very follies sprang from their virtues, 
 from their inborn love of freedom, and their 
 impatience of the control of outsiders. So 
 fierce had they been in their opposition to the 
 rule of foreigners that they were now hardly 
 willing to submit to being ruled by them- 
 selves ; they had seen power so abused that 
 
82 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 they feared its very use ; they were anxious to 
 assert their independence of all mankind, even 
 of each other. Stubborn, honest, and fearless, 
 they were taught with difl&culty, and only by 
 the grinding logic of an imperious necessity, 
 that it was no surrender of their freedom to 
 submit to rulers chosen by themselves, through 
 whom alone that freedom could be won. They 
 had not yet learned that right could be en- 
 forced only by might, that union was to the 
 full as important as libert}?, because it was the 
 prerequisite condition for the establishment 
 and preservation of liberty. 
 
 But if the Americans of the Revolution were 
 not perfect, how their faults dwindle when we 
 stand them side by side with their European 
 compeers ! What European nation then brought 
 forth rulers as wise and pure as our statesmen, 
 or masses as free and self-respecting as our 
 people ? There was far more swindling, jobbing, 
 cheating, and stealing in the English army than 
 in ours ; the British king and his ministers 
 need no criticism ; and the outcome of the war 
 proves that their nation as a whole was less 
 resolute than our own. As for the other Euro- 
 pean powers, the faults of our leaders sink out 
 of sight when matched against the ferocious 
 frivolity of the French noblesse, or the ignoble, 
 sordid, bloody baseness of those swinish German 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 83 
 
 kinglets who let out their subjects to do hired 
 murder, and battened on the blood and sweat 
 of the wretched beings under them, until the 
 whirlwind of the Frencli Revolution swept 
 their carcasses from off the world they cum- 
 bered. 
 
 We must needs give all honor to the men 
 who founded our Commonwealth ; only in so 
 doing let us remember that they brought into 
 being a government under which their children 
 were to grow better and not worse. 
 
 Washington at once recognized in Morris a 
 man whom he could trust in every way, and 
 on whose help he could rely in other matters 
 besides getting his officers half -pay. The 
 young New Yorker was one of the great Vir- 
 ginian's warmest supporters in Congress, aiid 
 took the lead in championing his cause at every 
 turn. He was the leader in putting down 
 intrigues like that of the French-Irish adven- 
 turer Conway, his ready tongue and knowl- 
 edge of parliamentary tactics, no less than his 
 ability, rendering him the especial dread and 
 dislike of the anti-Washington faction. 
 
 Washington wrote to Morris very free! 3^, and 
 in one of his letters complained of the conduct 
 of some of the officers who wished to resign 
 when affairs looked dark and to be reinstated 
 
84 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 as soon as they brightened a little. Morris 
 replied with one of his bright caustic letters, 
 sparing his associates very little, their pom- 
 pous tediousness and hesitation being peculiarly 
 galling to a man so far-seeing and so prompt to 
 make up liis mind. He wrote ; " We are going 
 on with the regimental arrangements as fast as 
 possible, and I think the day begins to appear 
 with respect to that business. Had our Saviour 
 addressed a chapter to the rulers of mankind, 
 as he did many to the subjects, I am persuaded 
 his good sense would have dictated this text : 
 Be not wise overmuch. Had the several mem- 
 bers who compose our multifarious body been 
 only wise enough^ our business would long since 
 have been completed. But our superior abili- 
 ties, or the desire of appearing to possess them, 
 lead us to such exquisite tediousness of debate 
 that the most precious moments pass unheeded 
 away. . . . As to what you mention of the 
 extraordinary demeanor of seme gentlemen, I 
 cannot but agree with you that such conduct 
 is not the most honorable. But, on the other 
 hand, you must allow that it is the most ^afe^ 
 and certainly you are not to learn that, how- 
 ever ignorant of that happy art in your own 
 person, the bulk of us bipeds know well how 
 to balance solid pudding against empty jiraise. 
 There are other things, my dear sir, beside 
 virtue, which are their own reward.'^ 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 85 
 
 Washington chose Morris as his confidential 
 friend and agent to bring privately before Con- 
 gress a matter in reference to which he did not 
 consider it politic to write publicly. He was 
 at that time annoyed beyond measure by the 
 shoals of foreign officers who were seeking em- 
 ployment in the army, and he wished Congress 
 to stop giving them admission to the service. 
 These foreign officers were sometimes honorable 
 men, but more often adventurers ; with two or 
 three striking exceptions they failed to do as 
 well as officers of native birth ; and, as later in 
 the Civil War, so in the Revolution, it appeared 
 that Americans could be best comimuuled by 
 Americans. Washington had the greatest dis- 
 like for these adventurers, stigmatizing them 
 as " men who in the first instance tell you that 
 they wish for nothing more than the honor of 
 serving in so glorious a cause as volunteers, the 
 next day solicit rank without pay, the day fol- 
 lowing want money advanced to them, and in 
 the course of a week want further promotion, 
 and are not satisfied with anything you can 
 do for them." He ended by writing : " I do 
 most devoutly wish that we had not a single 
 foreigner among us, except the Marquis *de 
 Lafayette, who acts upon very different princi- 
 ples from those which govern the rest." ^To 
 Lafayette, indeed, America owes as much as to 
 
86 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 any of her own children, for his devotion to us 
 was as disinterested and sincere as it was effec- 
 tive ; and it is a pleasant thing to remember 
 that we, in our turn, not only repaid hira 
 materially, but, what he valued far more, that 
 our whole people yielded him all his life long 
 the most loving homage a man could receive. 
 "No man ever kept pleasanter relations with a 
 people he had helped than Lafayette did with 
 
 us. y 
 
 Morris replied to Washington that he would 
 do all in his power to aid him. Meanwhile he 
 had also contracted a very warm friendship for 
 Greene, then newly appointed quartermaster 
 general of the army, and proved a most useful 
 ally, both in and out of Congress, in helping 
 the general to get his department in good run- 
 ning order, and in extricating it from the 
 fiightful confusion in which it had previously 
 been plunged. 
 
 He also specially devoted himself at this time 
 to an investigation of the finances, which were 
 in a dreadful condition ; and by the ability with 
 which he performed his very varied duties he 
 acquired such prominence that he was given 
 the chaii-manship of the most important of all 
 the congressional committees. This was the 
 committee to which was confided the task of 
 conferring with the British commissioners, who 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 87 
 
 had been sent over, in the sprmg of 1778, to 
 treat with the Americans, in accordance with 
 the terms of what were known as Lord North's 
 conciliatory bills. These bills were two in 
 number, the first giving up the right of taxa- 
 tion, about which the quarrel had originally 
 arisen, and the second authorizing the commis- 
 sioners to treat with the revolted colonies on all 
 questions in dispute. They were introduced in 
 Parliament on account of the little headway 
 made by the British in subduing their former 
 subjects, and were pressed hastily through be- 
 cause of the fear of an American alliance with 
 France, which was then, indeed, almost con- 
 cluded. 
 
 Three years before, these bills would have 
 achieved their end ; but now they came by just 
 that much time too late. The embittered war- 
 fare had lasted long enough entirely to destroy 
 the old friendly feelings ; and the Americans 
 having once tasted the " perilous pleasure " of 
 freedom, having once stretched out their arms 
 and stood before the world's eyes as their own 
 masters, it was certain that they would never 
 forego their liberty, no matter with what 
 danger it was fraught, no matter how light the 
 yoke, or how kindly the bondage, by which it 
 was to be replaced. 
 
 Two days after the bills were received, Morris 
 
88 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS, 
 
 drew up and presented his report, wliicli was 
 unanimously adopted by Congress. Its tenor 
 can be gathered from its summing up, which 
 declared that the indispensable preliminaries to 
 any treaty would have to be the withdrawal of 
 all the British fleets and armies, and the ac- 
 knowledgment of the independence of the 
 United States ; and it closed by calling on the 
 several States to furnish without delay their 
 quotas of troops for the coming campaign. 
 
 This decisive stand was taken when America 
 was still without allies in the contest ; but ten 
 days afterwards messengers came to Congress, 
 bearing copies of the treaty with France. It 
 was ratified forthwith, and again Morris was 
 appointed chairman of a committee, this time 
 to issue an address on the subject to the Amer- 
 ican people at large. He penned this address 
 himself, explaining fully the character of the 
 crisis, and going briefly over the events that 
 had led to it ; and shortly afterwards he drew 
 up, on behalf of Congress, a sketch of all the 
 proceedings in reference to the British commis- 
 sioners, under the title of " Observations on the 
 American Revolution," giving therein a mas- 
 terly outline not only of the doings of Congress 
 in the particular matter under consideration, 
 but also an account of the causes of the war, 
 of the efforts of the Americans to maintain 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 89 
 
 peace, and of the chief events that had taken 
 place, as well as a comparison between the con- 
 trasting motives and aims of the contestants. 
 
 Morris was one of tlie committee appointed 
 to receive the French minister, M. Gerard. 
 Immediately afterwards he was also selected by 
 Congress to draft the instructions which were 
 to be sent to Franklin, the American minister 
 at the court of Versailles. As a token of the 
 closeness of our relations with France, he was 
 requested to show these instructions to M. 
 Gerard, which he accordingly did ; and some 
 interesting features of the conversation between 
 the two^men have been preserved for us in the 
 despatches of Gerard to the French court. 
 The Americans were always anxious to un- 
 dertake the conquest of Canada, although 
 Washington did not believe the scheme feas- 
 ible ; and the French strongly, although se- 
 cretly, opposed it, as it was their policy from 
 the beginning that Canada should remain Eng- 
 lish. Naturally the French did not wish to see 
 America transformed into a conquering power, 
 a menace to themselves and to the Spaniards 
 as well as to the English ; nor can they be 
 criticised for feeling in this way, or taunted 
 with acting only from motives of self-interest. 
 It is doubtless true that their purposes in going 
 into the war were mixed ; they unquestionably 
 
90 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 wished to benefit themselves, and to hurt 
 their old and successful rival ; but it is equally 
 unquestionable that they were also moved by 
 a generous spirit of sympathy and admiration 
 for the struggling colonists. It would, how- 
 ever, have been folly to let this sympathy blind 
 them to the consequences that might ensue to all 
 Europeans having possessions in America, if the 
 Americans should become not only independent, 
 but also aggressive ; and it was too much to 
 expect them to be so far-sighted as to see that, 
 once independent, it was against the very na- 
 ture of things that the Americans should not 
 be aggressive, and impossible that they should 
 be aught but powerful and positive instru- 
 ments, both in their own persons and by their 
 example, in freeing the whole western continent 
 from European control. 
 
 Accordingly M. Gerard endeavored, though 
 without success, to prevail on Morris not to 
 mention the question of an invasion of Canada 
 in the instructions to Franklin. He also 
 warned the American of the danger of alarm- 
 ing Spain by manifesting a wish to encroach 
 on its territory in the Mississippi valley, men- 
 tioning and condemning the attitude taken by 
 several members of Congress to the effect that 
 the navigation of the Mississippi should belong 
 equally to the English and Americans. 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 91 
 
 Morris's reply showed how little even the 
 most intelligent American of that time — 
 especially if he came from the Northern or 
 Eastern States — could appreciate the destiny 
 of his country. He stated that his colleagues 
 favored restricting the growth of our country 
 to the south and west, and believed that the 
 navigation of the Miswsissippi, from the Ohio 
 down, should belong exclusively to the Span- 
 iards, as otherwise the western settlements 
 springing up in the valley of the Ohio, and on 
 the shores of the Great Lakes, would not only 
 domineer over Spain, but also over the United 
 States,* and would certainly render themselves 
 independent in the end. He further said that 
 some at least of those who were anxious to 
 secure the navigation of the Mississippi, were 
 so from interested motives, having money ven- 
 tures in the establishments along the river. 
 However, if he at this time failed fully to grasp 
 his country's future, he was later on one of the 
 first in the Northern States to recognize it ; 
 and once he did see it he promptly changed, 
 and became the strongest advocate of our ter- 
 ritorial expansion. 
 
 Accompanying his instructions to Franklin, 
 Morris sent a pamphlet entitled " Observa- 
 tions on the Finances of America," to be laid 
 before the French ministry. Practically, all 
 
92 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS, 
 
 that the pamphlet amounted to was a most 
 urgent beggmg letter, showing that our own 
 people could not, or would not, either pay 
 taxes, or take up a domestic loan, so that we 
 stood in dire need of a subsidy from abroad. 
 The drawing up of such a document could 
 hardly have been satisfactory employment for 
 a high spirited man who wished to be proud of 
 his country. 
 
 All through our negotiations with France 
 and England Morris's views coincided with 
 those of Washington, Hamilton, Jay, and the 
 others who afterwards became leaders of the 
 Federalist party. Their opinions were well 
 expressed by Jay in a letter to Morris written 
 about this time, which ran : " I view a return 
 to the domination of Britain with horror, and 
 would risk all for independence ; but that point 
 ceded, . . . the destruction of Old England 
 would hurt me ; I wish it well ; it afforded my 
 ancestors an asylum from persecution." The 
 rabid American adherents of France could not 
 understand such sentiments, and the more mean 
 spirited among them always tried to injure 
 Morris on account of his loyalist relatives, al- 
 though so many families were divided in this 
 same way, Franklin's only son being himself 
 a prominent Tory. So bitter was this feeling 
 that when, later on, Morris's mother, who was 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 93 
 
 within the British lines, became very ill, he 
 actually had to give up his intended visit to 
 her,~ because of the furious clamor that was 
 raised against it. He refers bitterly, in one of 
 his letters to Jay, to the " malevolence of in- 
 dividuals," as something he had to expect, but 
 which he announced that he would conquer by 
 so living as to command the respect of those 
 whose respect was worth having. 
 
 When, however, his foes were of sufficient 
 importance to warrant his paying attention to 
 them individually, Morris proved abundantly 
 able to take care of himself, and to deal heav- 
 ier blows than he received. This was shown in 
 the controversy which convulsed Congress over 
 the conduct of Silas Deane, the original Ameri- 
 can envoy to France. Deane did not behave 
 very well, but at first he was certainly much 
 more sinned against than sinning, and Morris 
 took up his cause warmly. Thomas Paine, the 
 famous author of *' Common Sense," who was 
 secretary of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, 
 attacked Deane and his defenders, as well as 
 the court of France, with peculiar venom, using 
 as weapons the secrets he became acquainted 
 with through his official position, and which he 
 was in honor bound not to divuVe. For this 
 Morris had him removed from his secretary- 
 ship, and in the debate bandied him extremely 
 
94 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 roughly, characterizing him with contemptuous 
 severity as " a mere adventurer from England 
 . . . ignorant even of grammar," and ridiculing 
 his pretensions to importance. Paine was an 
 adept in the art of invective ; but he came out 
 second best in this encounter, and never forgot 
 or forgave his antagonist. 
 
 As a rule, however, Morris was kept too 
 busily at work to spa^:e time for altercations. 
 He was chairman of three important standing 
 committees, tliose on the commissary, quarter- 
 master's, and medical departments, and did the 
 whole busine&«= for each. He also had more 
 than his shai*e of special committee work, be- 
 sides playing his full part in the debates and 
 consultations of the Congress itself. Moreover, 
 his salary was so small that he had to eke it 
 out by the occasional practice of his profession. 
 He devoted himself especially to the consider- 
 ation of our finances and of our foreign rela- 
 tions; and, as he grew constantly to possess 
 more and more weight and influence in Con- 
 gress, he was appointed, early in 1779, as chair- 
 man of a very important committee, which was 
 to receive communications from our ministers 
 abroad, as well as from the French envoy. He 
 drew out its report, together with the draft of 
 instructions to our foreign ministers, which it 
 recommended. Congress accepted the first, and 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 95 
 
 adopted the last, without change, whereby it 
 became the basis of the treaty by which we 
 finally won peace. In his draft he had been 
 careful not to bind down our representatives on 
 minor points, and to leave them as large lib- 
 erty of action as was possible ; but the main 
 issues, such as the boundaries, the navigation 
 of the Mississippi, and the fisheries, were dis- 
 cussed at length and in order. 
 
 At the time this draft of instructions for a 
 treaty was sent out there was much demand 
 among certain members in Congress that we 
 should do all in our power to make foreign 
 alliances, and to procure recognitions of our in- 
 dependence in every possible quarter. To this 
 Morris was heartily opposed, deeming that this 
 *'rage for treaties," as he called it, was not 
 very dignified on our part. He held rightly that 
 our true course was to go our own gait, without 
 seeking outside favor, until we had shown our- 
 selves able to keep our own place among nations, 
 when the recognitions would come without ask- 
 ing. Whether European nations recognized us 
 as a free people, or not, was of little moment so 
 long as we ourselves knew that we had become 
 one in law and in fact, through the right of 
 battle and the final arbitrament of the sword. 
 
 Besides these questions of national policy, 
 Morris also had to deal with an irritating 
 
96 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 matter affecting mainly New York. This was 
 the dispute of that state with tlie people of Ver- 
 mont, who wished to form a separate common- 
 wealth of their own, while New York claimed 
 that their lands came within its borders^ Even 
 the fear of their common foe, the British, 
 against whom they needed to employ their 
 utmost strength, was barely sufficient to pre- 
 vent the two communities from indulging in a 
 small civil war of their own ; and they persisted 
 in pressing their rival claims upon the attention 
 of Congress, and clamoring for a decision from 
 that harassed and overburdened body. Clinton, 
 wlio was much more of a politician than a states- 
 man, led the popular party in this foolish busi- 
 ness, the majority of the New Yorkers being 
 apparently nearly as enthusiastic in asserting 
 their sovereignty over Vermont as they were in 
 declaring their independence of Britain. Morris, 
 hobwever, was very half-hearted in pushing the 
 affair before Congress. He doubted if Congress 
 had the power, and he knew it lacked the will, 
 to move in the matter at all ; and besides he 
 did not sympathize with the position taken by 
 his State. He was wise enough to see that the 
 Vermonters had much of the right on their side 
 in addition to the great fact of possession ; and 
 that New York would be probably unable to 
 employ force enough to conquer them. Clinton 
 
IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 97 
 
 was a true type of the separatist or states-rights 
 politician of that day; he cared little how the 
 national weal was affected by the quarrel ; and 
 he was far more anxious to bluster than to fight 
 over the matter, to which end he kept besieging 
 the delegates in Congress with useless petitions. 
 In a letter to him Morris put the case with his 
 usual plainness, telling him that it was perfectly 
 idle to keep worrying Congress to take action, 
 for it would certainly not do so, and if it did 
 render a decision, the Vermonters would no 
 more respect it than they would the Pope's 
 Bull. He went on to show his characteristic 
 contempt for half -measures, and capacity for 
 striking straight at the root of things: '' Either 
 let these people alone, or conquer them. I pre- 
 fer the latter ; but I doubt the means. If we 
 have the means let them be used, and let Con- 
 gress deliberate and decide, or deliberate with- 
 out deciding, — it is of no consequence. Success 
 will sanctify every operation. . . . If we have 
 not the means of conquering these people we 
 must let them alone. We must continue our 
 impotent threats, or we must make a treaty. 
 ... If we continue our threats they will either 
 hate or despise us, and perhaps both. . . . On 
 the whole, then, my conclusion is here, as on 
 most other human affairs, act decisively, fight 
 or submit — conquer or treat." Morris was 
 
98 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 right ; the treaty was finally made, and Vermont 
 became an independent State. 
 
 But the small politicians of New York would 
 not forgive him for the wisdom and the broad 
 feeling of nationality he showed on this and so 
 many other questions ; and they defeated him 
 when he was a candidate for reelection to Con- 
 gress at the end of 1779. The charge they 
 urged against him was that he devoted his time 
 wholly to the service of the nation at large, and 
 not to that of New York in particular ; his very 
 devotion to the public business, which had kept 
 him from returning to the State, being brought 
 forward to harm him. Arguments of this kind 
 are common enough even at the present day, 
 and effective too, among that numerous class 
 of men with narrow minds and selfish hearts. 
 Many an able and upright Congressman since 
 Morris has been sacrificed because his constit- 
 uents found he was fitted to do the exact work 
 needed ; because he showed himself capable of 
 serving the whole nation, and did not devote 
 his time to advancing the interests of only a 
 portion thereof. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FINANCES : THE TREATY OF PEACE. 
 
 At the end of 1779 Morris was thus retired 
 to private life ; and, having by this time made 
 many friends in Philadelphia, he took up his 
 abode in that city. His leaving Congress was 
 small loss to himself, as that body was rapidly 
 sinking into a condition of windy decrepitude. 
 
 He at once began working at his profession, 
 and also threw himself with eager zest into 
 every attainable form of gayety and amusement, 
 for he was of a most pleasure-loving tempera- 
 ment, very fond of society, and a great favorite 
 in the little American world of wit and fashion. 
 But although in private life, he nevertheless 
 kept his grip on public affairs, and devoted 
 himself to the finances, which were in a most 
 wretched state. He could not keep out of pub- 
 lic life ; he probably agreed with Jay, who, on 
 hearing that he was again a private citizen, 
 wrote him to " remember that Achilles made 
 no figure at the spinning-wheel." At any rate, 
 as early as February, 1780, he came to the 
 
100 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 front once more as the author of a series of 
 essays on the finances. They were published 
 in Philadelpliia, and attracted the attention of 
 all thinking men by their soundness. In fact 
 it was in our monetary affairs that the key to 
 the situation was to be found; for, had we been 
 willing to pay honestly and promptly the neces- 
 sary war expenses, we should have ended the 
 strug(ile in short order. But the niggardliness 
 as well as the real poverty, of the people, the 
 jealousies of the states, kept aflame by the 
 states-rights leaders for their own selfish pur- 
 poses, and the foolish ideas of most of the con- 
 gressional delegates on all money matters, com- 
 bined to keep our treasury in a pitiable con- 
 dition. 
 
 Morris tried to show the people at large the 
 advantage of submitting to reasonable taxation, 
 while at the same time combating some of the 
 theories entertained as well by themselves as by 
 their congressional representatives. He began 
 by discussing with great clearness what money 
 really is, how far coin can be replaced by paper, 
 the interdependence of money and credit, and 
 other elementary points in reference to wliieh 
 most of his fellow -citizens seemed to possess 
 wonderfully mixed ideas. He attacked the ef- 
 forts of Congress to make their currency legal 
 tender ; and then showed the utter futility of 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 101 
 
 one of the pet schemes of revolutionary financial 
 wisdom, the regulation of prices by law. Hard 
 times, then as now, always produced not only a 
 large debtor class, but also a corresponding num- 
 ber of political demagogues who truckled to 
 it ; and both demagogue and debtor, when they 
 clamored for laws which should " relieve " the 
 latter, meant thereby laws which would enable 
 him to swindle his creditor. The people, more- 
 over, liked to lay the blame for their misfortunes 
 neither on fate nor on themselves, but on some 
 unfortunate outsider ; and they were especially 
 apt to attack as " monopolists " the men who 
 had purchased necessary supplies in large quan- 
 tities to profit by their rise in price. Accord- 
 ingly they passed laws against them ; and Mor- 
 ris showed in his essays the unwisdom of such^ 
 legislation, while not defending for a moment 
 the men who looked on the misfortunes of their 
 country solely as offering a field for their own 
 harvesting. 
 
 He ended by drawing out an excellent scheme 
 of taxation ; but, unfortunately, the people 
 were too short-sighted to submit to any measure 
 of the sort, no matter how wise and necessary. 
 One of the pleas he made for his scheme was, 
 that something of the sort would be absolutely 
 necessary for the preservation of the Federal 
 Union, '' which," he wrote, " in my poor opin- 
 
102 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ion, will greatly depend upon the management 
 of the revenue." He showed with his usual 
 clearness the need of obtaining, for financial as 
 well as for all other reasons, a firmer union, as 
 the existing confederation bade fair to become, 
 as its enemies had prophesied, a rope of sand. 
 He also foretold graphically the misery that 
 would ensue — and that actually did ensue — 
 when the pressure from a foreign foe should 
 cease, and the states should be resolved into a 
 disorderly league of petty, squabbling commu- 
 nities. In ending he remarked bitterly : " The 
 articles of confederation were formed when the 
 attachment to Congress was warm and great. 
 The framers of them, therefore, seem to have 
 been only solicitous how to provide against tlie 
 power of that body, which, by means of their 
 foresight and care, now exists by mere courtesy 
 and sufferance." 
 
 Although Morris was not able to convert 
 Congress to the ways of sound thinking, his 
 ability and clearness impressed themselves on 
 all the best men ; notably on Robert Morris, — 
 who was no relation of his, by the way, — the 
 first in the line of American statesmen who have 
 been great in finance; a man whose services to 
 our treasury stand on a par, if not with tliose 
 of Hamilton, at least with those of Gallatin 
 and John Sherman. Congress had just estab- 
 
FINANCES: TEE TREATY OF PEACE. 103 
 
 lished four departraents, with secretaries at the 
 head of each. The two most important were 
 the Departments of Foreign Affairs and of 
 Finance. Livingstone was given the former, 
 while Robert Morris received the latter; and 
 immediately afterwards appointed Gouverneur 
 Morris as Assistant Financier, at a salary of 
 eighteen hundred and fifty dollars a year. 
 
 Morris accepted this appointment, and re- 
 mained in office for three years and a half, until 
 the beginning of 1785. He threw himself 
 heart and soul into the work, helping his chief 
 in every way ; and in particular giving him 
 invaluable assistance in the establishment of 
 the " Bank of North America," which Congress 
 was persuaded to incorporate, — an institution 
 which was the first of its kind in the country. 
 It was of wonderful effect in restoring the_ 
 public credit, and was absolutely invaluable in 
 the financial operations undertaken by the 
 secretary. 
 
 When, early in 1782, the secretary was di- 
 rected by Congress, to present to that body a 
 report on the foreign coins circulating in the 
 country, it was prepared and sent in by Gou- 
 verneur Morris, and he accompanied it with a 
 plan for an American coinage. The postscript 
 was the really important part of the document, 
 and the plan therein set forth was made the 
 
104 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 basis of our present coinage system, altliougli 
 not until several years later, and then only with 
 important modifications, suggested, for the most 
 part, by Jefferson. 
 
 Although his plan was modified, it still 
 remains true that Gouverneur Morris was the 
 founder of our national coinage. He intro- 
 duced the system of decimal notation, invented 
 the word "cent" to express one of the smaller 
 coins, and nationalized the already familiar 
 word " dollar." His plan, however, was a little 
 too abstruse for the common mind, the unit 
 being made so small that a large sum would 
 have had to be expressed in a very great num- 
 ber of figures, and there being five or six dif- 
 ferent kinds of new coins, some of them not 
 simple multiples of each other. Afterwards he 
 proposed as a modification a system of pounds, 
 or dollars, and doits, the doit answering to our 
 present mill, while providing also an ingenious 
 arrangement by which the money of account 
 was to differ from the money of coinage. Jef- 
 ferson changed the system by grafting on it the 
 dollar as a unit, and simplifying it ; and Ham- 
 ilton perfected it further. 
 
 To understand the advantage, as well as the 
 boldness, of Morris's scheme, we must keep in 
 mind the horrible condition of our currency at 
 that time. We had no proper coins of our 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 105 
 
 own ; notliing but hopelessly depreciated paper 
 bills, a mass of copper, and some clipped and 
 counterfeited gold and silver coin from the 
 mints of England, France, Spain, and even 
 Germany. Dollars, pounds, shillings, doubloons, 
 ducats, moidores, joes, crowns, pistareens, cop- 
 pers, and sous, circulated indifferently, and with 
 various values in each colony. A dollar was 
 worth six shillings in Massachusetts, eight in 
 New York, seven and sixpence in Pennsylvania, 
 six again in Virginia, eight again in North 
 Carolina, thirty-two and a half in South Caro- 
 lina, and five in Georgia. The government it- 
 self had to resort to clipping in one of its most 
 desperate straits ; and at last people would only 
 take payment by weight of gold or silver. 
 
 Morris, in his report, dwelt especially on 
 three points : first, that the new money should 
 be easily intelligible to the multitude, and 
 should, therefore, bear a close relation to the 
 coins already existing, as otherwise its sudden 
 introduction would bring business to a stand- 
 still; and would excite distrust and suspicion 
 everywhere, particularly among the poorest and 
 most ignorant, the day-laborers, the farm ser- 
 vants, and the hired help. Second, that its low- 
 est divisible sum, or unit, should be very small, 
 so that the price and the value of little things 
 could be made proportionate ; and third, that 
 
106 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 as far as possible the money should increase 
 in decimal ratio. The Spanish dollar was the 
 coin most widely circulated, while retaining 
 everywhere about the same value. Accordingly 
 he took this, and then sought for a unit that 
 would go evenly into it, as well as into the va- 
 rious shillings, disregarding the hopelessly aber- 
 rant shilling of South Carolina. Such a unit 
 was a quarter of a grain of pure silver, equal to 
 the one fourteen hundred and fortieth part of a 
 dollar ; it was not, of course, necessary to have 
 it exactly represented in coin. On the con- 
 trary, he proposed to strike two copper pieces, 
 respectively of five and eight units, to be known 
 as jives and eights. Two eights would then 
 make a penny in Pennsylvania, and three eights 
 one in Georgia, while three /v^s would make one 
 in New York, and four would make one in Mas- 
 sachusetts. Morris's great aim was, while estab- 
 lishing uniform coins for the entire Union, to 
 get rid of the fractional remainders in translat- 
 ing the old currencies into the new ; and in ad- 
 dition his reckoning adapted itself to the dif- 
 ferent systems in the different states, as well 
 as to the different coins in use. But he in- 
 troduced an entirely new system of coinage, 
 and moreover used therein the names of several 
 old coins while giving them new values. His 
 originally proposed table of currency was as 
 follows : — 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 107 
 
 One crown = ten dollars, or 
 
 10,000 units. 
 
 One doltar = ten bills, or . . . 1,000 " 
 
 One bill r= ten pence, or . . . 100 " 
 
 One penny = ten quarters, or . 10 " 
 
 One quarter = 1 " 
 
 But he proposed that for convenience other 
 coins should be struck, like tne copper ^ve and 
 eight above spoken of, and he afterwards altered 
 his names. He then called the bill of one hun- 
 dred units a cent^ making it consist of twenty- 
 five grains of silver and two of copper, being 
 thus the lowest silver coin. Five cents were to 
 make a quint, and ten a mark. 
 
 Congress, according to its custom, received 
 the report, applauded it, and did nothing in the 
 matter. Shortly afterwards, however, Jefferson 
 took it up, when the whole subject was referred 
 to a committee of which he was a member. He 
 highly approved of Morris's plan, and took from 
 it the idea of a decimal system, and the use of 
 the words "dollar" and " cent." But he consid- 
 ered Morris's unit too small, and preferred to 
 take as his own the Spanish dollar, which was 
 already known to all the people, its value being 
 uniform and well understood. Then, by keep- 
 ing strictly to the decimal system, and dividing 
 the dollar into one hundred parts, he got cents 
 for our fractional currency. He thus introduced 
 a simpler system than that of Morris, with an 
 
108 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 existing and well -understood unit, instead of 
 an imaginary one that would have to be, for 
 the first time, brought to the knowledge of the 
 people, and which might be adopted only with 
 reluctance. On the other hand, Jefferson's 
 system failed entirely to provide for the ex- 
 tension of the old currencies in the terms of 
 the new without the use of fractions. On this 
 account Morris vehemently opposed it, but it 
 was nevertheless adopted. He foretold, what 
 actually came to pass, that the people would be 
 very reluctant to throw away their local moneys 
 in order to take up a general money which bore 
 no special relation to them. For half a century 
 afterwards the people clung to their absurd 
 shillings and sixpences, the government itself, 
 in its post-office transactions, being obliged to 
 recognize the obsolete terms in vogue in certain 
 localities. Some curious pieces circulated freely 
 up to the time of the Civil War. Still, Jeffer- 
 son's plan worked admirably in the end. 
 
 All the time he was working so hard at the 
 finances, Morris nevertheless continued to enjoy 
 himself to the full in the society of Philadel- 
 phia. Imperious, light-hearted, good-looking, 
 well-dressed, he ranked as a wit among men, as 
 a beau among women. He was equally sought 
 for dances and dinners. He was a fine scholar 
 and a polished gentleman; a capital story- 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 109 
 
 teller; and bad just a touch of erratic levity 
 that served to render him still more charming. 
 Occasionally he showed whimsical peculiarities, 
 usually about very small things, that brought 
 him into trouble ; and one such freak cost him 
 a serious injury. In his capacity of young man 
 of fashion, he used to drive about town in a 
 phaeton with a pair of small, spirited horses ; 
 and because of some whim, he would not allow 
 the groom to stand at their heads. So one 
 day they took fright, ran, threw him out, and 
 broke his leg. The leg had to be amputated, 
 and he was ever afterwards forced to wear a 
 wooden one. However, he took his loss with 
 most philosophic cheerfulness, and even bore 
 with equanimity the condolences of those ex- 
 asperating individuals, of a species by no means 
 peculiar to revolutionary times, who endeav- 
 ored to prove to him the manifest falsehood 
 that such an accident was " all for the best." 
 To one of these dreary gentlemen he responded, 
 with disconcerting vivacity, that his visitor had 
 so handsomely argued the advantage of being 
 entirely legless as to make him almost tempted 
 to part with his remaining limb ; and to an- 
 other he announced that at least there was the 
 compensation that he would be a steadier man 
 with one leg than with two. Wild accounts 
 of the accident got about, which rather irri- 
 
110 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 tated him, and in answer to a letter from Jay 
 he wrote : " I suppose it was Deane who wrote 
 to you from France about the loss of my leg. 
 His account is facetious. Let it pass. The 
 leg is gone, and there is an end of the mat- 
 ter." His being crippled did not prevent him 
 from going about in society very nearly as 
 much as ever ; and society in Philadelphia was 
 at the moment gayer than in any other Ameri- 
 can city. Indeed Jay, a man of Puritanic mo- 
 rality, wrote to Morris somewhat gloomily to 
 inquire about " the rapid progress of luxury at 
 Philadelphia ; " to which his younger friend, 
 who highly appreciated the good things of life, 
 replied light-heartedly : " With respect to our 
 taste for luxury, do not grieve about it. Lux- 
 my is not so bad a thing as it is often sup- 
 posed to be ; and if it were, still we must fol- 
 low the course of things, and turn to advantage 
 what exists, since we have not the power to 
 annihilate or create. The very definition of 
 'luxury' is as difficult as the suppression of it." 
 In another letter he remarked that he thought 
 there were quite as many knaves among the 
 men who went on foot as there were among 
 those who drove in carriages. 
 
 Jay at this time, having been successively a 
 member of the Continental Congress, the New 
 York Legislature, and the State Constitutional 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. Ill 
 
 Convention, having also been the first chief 
 justice ol his native state, and then presi- 
 dent of the Continental Congress, had been 
 sent as our minister to Spain. Morris always 
 kept up an intimate correspondence with him. 
 It is noticeable that the three great revolu- 
 tionary statesmen from New York, Hamilton, 
 Jay, and Morris, always kept on good terms, 
 and always worked together ; while the friend- 
 ship between two. Jay and Morris, was very- 
 close. 
 
 The two men, in their correspondence, now 
 and then touched on other than state matters. 
 One of Jay's letters which deals with the edu- 
 cation of his children would be most healthful 
 reading for those Americans of the present day 
 who send their children to be brought up 
 abroad in Swiss schools, or English and German 
 universities. He writes : " I think the youth of 
 every free, civilized country should be educated 
 in it, and not permitted to travel out of it 
 until age has made them so cool and firm as to 
 retain their national and moral impressions. 
 American youth may possibly form proper and 
 perhaps useful friendships in European semi- 
 naries, but I think not so probably as among 
 their fellow-citizens, with whom they are to 
 grow up, whom it will be useful for them to 
 know and be early known to, and with whom 
 
112 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 they are to be engaged in the business of active 
 life. ... I do not hesitate to prefer an Ameri- 
 can education." The longer Jay stayed away, 
 the more devoted he became to America. He 
 had a good, hearty, honest contempt for the 
 miserable '' cosmopolitanism " so much affected 
 by the feebler folk of fashion. As he said he 
 " could never become so far a citizen of the 
 world as to view every part of it with equal 
 regard," for "his affections were deep-rooted 
 in America," and he alwa3^s asserted that he 
 had never seen anything in Europe to cause 
 him to abate his prejudices in favor of his own 
 land. 
 
 Jay had a very hard time at the Spanish 
 court, which, he wrote Morris, had "little 
 money, less wisdom, and no credit." Spain, al- 
 though fighting England, was bitterl}^ jealous 
 of the United States, fearing most justly our 
 aggressive spirit, and desiring to keep the 
 lower Mississippi valley entirely under its own 
 control. Jay, a statesman of intensely national 
 spirit, was determined to push our boundaries 
 as far westward as possible ; he insisted on 
 their reaching to the Mississippi, and on our 
 having the right to navigate that stream. 
 Morris did not agree with him, and on this 
 subject, as has been already said, he for once 
 showed less than his usual power of insight 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 113 
 
 into the future. He wrote Jay that it was 
 absurd to quarrel about a country inhabited 
 only by red men, and to claim " a territory we 
 cannot occupy, a navigation we cannot enjoy." 
 He also ventured the curiously false prediction 
 that, if the territory beyond the Alleghanies 
 should ever be filled up, it would be by a pop- 
 ulation drawn from the whole world, not one 
 hundredth part of it American, which would 
 immediately become an independent and rival 
 nation. However, he could not make Jay 
 swerve a handsbreadth from his position about 
 our western boundaries ; though on every other 
 point the two were in hearty accord. 
 
 In relating and forecasting the military 
 situation, Morris was more happy. He was 
 peculiarly interested in Greene, and from the 
 outset foretold the final success of his South- 
 ern campaign. In a letter written March 31, 
 1781, after the receipt of the news of the 
 battle of Guilford Court-house, he describes 
 to Jay Greene's forces and prospects. His 
 troops included, he writes, " from 1,500 to 2,000 
 continentals, many of them raw, and some- 
 what more of militia than regular troops, — the 
 whole of these almost in a state of nature, and 
 of whom it ought to be said, as by Hamlet to 
 Horatio, ' Thou hast no other revenue but thy 
 good spirits to feed and clothe thee.' " The 
 
114 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 militia he styled the '•'-fruges consumer e nati 
 of an army." He then showed the necessity 
 of the battle being fought, on account of the 
 fluctuating state of the militia, the incapacity 
 of the state governments to help themselves, 
 the poverty of the country (" so that the very 
 teeth of the enemy defend them, especially in 
 retreat,"), and above all, because a defeat was 
 of little consequence to us, while it would ruin 
 the enemy. He wrote : " There is no loss in 
 fighting away two or three hundred men who 
 would go home if they were not put in the 
 way of being knocked on the head. . . . These 
 are unfeeling reflections. I would apologize 
 for them to any one who did not know that I 
 have at least enough of sensibility. The gush 
 of sentiment will not alter the nature of things, 
 and the business of the statesman is more to 
 reason than to feel." Morris was always con- 
 fident that we should win in the end, and 
 sometimes thought a little punishment really 
 did our people good. When Cornwallis was in 
 Virginia he wrote : " The enemy are scourging 
 the Virginians, at least those of Lower Vir- 
 ginia. This is distressing, but will have some 
 good consequences. In the mean time the 
 delegates of Virginia make as many lamen- 
 tations as ever Jeremiah did, and to as good 
 purpose perhaps." 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 115 
 
 The war was drawing to an end. Great 
 Britain had begun the struggle with every- 
 thing — allies, numbers, wealth — in her favor ; 
 but now, towards the close, the odds were all 
 the other way. The French were struggling 
 with her on equal terms for the mastery of the 
 seas ; the Spaniards were helping the French, 
 and were bending every energy to carry through 
 successfully the great siege of Gibraltar ; the 
 Dutch had joined their ancient enemies, and 
 their fleet fought a battle with the English, 
 which, for bloody indecisiveness, rivaled the ac- 
 tions when Van Tromp and De Ruyter held the 
 Channel against Blake and Monk. In India 
 the name of Hyder Ali had become a very 
 nightmare of horror to the British. In Amer- 
 ica, the centre of the war, the day had gone 
 conclusively against the Island folk. Greene 
 had doggedly fought and marched his way 
 through the Southern States with his ragged, 
 under-fed, badly armed troops ; he had been 
 beaten in three obstinate battles, had each time 
 inflicted a greater relative loss than he received, 
 and, after retiring in good order a short dis- 
 tance, had always ended by pursuing his lately 
 victorious foes ; at the close of the campaign he 
 had completely reconquered the Southern States 
 by sheer capacity. for standing punishment, and 
 had cooped up the remaining British force in 
 
116 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Charleston. In the Northern States the British 
 held Newport and New York, but could not 
 penetrate elsewhere ; while at Yorktown their 
 ablest general was obliged to surrender his 
 whole army to the overwhelming force brought 
 against him by Washington's masterly strategy. 
 
 Yet England, hemmed in by the ring of her 
 foes, fronted them all with a grand courage. In 
 her veins the Berserker blood was up, and she 
 hailed each new enemy with grim delight, ex- 
 erting to the full her warlike strength. Single- 
 handed she kept them all at bay, and repaid 
 with crippling blows the injuries they had done 
 her. In America alone the tide ran too strongly 
 to be turned. But Holland was stripped of all 
 her colonies ; in the East, Sir Eyre Coote beat 
 down Hyder Ali, and taught Moslem and 
 Hindoo alike that they could not shake off the 
 grasp of the iron hands that held India. Rod- 
 ney won back for his country the supremacy of 
 the ocean in that great sea-fight where he shat- 
 tered the splendid French navy ; and the long 
 siege of Gibraltar closed with the crushing over- 
 throw of the assailants. So, with bloody honor, 
 England ended the most disastrous war she had 
 ever waged. 
 
 The war had brought forth many hard fight- 
 ers, but only one great commander, — Washing- 
 ton. For the rest, on land, Cornwallis, Greene, 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 117 
 
 Rawdoii, and possibly Lafayette and Rocham- 
 beau, might all rank as fairly good generals, 
 probably in the order named, although many 
 excellent critics place Greene first. At sea 
 Rodney and the Bailli de Suffren won the 
 honors ; the latter stands beside Duquesne 
 and Tourville in the roll of French adaiirals ; 
 while Rodne}?^ was a true latter-day buccaneer, 
 as fond of fighting as of plundering, and a first- 
 rate hand at both. Neither ranks with such 
 mighty sea-chiefs as Nelson, nor yet with Blake, 
 Farragut, or Tegethof. 
 
 All parties were tired of the war ; peace was 
 essential to all. But of all, x'Vmerica was most 
 resolute to win what she had fought for ; and 
 America had been the most successful so far. 
 English historians — even so generally impar- 
 tial a writer as Mr. Lecky — are apt greatly to 
 exaggerate our relative exhaustion, and try to 
 prove it by quoting from the American leaders 
 every statement that shows despondency and 
 suffering. If they applied the same rule to 
 their own side, they would come to the conclu- 
 sion that the British empire was at that time 
 on the brink of dissolution. Of course we had 
 suffered very heavily, and had blundered badly ; 
 but in both respects we were better off than 
 our antagonists. Mr. Lecky is right in bestow- 
 ing unstinted praise on our diplomatists for the 
 
118 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 hardihood and success with which they insisted 
 on all our demands being granted ; but he is 
 wrong when he says or implies that the mili- 
 tary situation did not warrant their attitude. 
 Of all the contestants, America was the most 
 willing to continue the fight rather than yield 
 her rights. Mori-is expressed the general feel- 
 ing when he wrote to Jay, on August 6, 1782 : 
 " Nobody will be thankful for any peace but a 
 very good one. This they should have thought 
 on who made war with the Republic. I am 
 among the number who would be extremely 
 ungrateful for the grant of a bad peace. My 
 public and private character will both concert 
 to render the sentiment coming from me un- 
 suspected. Judge, then, of others, judge of the 
 many-headed fool who can feel no more than 
 his own sorrowing. ... I wish that while the 
 war lasts it may be real war, and that when 
 peace comes it may be real peace." As to our 
 military efficiency, we may take Washington's 
 word (in a letter to Jay of October 18, 1782) : 
 " I am certain it will afford you pleasure to 
 know that our army is better organized, dis- 
 ciplined, and clothed than it has been at any 
 period since the commencement of the war. 
 This you may be assured is the fact." 
 
 Another mistake of English historians — 
 again likewise committed by Mr. Lecky — comes 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 119 
 
 in their laying so much stress on the help ren- 
 dered to the Americans by their allies, while at 
 the same time speaking as if England had none. 
 As a matter of fact, England would have stood 
 no chance at all had the contest been strictly 
 confined to British troops on the one hand, and 
 to the rebellious colonists on the other. There 
 were more German auxiliaries in the British 
 ranks than there were French allies in the 
 American ; the loyalists, including the regu- 
 larly enlisted loyalists as well as the militia who 
 took part in the various Tory uprisings, were 
 probably more numerous still. The withdrawal 
 of all Hessians, Tories, and Indians from the 
 British army would have been cheaply pur- 
 chased by the loss of our own foreign allies. 
 
 The European powers were even a shade 
 more anxious for peace than we were ; and to 
 conduct the negotiations for our side, we chose 
 three of our greatest statesmen, — Franklin, 
 Adams, and Jay. 
 
 Congress, in appointing our commissioners, 
 had, with little regard for the national dignity, 
 given them instructions which, if obeyed, would 
 have rendered them completely subservient to 
 France; for they were directed to undertake 
 nothing in the negotiations without the knowl- 
 edge and concurrence of the French cabinet, 
 and in all decisions to be ultimately governed 
 
120 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 by the advice of that body. Morris fiercely 
 resented such servile subservience, and in a 
 letter to Jay denounced Congress with well- 
 justified warmth, writing; "That the proud 
 should prostitute the very little dignity this 
 poor country is possessed of would be indeed 
 astounding, if we did not know the near alliance 
 between pride and meanness. Men who have 
 too little spirit to demand of their constituents 
 that they do their duty, who have sufficient 
 humility to beg a paltry pittance at the hands 
 of any and every sovereign, — such men will 
 always be ready to pay the price which vanity 
 shall demand from the vain." Jay promptly 
 persuaded his colleagues to unite with him in 
 disregarding the instructions of Congress on 
 this point ; had he not done so, the dignity of 
 our government would, as he wrote Morris, 
 " have been in the dust." Franklin was at first 
 desirous of yielding obedience to the command ; 
 but Adams immediately joined Jay in repudiat- 
 ing*it. 
 
 We had waged war against Britain, with 
 France and Spain as allies ; but in making 
 peace we had to strive for our rights against 
 our friends almost as much as against our ene- 
 mies. There was much generous and disinter- 
 ested enthusiasm for America among French- 
 men individually ; but the French government, 
 
 i 
 
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 121 
 
 with which alone we were to deal in making 
 peace, had acted throughout from purely selfish 
 motives, and in reality did not care an atom for 
 American rights. We owed France no more 
 gratitude for taking our part than she owed us 
 for giving her an opportunity of advancing her 
 own interests, and striking a severe blow at an 
 old-time enemy and rival. As for Spain, she 
 disliked us quite as much as she did England. 
 
 The peace negotiations brought all this out 
 very clearly. The great French minister Yer- 
 gennes, who dictated the policy of his court all 
 through the contest, cared nothing for the revo- 
 lutionary colonists themselves ; but he was bent 
 upon securing them their independence, so as 
 to weaken England, and he was also bent upon 
 keeping them from gaining too much strength, 
 so that they might always remain dependent 
 allies of France. He wished to establish the 
 " balance of power " system in America. The 
 American commissioners he at first despised for 
 their blunt, truthful straightforwardness, which 
 he, trained in the school of deceit, and a thor- 
 ough believer in every kind of finesse and 
 double-dealing, mistook for boorishness ; later 
 on, he learned to his chagrin that they were 
 able as well as honest, and that their resolu- 
 tion, skill, and far-sightedness made them, 
 where their own deepest interests were con- 
 
122 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, 
 
 cerned, over-matches for the subtle diplomats of 
 Europe. 
 
 America, then, was determined to secure not 
 only independence, but also a chance to grow 
 into a great continental nation ; she wished her 
 boundaries fixed at the great lakes and the 
 Mississippi ; she also asked for the free naviga- 
 tion of the latter to the Gulf, and for a share in 
 the fisheries. Spain did not even wish that we 
 should be made independent ; she hoped to be 
 compensated at our expense, for her failure to 
 take Gibraltar ; and she desired that we should 
 be kept so weak as to hinder us from being 
 aggressive. Her fear of us, by the way, was 
 perfectly justifiable, for the greatest part of 
 our present territory lies within what were 
 nominally Spanish limits a hundred years ago. 
 France, as the head of a great coalition, wanted 
 to keep on good terms with both her allies ; but, 
 as Gerard, the French minister at Washington, 
 said : if France had to choose between the two, 
 " the decision would not be in favor of the 
 United States." She wished to secure for 
 America independence, but she wished also to 
 keep the new nation so weak that it would " feel 
 the need of sureties, allies, and protectors." 
 France desired to exclude our people from the 
 fisheries, to deprive us of half our territories 
 by making the Alleghanies our western boun- 
 
FINANCES: TEE TREATY OF PEACE. 123 
 
 daries, and to secure to Spain the undisputed 
 control of the navigation of the Mississippi. It 
 was not to the interest of France and Spain that 
 we should be a great and formidable people, and 
 very naturally they would not help us to be- 
 come one. There is no need of blaming them 
 for their conduct ; but it would have been rank 
 folly to have been guided by their wishes. Our 
 true policy was admirably summed up by Jay 
 in his letters to Livingston, where he says : 
 " Let us be honest and grateful to France, but 
 let us think for ourselves. . . . Since we have 
 assumed a place in the political firmament, let 
 us move like a primary and not a secondary 
 planet." Fortunately, England's own self-in- 
 terest made her play into our hands ; as Fox 
 put it, it was necessary for her to " insist m 
 the strongest manner that, if America is inde- 
 pendent, she must be so of the whole world. 
 No spcret, tacit, or ostensible connection with 
 France.'' 
 
 Our statesmen won ; we got all we asked, 
 as much to the astonishment of France as of 
 England ; we proved even more successful in 
 diplomacy than in arms. As Fox had hoped, 
 we became independent not only of England, 
 but of all the world ; we were not entangled 
 as a dependent subordinate in the policy of 
 France, nor did we sacrifice our western boun- 
 
124 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 dary to Spain. It was a great triumph ; greater 
 than any that had been won by our soldiers. 
 Franklin had a comparatively small share in 
 gaining it ; the glory of carrying through suc- 
 cessfully the most important treaty we ever 
 negotiated belongs to Jay and Adams, and es- 
 pecially to Jay. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 IKE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL CONSTI- 
 TUTION. 
 
 Before peace was established, Morris had 
 been appointed a commissioner to treat for the 
 exchange of prisoners. Nothing came of his 
 efforts, however, the British and Americans 
 being utterly unable to come to any agreement. 
 Both sides had been greatly exasperated, — 
 the British by the Americans' breach of faith 
 about Burgoyne's troops, and the Americans 
 by the inhuman brutality with which their 
 captive countrymen had been treated. An 
 amusing feature of the affair was a conversa- 
 tion between Morris and the British general, 
 Dalrymple, wherein the former assured the 
 latter rather patronizingly that the British 
 " still remained a great people, a very great 
 people," and that " they would undoubtedly 
 still hold their rank in Europe." He would 
 have been surprised, had he known not only 
 that the stubborn Island folk were destined 
 soon to hold a higher rank in Europe than 
 
126 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ever before, but that from their loins other 
 nations, broad as continents, were to spring, so 
 that the South Seas should become an English 
 ocean, and that over a fourth of the world's 
 surface" there should be spoken the tongue of 
 Pitt and Washington. 
 
 No sooner was peace declared, and the im- 
 mediate and pressing danger removed, than the 
 confederation relapsed into a loose knot of com- 
 munities as quarrelsome as they were contemp- 
 tible. The states-rights men for the moment 
 had things all their own way, and speedily 
 reduced us to the level afterwards reached by 
 the South-American republics. Each common- 
 wealth set up for itself, and tried to oppress 
 its neighbors ; not one had a creditable history 
 for the next four years ; while the career of 
 Rhode Island in particular can only be properly 
 described as infamous. We refused to pay our 
 debts, we would not even pay our army; and 
 mob violence flourished rankly. As a natural 
 result the European powers began to take ad- 
 vantage of our weakness and division. 
 
 All our great men saw the absolute need of 
 establishing a National Union — not a league 
 or a confederation — if the country was to be 
 saved. None felt this more strongly than 
 Morris ; and no one was more hopeful of the 
 final result. Jay had written to him as to the 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 127 
 
 need of " raising and maintaining a national 
 spirit in America ; " and he wrote in reply, 
 at different times : ^ " Much of convulsion will 
 ensue, yet it must terminate in giving to gov- 
 ernment that power without which government 
 is but a name. . . . This country has never yet 
 been known to Europe, and God knows whether 
 it ever will be. To England it is less known 
 than to any other part of Europe, because they 
 constantly view it through a medium of either 
 prejudice or faction. True it is that the gen- 
 eral government wants energy, and equally 
 true it is that the want will eventually be sup- 
 plied. A national spirit is the natural result 
 of national existence ; and although some of the 
 present generation may feel the result of colonial 
 oppositions of opinion^ that generation will die 
 aivay^ and give place to a race of American^. 
 On this occasion, as on others, Great Britain 
 is our best friend ; and, by seizing the critical 
 moment when we were about to divide, she has 
 shown us the dreadful consequences of division. 
 . . . Indeed, my friend, nothing can do us 
 so much good as to convince the Eastern and 
 Southern States how necessary it is to give 
 proper force to the federal government, and 
 nothing will so soon operate that conviction as 
 foreign efforts to restrain the navigation of the 
 1 The italics are mine. 
 
128 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 one and the commerce of tlie otber." The last 
 sentence referred to the laws aimed at our 
 trade by Great Britain, and by other powers 
 as well, — symptoms of outside hostility which 
 made us at once begin to draw together again. 
 Money troubles grew apace, and produced 
 the usual crop of crude theories and of vicious 
 and dishonest legislation in accordance there- 
 with. Lawless outbreaks became common, and 
 in Massachusetts culminated in actual rebellion. 
 The mass of the people were rendered hostile 
 to any closer union by their ignorance, their 
 jealousy, and the general particularistic bent 
 of their minds, — this last being merely a vi- 
 cious graft on, or rather outgrowth of, the love 
 of freedom inborn in the race. Their leaders 
 were enthusiasts of pure purpose and unsteady 
 mental vision ; they were followed by the mass 
 of designing politicians, who feared that their 
 importance would be lost if their sphere of ac- 
 tion should be enlarged. Among these leaders 
 the three most important were, in New York 
 George Clinton, and in Massachusetts and Vir- 
 ginia two much greater men — Samuel Adams 
 and Patrick Henry. All three had done excel- 
 lent service at the beginning of the revokition- 
 ary troubles. Patrick Henry lived to redeem 
 himself, almost in his last hour, by the noble 
 stand he took in aid of Washington against the 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 129 
 
 democratic nullification agitation of Jefferson 
 and Madison ; but the usefulness of each of the 
 other two was limited to the early portion of 
 his career. 
 
 Like every other true patriot and statesman, 
 Morris did all in his power to bring into one 
 combination the varied interests favorable to 
 the formation of a government that should be 
 strong and responsible as well as free. The 
 public creditors and the soldiers of the army 
 — whose favorite toasts were : " A hoop to the 
 barrel," and "Cement to the Union" — were 
 the two classes most sensible of the advantages 
 of such a government; and to each of these 
 Morris addressed himself when he proposed to 
 consolidate the public debt, both to private 
 citizens and to the soldiers, and to make il^a 
 charge on the United States, and not on the 
 several separate states. 
 
 In consequence of the activity and ability 
 with which he advocated a firmer Union, the 
 extreme states-rights men were especially hos- 
 tile to him ; and certain of their number as- 
 sailed him with bitter malignity, both then and 
 afterwards. One accusation was, that he had 
 improper connections with the public creditors. 
 This was a pure slander, absolutely without 
 foundation, and not supported by even the pre- 
 tence of proof. Another accusation was that 
 
130 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 he favored the establishment of a monarchy. 
 This was likewise entirely untrue. Morris was 
 not a sentimental political theorist ; he was an 
 eminently practical — that is, useful — states- 
 man, who saw with unusual clearness that each 
 people must have a government suited to its 
 own individual character, and to the stage of 
 political and social development it had reached. 
 He realized that a nation must be governed 
 according to the actual needs and capacities 
 of its citizens, not according to any abstract 
 theory or set of ideal principles. He would 
 have dismissed with contemptuous laughter the 
 ideas of those Americans who at the present 
 day believe that Anglo-Saxon democracy can 
 be applied successfully to a half-savage negroid 
 people in Hayti, or of those Englishmen who 
 consider seriously the proposition to renovate 
 Turkey by giving her representative institu- 
 tions and a parliamentary government. He 
 understood and stated that a monarchy " did 
 not consist with the taste and temper of the 
 people " in America, and he believed in estab- 
 lishing a form of government that did. Like 
 almost every other statesman of the day, the 
 perverse obstinacy of the extreme particularist 
 section at times made him downhearted, and 
 caused him almost to despair of a good govern- 
 ment being established ; and like every sensible 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 131 
 
 man he would have preferred ahiiost any strong, 
 orderly government to the futile anarchy 
 towards which the ultra states-rights men or 
 separatists tended. Had these last ever finally 
 obtained the upper hand, either in revolu- 
 tionary or post-revolutionary times, either in 
 1787 or 1861, the fact would have shown con- 
 clusively that Americans were unfitted for re- 
 publicanism and self-government. An orderly 
 monarchy would certainly be preferable to a 
 republic of the epileptic Spanish - American 
 type. The extreme doctrinaires, who are fier- 
 cest in declaiming in favor of freedom are in 
 reality its worst foes, far more dangerous than 
 any absolute monarchy ever can be. When 
 liberty becomes license, some form of one-man 
 power is not far distant. 
 
 The one great reason for our having soe-^ 
 ceeded as no other people ever has, is to be 
 found in that common sense which has enabled 
 us to preserve the largest possible individual 
 freedom on the one hand, while showing an 
 equally remarkable capacity for combination 
 on the other. We have committed plenty of 
 faults, but we have seen and remedied them. 
 Our very doctrinaires have usually acted much 
 more practically than they have talked. Jeffer- 
 son, when in power, adopted most of the Fed- 
 eralist theories, and became markedly hostile 
 
132 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 to the nullification movements at whose birth 
 he had himself oflSciated. We have often blun- 
 dered badly in the beginning, but we have al- 
 ways come out well in the end. The Dutch, 
 when they warred for freedom from Spanish 
 rule, showed as much short-sighted selfishness 
 and bickering jealousy as even our own revo- 
 lutionary ancestors, and only a part remained 
 faithful to the end : as a result, but one section 
 won independence, while the Netherlands were 
 divided, and never grasped the power that 
 should have been theirs. As for the Spanish- 
 Americans, they split up hopelessly almost be- 
 fore tliey were free, and, though they bettered 
 their condition a' little, yet lost nine tenths of 
 what they had gained. Scotland and Ireland, 
 when independent, were nests of savages. All 
 the follies our forefathers committed can be 
 paralleled elsewheie, but their successes are 
 unique. 
 
 So it was in the few years immediately suc- 
 ceeding the peace by which we won our inde- 
 pendence. The mass of the people wished for 
 no closer union than was to be found in a lax 
 confederation ; but they had the good sense t > 
 learn the lesson taught by the weakness and 
 lawlessness they saw around them ; they re- 
 luctantly made up their minds to the need of a 
 stronger government, and when they had once 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 133 
 
 come to their decision, neither demagogue nor 
 doctrinaire could swerve them from it. 
 
 The national convention to form a Consti- 
 tution met in May, 1787 ; and rarely in the 
 world's history has there been a deliberative 
 body which contained so many remarkable men, 
 or produced results so lasting and far-reaching. 
 The Congress whose members signed the Dec- 
 laration of Independence had but cleared the 
 ground on which the framers of the Constitu- 
 tion were to build. Among the delegates in 
 attendance, easily first stood Washington and 
 Franklin, — two of that great American trio in 
 which Lincoln is the third. Next came Hamil- 
 ton from New York, having as colleagues a 
 couple of mere obstructionists sent by the Clin- 
 tonians to handicap him. From Pennsylvania 
 came Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris ; 
 from Virginia, Madison; from South Carolina, 
 Rutledge and the Pinckneys ; and so on through 
 the other states. Some of the most noted 
 statesmen were absent, however. Adams and 
 Jefferson were abroad. Jay was acting as Sec- 
 retary for Foreign Affairs ; in which capacity, 
 by the way, he had shown most unlooked-for 
 weakness in yielding to Spanish demands about 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 Two years after taking part in the proceed- 
 ings of the American Constitutional Convention, 
 
134 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Morris witnessed the opening of tlie States 
 General of France. He thorouglily appreciated 
 the absolute and curious contrast offered by 
 these two bodies, each so big with fate for all 
 mankind. The men who predominated in and 
 shaped the actions of the first belonged to a 
 type not uncommonly brought forth by a peo- 
 ple already accustomed to freedom at a crisis in 
 the struggle to preserve or extend its liberties. 
 During the past few centuries this type had ap- 
 peared many times among the liberty loving 
 nations who dwelt on the shores of the Baltic 
 and the North Sea ; and our forefathers repre- 
 sented it in its highest and most perfect shapes. 
 It is a type only to be found among men al- 
 ready trained to govern themselves as well as 
 others. The American statesmen were the 
 kinsfolk and fellows of Hampden and Pym, of 
 William the Silent and John of Barneveldt, 
 Save love of freedom, they had little in common 
 with the closet philosophers, the enthusiastic 
 visionaries, and the selfish demagogues who in 
 France helped pull up the flood-gates of an all- 
 swallowing torrent. They Avere great men ; but 
 it was less the greatness of mere genius than 
 that springing from the union of strong, virile 
 qualities with steadfast devotion to a high ideal. 
 In certain respects they were ahead of all their 
 European compeers; yet thpy preserved virtues 
 
FORMATION OF TEE CONSTITUTION. 135 
 
 forgotten or sneered at by the contemporaneous 
 generation of trans - Atlantic leaders. They 
 wrought for the future as surely as did the 
 French Jacobins ; but their spirit was the spirit 
 of the Long Parliament. They were resolute to 
 free themselves from the tyranny of man ; but 
 they had not unlearned the reverence felt by 
 their fathers for their fathers' God. They were 
 sincerely religious. The advanced friends of free- 
 dom abroad scoffed at religion, and would have 
 laughed outright at a proposition to gain help 
 for their cause by prayer ; but to the founders 
 of our Constitution, when matters were at a 
 deadlock, and the outcome looked almost hope- 
 less, it seemed a most fit and proper thing that 
 one of the chief of their number should propose 
 to invoke to aid them a wisdom greater than 
 the wisdom of human beings. Even those 
 among their descendants who no longer share 
 their trusting faith may yet well do regretful 
 homage to a religious spirit so deep-rooted and 
 so strongly tending to bring out a pure and 
 high morality. The statesmen who met in 
 1787 were earnestly patriotic. They unselfishly 
 desired the welfare of their countrymen. They 
 were cool, resolute men, of strong convictions, 
 with clear insight into the future. They were 
 thoroughly acquainted with the needs of the 
 community for which they were to act. Above 
 
136 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 all they possessed that inestimable quality, so 
 characteristic of their race, hard-headed com- 
 mon sense. Their theory of government was 
 a very high one ; but they understood perfectly 
 that it had to be accommodated to the short- 
 comings of the average citizen. Small indeed 
 was their resemblance to the fiery orators and 
 brilliant pamphleteers of the States General. 
 They were en^phatically good men ; they were 
 no less emphatically practical men. They 
 would have scorned Mirabeau as a scoundrel ; 
 they would have despised Sieyes as a vain and 
 impractical theorist. 
 
 The deliberations of the convention m their 
 result illustrated in a striking manner the truth 
 of the American principle, that — for delibera- 
 tive, not executive, purposes — the wisdom of 
 many men is worth more than the wisdom of 
 any one man. The Constitution that the mem- 
 bers assembled in convention finally produced 
 was not only the best possible one for America 
 at that time, but it was also, in spite of its 
 short-comings, and taking into account its fit- 
 ness for our own people and conditions, as well 
 as its accordance with the principles of abstract 
 right, probably the best that any nation has ever 
 had, while it was beyond question a very much 
 better one than any single member could have 
 prepared. The particiilarist statesmen would 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 137 
 
 have practically denied us any real union or 
 efficient executive power ; while there was hardly 
 a Federalist member who would not, in his 
 anxiety to avoid the evils from which we were 
 suffering, have given us a government so cen- 
 tralized and aristocratic that it would have 
 been utterly unsuited to a proud, liberty-loving, 
 and essentially democratic race, and would have 
 infallibly provoked a tremendous reactionary 
 revolt. 
 
 It is impossible to read through the debates 
 of the convention without being struck by the 
 innumerable shortcomings of each individual 
 plan proposed by the several members, as di- 
 vulged in their speeches, when compared with 
 the plan finally adopted. Had the result been 
 in accordance with the views of the strong-gov^ 
 ernment men like Hamilton on the one hand, or 
 of the weak-government men like Franklin on 
 the other, it would have been equally disastrous 
 for the country. The men who afterwards 
 naturally became the chiefs of the Federalist 
 party, and who included in their number the 
 bulk of the great revolutionary leaders, were 
 the ones to whom we mainly owe our present 
 form of government; certainly we owe them 
 i more, both on this and on other points, than 
 we do their rivals, the after -time Democrats. 
 Yet there were some articles of fiiith in the 
 
138 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 creed of the latter so essential to our national 
 wellbeing, and yet so counter to the prejudices 
 of the Federalists, that it was inevitable they 
 should triumph in the end. Jefferson led the 
 Democrats to victory only when he had learned 
 to acquiesce thoroughly in some of the funda- 
 mental principles of Federalism, and the govern- 
 ment of himself and his successors was good 
 chiefly in so far as it followed out the theories 
 of the Hamiltonians ; while Hamilton and the 
 Federalists fell from power because they could 
 not learn the one great truth taught by Jeffer- 
 son, — that in America a statesman should 
 trust the people, and should endeavor to se- 
 cure to each man all possible individual liberty, 
 confident that he will use it aright. The old- 
 school Jeffersonian theorists believed in " a 
 strong people and a weak government." Lin- 
 coln was the first who showed how a strong 
 people might have a strong government and 
 yet remain the freest on the earth. He seized 
 — - half unwittingly — all that was best and 
 wisest in the traditions of Federalism ; he was 
 the true successor of the Federalist leaders ; but 
 he grafted on their system a profound belief 
 that the great heart of the nation beat for 
 truth, honor, and liberty. 
 
 This fact, that in 1787 all the thinkers of 
 the day drew out plans that in some respects 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 139 
 
 went very wide of the mark, must be kept in 
 mind, or else we shall judge each particular 
 thinker with undue harshness when we examine 
 his utterances without comparing them with 
 those of his fellows. But one partial exception 
 can be made. In the Constitutional Conven- 
 tion Madison, a moderate Federalist, was the 
 man who, of all who were there, saw things 
 most clearly as they were, and whose theories 
 most closely corresponded with the principles 
 finally adopted ; and although even he was at 
 first dissatisfied with the result, and both by 
 word and by action interpreted the Constitu- 
 tion in widely different ways at different times, 
 still this was Madison's time of glory : he was 
 one of the statesmen who do extremely useful 
 work, but only at some single given crr^Ts. 
 While the Constitution was being formed and- 
 adopted, he stood in the very front ; but in his 
 later career he sunk his own individuality, and 
 became a mere pale shadow of Jefferson. 
 
 Morris played a very prominent part in the 
 convention. He was a ready speaker, and 
 among all the able men present there was 
 probably no such really brilliant thinker. In 
 the debates he spoke more often than any one 
 else, although Madison was not far behind him ; 
 and his speeches betrayed, but with marked 
 and exaggerated emphasis, both the virtues and 
 
140 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the shortcomings of the Federalist school of 
 thought. They show us, too, why he never 
 rose to the first rank of statesmen. His keen, 
 masterful mind, his far-sightedness, and the force 
 and subtlety of his reasoning were all marred 
 by his incurable cynicism and deep-rooted dis- 
 trust of mankind. He throughout appears as 
 advocatus diaboli; he puts the lowest interpre- 
 tation upon every act, and frankly avows his 
 disbelief in all generous and unselfish motives. 
 His continual allusions to the overpowering 
 influence of the baser passions, and to their 
 mastery of the human race at all times, drew 
 from Madison, although the two men generally 
 acted together, a protest against his " forever 
 inculcating the utter political depravity of men, 
 and the necessity for opposing one vice and 
 interest as the only possible check to another 
 vice and interest." 
 
 Morris championed a strong national govern- 
 ment, wherein he was right ; but he also cham- 
 pioned a system of class representation, leaning 
 towards aristocracy, wherein he was wrong. 
 Not Hamilton himself was a firmer believer in 
 the national idea. His one great object was to 
 secure a powerful and lasting Union, instead of 
 a loose federal league. It must be remembered 
 that in the convention the term " federal " was 
 used in exactly the opposite sense to the one in 
 
^FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 141 
 
 which it was taken afterwards ; that is, it was 
 used as the antithesis of " national," not as its 
 synonym. The states-rights men used it to 
 express a system of government such as that of 
 the old federation of the thirteen colonies ; while 
 their opponents called themselves Nationalists, 
 and only took the title of Federalists after the 
 Constitution had been formed, and then simply 
 because the name was popular with the masses. 
 They thus appropriated their adversaries' party 
 name, bestowing it on the organization most 
 hostile to their adversaries' party theories. Sim- 
 ilarly, the term *' Republican Party," which 
 was originally in our history merely another 
 name for the Democracy, has in the end been 
 adopted by the chief opponents of the latter. 
 
 The difficulties for the convention to surmount 
 seemed insuperable ; on almost every question 
 that came up, there were clashing interests. 
 Strong government and weak government, pure 
 democracy or a modified aristocracy, small states 
 and large states, North and South, slavery and 
 freedom, agricultural sections as against com- 
 mercial sections, — on each of twenty points the 
 delegates split into hostile camps, that could only 
 be reconciled by concessions from both sides. 
 The Constitution was not one compromise; it 
 was a bundle of compromises, all needful. 
 
 Morris, like every other member of the con- 
 
142 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 vention, sometimes took the right and some- 
 times the wrong side on the successive issues 
 that arose. But on the most important one of 
 all he made no error ; and he commands our 
 entire sympathy for his thorough-going nation- 
 alism. As was to be expected, he had no re- 
 gard whatever for states rights. He wished to 
 deny to the small states the equal representa- 
 tion in the Senate finally allowed them ; and he 
 was undoubtedly right theoretically. No good 
 argument can be adduced in support of the pres- 
 ent system on that point. Still, it has thus far 
 worked no harm ; the reason being that our states 
 have merely artificial boundaries, while those of 
 small population have hitherto been distributed 
 pretty evenly among the different sections, so 
 that they have been split up like the others on 
 every important issue, and thus have never 
 been arrayed against the rest of the country. 
 
 Though Morris and his side were defeated in 
 their efforts to have the states represented pro- 
 portionally in the Senate, yet they carried their 
 point as to representation in the House. Also 
 on the general question of making a national 
 government, as distinguished from a league or 
 federation, the really vital point, their triumph 
 was complete. The Constitution they drew up 
 and had adopted no more admitted of legal or 
 peaceable rebellion — whether called secession 
 
, FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 143 
 
 or nullification — on the part of the state than 
 on the part of a county or an individual. 
 
 Morris expressed his own views with his 
 usual clear-cut, terse vigor when he asserted 
 that " state attachments and state importance 
 had been the bane of the country," and that he 
 came, not as a mere delegate from one section, 
 but " as a representative of America, — a repre- 
 sentative in some degree of the whole human 
 race, for the whole human race would be af- 
 fected by the outcome of the convention." And 
 he poured out the flood of his biting scorn on 
 those gentlemen who came there " to truck and 
 bargain for their respective states," asking what 
 man there was who could tell with certainty 
 the state wherein he — and even more where- 
 in his children — would live in the future ; aH^id 
 reminding the small states, with cavalier indif-^ 
 ference, that, " if they did not like the Union, 
 no matter, — they would have to come in, 
 and that was all there was about it ; for if per- 
 suasion did not unite the country, then the 
 sword would." His correct language and dis- 
 tinct enunciation — to which Madison has borne 
 witness — allowed his grim truths to carry their 
 full weight ; and he brought them home to his 
 hearers with a rough, almost startling earnest- 
 ness and directness. Many of those present 
 must have winced when he told them that it 
 
144 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 would matter nothing to America " if all the 
 charters and constitutions of the states were 
 thrown into the fire, and all the demagogues 
 into the ocean," and asserted that " any par- 
 ticular state ought to be injured, for the sake 
 of a niajorit}^ of the people, in case its conduct 
 showed that it deserved it." He held that we 
 should create a national government, to be the 
 one and only supreme power in the land, — one 
 which, unlike a mere federal league, such as we 
 then lived under, should have complete and 
 compulsive operation ; and he instanced the ex- 
 amples as well of Greece as of Germany and the 
 United Netherlands, to prove that local juris- 
 diction destroyed every tie of nationality. 
 
 It shows the boldness of the experiment in 
 which we were engaged, that we were forced to 
 take all other nations, whether dead or living, 
 as warnings, not examples ; whereas, since we 
 succeeded, we have served as a pattern to be 
 copied, either wholly or in part, by every other 
 people that has followed in our steps. Before 
 our own experience, each similar attempt, save 
 perhaps on the smallest scale, had been a failure. 
 Where so many other nations teach by their 
 mistakes, we are among the few who teach by 
 their successes. 
 
 Be it noted also that, the doctrinaires to the 
 contrary notwithstanding, we proved that a 
 
^FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 145 
 
 strong central government was perfectly com- 
 patible with absolute democracy. Indeed, the 
 separatist spirit does not lead to true demo- 
 cratic freedom. Anarchy is the handmaiden of 
 tyranny. Of all the states, South Carolina has 
 shown herself (at least throughout the greater 
 part of the present century) to be the most 
 aristocimtic, and the most wedded to the sepa- 
 ratist spirit. The German masses were never 
 so ground down by oppression as when the lit- 
 tle German principalities were most indepen- 
 dent of each other and of any central authority. 
 Morris believed in letting the United States 
 interfere to put down a rebellion in a state, 
 even though the executive of the state himself 
 should be at the head of it ; and he was sup- 
 ported in his views by Pinckney, the ablest 
 member of the brilliant and useful but un- 
 fortunately short-lived school of South Carolina 
 Federalists. Pinckney was a thorough-going 
 Nationalist ; he wished to go a good deal further 
 than the convention actually went in giving 
 the central government complete control. Thus 
 he proposed that Congress should have power 
 to negative by a two-thirds vote all state laws 
 inconsistent with the harmony of the Union. 
 Madison also wished to give Congress a veto 
 over state legislation. Morris believed that a 
 national law should be allowed to repeal any 
 
146 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 state law, and that Congress should legislate in 
 all' cases where the laws of the states conflicted 
 among themselves. 
 
 Yet Morris, on the very question of nation- 
 alism, himself showed the narrowest, blindest, 
 and least excusable sectional jealousy on one 
 point. He felt as an American for all the 
 Union, as it then existed ; but he feared and 
 dreaded the growth of the Union in the West, 
 the very place where it was inevitable, as well 
 as in the highest degree desirable, that the 
 greatest growth should take place. He actually 
 desired the convention to commit the criminal 
 folly of attempting to provide that the West 
 should always be kept subordinate to the East. 
 Fortunately he failed ; but the mere attempt 
 casts the gravest discredit alike on his far-sight- 
 edness and on his reputation as a statesman. It 
 is impossible to understand liow one who was 
 usually so cool and clear-headed an observer 
 could have blundered so flagrantly on a point 
 hardly less vital than the establishment of the 
 Union itself. Indeed, had his views been carried 
 through, they would in the end have nullified 
 all the good bestowed by the Union. In speak- 
 ing against state jealousy, he had shown its 
 foolishness by observing that no man could tell 
 in what state his children would dwell ; and 
 the folly of the speaker himself was made quite 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 14T 
 
 as clear by his not perceiving that their most 
 likely dwelling-place was in the West. This 
 jealousy of the West was even more discreditable 
 to the Northeast than the jealousy of America 
 had been to England; and it continued strong, 
 especially in New England, for very many 
 years. It was a mean and unworthy feeling; 
 and it was greatly to the credit of the Southern- 
 ers that they shared it only to a very small 
 extent. The South in fact originally was in 
 heartiest sympathy with the West ; it was not 
 until the middle of the present century that the 
 country beyond the Alleghanies became prepon- 
 deratingly Northern in sentiment. In the Con- 
 stitutional Convention itself, Butler, of South 
 Carolina, pointed out " that the people and 
 strength of America were evidently tending 
 westwardly and southwestwardly." 
 
 Morris wished to discriminate against the 
 West by securing to the Atlantic States the per- 
 petual control of the Union. He brought this 
 idea up again and again, insisting that we should 
 reserve to ourselves the right to put conditions 
 on the Western States when we should admit 
 them. He dwelt at length on the danger of 
 throwing the preponderance of influence into the 
 Western scale; stating his dread of the "back 
 members," who were always the most ignorant, 
 and the opponents of all good measures. He 
 
148 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 foretold with fear that some day the people of 
 the West would outnumber the people of the 
 East, and he wished to put it in the power of 
 the latter to keep a majority of the votes in 
 their own hands. Apparently he did not see 
 that, if the West once became as populous as 
 he predicted, its legislators would forthwith 
 cease to be "back members." The futility of 
 his fears, and still more of his remedies, was so 
 evident that the convention paid very little heed 
 to either. 
 
 On one point, however, his anticipations of 
 harm were reasonable, and indeed afterwards 
 came true in part. He insisted that the West, 
 or interior, would join the South and force us 
 into a war with some European power, wherein 
 the benefits would accrue to them and the harm 
 to the Northeast. The attitude of the South 
 and West already clearly foreshadowed a strug- 
 gle with Spain for the Mississippi Valley ; and 
 such a struggle would surely have come, either 
 ■with the French or Spaniards, had we failed to 
 secure the territory in question by peaceful 
 purchase. As it was, the realization of Morris's 
 prophecy was only put oif for a few years ; the 
 South and West brought on the War of 1812, 
 wherein the East was the chief sufferer. 
 
 On the question as to whether the Constitu- 
 tion should be made absolutely democratic or 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 149 
 
 not, Morris took the conservative side. On the 
 suffrage his views are perfectly defensible : he 
 believed that it should be limited to freeholders. 
 He rightly considered the question as to how 
 widely it should be extended to be one of expe- 
 diency merely. It is siuiply idle folly to talk 
 of suffrage as being an "inborn" or ''natural" 
 right. There are enormous communities totally 
 unfit for its exercise ; while true universal 
 suffrage never has been, and never will be, 
 seriously advocated by any one. There must 
 always be an age limit, and such a limit must 
 necessarily be purely arbitrary. The wildest 
 democrat of revolutionary times did not dream 
 of doing away with the restrictions of race and 
 sex which kept most American citizens from 
 the ballot-box ; and there is certainly much less 
 abstract right in a system which limits the 
 suffrage to people of a certain color than tliere 
 is in one which limits it to people who come up 
 to a given standard of thrift and intelligence. 
 On the other hand, our experience has not 
 proved that men of wealth make any better use 
 of their ballots than do, for instance, mechanics 
 and other handicraftsmen. No plan could be 
 adopted so perfect as to be free from all draw- 
 backs. On the whole, however, and taking our 
 country in its length and breadth, manhood 
 suffrage has worked well, better than would 
 
150 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 have been the case with any other system ; but 
 even here there are certain localities where its 
 results have been evil, and must simply be ac- 
 cepted as the blemishes inevitably attendant 
 upon, and marring, any effort to carry out a 
 scheme that will be widely applicable. 
 
 Morris contended that his plan would work 
 no novel or great hardship, as the people in 
 several states were already accustomed to free- 
 hold suffrage. He considered the freeholders 
 to be the best guardians of liberty, and main- 
 tained that the restriction of the right to 
 them was only creating a necessary safeguard 
 " against the dangerous influence of those 
 people without property or principle, with 
 whom, in the end, our country, like all other 
 countries, was sure to abound." He did not 
 believe that the ignorant and dependent could 
 be trusted to vote. Madison supported him 
 heartily, likewise thinking the freeholders the 
 safest guardians of our rights ; he indulged 
 in some gloomy (and fortunately hitherto un- 
 verified) f(n*eboclings as to our future, which 
 sound strangely coming from one who was 
 afterwards an especial pet of the Jeffersonian 
 democracy. He said : '' In future times a 
 great majority of the people will be without 
 landed or any other property. They will then 
 either combine under the influence of their 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 151 
 
 common situation, — in which case the rights 
 of property and the public liberty will not be 
 safe in their hands, — or, as is more probable, 
 they will become the tools of opulence and am- 
 bition." 
 
 Morris also enlarged on this last idea. " Give 
 the votes to people who have no property, 
 and they will sell them to the rich," said he. 
 When taunted with his aristocratic tendencies, 
 he answered that he had long ceased to be the 
 dupe of words, that the mere sound of the name 
 "aristocracy " had no terrors for him, but that 
 he did fear lest harm should result to the people 
 from the unacknowledged existence of the very 
 thing they feared to mention. As he put it, 
 there never was or would be a civilized society 
 without an aristocracy, and his endeavor ^^as 
 to keep it as much as possible from doing mls-^ 
 chief. He thus professed to be opposed to the 
 existence of an aristocracy, but convinced that 
 it would exist anyhow, and that therefore the 
 best thing to be done was to give it a recog- 
 nized place, while clipping its wings so as to 
 prevent its working harm. In pursuance of 
 this theory, he elaborated a wild plan, the chief 
 feature of which was the provision for an aris- 
 tocratic senate, and a popular or democratic 
 house, which were to hold each other in check, 
 and thereby prevent either party from doing 
 
152 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 damage. He believed that tlie senators should 
 be appointed by the national executive, who 
 should fill up the vacancies that occurred. To 
 make the upper house effective as a checking 
 branch, it should be so constituted to as have a 
 personal interest in checking the other branch ; 
 it should be a senate for life, it should be rich, 
 it should be aristocratic. He continued : — It 
 would then do wrong ? He believed so ; he 
 hoped so. The rich would strive to enslave the 
 rest ; they always did. The proper security 
 against them was to form them into a separate 
 hiterest. The two forces would then control 
 each other. By thus combining and setting 
 apart the aristocratic interest, the popular in- 
 terest would also be combined against it. 
 There would be mutual check and mutual 
 security. If, on the contrary, the rich and 
 poor were allowed to mingle, then, if the coun- 
 try were commercial, an oligarchy would be 
 established ; and if it were not, an unlimited 
 democracy would ensue. It was best to look 
 truth in the face. The loaves and fishes would 
 be needed to bribe demagogues ; while as for 
 the people, if left to themselves, they would 
 never act from reason alone. The rich would 
 take advantage of their passions, and the result 
 would be either a violent aristocracy, or a more 
 violent despotism. — The speech containing 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 153 
 
 these extraordinary sentiments, which do no 
 particular credit to either Morris's head or 
 heart, is given in substance by Madison in the 
 "Debates." Madison's report is undoubtedly 
 correct, for, after writing it, he showed it to the 
 speaker himself, who made but one or two ver- 
 bal alterations. 
 
 Morris applied an old theory in a new way 
 when he proposed to make " taxation propor- 
 tional to representation " throughout the Union. 
 He considered the preservation of property as 
 being the distinguishing object uf civilization, 
 as liberty was sufficiently guaranteed even by 
 savagery ; and therefore he held that the repre- 
 sentation in the senate should be according to 
 property as well as numbers. But when this 
 proposition was defeated, he declined to sup- 
 port one making property qualifications foi^ 
 congressQien, remarking that such were proper 
 for the electors rather than the elected. 
 
 His views as to the power and functions of 
 the national executive were in the main sound, 
 and he succeeded in having most of them em- 
 bodied in the Constitution. He wished to 
 have the President hold office during good be- 
 havior ; and, though this was negatived, he 
 succeeded in having him made reeligible to 
 the position. He was instrumental in giving 
 him a qualified veto over legislation, and in 
 
164 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 providing for his impeachment for misconduct ; 
 and also in having him made commander-in- 
 chief of the forces of the republic, and in 
 allowing him the appointment of governmental 
 officers. The especial service he rendered, 
 however, was his successful opposition to the 
 plan whereby the President was to be elected 
 by the legislature. This proposition he com- 
 bated with all his strength, showing that it 
 would take away greatly from the dignity of 
 the executive, and would render his election a 
 matter of cabal and faction, " like the election 
 of the pope by a conclave of cardinals." He 
 contended that the President should be chosen 
 by the people at large, by the citizens of the 
 United States, acting through electors whom 
 they had picked out. He showed the probabil- 
 ity that in such a case the people would unite 
 upon a man of continental reputation, as the 
 influence of designing demagogues and tricksters 
 is generally powerful in proportion as the limits 
 within which they work are narrow ; and the 
 importance of the stake would make all men 
 inform themselves thoroughly as to the char- 
 acters and capacities of those who were con- 
 tending for it ; and he flatly denied the state- 
 ments, that were made in evident good faith, to 
 the effect that in a general election each State 
 would cast its vote for its own favorite citizen. 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 155 
 
 He inclined to regard the President in the light 
 of a tribune chosen by the people to watch 
 over the legislature ; and giving him the ap- 
 pointing power, he believed, would force him 
 to make good use of it, owing to his sense of 
 responsibility to the people at large, who would 
 be directly affected by its exercise, and who 
 could and would hold him accountable for its 
 abuse. 
 
 On the judiciary his views were also sound. 
 He upheld the power of the judges, and main- 
 tained that they should have absolute decision 
 as to the constitutionality of any law. By 
 this means he hoped to provide against the 
 encroachments of the popular branch of the 
 government, the one from which danger was 
 to be feared, as "virtuous citizens will often 
 act as legislators in a way of which they would, 
 as private individuals, afterwards be ashamed." 
 He wisely disapproved of low salaries for the 
 judges, showing that the amounts must be fixed 
 from time to time in accordance with the 
 manner and style of living in the country ; and 
 that good work on the bench, where it was 
 especially needful, like good work everywhere 
 else, could only be insured by a high rate of 
 recompense. On the other hand, he approved 
 of introducing into the national Constitution 
 the foolish New York state inventions of a 
 Council of Revision and an Executive Council. 
 
156 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 His ideas of the duties and powers of Con- 
 gress were likewise very proper on the whole. 
 Most citizens of the present day will agree 
 with him that " the excess rather than the 
 deficiency of laws is what we have to dread." 
 He opposed the hurtful provision which re- 
 quires that each congressman should be a 
 resident of his own district, urging that con- 
 gressmen represented the people at large, as 
 well as their own small localities ; and he also 
 objected to making officers of the army and 
 navy ineligible. He laid much stress on the 
 propriety of passing navigation acts to encour- 
 age American bottoms and seamen, as a navy 
 was essential to our security, and the shipping 
 business was always one that stood in peculiar 
 need of public patronage. Also, like Hamilton 
 and most other Federalists, he favored a policy 
 of encouraging domestic manufactures. Inci- 
 dentally he approved of Congress having the 
 power to lay an embargo, although he has else- 
 where recorded his views as to the general 
 futility of such kinds of " commercial warfare." 
 He believed in having a uniform bankruptcy 
 law ; approved of abolishing all religious tests 
 as qualifications for office, and was utterly op- 
 posed to the " rotation in ofiice " theory. 
 
 One curious incident in the convention was 
 the sudden outcropping, even thus early, of a 
 
.FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 157 
 
 " Native American " movement against all for- 
 eigners, which was headed by Butler, of South 
 Carolina, who himself was of Irish parent- 
 age. He strenuously insisted that no foreigners 
 whomsoever should be admitted to our councils, 
 — a rather odd proposition, considering that it 
 would have excluded quite a number of the 
 eminent men he was then addressing. Pennsyl- 
 vania in particular — whose array of native 
 talent has always been far from imposing — had 
 a number of foreigners among her delegates, 
 and loudly opposed the proposition, as did New 
 York. These States wished that there should 
 be no discrimination whatever between native 
 and foreign born citizens ; but finally a com- 
 promise was agreed to, by which the latter 
 were excluded only from the Presidency, but 
 were admitted to all other rights after a seveUr 
 years' residence, — a period that was certainly 
 none too long. 
 
 A much more serious struggle took place 
 over the matter of slavery, quite as important 
 then as ever, for at that time the negroes were 
 a fifth of our population, instead of, as now, 
 an eighth. The question, as it came before 
 the convention, had several sides to it; the 
 especial difficulty arising over the represen- 
 tation of the Slave States in Congress, and the 
 importation of additional slaves from Africa. 
 
 n 
 
158 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 No one proposed to abolish slavery off-hand ; 
 but an influential though small number of 
 delegates, headed by Morris, recognized it as 
 a terrible evil, and were very loa^tli either to 
 allow the South additional representation for 
 the slaves, or to permit the foreign trade in 
 them to go on. When the Southern members 
 banded together on the issue, and made it evi- 
 dent that it was the one which they regarded 
 as almost the most important of all, Morris at- 
 tacked them in a telling speech, stating with 
 his usual boldness facts that most Northerners 
 only dared hint at, and summing up with the 
 remark that, if he was driven to the dilemma 
 of doing injustice to the Southern States or to 
 human nature, he would have to do it to the 
 former ; certainly he would not encourage the 
 slave trade by allowing representation for 
 negroes. Afterwards he characterized the pro- 
 portional representation of the blacks even 
 more strongly, as being " a bribe for the im- 
 portation of slaves." 
 
 In advocating the proposal, first made by 
 Hamilton, that the representation should in all 
 cases be proportioned to the number of free 
 inhabitants, Morris showed the utter lack of 
 logic in the Virginian proposition, which was 
 that the Slave States should have additional 
 representation to the extent of three fifths of 
 
JFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 159 
 
 their negroes. If negroes were to be considered 
 as inhabitants, then they ought to be added in 
 their entire number; if they were to be consid- 
 ered as property, then they ought to be counted 
 only if all other wealth was likewise included. 
 The position of the Southerners was ridiculous : 
 he tore their arguments to shreds ; but he was 
 powerless to alter the fact that they were 
 doggedly determined to carry their point, while 
 most of the Northern members cared compara- 
 tively little about it. 
 
 In another speech he painted in the blackest 
 colors the unspeakable misery and wrong 
 wrought by slavery, and showed the blight it 
 brought upon the land. " It was the curse of 
 Heaven on the states where it prevailed." He 
 contrasted the prosperity and happiness of the 
 Northern States with the misery and poverty 
 which overspread the barren wastes of those 
 where slaves were numerous. " Every step you 
 take through the great region of slavery pre- 
 sents a desert widening with the increasing 
 number of these wretched beings." He indig- 
 nantly protested against the Northern States 
 being bound to march their militia for the 
 defense of the Southern States against the 
 very slaves of whose existence the northern men 
 complained. " He would sooner submit himself 
 to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the 
 
160 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 United States than saddle posterity witli such 
 a Constitution." 
 
 Some of the high-minded Virginian states- 
 men were quite as vigorous as he was in their 
 denunciation of the sj^stem. One of them, 
 George Mason, portrayed the effect of slavery 
 upon the people at large with bitter emphasis, 
 and denounced the slave traffic as " infernal," 
 and slavery as a national sin that would be 
 punished by a national calamity, — stating there- 
 in the exact and terrible truth. In shameful con- 
 trast, many of the Northerners championed the 
 institution ; in particular, Oliver Ellsworth, of 
 Connecticut, whose name should be branded with 
 infamy because of the words he then uttered. 
 He actually advocated the free importation of 
 negroes into the South Atlantic States, because 
 the slaves " died so fast in the sickly rice 
 swamps " that it was necessary ever to bring 
 fresh ones to labor and perish in the places of 
 their predecessors ; and, with a brutal cynicism, 
 peculiarly revolting from its mercantile base- 
 ness, he brushed aside the question of morality 
 as irrelevant, asking his hearers to pay heed 
 only to the fact that " what enriches the part 
 enriches the whole." 
 
 The Virginians were opposed to the slave 
 trade ; but South Carolina and Georgia made 
 it a condition of their coming into the Union. 
 
^ FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 161 
 
 It was accordingly agreed that it should be 
 allowed for a limited time, — twelve years ; 
 and this was afterwards extended to twenty by 
 a bargain made by Maryland and the three 
 South Atlantic States with the New England 
 States, the latter getting in return the help of 
 the former to alter certain provisions respect- 
 ing commerce. One of the main industries of 
 the New England of that day was the manufac- 
 ture of rum ; and its citizens cared more for 
 their distilleries than for all the slaves held in 
 bondage throughout Christendom. The rum 
 was made from molasses which they imported 
 from the West Indies, and they carried there in 
 return the fish taken by their great fishing 
 fleets ; they also carried the slaves into the 
 Southern ports. Their commerce was what 
 they especially relied on ; and to gain support 
 for it they were perfectly willing to make 
 terms with even such a black Mammon of un- 
 righteousness as the Southern slaveholding sys- 
 tem. Throughout the contest, Morris and a 
 few other stout anti-slavery men are the only 
 ones who appear to advantage ; the Virginians, 
 who were honorably anxious to minimize the 
 evils of slavery, come next ; then the other 
 Southerners who allowed pressing self-interest 
 to overcome their scruples ; and, last of all, the 
 New Englanders whom a comparatively trivial 
 
162 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 self-interest made the willing allies of the ex- 
 treme slaveholders. These last were the only 
 Northerners who yielded anything to the South- 
 ern slaveholders that was not absolutely neces- 
 sary ; and yet they were the forefathers of the 
 most determined and effective foes that slavery 
 ever had. 
 
 As already said, the Southerners stood firm 
 on the slave question: it was the one which 
 perhaps more than any other offered the most 
 serious obstacle to a settlement. Madison 
 pointed out " that the real difference lay, not 
 between the small States and the large, but 
 between the Northern and the Southern States. 
 The institution of slavery and its consequences 
 formed the real line of discrimination." To 
 talk of this kind Morris at first answered hotly 
 enough: — "he saw that the Southern gentle- 
 men would not be satisfied unless they saw the 
 way open to their gaining a majority in the pub- 
 lic councils. ... If [the distinction they set up 
 between the North and South] was real, instead 
 of attempting to blend incompatible things, let 
 them at once take a friendly leave of each 
 other." He afterwards went back from this 
 position, and agreed to the compromise by 
 which the slaves were to add, by three fifths of 
 their number, to the representation of their 
 masters, and the slave trade was to be allowed 
 
_ FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 163 
 
 for a certain number of years, and prohibited 
 forever after. He showed his usual straight- 
 forward willingness to call things by their right 
 names in desiring to see " slavery " named 
 outright in the Constitution, instead of being 
 characterized with cowardly circumlocution, as 
 was actually done. 
 
 In finally yielding and assenting to a com- 
 promise, he was perfectly right. The crazy 
 talk about the iniquity of consenting to any 
 recognition of slavery whatever in the Con- 
 stitution is quite beside the mark; and it is 
 equally irrelevant to assert that the so-called 
 " compromises " were not properly compromises 
 at all, because there were no mutual conces- 
 sions, and the Southern States had "no shadow 
 of right " to what they demanded and only in 
 part gave up. It was all-important that there 
 should be a Union, but it had to result from 
 the voluntary action of all the states ; and each 
 state had a perfect " right " to demand just 
 whatever it chose. The really wise and high- 
 minded statesmen demanded for themselves 
 nothing save justice; but they had to accom- 
 plish their purpose by yielding somewhat to the 
 prejudices of their more foolish and less disin- 
 terested colleao^ues. It was better to limit the 
 duration of the slave trade to twenty years than 
 to allow it to be continued indefinitely, as would 
 
164 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 have been tlie case had the South Atlantic 
 States remamed by themselves. The three 
 fifths representation of tlie slaves was an evil 
 anomaly, but it was no worse tlian allowing 
 the small states equal representation in the 
 Senate ; indeed, balancing the two concessions 
 against each other, it must be admitted that 
 Virginia and North Carolina surrendered to 
 New Hampshire and Rhode Island more than 
 they got in return. 
 
 No man who supported slavery can ever have 
 a clear and flawless title to our regard ; and 
 those who opposed it merit, in so far, the 
 highest honor ; but the opposition to it some- 
 times took forms that can be considered only 
 as the vagaries of lunacy. The only hope of 
 abolishing it lay, first in the establishment 
 and then in the preservation of the Union ; 
 and if we had at the outset dissolved into a 
 knot of struggling anarchies, it would have 
 entailed an amount of evil both on our race 
 and on all North America, compared to which 
 the endurance of slavery for a century or two 
 would have been as nothing. If we had even 
 split up into only two republics, a Northern 
 and a Southern, the West would probably have 
 gone with the latter, and to this day slavery 
 would have existed throughout the Mississippi 
 valley ; much of what is now our territory 
 
J" OR MAT ION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 165 
 
 would have been held by European powers, 
 scornfully heedless of our divided might; while 
 in not a few states the form of government 
 would have been a military dictatorship ; and . 
 indeed our whole history would have been as 
 contemptible as was that of Germany for some 
 centuries prior to the rise of the house of Hohen- 
 zollern. 
 
 The fierceness of the opposition to the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution, and the narrowness 
 of the majority by which Virginia and New 
 York decided in its favor, while North Carolina 
 and Rhode Island did not come in at all until 
 absolutely forced, showed that the refusal to 
 compromise on any one of the points at issue 
 would have jeopardized everything. Had the 
 slavery interest been in the least dissatisfied, o^ 
 had the plan of government been a shade les^ 
 democratic, or had the smaller States not been 
 propitiated, the Constitution would have been 
 rejected off-hand ; and the country would have 
 had before it decades, perhaps centuries, of 
 misrule, violence, and disorder. 
 
 Madison paid a very just compliment to some 
 of Morris's best points when he wrote, anent 
 his services in the convention : "To the bril- 
 liancy of his genius he added, what is too rare, 
 a candid surrender of his opinions when the 
 light of discussion satisfied him that they had 
 
166 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 been too hastily formed, and a readiness to aid 
 in making the best of measures in which he 
 had been overruled." Although so many of 
 his own theories had been rejected, he was one 
 of the warmest advocates of the Constitution ; 
 and it was he who finally drew up the docu- 
 ment and put the finish to its style and arrange- 
 ment, so that, as it now stands, it comes from 
 his pen. 
 
 Hamilton, who more than any other man 
 bore the brunt of the fight for its adoption, 
 asked Morris to help him in writing the 
 " Federalist," but the latter was for some reason 
 unable to do so ; and Hamilton was assisted 
 only by Madison, and to a very slight extent 
 by Jay. Pennsylvania, the State from which 
 Morris had been sent as a delegate, early de- 
 clared in favor of the new experiment ; although, 
 as Morris wrote Washington, there had been 
 cause to " dread the cold and sour temper of 
 the back counties, and still more the wicked 
 industry of those who have long habituated 
 themselves to live on the public, and cannot 
 bear the idea of being removed from the power 
 and profit of state government, which has 
 been and still is the means of supporting them- 
 selves, their families, and dependents, and (which 
 perhaps is equally grateful) of depressing and 
 humbling their political adversaries." In his 
 
FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 167 
 
 own native state of New York the influences 
 he thus describes were still more powerful, and 
 it needed all Hamilton's wonderful genius to 
 force a ratification of the Constitution in spite 
 of the stupid selfishness of the Clintonian 
 faction ; as it was, he was only barely success- 
 ful, although backed by all the best and ablest 
 leaders in the community, — Jay, Livingstone, 
 Schuyler, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Isaac 
 Roosevelt, James Duane, and a host of others. 
 About this time Morris came back to New 
 York to live, having purchased the family 
 estate at Morrisania from his elder brother, 
 Staats Long Morris, the British general. He 
 had for some time been engaged in various 
 successful commercial ventures with his friend 
 Robert Morris, including an East India voyage 
 on a large scale, shipments of tobacco to 
 France, and a share in iron works on the Del- 
 aware River, and had become quite a rich man. 
 As soon as the war was ended, he had done 
 what he could do to have the loyalists pardoned 
 and reinstated in their fortunes ; thereby risk- 
 ing his popularity not a little, as the general 
 feeling against the Tories was bitter and male- 
 volent in the highest degree, in curious con- 
 trast to the good-will that so rapidly sprang up 
 between the Unionists and ex-Confederates after 
 the Civil War. 
 
168 
 
 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 He also kept an eye on foreign politics, and 
 one of his letters to Jay curiously foreshadows 
 the good-will generally felt by Americans of 
 the present day towards Russia, running : " If 
 her ladyship (the Czarina) would drive the 
 Turk out of Europe, and demolish the Algerines 
 and other piratical gentry, she will have done 
 us much good for her own sake ; . . . but it is 
 hardly possible the other powers will permit 
 Russia to possess so wide a door into the Medi- 
 terranean. I may be deceived, but I think 
 England herself would oppose it. As an Amer- 
 ican, it is my hearty wish that she may effect 
 her schemes." 
 
 Shortly after this it became necessary for 
 him to sail for Europe on business. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 
 
 After a hard winter passage of forty days' 
 length Morris reached France, and arrived in 
 Paris on February 3, 1789. He remained there 
 a year on his private business ; but his pro- 
 minence in America, and his intimate friend- 
 ship with many distinguished Frenchmen, at 
 once admitted him to the highest social and 
 political circles, where his brilliant talents se- 
 cured him immediate importance. C^ 
 
 The next nine years of his life were spent in 
 Europe, and it was during this time that he un- 
 knowingly rendered his especial and peculiar 
 service to the public. As an American states- 
 man he has many rivals, and not a few supe- 
 riors ; but as a penetrating observer and re- 
 corder of contemporary events, he stands alone 
 among the men of his time. He kept a full 
 diary during his stay abroad, and was a most 
 voluminous correspondent ; and his capacity 
 for keen, shrewd observation, his truthfulness, 
 his wonderful insight into character, his sense 
 
170 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 of humor, and his power of graphic descrip- 
 tion, all combine to make his comments on the 
 chief men and events of the day a unique 
 record of the inside history of Western Europe 
 during the tremendous convulsions of the 
 French Revolution. He is always an enter- 
 taining and in all matters of fact a trust- 
 worthy writer. His letters and diary together 
 form a real mine of wealth for the student 
 either of the social life of the upper classes in 
 France just before the outbreak, or of the 
 events of the Revolution itself. 
 
 In the first place, it must be premised that 
 from the outset Morris was hostile to the spirit 
 of the French Revolution, and his hostility grew 
 in proportion to its excesses until at last it 
 completely swallowed up his original antipathy 
 to England, and made him regard France 
 as normally our enemy, not our ally. This was 
 perfectly natural, and indeed inevitable : in 
 all really free countries, the best friends of 
 freedom regarded the revolutionists, when they 
 had fairly begun their bloody career, with 
 horror and anger. It was only to oppressed, 
 debased, and priest-ridden peoples that the 
 French Revolution could come as the embodi- 
 ment of liberty. Compared to the freedom al- 
 ready enjoyed by Americans, it was sheer 
 tyranny of the most dreadful kind. 
 
FIRST STAY JN FRANCE. 171 
 
 Morris saw clearly that the popular party in 
 France, composed in part of amiable vision- 
 aries, theoretic philanthropists, and closet 
 constitution-mongers, and in part of a brutal, 
 sodden populace, maddened by the grinding 
 wrongs of ages, knew not whither its own steps 
 tended ; and he also saw that the then existing 
 generation of Frenchmen were not, and never 
 would be, fitted to use liberty aright. It is 
 small matter for wonder that he could not see 
 as clearly the good which lay behind the 
 movement ; that he could not as readily fore- 
 tell the real and great improvement it was 
 finally to bring about, though only after a gener- 
 ation of hideous convulsions. Even as it was, 
 he discerned what was happening, and what 
 was about to happen, more distinctly than did 
 any one else. The wild friends of the French 
 Revolution, especially in America, supported it 
 blindly, with but a very slight notion of what 
 it really signified. Keen though Morris's in- 
 tellectual vision was, it was impossible for him 
 to see what future lay beyond the quarter of a 
 century of impending tumult. It did not lie 
 within his powers to applaud the fiendish atroc- 
 ities of the Red Terror for the sake of the prob- 
 lematical good that would come to the next 
 generation. To do so he would have needed 
 the granite heart of a zealot, as well as the pro- 
 phetic vision of a seer. 
 
172 
 
 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 The French Revolution was in its essence 
 a struggle for the abolition of privilege, and 
 for equality in civil rights. This Morris per- 
 ceived, almost alone among the statesmen of 
 his day; and he also perceived that most 
 Frenchmen were willing to submit to any kind 
 of government that would secure them the 
 things for which they strove. As he wrote to 
 Jefferson, when the republic was well under 
 weigh : " The great mass of the French nation 
 is less solicitous to preserve the present order of 
 things than to prevent the return of the ancient 
 oppression, and of course would more readily 
 submit to a pure despotism than to that kind 
 of monarchy whose only limits were found in 
 those noble, legal and clerical corps by which 
 the people were alternately oppressed and in- 
 sulted." To the down-trodden masses of con- 
 tinental Europe the gift of civil rights and 
 the removal of the tyranny of the privileged 
 classes, even though accompanied by the rule 
 of a directory, a consul, or an emperor, rep- 
 resented an immense political advance ; but 
 to the free people of England, and to the freer 
 people of America, the change would have 
 been wholly for the worse. 
 
 Such being the case, Morris's attitude was 
 natural and proper. There is no reason to 
 question the sincerity of his statement in an- 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 173 
 
 other letter, that '' I do, from the bottom of my 
 heart, wish well to this country [France]." 
 Had the French people shown the least mod- 
 eration or wisdom, he would have unhesitat- 
 ingly sided with them against their oppressors. 
 It must be kept in mind that he was not in- 
 fluenced in the least in his course by the views 
 of the upper classes with whom he' mingled. On 
 the contrary, when he first came to Europe, he 
 distinctly lost popularity in some of the social 
 circles in which he moved, because he was so 
 much more conservative than his aristocratic 
 friends, among whom the closet republican- 
 ism of the philosophers was for the moment 
 all the rage. He had no love for the French 
 nobility, whose folly and ferocity caused the 
 Revolution, and whose craven cowardice could 
 not check it even before it had gathered head- 
 way. Long afterwards he wrote of some of the 
 emigres: "The conversation of these gentle- 
 men, who have the virtue and good fortune of 
 their grandfathers to recommend them, leads 
 me almost to forget the crimes of the French 
 Revolution ; and often the unforgiving temper 
 and sanguinary wishes which they exhibit 
 make me almost believe that the assertion of 
 their enemies is true, namely, that it is success 
 alone which has determined on whose side 
 should be the crimes, and on whose the 
 
174 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 miseries," The truth of the last sentence was 
 strikingly verified by the White Terror, even 
 meaner, if less bloody, than the Red. Bourbon 
 princes and Bourbon nobles were alike, and 
 Morris only erred in not seeing that their de- 
 struction was the condition precedent upon all 
 progress. 
 
 There was never another great struggle, in 
 the end productive of good to mankind, where 
 the tools and methods by which that end was 
 won were so wholly vile as in the French 
 Revolution. Alone among movements of the 
 kind, it brought forth no leaders entitled to our 
 respect ; none who were both great and good; 
 none even who were very great, save, at its 
 beginning, strange, strong, crooked Mirabeau, 
 and at its close the towering world-genius who 
 sprang to power by its means, wielded it for his 
 own selfish purposes, and dazzled all nations 
 over the wide earth by the glory of his strength 
 and splendor. 
 
 We can hardly blame Morris for not appre- 
 ciating a revolution whose immediate outcome 
 was to be Napoleon's despotism, even though 
 be failed to see all the good that would remotely 
 spring therefrom. He considered, as he once 
 wrote a friend, that " the true object of a great 
 statesman is to give to any particular nation 
 the kind of laws which is suitable to them, 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 175 
 
 and the best constitution which they are capa- 
 ble of." There can be no sounder rule of states- 
 manship ; and none was more flagrantly broken 
 by the amiable but incompetent political doc- 
 trinaires of 1789. Thus the American, as a 
 far-sighted statesman, despised the theorists 
 who began the Revolution, and, as a humane 
 and honorable man, abhorred the black-hearted 
 wretches who carried it on. His view of the 
 people among whom he found himself, as well 
 as his statement of his own position, he himself 
 has recorded : " To fit people for a republic, 
 as for any other form of government, a pre- 
 vious education is necessary. ... In despotic 
 governments the people, habituated to behold- 
 ing everything bending beneath the weight of 
 power, never possess that power for a moment 
 without abusing it. S^laves, driven to despair, 
 take arms, execute vast vengeance, and then 
 sink back to their former condition of slaves. 
 In such societies the patriot, the melancholy 
 patriot, sides with the despot, because anything 
 is better than a wild and bloody confusion." 
 
 So much for an outline of his ,views. His 
 writings preserve them for us in detail on al- 
 most every important question that came up 
 during his stay in Europe ; couched, moreover, 
 in telling, piquant sentences that leave room 
 for hardly a dull line in either letters or diary. 
 
176 GOV VEEN EUR MORRIS. 
 
 No sooner had he arrived in Paris than he 
 sought out Jefferson, then the American minis- 
 ter, and Lafayette. They engaged him to dine 
 on the two following nights. He presented his 
 various letters of introduction, and in a very 
 few weeks, by his wit, tact, and ability, had 
 made himself completely at home in what was 
 by far the most brilliant and attractive — al- 
 though also the most hopelessly unsound — 
 fashionable society of any European capital. 
 He got on equally well with fine ladies, philos- 
 ophers, and statesmen ; was as much at his 
 ease in the salons of the one as at the dinner- 
 tables of the other ; and all the time observed 
 and noted down, with the same humorous zest, 
 the social peculiarities of his new friends as 
 well as the tremendous march of political 
 events. Indeed, it is difficult to know whether* 
 to set the higher value on his penetrating ob- 
 servations concerning public affairs, or on his 
 witty, light, half -satirical sketches of the men 
 and women of the world with whom he was 
 thrown in contact, told in his usual charming 
 and effective style. No other American of 
 note has left us writings half so humorous and 
 amusing, filled, too, with information of the 
 greatest value. 
 
 Although his relations with Jefferson were 
 at this time very friendly, yet his ideas on most 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 177 
 
 subjects were completely at variance with those 
 of the latter. He visited him very often ; and, 
 after one of these occasions, jots down his opin- 
 ion of his friend in his usual amusing vein : 
 " Call on Mr. Jefferson, and sit a good while. 
 General conversation on character and politics. 
 I think he does not form very just estimates of 
 character, but rather assigns too many to the 
 humble rank of fools; whereas in life the 
 gradations are infinite, and each individual has 
 his peculiarities of fort and feeble : " Not a 
 bad protest against the dangers of sweeping 
 generalization. Another time he records his 
 judgment of Jefferson's ideas on public matters 
 as follows : " He and I differ in our systems of 
 politics. He, with all the leaders of liberty 
 here, is desirous of annihilating distinctions 
 of order. How far such views may be right 
 respecting mankind in general is, I think, ex- 
 tremely problematical. But with respect to 
 this nation I am sure they are wrong, and can- 
 not eventuate well." 
 
 As soon as he began to go out in Parisian 
 society, he was struck by the closet repub- 
 licanism which it had become the fashion to 
 affect. After his first visit to Lafayette, who 
 received him with that warmth and frank, open- 
 handed hospitality which he always extended to 
 Americans, Morris writes ; " Lafayette is full 
 
178 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 of politics ; he appears to be too republican for 
 the genius of his country." And again, when 
 Lafayette showed him the draft of the cele- 
 brated Declaration of Rights, he notes : " I 
 gave him my opinions, and suggested several 
 amendments tending to soften the high-colored 
 expressions of freedom. It is not by sounding 
 words that revolutions are produced." Else- 
 where he writes that " the young nobility have 
 brought themselves to an active faith in the 
 natural equality of mankind, and spurn at 
 everything which looks like restraint." Some 
 of their number, however, he considered to be 
 actuated by considerations more tangible than 
 mere sentiment. He chronicles a dinner with 
 some members of the National Assembly, 
 where " one, a noble representing the Tiers, is 
 so vociferous against his own order, that I am 
 convinced he means to rise by his eloquence, 
 and finally will, I expect, vote with the opinion 
 of the court, let that be what it may." The 
 sentimental humanitarians — who always form 
 a most pernicious body, with an influence for 
 bad hardly surpassed by that of the profes- 
 sionally criminal class — of course throve vigor- 
 ously in an atmosphere where theories of mawk- 
 ish benevolence went hand in hand with the 
 habitual practice of vices too gross to name. 
 Morris, in one of his letters, narrates an in- 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 179 
 
 stance in point ; at the same time showing 
 how this excess of watery philanthropy was, 
 like all the other movements of the French 
 Revolution, but a violent and misguided reac- 
 tion against former abuses of the opposite sort. 
 The incident took place in Madame de Stael's 
 salon. " The Count de Clermont Tonnerre, one 
 of their best orators, read to us a very pathetic 
 oration ; and the object was to show that no 
 penalties are the legal compensations for crimes 
 or injuries: the man who is hanged, having 
 by that event paid his debt to society, ought 
 not to be held in dishonor ; and in like manner 
 he who has been condemned for seven years to 
 be flogged in the galleys, should, when he has 
 served out his apprenticeship, be received again 
 into good company, as if nothing had happened. 
 You smile ; but observe the extreme to which 
 the matter was carried the other way. Dis- 
 honoring thousands for the guilt of one has so 
 shocked the public sentiment as to render this 
 extreme fashionable. The oration was very 
 fine, very sentimental, very pathetic, and the 
 style harmonious. Shouts of applause and full 
 approbation. When this was pretty well over, 
 I told him that his speech was extremely elo- 
 quent, but that his principles were not very 
 solid. Universal surprise ! " 
 
 At times he became rather weary of the con- 
 
180 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 stant discussion of politics, which had become 
 the chief drawing-room topic. Among the ca- 
 pacities of his lively and erratic nature was the 
 power of being intensely bored by anything 
 dull or monotonous. He remarked testily that 
 " republicanism was absolutely a moral influ- 
 enza, from which neither titles, places, nor even 
 the diadem can guard the possessor." In a let- 
 ter to a friend on a different subject he writes ; 
 " Apropos, — a term which my Lord Chester- 
 field well observes we generally use to bring 
 in what is not at all to the purpose, — apropos, 
 then, I have here the strangest employment 
 imaginable. A republican, and just as it were 
 emerged from that assembl}^ which has formed 
 one of the most republican of all republican 
 constitutions, I preach incessantl}^ respect for 
 the prince, attention to the rights of the 
 nobles, and above all moderation, not only in 
 the object, but also in the pursuit of it. All 
 this you will say is none of my business ; but I 
 consider France as the natural ally of my coun- 
 try, and, of course, that we are interested in her 
 prosperity ; besides, to say the truth, I love 
 France." 
 
 His hostility to the fashionable cult offended 
 some of his best friends. The Lafayettes 
 openly disapproved his sentiments. The 
 Marquis told him that he was injuring the 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 181 
 
 cause, because his sentiments were being con- 
 tinually quoted against " the good party." 
 Morris answered that he was opposed to 
 democracy from a regard to liberty; that the 
 popular party were going straight to destruc- 
 tion, and he would fain stop them if he could ; 
 for their views respecting the nation were to- 
 tally inconsistent with the materials of which 
 it was composed, and the worst thing that 
 could happen to them would be to have their 
 wishes granted. Lafayette half admitted 
 that this was true : " He tells me that he is 
 sensible his party are mad, and tells them so, 
 but is not the less determined to die with them. 
 I tell him that I think it would be quite as well 
 to bring them to their senses and live with 
 them," — the last sentence showing the impa- 
 tience with which the shrewd, fearless, prac- 
 tical American at times regarded the dreamy 
 inefficiency of his French associates. Madame 
 de Lafayette was even more hostile than her hus- 
 band to Morris's ideas. In commenting on her 
 behefs he says : " She is a very sensible woman, 
 but has formed her ideas of government in a 
 manner not suited, I think, either to the situa- 
 tion, the circumstances, or the disposition of 
 France." 
 
 He was considered too much of an aristocrat 
 in the salon of the Comtesse de Tesse, the 
 
182 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 resort of " republicans of the first feather ; " 
 and at first was sometimes rather coldly re- 
 ceived there. He felt, however, a most sincere 
 friendship and regard for the comtesse, and 
 thoroughly respected the earnestness with 
 which she had for twenty years done what lay 
 in her power to give her country greater 
 liberty. She was a genuine enthusiast, and, 
 when the National Assembly met, was filled 
 with exultant hope for the future. The fero- 
 cious outbreaks of the mob, and the crazy lust 
 for blood shown by the people at large, startled 
 her out of her faith, and shocked her into the 
 sad belief that her life-long and painful labors 
 had been wasted in the aid of a bad cause. 
 Later in the year Morris writes : " I find 
 Madame de Tesse is become a convert to my 
 principles. We have a gay conversation of some 
 minutes on their affaii's, in which I mingle 
 sound maxims of government with that piquant 
 legerete which this nation delights in. She 
 insists that I dine with her at Versailles the 
 next time I am there. We are vastly gracious, 
 and all at once, in a serious tone, ' Mais at- 
 tendez, madame, est-ce que je suis trop aris- 
 tocrat ? ' To which she answers, with a smile of 
 gentle humility, ' Oh, mon Dieu, non ! ' " 
 
 It is curious to notice how rapidly Morris's 
 brilliant talents gave him a commanding posi- 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 183 
 
 tion, stranger and guest though he was, among 
 the most noted statesmen of France; how 
 often he was consulted, and how widely his 
 opinions were quoted. Moreover, his incisive 
 truthfulness makes bis writings more valuable 
 to the historian of his time than are those of 
 any of his contemporaries, French, English, or 
 American. Taine, in his great work on the 
 Revolution, ranks him high among the small 
 number of observers who have recorded clear 
 and sound judgments of those years of confused, 
 formless tumult and horror. 
 
 All his views on French politics are very 
 striking. As soon as he reached Paris, he was 
 impressed by the unrest and desire for change 
 prevailing everywhere, and wrote home : " I 
 find on this side of the Atlantic a resem- 
 blance to what I left on the other, — a nation 
 which exists in hopes, prospects, and expec- 
 tations ; the reverence for ancient establish- 
 ments gone ; existing forms shaken to the very 
 foundation ; and a new order of things about to 
 take place, in which, perhaps, even the very 
 names of all former institutions will be disre- 
 garded." And again : " This country presents 
 an astonishing spectacle to one who has col- 
 lected his ideas from books and information half 
 a dozen years old. Everything is d VAnglaise, 
 and a desire to imitate the English prevails 
 
184 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 alike in the cat of a coat and the form of a 
 constitution. Like the English, too, all are 
 engaged in parliamenteering ; and when we 
 consider how novel this last business must be, 
 I assure j^ou the progress is far from contempt- 
 ible," — a reference to Lafayette's electioneer- 
 ing trip to Auvergne. The rapidity with 
 which, in America, order bad come out of chaos, 
 while in France the reverse process had been 
 going on, impressed him deeply ; as he says : 
 " If any new lesson were wanting to impress 
 on our hearts a deep sense of the mutability 
 of human affairs, the double contrast between 
 France and America two years ago and at the 
 present would surely furnish it." 
 
 He saw at once that the revolutionists had 
 it in their power to do about as they chose. 
 " If there be any real vigor in the nation the 
 prevailing party in the States-General may, if 
 they please, overturn the monarchy itself, 
 should the king commit his authority to a 
 contest with them. The court is extremely 
 feeble, and the manners are so extremely cor- 
 rupt that they cannot succeed if there be any 
 consistent opposition, unless the whole nation 
 be equally depraved." 
 
 He did not believe that the people would be 
 able to profit by the revolution, or to use their 
 opportunities aright. For the numerous class 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 185 
 
 of patriots who felt a vague, though fervent, 
 enthusiasm for liberty in the abstract, and who, 
 without the slightest practical knowledge, were 
 yet intent on having all their own pet theories 
 put into practice, he felt profound scorn and 
 contempt ; while he distrusted and despised the 
 mass of Frenchmen, because of their frivolity 
 and viciousness. He knew well that a pure 
 theorist may often do as much damage to a 
 country as the most corrupt traitor ; and very 
 properly considered that in politics the fool is 
 quite as obnoxious as the knave. He also 
 realized that levity and the inability to look 
 life seriously in the face, or to attend to the 
 things worth doing, may render a man just as 
 incompetent to fulfil the duties of citizenship 
 as would actual viciousness. 
 
 To the crazy theories of the constitution- 
 makers and closet - republicans generally, he 
 often alludes in his diary, and in his letters 
 home. In one place he notes : '' The literary 
 people here, observing the abuses of the mo- 
 narchical form, imagine that everything must go 
 the better in proportion as it recedes from the 
 present establishment, and in their closets they 
 make men exactly suited to their systems ; but 
 unluckily they are such men as exist nowhere 
 else, and least of all in France." And he writes 
 almost the same thing to Washington : '^ The 
 
186 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 middle party, who mean well, have unfortu- 
 nately acquired their ideas of government from 
 books, iind are admirable fellows upon paper : 
 but as it happens, somewhat unfortunately, that 
 the men who live in the world are very different 
 from those who dwell in the heads of philoso- 
 phers, it is not to be wondered at if the systems 
 taken out of books are fit for nothing but to be 
 put back into books again." And once more : 
 " They have all that romantic spirit, and all 
 those romantic ideas of government, which, 
 happily for America, we were cured of before 
 it was too late." He shows how they had 
 never had tlie chance to gain wisdom through 
 experience. "As they have hitherto felt se- 
 verely the authority exercised in the name of 
 their princes, every limitation of that power 
 seems to them desirable. Never having felt 
 the evils of too weak an executive, the disorders 
 to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet 
 no impression." Elsewhere he comments on 
 their folly in trying to apply to their own 
 necessities systems of government suited to 
 totally different conditions ; and mentions his 
 own attitude in the matter : " I have steadily 
 combated the violence and excess of those per- 
 sons who, either inspired with an enthusiastic 
 love of freedom, or prompted by sinister designs, 
 are disposed to drive everything to extremity. 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 187 
 
 Our American example lias done tliem good ; 
 but, like all novelties, liberty runs away with 
 their discretion, if they have any. They want 
 an American constitution with the exception of 
 a King instead of a President, without reflecting 
 that they have not American citizens to support 
 that constitution. . . . Whoever desires to ap- 
 ply in the practical science of government those 
 rules and forms which prevail and succeed in a 
 foreign country, must fall into the same ped- 
 antry with our young scholars, just fresh from 
 the university, who would fain bring everything 
 to the Roman standard. . . . The scientific 
 tailor who should cut after Grecian or Chinese 
 models would not have many customers, either 
 in London or Paris ; and those who look to 
 America for their political forms are not unlike 
 the tailors in Laputa, who, as Gulliver tells us, 
 always take measures with a quadrant." 
 
 He shows again and again his abiding dis- 
 trust and fear of the French character, as it was 
 at that time, volatile, debauched, ferocious, and 
 incapable of self-restraint. To Lafayette he 
 insisted that the "extreme licentiousness" of 
 the people rendered it indispensable that they 
 should be kept under authority; and on another 
 occasion told him '' that the nation was used to 
 being governed, and would have to be governed ; 
 and that if he expected to lead them by their 
 
188 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 affections, lie would himself be the dupe." In 
 writing to Washington he painted the outlook 
 in colors that, though black indeed, were not a 
 shade too dark. " The materials for a revolu- 
 tion in this country are very indifferent. Every- 
 body agrees that there is an utter prostration 
 of morals; but this general proposition can never 
 convey to an American miud the degree of de- 
 pravity. It is not by any figure of rhetoric or 
 force of language that the idea can be commu- 
 nicated. A hundred anecdotes and a hundred 
 thousand examples are required to show the 
 extreme rottenness of every member. There 
 are men and women who are greatly and emi- 
 nently virtuous. I have the pleasure to num- 
 ber many in my own acquaintance ; bat they 
 stand forward from a background deeply and 
 darkly shaded. It is however from such crum- 
 bling matter that the great edifice of freedom 
 is to be erected here. Perhaps like the stratum 
 of rock which is spread under the whole surface 
 of their country, it may harden when exposed 
 to the air ; but it seems quite as likely that it 
 will fall and crush the builders. I own to you 
 that I am not without such apprehensions, for 
 there is one fatal principle which pervades all 
 ranks. It is a perfect indifference to the viola- 
 tion of engagements. Inconstancy is so mingled 
 in the blood, marrow, and very essence of this 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 189 
 
 people, that when a man of high rank and im- 
 portance laughs to-day at what he seriously 
 asserted yesterday, it is considered as in the 
 natural order of things. Consistency is a phe- 
 nomenon. Judge, then, what would be the 
 value of an association should such a thing be 
 proposed and even adopted. The great mass of 
 the common people have no religion but their 
 priests, no law but their superiors, no morals 
 but their interest. These are the creatures 
 who, led by drunken curates, are now on the 
 high road a la liherte'' 
 
 Morris and Washington wrote very freely to 
 each other. In one of his letters, the latter 
 gave an account of how well affairs were going 
 in America (save in Rhode Island, the major- 
 ity of whose people " had long since bid adieu 
 to every principle of honor, common sense, and. 
 honesty"), apd then went on to discuss things 
 in France. He expressed the opinion that, if 
 the revolution went no further than it had al- 
 ready gone, France would become the most 
 powerful and happy state in Europe; but he 
 trembled lest, having triumphed in the first 
 paroxysms, it might succumb to others still 
 more violent that would be sure to follow. He 
 feared equally the ''licentiousness of the peo- 
 ple " and the folly of the leaders, and doubted 
 if they possessed the requisite temperance, firm- 
 
190 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ness, and foresight ; and if they did not, then 
 he believed they would run from one extreme 
 to another, and end with '' a higher toned des- 
 potism than the one which existed before." 
 
 Morris answered him with his usual half- 
 satiric humor : "Your sentiments on the revolu- 
 tion here I believe to be perfectly just, because 
 they perfectly accord with my own, and that is, 
 you know, the only standard which Heaven has 
 given us by which to judge," and went on to 
 describe how the parties in France stood. " The 
 king is in effect a prisoner in Paris and obeys 
 entirely the National Assembly. This assembly 
 may be divided into three parts: one, called 
 the aristocrats^ consists of the high clergy, the 
 members of the law (note, these are not the 
 lawyers) and such of the nobility as think they 
 ought to form a separate order. Another, which 
 has no name, but which consists of all sorts of 
 people, really friends to a good free govern- 
 ment. The third is composed of what is here 
 called the enragees^ that is, the madmen. These 
 are the most numerous, and are of that class 
 which in America is known by the name of 
 pettifogging lawyers ; together w^ith . . . those 
 persons who in all revolutions throng to the 
 standard of change because they are not well. 
 This last party is in close alliance with the 
 populace here, and they have already unhinged 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 191 
 
 everything, and, according to custom on such 
 occasions, the torrent rushes on irresistibly until 
 it shall have wasted itself." The literati he 
 pronounced to have no understanding whatever 
 of the matters at issue, and as was natural to a 
 shrewd observer educated in the intensely prac- 
 tical school of American political life, he felt 
 utter contempt for the wordy futility and wild 
 theories of the French legislators. " For the 
 rest, they discuss nothing in their assembly. 
 One large half of the time is spent in hallooing 
 and bawling." 
 
 Washington and Morris were both so alarmed 
 and indignant at the excesses committed by the 
 revolutionists, and so frankly expressed their 
 feelings, as to create an impression in some 
 quarters that they were hostile to the revolution 
 itself. The exact reverse was originally the 
 case. They sympathized most warmly with the 
 desire for freedom, and with the efforts made to 
 attain it. Morris wrote to the President: "We 
 have, I think, every reason to wish that the 
 patriots may be successful. The generous wish 
 that a free people must have to disseminate 
 freedom, the grateful emotion which rejoices in 
 the happiness of a benefactor, the interest we 
 must feel as well in the liberty as in the power 
 of this country, all conspire to make us far from 
 indifferent spectators. I say that we have an 
 
192 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 interest in the liberty of France. The leaders 
 here are our friends. Many of them have im- 
 bibed tlieir principles in America, and all have 
 been fired by our example. Their opponents 
 are by no means rejoiced at the success of our 
 revolution, and many of them are disposed to 
 form connections of the strictest kind with 
 Great Britain." Both Washington and Morris 
 would have been delighted to see liberty estab- 
 lished in France ; but they had no patience with 
 the pursuit of the bloody chimera which the rev- 
 olutionists dignified with that title. The one 
 hoped for, and the other counseled, moderation 
 among the friends of republican freedom, not 
 because tliey were opposed to it, but because 
 they saw that it could only be gained and kept 
 by self-restraint. They were, to say the least, 
 perfectly excusable for believing that at that 
 time some form of monarchy, whether under 
 king, dictator, or emperor, was necessary to 
 France. Every one agrees that there are cer- 
 tain men wiser than their fellows; the only 
 question is as to how these men can be be^t 
 chosen out, and to this there can be no absolute 
 answer. No mode will invariably give the 
 best results ; and the one that will come near- 
 est to doing so under given conditions will not 
 work at all under others. Where the people 
 are enlightened and moral they are themselves 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 193 
 
 the ones to choose their rulers ; and such a 
 form of government is unquestionably the high- 
 est of any, and the only one that a high-spirited 
 and really free nation will tolerate ; but if they 
 are corrupt and degraded, they are unfit for 
 republicanism, arid need to be under an entirely 
 different system. The most genuine republican, 
 if he has any common sense, does not believe in 
 a democratic government for every race and in 
 every age. 
 
 Morris was a true republican, and an Ameri- 
 can to the core. He was alike free from truck- 
 ling subserviency to European opinion, — a 
 degrading remnant of colonialism that unfor- 
 tunately still lingers in certain limited social 
 and literary circles, — and from the uneasy 
 self-assertion that springs partly from sensitive 
 vanity, and partly from a smothered doubt as 
 to one's real position. Like most men of strong 
 character, he had no taste for the " cosmopoli- 
 tanism " that so generally indicates a weak 
 moral and mental make-up. He enjoyed his 
 stay in Europe to the utmost, and was intimate 
 with the most influential men and charming 
 women of the time; but he was heartily glad to 
 get back to America, refused to leave it again, 
 and always insisted that it was the most pleas- 
 ant of all places in which to live. While abroad 
 he was simply a gentleman among gentlemen. 
 
194 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 He never intruded his political views or national 
 prejudices upon his European friends; but he 
 was not inclined to suffer any imputation on his 
 country. Any question about America that 
 was put in good faith, no matter how much ig- 
 norance it displayed, he always answered good- 
 humoredly ; and he gives in his Diary some 
 amusing examples of such conversations. Once 
 he was cross-examined by an inquisitive French 
 nobleman, still in the stage of civilization which 
 believes that no man can be paid to render a 
 service to another, especially a small service, 
 and yet retain his self-respect and continue to 
 regard himself as the full political equal of his 
 employer. One of this gentleman's sagacious 
 inquiries was as to how a shoemaker could, in 
 the pride of his freedom, think himself equal to 
 a king, and yet accept an order to make shoes ; 
 to which Morris replied that he would accept it 
 as a matter of business, and be glad of the 
 chance to make them, since it lay in the line of 
 his duty ; and that he would all the time con- 
 sider himself at full liberty to criticise his vis- 
 itor, or the king, or any one else, who lapsed 
 from his own duty. After recording several 
 queries of the same nature, and some rather 
 abrupt answers, the Diary for that day closes 
 rather caustically with the comment: "This 
 manner of thinking and speaking, however, is 
 too masculine for the climate I am now in." 
 
FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 195 
 
 In a letter to Washington Morris made one 
 of his usual happy guesses — if forecasting the 
 future by the aid of marvelous insight into hu- 
 man character can properly be called a guess — 
 as to what would happen to France : "It is very 
 difficult to guess whereabouts the flock will set- 
 tle when it flies so wild ; but as far as it is pos- 
 sible to guess this (late) kingdom will be cast 
 into a congeries of little democracies, laid out, 
 not according to rivers, mountains, etc., but 
 with the square and compass according to lati- 
 tude and longitude," and adds that he thinks 
 I so much fermenting matter will soon give the 
 
 I nation " a kind of political colic." 
 
 ' He rendered some services to Washington 
 
 I that did not come in the line of his public duty. 
 
 I One of these was to get him a watch, Wash- 
 
 ] ington having written to have one purchased 
 
 I in Paris, of gold, " not a small, trifling, nor a 
 
 ' finical ornamental one, but a watch well exe- 
 
 \ cuted in point of workmanship, large and flat, 
 
 j with a plain, handsome key." Morris sent it 
 
 j to him by Jefferson, "with, two copper keys and 
 
 I one golden one, and a box containing a spare 
 
 I spring and glasses." His next service to the 
 
 1 great Virginian, or rather to his family, was of 
 
 a different kind, and he records it with a smile 
 at his own expense. " Go to M. Hudon's ; he 
 has been waiting for me a long time. I stand 
 
196 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 for his statue of General Washington, being the 
 humble emploj^ment of a manikin. This is 
 literally taking the advice of St. Paul, to be 
 all things to all men." 
 
 He corresponded with many men of note ; 
 not the least among whom was tlie daring cor- 
 sair, Paul Jones. The latter was very anxious 
 to continue in the service of the people with 
 whom he had cast in his lot, and in command 
 of whose vessels he had reached fame. Morris 
 was obliged to tell him that he did not believe 
 an American navy would be created for some 
 years to come, and advised him meanwhile to 
 go into the service of the Russians, as he ex- 
 pected there would soon be warm work on the 
 Baltic ; and even gave him a hint as to what 
 would probably be the best plan of campaign. 
 Paul Jones wanted to come to Paris ; but from 
 this Morris dissuaded him. "A journey to this 
 city can, I think, produce nothing but the ex- 
 pense attending it; for neither pleasure nor 
 profit can be expected liere, by one of your 
 profession in particular ; and, except that it is 
 a more dangerous residence than many others, 
 I know of nothing which may serve to you as 
 an inducement." 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LIFE IK PARIS. 
 
 Although Morris entered into the social 
 life of Paris with all the zest natural to his 
 pleasure-loving character, yet he was far too 
 clear-headed to permit it to cast any glamour 
 over him. Indeed, it is rather remarkable that 
 a young provincial gentleman, from a raw, new, 
 far-off country, should not have had his head 
 turned by being made somewhat of a lion in 
 what was then the foremost city of the civi- 
 lized world. Instead of this happening, his 
 notes show that he took a perfectly cool view 
 of his new surroundings, and appreciated the 
 over-civilized, aristocratic society, in which he 
 found himself, quite at its true worth. He en- 
 joyed the life of the salon very much, but it 
 did not in the least awe or impress him ; and he 
 was of too virile fibre, too essentially a man, 
 to be long contented with it alone. He like- 
 wise appreciated the fashionable men, and es- 
 pecially the fashionable women, whom he met 
 there ; but his amusing comments on them, as 
 
198 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 shrewd as they are humorous, prove how little 
 he respected their philosophy, and how com- 
 pletely indifferent he was to their claims to 
 social preeminence. 
 
 Much has been written about the pleasure- 
 loving, highly cultured society of eighteenth- 
 century France; but to a man like Morris, of 
 real ability and with an element of sturdiness 
 in his make-up, both the culture and knowl- 
 edge looked a little like veneering ; the polish 
 partook of effeminacy ; the pleasure so eagerly 
 sought after could be called pleasure only by 
 people of ignoble ambition ; and the life that 
 was lived seemed narrow and petty, agreeable 
 enough for a change, but dreary beyond meas- 
 ure if followed too long. The authors, philoso- 
 phers, and statesmen of the salon were rarely, 
 almost never, men of real greatness ; their 
 metal did not ring true ; they were shams, and 
 the life of which they were a part was a sham. 
 Not onl}^ was the existence hollow, unwhole- 
 some, effeminate, but also in the end tedious : 
 the silent, decorous dullness of life in the drea- 
 riest country town is not more insufferable 
 than, after a time, become the endless chatter, 
 the small witticisms, the mock enthusiasms, and 
 vapid affectations of an aristocratic society as 
 artificial and unsound as that of the Parisian 
 drawing-rooms in the last century. 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 199 
 
 But all tills was delightful for a time, es- 
 pecially to a man who had never seen any city 
 larger than the overgrown villages of New 
 York and Philadelphia. Morris thus sums up 
 his first impressions in a letter to a friend : '' A 
 man in Paris lives in a sort of whirlwind, 
 which turns him round so fast that he can see 
 nothing. And as all men and things are in the 
 same vertiginous condition, you can neither fix 
 yourself nor your object for regular examina- 
 tion. Hence the people of this metropolis are 
 under the necessity of pronouncing their defini- 
 tive judgment from the first glance ; and being 
 thus habituated to shoot flying, they have what 
 sportsmen call a quick sight. Ex pede Her- 
 culem. They know a wit by his snuff-box, a 
 man of taste by his bow, and a statesman by 
 the cut of his coat. It is true that, like other 
 sportsmen, they sometimes miss ; but then, like 
 other sportsmen too, they have a thousand ex- 
 cuses besides the want of skill: the fault, you 
 know, may be in the dog, or the bird, or the 
 powder, or the flint, or even the gun, without 
 mentioning the gunner." 
 
 Among the most famous of the salons where 
 he was fairly constant in his attendance was 
 that of Madame de Stael. There was not a lit- 
 tle contempt mixed with his regard for the 
 renowned daughter of Necker. She amused 
 
200 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 him, however, and he thought well of her 
 capacity, though in his Diary he says that he 
 never in his life saw "such exuberant vanity " 
 as she displayed about her father, Necker, — a 
 very ordinary personage, whom the convulsions 
 of the time had for a moment thrown forward 
 as the most prominent man in France. By 
 way of instance he mentions a couple of her 
 remarks, one to the effect that a speech of 
 Talleyrand on the churcli property was "ex- 
 cellent, admirable, in short that there were two 
 pages in it which were worthy of M. Necker ; " 
 and another wherein she said that wisdom was 
 a very rare quality, and that she knew of no 
 one who possessed it in a superlative degree ex- 
 cept her father. 
 
 The first time he met her was after an ex- 
 citing discussion in the assembly over the 
 finances, which he describes at some length. 
 Necker had introduced an absurd scheme for a 
 loan. Mirabeau, who hated Necker, saw the 
 futility of his plan, but was also aware that 
 popular opinion was blindly in his favor, and 
 that to oppose him would be ruinous ; so in a 
 speech of " fine irony " he advocated passing 
 Necker's proposed bill without change or dis- 
 cussion, avowing that his object was to have 
 the responsibility and glory thrown entirely on 
 the proposer of the measure. He thus yielded 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 201 
 
 to the popular view, while at the same time he 
 shouldered on Necker all the responsibility for 
 a deed which it was evident would in the end 
 ruin him. It was a not very patriotic move, 
 although a good example of selfish political tac- 
 tics, and Morris sneered bitterly at its adoption 
 by the representatives of a people who prided 
 themselves on being " the modern Athenians." 
 To his surprise, however, even Madame de Stael 
 took Mirabeau's action seriously ; she went into 
 raptures over the wisdom of the assembly in 
 doing just what Necker said, for "the only 
 thing they could do was to comply with her 
 father's wish, and there could be no doubt as 
 to the success of her father's plans I Bravo ! " 
 With Morris she soon passed from politics 
 to other subjects. " Presented to Madame de 
 Stael as iin homme d'esjjrit,'^ he writes, " she_ 
 singles me out and makes a talk; asks if I 
 have not written a book on the American Con- 
 stitution. ' Non, madame, j'ai fait mon devoir 
 en assistant a la formation de cette constitu- 
 tion.' ' Mais, monsieur, votre conversation doit 
 etre tres interessante, car je vous entends cit^ 
 de toute parti.' * Ah, madame, je ne suis pas 
 digne de cette eloge.' How I lost my leg? 
 It was unfortunately not in the military service 
 of my country. ' Monsieur, vous avez Fair tres 
 imposant,' and this is accompanied with that 
 
202 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 look which, without being what Sir John Fal- 
 staff calls the 'leer of invitation,' amounts to 
 the same thing. . . . This leads us on, but in 
 the midst of the chat arrive letters, one of 
 which is from her lover, Narbonne, now with 
 his regiment. It brings her to a little recollec- 
 tion, which a little time will, I think, again 
 banish, and a few interviews would stimulate 
 her to try the experiment of her fascinations 
 even on the native of a new world who has left 
 one of his legs behind him." 
 
 An entry in Morris's Diary previous to this 
 conversation shows that he had no very high 
 opinion of this same Monsieur de Narbonne : 
 *' He considers a civil war inevitable, and is 
 about to join his regiment, being, as he says, in 
 a conflict between the dictates of his duty and 
 his conscience. I tell him that I know of no 
 duty but that which conscience dictates. I pre- 
 sume that his conscience will dictate to join the 
 strongest side." 
 
 Morris's surmises as to his fair friend's happy 
 forgetfulness of her absent lover proved true : 
 she soon became bent on a flirtation with the 
 good-looking American stranger, and when he 
 failed to make any advances she promptly 
 made them herself; told him that she "rather 
 invited than repelled those who were inclined 
 to be attentive," and capped this exhibition of 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 203 
 
 modest feminine reserve by suggesting that 
 "perhaps he might become an admirer." Mor- 
 ris dryly responded that it was not impossible, 
 but that, as a previous condition, she must 
 agree not to repel him, — which she instantly 
 promised. Afterwards, at dinner, " we become 
 engaged in an animated conversation, and she 
 desires me to speak English, which her hus- 
 band does not understand. In looking round 
 the room, I observe in him very much emotion, 
 and I tell her that he loves her distractedly, 
 which she says she knows, and that it renders 
 her miserable. ... I condole with her a little 
 on her widowhood, the Chevalier de Narbonne 
 being absent in Tranche Comtd. . . . She asks 
 me if I continue to think she has a preference 
 for Monsieur de Tonnerre. I reply only by^. 
 observing that each of them has wit enough for 
 one couple, and therefore I think they had bet- 
 ter separate, and take each a partner who is un 
 feu hete. After dinner I seek a conversation 
 with the husband, which relieves him. He in- 
 veighs bitterly [poor, honest Swede] against 
 the manners of the country, and the cruelty of 
 alienating a wife's affection. I regret with him 
 on general grounds that prostitution of morals 
 which unfits them for good government, and 
 convince him, I think, I shall not contribute to 
 making him any more uncomfortable than he 
 
204 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 already is." Certainly, according to Morris's 
 evidence, Madame de Stael's sensitive delicacy 
 could only be truthfully portrayed by the un- 
 fettered pen of a Smollett. 
 
 He was an especial habitue of the salon of 
 Madame de Flahaut, the friend of Talleyrand 
 and Montesquieu. She vs^as a perfectly character- 
 istic type ; a clever, accomplished little woman, 
 fond of writing romances, and a thorough-paced 
 intriguante. She had innumerable enthusiasms, 
 with perhaps a certain amount of sincerity in 
 each, and was a more infatuated political 
 schemer than any of her male friends. She 
 was thoroughly conversant with the politics of 
 both court and assembly ; her '' precision and 
 justness of thought was very uncommon in 
 either sex," and, as time went on, made her a 
 willing and useful helper in some of Morris's 
 plans. Withal she was a mercenary, self-seek- 
 ing little personage, bent on increasing her 
 own fortune by the aid of her political friends. 
 Once, when dining with Morris and Talley- 
 rand, she told them in perfect good faith that, 
 if the latter was made minister, " they must be 
 sure to make a million for her." 
 
 She was much flattered by the deference that 
 Morris showed for her judgment, and in return 
 let him into not a few state secrets. She and 
 he together drew up a translation of the outline 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 205 
 
 for a constitution for France, which he had 
 prepared, and through her it was forwarded to 
 the king. Together with her two other inti- 
 mates, Talleyrand and Montesquieu, they made 
 just a party of four, often dining at her house ; 
 and when her husband was sent to Spain, the 
 dinners became more numerous than ever, some- 
 times merely parties carrees^ sometimes very 
 large entertainments. Morris records that, 
 small or large, they were invariably " excellent 
 dinners, where the conversation was always ex- 
 tremely gay." 
 
 Once they planned out a ministry together, 
 and it must be kept in mind that it was quite 
 on the cards that their plan would be adopted. 
 After disposing suitably of all the notabilities, 
 some in stations at home, others in stations 
 abroad, the sclieming little lady turned to Mor- 
 ris : " ' Enfin,' she says, ' mon ami, vous et mot 
 nous gouvernerons la France.' It is an odd 
 combination, but the kingdom is actually in 
 much worse hands." 
 
 This conversation occurred one morning 
 when he had called to find madame at her 
 toilet, with her dentist in attendance. It was 
 a coarse age, for all the gilding; and the coarse- 
 ness was ingrained in the fibre even of the most 
 ultra sentimental. At first Morris felt perhaps 
 a little surprised at the easy familiarity with 
 
206 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 which the various ladies whose friend he was 
 admitted him to the privacy of boudoir and 
 bedroom, and chronicles with some amusement 
 the graceful indifference with which one of 
 them would say to him : " Monsieur Morris me 
 permettra de faire ma toilette ? " But he was 
 far from being a strait-laced man, — in fact, 
 he was altogether too much the reverse, — and 
 he soon grew habituated to these as well as to 
 much worse customs. However, he notes that 
 the different operations of the toilet " were car- 
 ried on with an entire and astounding regard 
 to modesty." 
 
 Madame de Flahaut was a very charming 
 member of the class who, neither toiling nor 
 spinning, were supported in luxury by those 
 who did both, and who died from want while 
 so doing. At this very time, while France was 
 rapidly drifting into bankruptcy, the fraudulent 
 pensions given to a horde of courtiers, titled 
 placemen, well-born harlots and their offspring, 
 reached the astounding total of two hundred 
 and seventy odd millions of livres. The assem- 
 bly passed a decree cutting away these pensions 
 right and left, and thereby worked sad havoc 
 in the gay society that nothing could render 
 serious but immediate and pressing poverty, — 
 not even the loom of the terror ahead, growing 
 darker moment by moment. Calling on his 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 207 
 
 fascinating little friend immediately after the 
 decree was published, Morris finds her "ai^ 
 desespoir^ and she intends to cry very loud, she 
 says. . . . She has been in tears all day. Her 
 pensions from Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois 
 are stopped. On that from the king she re- 
 ceives but three thousand francs, — and must 
 therefore quit Paris. I try to console her, but 
 it is impossible. Indeed, the stroke is severe ; 
 for, with youth, beauty, wit, and every loveli- 
 ness, she must quit all she loves, and pass her 
 life with what she abhors." In the time of ad- 
 versity Morris stood loyally by the friends who 
 had treated him so kindly when the world was 
 a merry one, and things went well with them. 
 He helped them in every way possible ; his 
 time and his purse were always at their service ; 
 and he performed the difficult feat of giving pe- 
 cuniary assistance with a tact and considerate 
 delicacy that prevented the most sensitive from 
 taking offense. 
 
 He early became acquainted with the Duchess 
 of Orleans, wife of Philippe Egalite, the vicious 
 voluptuary of liberal leanings and clouded char- 
 acter. He met her at the house of an old friend, 
 Madame de Chastellux. At first he did not 
 fancy her, and rather held himself aloof, being 
 uncertain " how he would get on with royalty." 
 The duchess, however, was attracted by him. 
 
208 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 asked after him repeatedly, made their mutual 
 friends throw them together, and finally so man- 
 aged that he became one of her constant visitors 
 and attendants. This naturally flattered him, 
 and he remained sincerely loyal to her always 
 afterwards. She was particularly anxious that 
 he should be interested in her son, then a boy, 
 afterwards destined to become the citizen king, 
 — not a bad man, but a mean one, and rather 
 an unkingly king even for the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, fertile though it has been in ignoble roy- 
 alty. Morris's further dealings with this pre- 
 cious youth will have to be considered hereafter. 
 After his first interview he notes that the 
 duchess was " handsome enough to punish the 
 duke for his irregularities." He also mentioned 
 that she still seemed in love with her husband. 
 However, the lady was not averse to seeking 
 a little sentimental consolation from her new 
 friend, to whom she confided, in their after in- 
 timacy, that she was weary at heart and not 
 happy, and — a thoroughly French touch — that 
 she had the " besoin d'etre aimee." On the day 
 they first met, while he is talking to her, " the 
 widow of the late Duke of Orleans comes in, and 
 at going away, according to custom, kisses the 
 duchess. I observe that the ladies of Paris are 
 very fond of each other ; which gives rise to some 
 observations from her royal highness on the 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 209 
 
 person who has just quitted the room, which 
 show that the kiss does not always betoken great 
 affection. In going away she is pleased to say 
 that she is glad to have met me, and I believe 
 her. The reason is that I dropped some ex- 
 pressions and sentiments a little rough, which 
 were agreeable because they contrasted witli 
 the palling polish she meets with everywhere. 
 Hence I conclude that the less I have the honor 
 of such good company the better ; for when the 
 novelty ceases all is over, and I shall probably 
 be worse than insipid." 
 
 Nevertheless, the "good company" was deter- 
 mined he should make one of their number. 
 He was not very loath himself, when he found 
 he was in no danger of being patronized, — for 
 anything like patronage was always particularly^ 
 galling to his pride, which was of the kind that 
 resents a tone of condescension more fiercely 
 than an overt insult, — and he became a fast 
 friend of the house of Orleans. The duchess 
 made him her confidant ; unfolded to him her 
 woes about the duke ; and once, when he was 
 dining with her, complained to him bitterly of 
 the duke's conduct in not paying her allowance 
 regularly. She was in financial straits at the 
 time; for, though she was allowed four hundred 
 and fifty thousand livres a j'^ear, yet three hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand were appropriated for 
 
210 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the house-servants, table, etc., — an item where- 
 in her American friend, albeit not over-frugal, 
 thought a very little economy would result in 
 a great saving. 
 
 His description of one of the days he spent 
 at Raincy with the duchess and her friends, 
 gives us not only a glimpse of the life of the 
 great ladies and fine gentlemen of the day, but 
 also a clear insight into the reasons why these 
 same highly polished ladies and gentlemen had 
 utterly lost their hold over the people whose 
 God-given rulers they deemed themselves to be. 
 
 Dejeuner a la fourchette was not served till 
 noon, — Morris congratulating himself that he 
 had taken a light breakfast earlier. " After 
 breakfast we go to mass in the chapel. In the 
 tribune above we have a bishop, an abbd, the 
 duchess, her maids and some of their friends. 
 Madame de Chastellux is below on her knees. 
 We are amused above by a number of little 
 tricks played off by Monsieur de Segur and 
 Monsieur de Cabi^res with a candle, which is 
 put into the pockets of different gentlemen, the 
 bishop among the rest, and lighted, while they 
 are otherwise engaged, (for there is a fire in 
 the tribune,) to the great merriment of the 
 spectators. Immoderate laughter is the conse- 
 quence. The duchess preserves as much grav- 
 ity as she can. . This scene must be very edify- 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 211 
 
 ing to the domestics who are opposite to us, 
 and the villagers who worship below." The 
 afternoon's amusements were not to his taste. 
 They all walked, which, he found very hot; 
 then they got into bateaux, and the gentlemen 
 rowed the ladies, which was still hotter ; and 
 then there came more walking, so he was glad 
 to get back to the chateau. The formal dinner 
 was served after five ; the conversation thereat 
 varied between the vicious and the frivolous. 
 There was much bantering, well-bred in man- 
 ner and excessively under-bred in matter, be- 
 tween the different guests of both sexes, about 
 the dubious episodes in their past careers, and 
 the numerous shady spots in their respective 
 characters. Epigrams and *' epitaphs " were 
 bandied about freely, some in verse, some not;, 
 probably very amusing then, but their lustre 
 sadly tarnished in the eyes of those who reaa 
 them now. While they were dining, "a num- 
 ber of persons surround the windows, doubtless 
 from a high idea of the company, to whom they 
 are obliged to look up at an awful distance. 
 Oh, did they but know how trivial the conver- 
 sation, how very trivial the characters, their 
 respect would soon be changed to an emotion 
 entirely different ! " 
 
 This was but a month before the Bastile 
 fell ; and yet, on the threshold of their hideous 
 
212 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 doom, the people who had most at stake were 
 incapable not only of intelligent action to ward 
 off their fate, but even of serious thought as to 
 what their fate would be. The men — the 
 nobles, the clerical dignitaries, and the princes 
 of the blood — chose the church as a place 
 wherein to cut antics that would have better 
 befitted a pack of monkeys ; while the women, 
 their wives and mistresses, exchanged with 
 them impure jests at their own expense, rel- 
 ished because of the truth on which they rested. 
 Brutes might still have held sway at least for 
 a time ; but these were merely vicious triflers. 
 They did not believe in their religion ; they 
 did not believe in themselves ; they did not be- 
 lieve in anything. They had no earnestness, 
 no seriousness ; their sensibilities and enthusi- 
 asms were alike affectations. There was still 
 plenty of fire and purpose and furious energy 
 in the hearts of the French people ; but these 
 and all the other virile vii^tues lay not among 
 the noblesse, but among the ranks of the com- 
 mon herd beneath them, down-trodden, bloody 
 in their wayward ferocity, but still capable of 
 fierce, heroic devotion to an ideal in which 
 they believed, and for which they would spill 
 the blood of others, or pour out their own, with 
 the proud waste of utter recklessness. 
 
 Many of Morris's accounts of the literary life 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 213 
 
 of the salon read as if they were explanatory- 
 notes to " Les Precieuses Ridicules." There 
 was a certain pretentiousness about it that made 
 it a bit of a sham at the best ; and the feebler 
 variety of salon, built on such a foundation, 
 thus became that most despicable of things, an 
 imitation of a pretense. At one of the dinners 
 whicli Morris describes, the company was of a 
 kind that would have done no discredit to an 
 entertainment of the great social and literary 
 light of Eatanswill. " Set off in great haste to 
 dine with the Comtesse de R., on an invitation 
 of a week's standing. Arrive at about a quar- 
 ter past three, and find in the drawing-room 
 some dirty linen and no fire. While a wait- 
 ing-woman takes away one, a valet lights up 
 the other. Three small sticks in a deep bed of 
 aslies give no great expectation of heat. By 
 the smoke, however, all doubts are removed 
 respecting the existence of fire. To expel the 
 smoke, a window is opened, and, the day being 
 cold, I have the benefit of as fresh air as can 
 reasonably be expected in so large a city, 
 
 " Towards four o'clock the guests begin to 
 assemble, and I begin to expect that, as madanie 
 is a poetess, I shall have the honor to dine with 
 that exalted part of the species who devote 
 themselves to the muses. In effect, the gentle- 
 men begin to compliment their respective works; 
 
214 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 and, as regular hours cannot be expected in a 
 house where the mistress is occupied more with 
 the intellectual than the material world, I have 
 a delightful prospect of a continuance of the 
 scene. Towards five, madame steps in to an- 
 nounce dinner, and the hungry poets advance 
 to the charge. As they bring good appetites, 
 they have certainly reason to praise the feast. 
 And I console myself with the persuasion that 
 for this day at least I shall escape an indigestion. 
 A very narrow escape, too, for some rancid but- 
 ter, of which the cook had been liberal, puts me 
 in bodily fear. If the repast is not abundant, 
 we have at least the consolation that there is 
 no lack of conversation. Not being perfectly 
 master of the language, most of the jests es- 
 caped me. As for the rest of the company, 
 each being employed either in saying a good 
 thing, or else in studying one to say, it is no 
 wonder if he cannot find time to applaud that 
 of his neighbors. They all agree that we live 
 in an age alike deficient in justice and in taste. 
 Each finds in the fate of his own works numer- 
 ous instances to justify this censure. They tell 
 me, to my great surprise, that the public now 
 condemn theatrical compositions before they 
 have heard the first recital. And, to remove 
 my doubts, the comtesse is so kind as to assure 
 me that this rash decision has been made on 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 216 
 
 one of her own pieces. In pitying modern de- 
 generacy, we rise from the table. 
 
 " I take my leave immediately after the cof- 
 fee, which by no means dishonors the prece- 
 dent repast ; and madame informs me that on 
 Tuesdays and Thursdays she is always at home, 
 and will always be glad to see me. While I 
 stammer out some return to the compliment, 
 my heart, convinced of my unworthiness to par- 
 take of such attic entertainments, makes me 
 promise never again to occupy the place from 
 which perhaps I had excluded a worthier per- 
 sonage." 
 
 Among Morris's other qualities, he was the 
 first to develop that peculiarly American vein 
 of humor which is especially fond of gravely 
 pretending to believe without reserve some pre- 
 posterously untrue assertion, — as throughout 
 the above quotation. ^^ 
 
 Though the society in which he was thrown 
 interested him, he always regarded it with half- 
 sarcastic amusement, and at times it bored him 
 greatly. Meditating on the conversation in 
 " this upper region of wits and graces," he 
 concludes that '' the sententious style " is the 
 one best fitted for it, and that in it " observa- 
 tions with more of justice than splendor can- 
 not amuse," and sums up by saying that " he 
 could not please, because he was not sufficiently 
 pleased." 
 
216 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 His comments upon the various distinguished 
 men he met are always interesting, on account 
 of the quick, accurate judgment of character 
 which they show. It was this insight into the 
 feelings and ideas alike of the leaders and of 
 their followers which made his political predic- 
 tions often so accurate. His judgment of many 
 of his contemporaries comes marvelously near 
 the cooler estimate of history. 
 
 He was orighially prejudiced in favor of the 
 king, poor Louis XVI., and, believing him " to 
 be an honest and good man, he sincerely wished 
 him well," but he very soon began to despise 
 him for his weakness. This quality was the 
 exact one that under existing circumstances was 
 absolutely fatal ; and Morris mentions it again 
 and again, pronouncing the king " a well-mean- 
 ing man, but extremely weak, without genius 
 or education to show the way towards that 
 good which he desires," and " a prince so weak 
 that he can influence very little either by his 
 presence or absence." Finally, in a letter to 
 Washington, he gives a biting sketch of the 
 unfortunate monarch. " If the reigning prince 
 were not the small-beer character that he is, 
 there can be but little doubt that, watching 
 events and making a tolerable use of them, he 
 would regain his authority ; but what will you 
 have from a creature who, situated as he is, 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 217 
 
 eats and drinks, sleeps well and laughs, and is 
 as merry a grig as lives ? The idea that they 
 will give him some money, which he can econ- 
 omize, and that he will have no trouble in gov- 
 erning, contents him entirely. Poor man ! He 
 little thinks how unstable is his situation. He 
 is beloved, but it is not with the sort of love 
 which a monarch should inspire. It is that 
 kind of good-natured pity which one feels for a 
 led captive. There is besides no possibility of 
 serving him, for at the slightest show of opposi- 
 tion he gives up everything and every person." 
 Morris had too robust a mind to feel the least 
 regard for mere amiability and good intentions 
 when unaccompanied by any of the ruder, man- 
 lier virtues. 
 
 The Count d'Artois had "neither sense to 
 counsel himself, nor to choose counsellors for 
 himself, much less to counsel others." This 
 gentleman, afterwards Charles X., stands as 
 perhaps the most shining example of the mon- 
 umental ineptitude of his royal house. His 
 fellow Bourbon, the amiable Bomba of Naples, 
 is his only equal for dull silliness, crass im- 
 morality, and the lack of every manly or kingly 
 virtue. Democracy has much to answer for, 
 but after all it would be hard to find, even 
 among the aldermen of New York and Chi- 
 cago, men whose moral and mental shortcom- 
 
218 
 
 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ings would put them lower than this royal 
 couple. To our shame be it said, our system 
 of popular government once let our greatest 
 city fall under the control of Tweed ; but it 
 would be rank injustice to that clever rogue to 
 compare him with the two vicious dullards 
 whom the opposite system permitted to tyran- 
 nize at Paris and Naples. Moreover, in the 
 end, we of the democracy not only overthrew 
 the evil-doer who oppressed us, but also put 
 him in prison ; and in the long run we have 
 usually meted out the same justice to our lesser 
 criminals. Government by manhood suffrage 
 shows at its worst in large cities ; and yet even 
 in these experience certainly does not show 
 that a despotism works a whit better, or as 
 well. 
 
 Morris described the Count de Montmorin 
 pithily, saying : " He has more understanding 
 than people in general imagine, and he means 
 well, very well, but he means it feebly." 
 
 When Morris came to France, Necker was the 
 most prominent man in the kingdom. He was 
 a hard-working, well-meaning, conceited person, 
 not in the least fitted for public affairs, a banker 
 but not a financier, and affords a beautiful illus- 
 tration of the utter futility of the popular belief 
 that a good business man will necessarily be a 
 good statesman. Accident had made him the 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 219 
 
 most conspicuous figure of the government, ad- 
 mired and bated, but not looked down upon ; 
 yet Morris saw through him at a glance. After 
 their first meeting, he writes down in his diary: 
 " He has the look and manner of the counting- 
 house, and, being dressed in embroidered velvet, 
 he contrasts strongly with his habiliments. 
 His bow, his address, say, ' I am the man.' ... 
 If he is really a very great man, I am deceived; 
 and yet this is a rash judgment. If he is not a 
 laborious man, I am also deceived." He soon 
 saw that both the blame and the praise bestowed 
 on him were out of all proportion to his conse- 
 quence, and he wrote : "In their anguish [the 
 nobles] curse Necker, who is in fact less the 
 cause than the instrument of their sufferings. 
 His popularity depends now more on the oppo- 
 sition he meets with from one party than any 
 serious regard of the other. It is the attempt 
 to throw him down which saves him from fall- 
 ing ; ... as it is, he must soon fall." To 
 Washington he gave a fuller analysis of his 
 character. "As to M. Necker, he is one of 
 those people who has obtained a much greater 
 reputation than he has any right to. . . . In 
 his public administration he has always been 
 lionest and disinterested ; which proves well, I 
 think, for his former private conduct, or else it 
 proves that he has more vanity than cupidity. 
 
220 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Be that as it may, an unspotted integrity as 
 minister, and serving at bis own expense in an 
 office which others seek for the purpose of en- 
 riching themselves, have acquired for him very 
 deservedly much confidence. Add to this that 
 his writings on finance teem with that sort of 
 sensibility which makes the fortune of modern 
 romances, and which is exactly suited to this 
 lively nation, who love to read but hate to think. 
 Hence his reputation. He . . . [has not] the 
 talents of a great minister. His education as a 
 banker has taught him to make tight bargains, 
 and put him upon his guard against projects. 
 But though he understands man as a covetous 
 creature, he does not understand mankind, — a 
 defect which is remediless. He is utterly igno- 
 rant of politics, by which I mean politics in the 
 great sense, or that sublime science which em- 
 braces for its object the happiness of mankind. 
 Consequently he neither knows what constitu- 
 tion to form, nor how to obtain the consent of 
 others to such as he wishes. From the moment 
 of convening the states-general, he has been 
 afloat upon the wide ocean of incidents. But 
 what is most extraordinary is that M. Necker 
 is a very poor financier. This I know will 
 sound like heresy in the ears of most people, 
 but it is true. The plans he has proposed are 
 feeble and inept." 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 221 
 
 A far more famous man, Talleyrand, then 
 Bishop of Autun, he also gauged correctly from 
 the start, writing down that he appeared to be 
 " a sly, cool, cunning, ambitious, and malicious 
 man. I know not why conclusions so disadvan- 
 tageous to him are formed in my mind, but so 
 it is, and I cannot help it." He was afterwards 
 I obliged to work much in common with Talley- 
 
 rand, for both took substantially the same view 
 of public affairs in that crisis, and were working 
 for a common end. Speaking of his new ally's 
 ; plan respecting church property, he says : " He 
 
 is bigoted to it, and the thing is well enough ; 
 but the mode is not so well. He is attached to 
 ' this as an author^ which is not a good sign for 
 
 1 a man of business." And again he criticises 
 
 I Tallej^rand's management of certain schemes 
 
 for the finances, as showing a willingness '* to 
 sacrifice great objects for the sake of small 
 ones ... an inverse ratio of moral proportion." 
 Morris was fond of Lafayette, and appre- 
 ciated highly his courage and keen sense of 
 honor ; but he did not think much of his abil- 
 ity, and became at times very impatient with 
 his vanity and his impractical theories. Be- 
 sides, he deemed him a man who was carried 
 away by the current, and could neither stem 
 nor guide it. " I have known my friend La- 
 fayette now for many years, and can estimate 
 
222 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 at the just value both his words and actions. 
 He means ill to no one, but he is very much 
 belovr the business he has undertaken ; and if 
 the sea runs high, he will be unable to hold the 
 helm." And again, in writing to Washington : 
 '* Unluckily he has given in to measures . . . 
 which he does not heartily approve, and he 
 heartily approves many things which expe- 
 rience will demonstrate to be dangerous." 
 
 The misshapen but mighty genius of Mira- 
 beau he found more difficulty in estimating; 
 he probably never rated it quite high enough. 
 He naturally scorned a man of such degraded 
 debauchery, who, having been one of the great 
 inciters to revolution, had now become a subsi- 
 dized ally of the court. He considered him 
 "one of the most unprincipled scoundrels that 
 ever lived," although of "superior talents," and 
 "so profligate that he would disgrace any admin- 
 istration," besides having so little principle as 
 to make it unsafe to trust him. After his death 
 he thus sums him up : " Vices both degrad- 
 ing and detestable marked this extraordinary 
 being. Completely prostitute, he sacrificed 
 everything to the whim of the moment; — cupi- 
 dus alieni prodigals sui ; venal, shameless ; and 
 yet greatly virtuous when pushed by a prevail- 
 ing impulse, but never truly virtuous, because 
 never under the steady control of reason, nor 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 223 
 
 the firm authority of principle. I have seen 
 this man, in the short space of two years, hissed, 
 honored, hated, mourned. Enthusiasm has just 
 now presented him gigantic. Time and reflec- 
 tion will sink this stature." Even granting this 
 to be wholly true, as it undoubtedly is in the 
 main, it was nevertheless the fact that in Mira- 
 beau alone lay the least hope of salvation for 
 the French nation ; and Morris erred in strenu- 
 I ously opposing Lafayette's going into a ministry 
 
 i with him. Indeed, he seems in this case to have 
 
 ; been blinded by prejudice, and certainly acted 
 
 j very inconsistently ; for his advice, and the rea- 
 
 I sons he gave for it, were completely at variance 
 
 ' with the rules he himself laid down to Lafay- 
 
 I ette, with even more cynicism than common 
 
 sense, when the latter once made some objec- 
 tions to certain proposed coadjutors of his ; " I. 
 state to him . . . that, as to the objections he 
 has made on the score of morals in some, he 
 must consider that men do not go into an ad- 
 ministration as the direct road to heaven ; 
 that they are prompted by ambition or ava- 
 rice, and therefore that the onl}'- way to secure 
 the most virtuous is by making it their interest 
 to act rightly." 
 
 Morris thus despised the king, and distrusted 
 the chief political leaders ; and, as he wrote 
 Washington, he was soon convinced that there 
 
224 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 was an immense amount of corruption in tlie 
 upper circles. The people at large he disliked 
 even more than he did their advisers, and he 
 had good grounds, too, as the following extract 
 from his journul shows: "July 22d. After din- 
 ner, walk a little under the arcade of the Palais 
 Royal, waiting for my carriage. In this period 
 the head and body of M. de Toulon are intro- 
 duced in triumph, the head on a pike, the body 
 dragged naked on the earth. Afterwards this 
 horrible exhibition is carried through the differ- 
 ent streets. His crime is, to have accepted a 
 place in the ministry. This mutilated form of 
 an old man of seventy-five is shown to his son- 
 in-law, Berthier, the intendant of Paris; and 
 afterwards he also is put to death and cut to 
 pieces, the populace carrying about the mangled 
 fragments with a savage joy. Gracious God, 
 what a people ! " 
 
 He describes at length, and most interest- 
 ingly, the famous opening of the states-general, 
 " the beginning of the Revolution." He eyed 
 this body even at the beginning with great dis- 
 trust ; and he never thought that any of the 
 delegates showed especial capacity for grap- 
 pling with the terrible dangers and difficulties 
 by which they were encompassed. He com- 
 ments on the extreme enthusiasm with which 
 the king was greeted, and sympathizes strongly 
 
LIFE IN PARIS. 225 
 
 with Marie Antoinette, who was treated with 
 studied and insulting coldness. " She was ex- 
 ceedingly hurt. I cannot help feeling the moi 
 tification which the poor queen meets with, for 
 I see only the woman ; and it seems unmanly 
 to treat a woman with unkindness. . . . Not 
 one voice is heard to wish her well. I would 
 certainly raise mine if I were a Frenchman; 
 but I have no right to express a sentiment, and 
 in vain solicit those who are near me to do it." 
 . . . At last "the queen rises, and, to my great 
 satisfaction, she hears, for the first time in 
 several months, the sound of ''Vive la reine f 
 She makes a low courtesy, and this produces a 
 louder acclamation, and that a lower courtesy." 
 
 The sympathy was for the woman, not the 
 queen, the narrow-minded, absolute sovereignV 
 the intriguer against popular government, whose 
 policy was as heavily fraught with bale for the 
 nation as was that of Robespierre himself. The 
 king was more than competent to act as his own 
 evil genius ; had he not been, Marie Antoinette 
 would have amply filled the place. 
 
 He characterized the carrying of " that dia- 
 bolical castle," the Bastile, as " among the most 
 extraordinary things I have met with." The 
 day it took place he wrote in his journal, with 
 an irony very modern in its flavor : " Yesterday 
 it was the fashion at Versailles not to believe 
 
226 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 that there were any disturbances at Paris. I 
 presume that this day's transactions will induce 
 a conviction that all is not perfectly quiet." 
 
 He used the Bastile as a text when, shortly 
 afterwards, he read a brief lesson to a certain 
 eminent painter. The latter belonged to that 
 class of artists with pen or pencil (only too 
 plentiful in America at the present day) who 
 always insist on devoting their energies to de- 
 picting subjects worn threadbare by thousands 
 of predecessors, instead of working in the new, 
 broad fields, filled with picturesque material, 
 opened to them by their own country and its 
 history. " The painter shows us a piece he is 
 now about for the king, taken from the jEneid ; 
 Venus restraining the arm which is raised in 
 the temple of the Vestals to shed the blood of 
 Helen. I tell him he had better paint the 
 storm of the Bastile.'' 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MISSION TO ENGLAND: RETURN TO PARIS. 
 
 In March, 1790, Morris went to London, in 
 obedience to a letter received from Washington 
 appointing him private agent to the British 
 government, and enclosing him the proper cre- 
 dentials. 
 
 Certain of the conditions of the treaty of 
 peace between Great Britain and the United 
 States, although entered into seven years before, 
 were still unfulfilled. It had been stipulated 
 that the British should give up the fortified 
 frontier posts within our territory, and should 
 pay for the negroes they had taken away from 
 the Southern States during the war. They had 
 done neither, and Morris was charged to find 
 out what the intentions of the government were 
 in the matter. He was also to find out whether 
 there was a disposition to enter into a commer- 
 cial treaty with the United States ; and finally, 
 he was to sound them as to their sending a min- 
 ister to America. 
 
 On our part we had also failed to fulfil a per- 
 
228 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 tion of our treaty obligations, not having com- 
 plied with the article which provided for the 
 payment of debts due before the war to British 
 merchants. Both sides had been to blame ; 
 each, of course, blamed only the other. But 
 now, when we were ready to perform our part, 
 the British refused to perform theirs. 
 
 As a consequence, Morris, although he spent 
 most of the year in London, failed to accomplish 
 anything. The feeling in England w^as hostile 
 to America ; to the king, in particuhir, the very 
 name was hateful. The English were still sore 
 over their defeat, and hated us because w^e had 
 been victors ; and yet they despised us also, for 
 they thought we should be absolutely power- 
 less except when we were acting merely on the 
 defensive. Fi-om the days of the Revolution 
 till the days of the Civil War, the ruling classes 
 of England \^ ere bitterly antagonistic to our 
 nation ; they always saw with glee an}' check 
 to our national well-being ; they wished us ill, 
 and exulted in our misfortunes, while they 
 sneered at our successes. The results have 
 been lasting, and now work much more to their 
 hurt than to ours. The past conduct of Eng- 
 land certainly offers much excuse for, though 
 it cannot in the least justify, the unreasonable 
 and virulent anti-English feeling — that is, the 
 feeling against Englishmen politically and na- 
 
MISSION TO ENGLAND. 229 
 
 tionally, not socially or individually — which is 
 so strong in many parts of our country where 
 the native American blood is purest. 
 
 The English ministry in 1790 probably had 
 the general feeling of the nation behind them 
 in their determination to injure us as much as 
 they could ; at any rate, their aim seemed to 
 be, as far as lay in them, to embitter our al- 
 ready existing hostility to their empire. They 
 not only refused to grant us any substantial 
 justice, but they were inclined to inflict on us 
 and on our representatives those petty insults 
 which rankle longer than injuries. 
 
 When it came to this point, however, Mor- 
 ris was quite able to hold his own. He had a 
 ready, biting tongue ; and, excepting Pitt and 
 Fox, was intellectually superior to any of the 
 public men whom he met. In social position, 
 even as they understood it, he was their equal ; 
 they could hardly look down on the brother of 
 a British major-general, and a brother-in-law 
 of the Duchess of Gordon. He was a man of 
 rather fiery courage, and any attacks upon his 
 country were not likely to be made twice in his 
 presence. Besides, he never found the English 
 congenial as friends or companions ; he could 
 not sympathize, or indeed get along well, with 
 them. This distaste for their society he always 
 retained, and though he afterwards grew to re- 
 
230 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 spect them, and to be their warm partisan po- 
 litically, he was at this time much more friendly 
 to France, and was even helping the French 
 ministers concoct a scheme of warfare against 
 their neighbor. To his bright, impatient tem- 
 perament, the English awkwardness seemed to 
 be an insuperable obstacle to bringing people 
 together " as in other countries." He satirized 
 the English drawing-rooms, "where the arrange- 
 ment of the company was stiff and formal, the 
 ladies all ranged in battalia on one side of the 
 room ; " and remarked " that the French, having 
 no liberty in their government, have compensa- 
 ted to themselves that misfortune by bestowing 
 a great deal upon society. But that, I fear, in 
 England, is all confined to the House of Com- 
 mons." Years afterwards he wrote to a friend 
 abroad : "Have you reflected that there is more 
 of real society in one week at [a Continental 
 watering-place] than in a London year ? Recol- 
 lect that a tedious morning, a great dinner, a 
 boozy afternoon, and dull evening make the 
 sum total of English life. It is admirable for 
 young men who shoot, hunt, drink, — but for 
 us ! How are we to dispose of ourselves ? No. 
 Were I to give you a rendezvous in Europe, it 
 should be on the continent. I respect, as you 
 know, the English nation highly, and love many 
 individuals among them, but I do not love their 
 
MISSION TO ENGLAND. 231 
 
 Times have changed, ftnd the man- 
 ners of the Islanders with them. Exactly as 
 the " rude Carinthian boor " has become the 
 most polished of mortals, so, after a like trans- 
 formation, English society is now perhaps the 
 pleasantest and most interesting in Europe. 
 Were Morris alive to-day, he would probably 
 respect the English as much as he ever did, 
 and like them a good deal more ; and, while he 
 might well have his preference for his own 
 country confirmed, yet, if he had to go abroad, 
 it is hard to believe that he would now pass by 
 London in favor of any continental capital or 
 watering-place. 
 
 In acknowledging Washington's letter of ap- 
 pointment, Morris wrote that he did not expect 
 much difficulty, save from the king himself, 
 who was very obstinate, and bore a personal 
 dislike to his former subjects. But his inter- 
 views with the minister of foreign affairs, the 
 Duke of Leeds, soon undeceived him. The 
 duke met him with all the little tricks of de- 
 lay, and evasion, known to old-fashioned diplo- 
 macy ; tricks that are always greatly relished 
 by men of moderate ability, and which are suc- 
 cessful enough where the game is not very im- 
 portant, as in the present instance, but are 
 nearly useless when the stakes are high and the 
 adversary determined. The worthy nobleman 
 
232 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 was profuse in expressions of general good-will, 
 and vague to a degree in bis answers to every 
 concrete question ; affected to misunderstand 
 what was asked of him, and, when he could not 
 do this *' slumbered profoundly " for weeks be- 
 fore making his reply. Morris wrote that ''his 
 explanatory comments were more unintelligible 
 than his texts," and was delighted when he 
 heard that he might be replaced by Lord 
 Hawksbury ; for the latter, although strongly 
 anti-American, " would at least be an efficient 
 minister," whereas the former was " evidently 
 afraid of committing himself by saying or doing 
 anything positive." He soon concluded that 
 Great Britain was so uncertain as to how mat- 
 ters were going in Europe that she wished to 
 keep us in a similar state of suspense. She had 
 recovered with marvelous rapidity from the 
 effects of the great war ; she was felt on all 
 sides to hold a position of commanding power ; 
 this she knew well, and so felt like driving a 
 very hard bargain with any nation, especially 
 with a weak one that she hated. It was par- 
 ticularly difficult to form a commercial treaty. 
 There were very many Englishmen who agreed 
 with a Mr. Irwin, " a mighty sour sort of crea- 
 ture," who assured Morris that he was utterly 
 opposed to all American trade in grain, and 
 that he wished to oblige the British people, by 
 
MISSION TO ENGLAND. 233 
 
 the force of starvation, to raise enough corn for 
 their own consumption. Fox told Morris that 
 he and Burke were about the only two men left 
 who believed that Americans should be allowed 
 to trade in their own bottoms to the British 
 Islands; and he also informed him that Pitt 
 was not hostile to America, but simply indiffer- 
 ent, being absorbed in European matters, and 
 allowing his colleagues free hands. 
 
 Becoming impatient at the long -continued 
 delay, Morris finally wrote, very courteously 
 but very firmly, demanding some sort of answer, 
 and this produced a momentary activity, and 
 assurances that he was under a misapprehen- 
 sion as to the delay, etc. The subject of the 
 impressment of American sailors into British 
 men-of-war, — a matter of chronic complaint 
 throughout our first forty years of national life, 
 — now came up ; and he remarked to the 
 Duke of Leeds, with a pithy irony that should 
 have made the saying famous : " I believe, my 
 lord, that this is the only instance in which we 
 are not treated as aliens." He proposed a plan 
 which would have at least partially obviated 
 the difficulties in the way of a settlement of 
 the matter, but the duke would do nothing. 
 Neither would he come to any agreement in 
 reference to the exchange of ministers between 
 the two countries. 
 
234 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Then came an interview with Pitt, and Mor- 
 ris, seeing how matters stood, now spoke out 
 perfectly clearly. In answer to the accusations 
 about our failure wholly to perform certain stip- 
 ulations of the treaty, after reciting the coun- 
 ter accusations of the Americans, he brushed 
 them all aside with the remark : *' But, sir, 
 what I have said tends to show that these com- 
 plaints and inquiries are excellent if the parties 
 mean to keep asunder ; if they wish to come to- 
 gether, all such matters should be kept out of 
 sight." He showed that the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, in a friendly spirit, had recently de- 
 cided against laying extraordinary restrictions 
 on British vessels in our ports. " Mr. Pitt said 
 that, instead of restrictions, we ought to give 
 them particular privileges, in return for those 
 we enjoy here. I assured him that I knew of 
 none except that of being impressed, a privilege 
 which of all others we least wished to partake 
 of. . . . Mr. Pitt said seriously that they had 
 certainly evinced good-will to us by what they 
 had done respecting our commerce. I replied 
 therefore, with like seriousness, that their regu- 
 lations had been dictated with a view to their 
 own interests ; and therefore, as we felt no fa- 
 vor, we owed no obligation." Morris realized 
 thoroughly that they were keeping matters in 
 suspense because their behavior would depend 
 
MISSION TO ENGLAND. 235 
 
 upon the contingencies of war or peace with the 
 neighboring powers ; he wished to show that, 
 if they acted thus, we would also bide our time 
 till the moment came to strike a telling blow ; 
 and accordingly he ended by telling Pitt, with 
 straightforward directness, a truth that was 
 also a threat : " We do not think it worth 
 while to go to war with you for the [frontier] 
 forts ; but we know our rights, and will avail 
 ourselves of them when time and circumstances 
 may suit.'* 
 
 After this conversation he became convinced 
 that we should wait until England herself felt 
 the necessity of a treaty before trying to nego- 
 tiate one. He wrote Washington " that those 
 who, pursuing the interests of Great Britain, 
 wish to be on the best terms with America, are 
 outnumbered by those whose sour prejudice 
 and hot resentment render them averse to any 
 intercourse except that which may immediately 
 subserve a selfish policy. These men do not yet 
 know America. Perhaps America does not 
 yet know herself. . . . We are yet in but the 
 seeding-time of national prosperity, and it will 
 be well not to mortgage the crop before it is 
 gathered. . . . England will not, I am per- 
 suaded, enter into a treaty with us unless we 
 give for it more than it is worth now, and in- 
 finitely more than it will be worth hereafter. 
 A present bargain would be that of a young 
 
236 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 heir with an old usurer. . . . But, should war 
 break out [with a European power], the anti- 
 American party here will agree to any terms ; 
 for it is more the taste of the medicine which 
 they nauseate than the quantity of the dose." 
 
 Accordingly all negotiations were broken off. 
 In America his enemies blamed Morris for this 
 failure. They asserted that his haughty man- 
 ners and proud bearing had made him unpopu- 
 lar with the ministers, and that his consorting 
 with members of the opposition had still further 
 damaged his cause. The last assertion was 
 wholly untrue ; for he had barely more than 
 met Fox and his associates. But on a third 
 point there was genuine reason for dissatisfac- 
 tion. Morris had confided his purpose to the 
 French minister at London, M. de la Luzerne, 
 doing so because he trusted to the latter's honor, 
 and did not wish to seem to take any steps un- 
 known to our ally ; and he was in all probability 
 also influenced by his constant association and 
 intimacy with the French leaders. Luzerne, 
 however, promptly used the information for his 
 own purposes, letting the English ministers 
 know that he was acquainted with Morris's ob- 
 jects, and thus increasing the weight of France 
 by making it appear that America acted only 
 with her consent and advice. The affair cuii- 
 ously illustrates Jay's wisdom eight years be- 
 
RETURN TO PARIS. 237 
 
 fore, when he insisted on keeping Luzerne's su- 
 perior at that time, Yergennes, in the dark as 
 to our course during the peace negotiations. 
 However, it is not at all likely that Mr. Pitt 
 or the Duke of Leeds were influenced in their 
 course by anything Luzerne said. 
 
 Leaving London, Morris made a rapid trip 
 through the Netherlands and up the Rhine. 
 His journals, besides the usual comments on the 
 inns, the bad roads, poor horses, sulky postil- 
 ions, and the like, are filled with very interest- 
 ing observations on the character of the country 
 through which he passed, its soil and inhabit- 
 ants, and the indications they afforded of the 
 national resources. He liked to associate with 
 people of every kind, and he was intensely fond 
 of natural scenery ; but, what seems rather 
 surprising in a man of his culture, he appar- 
 ently cared very little for the great cathedrals, 
 the picture galleries, and the works of art 
 for which the old towns he visited were so 
 famous. 
 
 He reached Paris at the end of November, 
 but was almost immediately called to London 
 again, returning in January, 1791, and making 
 three or four similar trips in the course of the 
 year. His own business affairs took up a great 
 deal of his time. He was engaged in very 
 many different operations, out of which he 
 
238 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 made a great deal of money, being a shrewd 
 business man with a strong dash of the specu- 
 lator. He had to prosecute a suit against the 
 farmers-general of France for a large quantity 
 of tobacco shipped them by contract ; and he 
 gives a very amusing description of the visits 
 he made to the judges before whom the case 
 was to be tried. Their occupations were cer- 
 tainly various, being those of a farrier, a gold- 
 smith, a grocer, a currier, a woolen draper, and 
 a bookseller respectively. As a sample of his 
 efforts, take the following : " Return home and 
 dine. At five resume my visits to my judges, 
 and first wait upon the honorable M. Gillet, the 
 grocer, who is in a little cuddy adjoining his 
 shop, at cards. He assures me that the court 
 are impartial, and alike uninfluenced by farmers, 
 receivers, and grand seigneurs ; that they are 
 generally of the same opinion ; that he will do 
 everything in his power; and the like. De 
 Vautre cSte, perfect confidence in the ability 
 and integrity of the court. Wish only to bring 
 the cause to such a point as that I may have 
 the honor to present a memorial. Am vastly 
 sorry to have been guilty of an intrusion upon 
 the amusements of his leisure hours. Hope he 
 will excuse the solicitude of a stranger, and pa- 
 tronize a claim of such evident justice. The 
 whole goes off very well, though I with difficulty 
 
RETURN TO PARIS. 239 
 
 restrain my risible faculties. ... A disagreea- 
 ble scene, the ridicule of which is so strongly 
 painted to my own eyes that I cannot forbear 
 laughing." 
 
 He also contracted to deliver Necker twenty 
 thousand barrels of flour for the relief of Paris ; 
 wherein, by the way, he lost heavily. He took 
 part in sundry shipping operations. Perhaps the 
 most lucrative business in which he was engaged 
 was in negotiating the sale of wild lands in 
 America. He even made many efforts to buy 
 the Virginian and Pennsylvanian domains of 
 the Fairfaxes and the Penns. On behalf of a 
 syndicate, he endeavored to purchase the Amer- 
 ican debts to France and Spain; these being 
 purely speculative efforts, as it was supposed 
 that the debts could be obtained at quite a low 
 figure, while, under the new Constitution, the 
 United States would certainly soon make ar- 
 rangements for paying them off. These vari- 
 ous operations entailed a wonderful amount of 
 downright hard work ; yet all the while he re- 
 mained not only a close observer of French poli- 
 tics, but, to a certain extent, even an actor in 
 them. 
 
 He called upon Lafayette as soon as he was 
 again established in Paris, after his mission to 
 London. He saw that affairs had advanced to 
 such a pitch in France that " it was no longer 
 
240 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 a question of liberty, but simply who shall be 
 master." He had no patience with those who 
 wished the king to place himself, as they phrased 
 it, at the head of the Revolution, remarking : 
 " The trade of a revolutionist appears to me 
 a hard one for a prince." What with the folly 
 of one side and the madness of the other, things 
 were going to pieces very rapidly. At one of 
 his old haunts, the club, the *' sentiment aristo- 
 cratique " had made great headway : one of his 
 friends, De Moustin, now in favor with the king 
 and queen, was " as usual on the high ropes of 
 royal prerogative." Lafayette, however, was 
 still wedded to his theories, and did not appear 
 over-glad to see his American friend, all whose 
 ideas and habits of thought were so opposed to 
 his own ; while madame was still cooler in her 
 reception. Morris, nothing daunted, talked to 
 his friend very frankly and seriously. He told 
 him that the time had come when all good citi- 
 zens would be obliged, simply from lack of 
 choice, to cling to the throne ; that the execu- 
 tive must be strengthened, and good and able 
 men put into the council. He pronounced the 
 " thing called a constitution " good for nothing, 
 and showed that the National Assembly was 
 rapidly falling into contempt. He pointed out, 
 for the hundredth time, that each country need- 
 ed to have its own form of government ; that an 
 
RETURN TO PARIS. 241 
 
 American constitution would not do for France, 
 for the latter required an even higher-toned 
 system than that of England ; and that, above 
 all things, France needed stability. He gave 
 the reasons for his advice clearly and forcibly ; 
 but poor Lafayette flinched from it, and could 
 not be persuaded to take any effectual step. 
 
 It is impossible to read Morris's shrewd com- 
 ments on the events of the day, and his plans 
 in reference to them, without wondering that 
 France herself should at the crisis have failed 
 to produce any statesmen to be compared with 
 him for force, insight, and readiness to do what 
 was practically best under the circumstances ; 
 but her past history for generations had been 
 such as to make it out of the question for her 
 to bring forth such men as the founders of our- 
 own government. Warriors, lawgivers, and 
 diplomats she had in abundance. Statesmen 
 who would be both hard-headed and true- 
 hearted, who would be wise and yet unselfish, 
 who would enact laws for a free people that 
 would make that people freer still, and yet hin- 
 der them from doing wrong to their neighbors, 
 — statesmen of this order she neither had nor 
 could have had. Indeed, had there been such, 
 it may well be doubted if they could have 
 served France. With a people who made up in 
 fickle ferocity what they lacked in self-restraint, 
 
242 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 and a king too timid and short-sighted to turn 
 any crisis to advantage, the French statesmen, 
 even had they been as wise as they v^ere foolish, 
 would hardly have been able to arrest or alter 
 the march of events. Morris said bitterly that 
 France was the country where everything was 
 talked of, and where hardly anything was un- 
 derstood. 
 
 He told Lafayette that he thought the only 
 hope of the kingdom lay in a foreign war ; it is 
 possible that the idea may have been suggested 
 to him by Lafayette's naive remark that he be- 
 lieved his troops would readily follow him into 
 action, but that they would not mount guard 
 when it rained. Morris not only constantly 
 urged the French ministers to make war, but 
 actually drew up a plan of campaign for them. 
 He believed it would turn the popular ardor, 
 now constantly inflamed against the aristocrats, 
 into a new channel, and that " there was no 
 word perhaps in the dictionary which would 
 take the place of aristocrat so readily as J.?i- 
 glais.^^ Li proof of the wisdom of his prop- 
 ositions he stated, with absolute truthfulness : 
 " If Britain had declared war in 1774 against 
 the house of Bourbon, the now United States 
 would have bled freely in her cause." He was 
 disgusted with the littleness of the men who, 
 appalled at their own surroundings, and unable 
 
RETURN TO PARIS. 243 
 
 to make shift even for the moment, found them- 
 selves thrown by chance to the hehn, and face 
 to face with the wildest storm that had ever 
 shaken a civilized government. Speaking of 
 one of the new ministers, he remarked : " They 
 say he is a good kind of man, which is saying 
 very little ; " and again, " You want just now 
 great men, to pursue great measures." Another 
 time, in advising a war, — a war of men, not of 
 money, — and speaking of the efforts made by 
 the neighboring powers against the revolution- 
 ists in Flanders, he told his French friends that 
 they must either suffer for or with their allies ; 
 and that the latter was at once the noblest and 
 the safest course. 
 
 In a letter to Washington he drew a picture 
 of the chaos as it really was, and at the same- 
 time, with wonderful clear-sightedness, showed . 
 the great good which the change was eventually 
 to bring to the mass of the people. Remember- 
 ing how bitter Morris's feelings were against 
 the revolutionists, it is extraordinary that they 
 did not blind him to the good that would in 
 the long run result from their movement. Not 
 another statesman would have been able to set 
 forth so clearly and temperately the benefits 
 that would finally come from the convulsions he 
 saw around him, although he rightly believed 
 that these benefits would be even greater could 
 
244 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the hideous excesses of the revolutionists be 
 forthwith stopped and punished. 
 
 His letter runs : '' This unhappy country, 
 bewildered in the pursuit of metaphysical whim- 
 sies, presents to our moral view a mighty ruin. 
 . . . The sovereign, humbled to the level of a 
 beggar without pity, without resources, without 
 authority, without a friend. The Assembly, at 
 once a master and a slave, new in power, wild 
 in theory, raw in practice. It engrosses all func- 
 tions, though incapable of exercising any, and 
 has taken from this fierce, ferocious people every 
 restraint of religion and of respect." Where 
 this would all end, or what sum of misery 
 would be necessary to change the popular will 
 and awaken the popular heart, he could not say. 
 A glorious opportunity had been lost, and for 
 the time being the Revolution had failed. Yet, 
 he went on to say, in the consequences flowing 
 from it he was confident he could see the foun- 
 dation of future prosperity. For among these 
 consequences were, — 1. The abolition of the dif- 
 ferent rights and privileges which had formerly 
 kept the various provinces asunder ; 2. The 
 abolition of feudal tyranny, by which the tenure 
 of real property would be simplified, and the 
 rent no longer be dependent upon idle vanity, 
 capricious taste, or sullen pride ; 3. The throw- 
 ing into the circle of industry those vast posses- 
 
RETURN TO PARIS. 245 
 
 sions formerly held by the clergy in mortmain, 
 wealth conferred upon them as wages for their 
 idleness ; 4. The destruction of the system of 
 venal jurisprudence which had established the 
 pride and privileges of the few on the misery 
 and degradation of the general mass ; 5. Above 
 all, the establishment of the principles of true 
 liberty, which would remain as solid facts after 
 the superstructure of metaphysical froth and 
 vapor should have been blown away. Finally, 
 " from the chaos of opinion and the conflict of 
 its jarring elements a new order will at length 
 arise, which, though in some degree the child of 
 chance, may not be less productive of human 
 happiness than the forethought provisions of 
 human speculation." Not one other contem- 
 porary statesman could have begun to give sor 
 just an estimate of the good the Kevolutioii 
 would accomplish ; no other could have seen so 
 deeply into its ultimate results, while also 
 keenly conscious of the dreadful evil through 
 which these results were being worked out. 
 
 The social life of Paris still went on, though 
 with ever less of gayety, as the gloom gathered 
 round about. Going with Madame de Chas- 
 tellux to dine with the Duchess of Orleans, 
 Morris was told by her royal highness that she 
 was " ruined," that is, that her income was 
 reduced from four hundred and fifty thousand 
 
246 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 to two hundred thousand Hvres a year, so that 
 she could no longer give him good dinners ; but 
 if he would come and fast with her, she would 
 be glad to see him. The poor lady was yet to 
 learn by bitter experience that real ruin was 
 something very different from the loss of half 
 of an enormous income. 
 
 On another occasion he breakfasted with the 
 duchess, and was introduced to her father, with 
 whom he agreed to dine. After breakfast she 
 went out walking with him till nearly dinner- 
 time, and gave him the full history of her breach 
 with her husband, Egalite, showing the letters 
 that had passed between them, complaining of 
 his numerous misdeeds, and assuring Morris 
 that what the world had attributed to fondness 
 for her worthless spouse was merely discretion; 
 that she had hoped to bring him to a decent 
 and orderly behavior, but had finally made up 
 her mind that he could only be governed by 
 fear. 
 
 Now and then he indulges in a quiet laugh 
 at the absurd pretensions and exaggerated esti- 
 mates of each other still affected by some of 
 the frequenters of the various salons. *' Dine 
 with Madame de Stael. The Abbe Sieyes is 
 here, and descants with much self-sufiiciency 
 on government, despising all that has been said 
 or sung on that subject before him ; and madame 
 
RETURN TO PARIS. 247 
 
 says that his writings and opinions will form 
 in politics a new era, like those of Newton in 
 physics." 
 
 After dining with Marmontel, he notes in his 
 Diary that his host " thinks soundly," — rare 
 praise for him to bestow on any of the French 
 statesmen of the time. He records a hon mot 
 of Talleyrand's. When the Assembly had de- 
 clared war on the emperor conditionally upon 
 the latter's failing to beg pardon before a certain 
 date, the little bishop remarked that "the na- 
 tion was une parvenue^ and of course insolent." 
 At the British ambassador's he met the famous 
 Colonel Tarleton, who did not know his nation- 
 ality, and amused him greatly by descanting at 
 length on the American war. 
 
 He was very fond of the theatre, especially 
 of the Comedie Fran9aise, where Preville, wham 
 lie greatly admired, was acting in Moliere's 
 "Amphitryon." Many of the plays, whose plots 
 presented in any way analogies to what was ac- 
 tually happening in the political world, raised 
 great excitement among the spectators. Going 
 to see '' Brutus " acted, he records that the noise 
 and altercations were tremendous, but that 
 finally the democrats in the parterre got the 
 upper hand by sheer lusty roaring, which they 
 kept up for a quarter of an hour at a time, and, 
 at the conclusion of the piece, insisted upon the 
 
248 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 bust of Voltaire being crowned and placed on 
 the stage. Soon afterwards a tragedy called 
 ''Charles Neuf," founded on the massacre of St. 
 Bartholoraew, was put on the stage, to help the 
 Assembly in their crusade against the clergy ; 
 he deemed it a very extraordinary piece to be 
 represented in a Catholic country, and thought 
 that it would give a fatal blow to the Catholic 
 religion. 
 
 The priesthood, high and low, he disliked 
 more than any other set of men ; all his com- 
 ments on them show his contempt. The high 
 prelates he especially objected to. The Bishop 
 of Orleans he considered to be a luxurious old 
 gentleman,"of the kind whose sincerest prayer 
 is for the fruit of good living, one who evidently 
 thought it more important to speak than to 
 speak the truthP The leader of the great church 
 dignitaries, in their fight for their rich benefices, 
 was the Abbe Maury, who, Morris writes, " is 
 a man who looks like a downright ecclesiastical 
 scoundrel." He met him in Madame de Na- 
 daillac's salon, where were ''a party of fierce 
 aristocrats. They have the word ' valet ' writ- 
 ten on their foreheads in large characters. 
 Maury is formed to govern such men, and they 
 are formed to obey him or any one else. But 
 Maury seems to have too much vanity for a 
 great man." To tell the bare truth is some- 
 
RETURN TO PARIS. 249 
 
 times to make the most venomous comment 
 possible, and this he evidently felt when he 
 wrote of his meeting with the Cardinal de Ro- 
 han : " We talk among other things about re- 
 ligion, for the cardinal is very devout. He was 
 once the lover of Madame de Flahaut's sister." 
 
 But as the tremendous changes went on 
 about him, Morris had continually less and less 
 time to spend in mere social pleasures ; graver 
 and weightier matters called for his attention, 
 and his Diary deals with the shifts and strata- 
 gems of the Frei>ch politicians, and pays little 
 heed to the sayings and manners of nobles, 
 bishops, and ladies of rank. 
 
 The talented, self-confident, fearless Amer- 
 ican, admittedly out of sympathy with what he 
 called " this abominable populace," was now 
 well known ; and in their terrible tangle (of 
 dangers and perplexities, court and ministry^ 
 alike turned to him for help. Perhaps there 
 has hardly been another instance where, in such 
 a crisis, the rulers have clutched in their despair 
 at the advice of a mere private stranger so- 
 journing in the land on his own business. The 
 king and his ministers, as well as the queen, 
 kept in constant communication with him. 
 With Montmorin he dined continually, and 
 was consulted at every stage. But he could 
 not prevail on them to adopt the bold, vigorous 
 
250 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 measures he deemed necessary ; his plain speak- 
 ing startled them, and they feared it would not 
 suit the temper of the people. He drafted 
 numerous papers for them, among others a royal 
 speech, which the king liked, but which his 
 ministers prevented him from using. In fact, 
 it had grown to be hopeless to try to help the 
 court ; for the latter pursued each course by 
 fits and starts, now governed by advice from 
 Coblentz, now by advice from Brussels, and 
 then for a brief spasm going its own gait. All 
 the while the people at large knew their own 
 minds no better than poor Louis knew his, and 
 cheered him with fervent ecstasy one da}^, only 
 to howl at him with malignant fury the next. 
 With such a monarch and such subjects it is 
 not probable that any plan would have worked 
 well ; but Morris's was the ablest as well as 
 the boldest and best defined of the many that 
 were offered to the wretched, halting king; and 
 had his proposed policy been pursued, things 
 might have come out better, and they could not 
 possibly have come out worse. 
 
 All through these engrossing affairs, he kept 
 up the liveliest interest in what was going on 
 in his own country, writing home shrewd ob- 
 servations on every step taken. One of his re- 
 marks deserves to be kept in mind. In speak- 
 ing of the desire of European nations to legis- 
 
RETURN TO PARTS. 
 
 251 
 
 late against the introduction of our produce, 
 he says that this effort has after all its bright 
 side; because it will force us ''to make great 
 and rapid progress in useful manufactures. This 
 alone is wanting to complete our independence. 
 We shall then be, as it were, a world by our- 
 selves." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 MINISTER TO FKANCE. 
 
 In the spring of 1792, Morris received his 
 credentials as minister to France. There had 
 been determined opposition in the Senate to 
 the confirmation of his appointment, which was 
 finally carried only by a vote of sixteen to 
 eleven, mainly through the exertions of Rufus 
 King. His opponents urged the failure of the 
 British negotiations, the evidences repeatedly 
 given of his proud, impatient spirit, and above 
 all his hostility to the French Revolution, as 
 reasons why he should not be made minister. 
 Washington, however, as well as Hamilton, 
 King, and the other federalists, shared most of 
 Morris's views with regard to the Revolution, 
 and insisted upon his appointment. 
 
 But the president, as good and wise a friend as 
 Morris had, thought it best to send him a word 
 of warning, coupling with the statement of his 
 own unfaltering trust and regard, the reasons 
 why the new diplomat should observe more 
 circumspection than his enemies thought him 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 253 
 
 capable of showing. For his opponents asserted 
 that his brilliant, lively imagination always in- 
 clined bim to act so promptly as to leave no time 
 for cool judgment, and was, wrote Washington, 
 "the primary cause of those sallies which too 
 often offend, and of that ridicule of character 
 which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, 
 but which might easily be avoided if it were 
 under the control of caution and prudence. . . . 
 By reciting [their objections] I give you a 
 proof of my friendship, if I give none of my 
 policy." 
 
 Morris took his friend's advice in good part, 
 and profited by it as far as lay in his nature. He 
 knew that he had a task of stupendous difficulty 
 before him ; as it would be almost impossible for 
 a minister to steer clear of the quarrels spring* 
 ing from the ferocious hatred born to each otherL_^ 
 by the royalists and the various republican fac- 
 tions. To stand ivell with all parties he knew 
 was impossible : but he thought it possible, and 
 merely so, to stand well with the best people in 
 each, without greatly offending the others ; and 
 in order to do this, he had to make up his mind 
 to mingle with the worst as well as the best, to 
 listen unmoved to falsehoods so foul and calum- 
 nies so senseless as to seem the ravings of in- 
 sanity ; and meanwhile to wear a front so firm 
 and yet so courteous as to ward off insult from 
 
254 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 his country and injury from himself during the 
 days when the whole people went crazy with 
 the blood-lust, when his friends were butchered 
 by scores around him, and when the rulers had 
 fulfiled Mirabeau's terrible prophecy, and had 
 "paved the streets with their bodies." 
 
 But when he began his duties, he was already 
 entangled in a most dangerous intrigue, one of 
 whose very existence he should not, as a foreign 
 minister, have known, still less have entered 
 into. He got enmeshed in it while still a 
 private citizen, and could not honorably with- 
 draw, for it dealt with nothing less than the 
 escape of the king and queen from Paris. His 
 chivalrous sympathy for the two hemmed-in, 
 hunted creatures, threatened by madmen and 
 counseled by fools, joined with his character- 
 istic impulsiveness and fearlessness, to incline 
 him to make an effort to save them from their 
 impending doom. A number of plans had been 
 made to get the king out of Paris ; and as the 
 managers of each were of necessity ignorant of 
 all the rest, they clashed with and thwarted 
 one another. Morris's scheme was made in 
 concert with a M. de Monciel, one of the royal 
 ministers, and some other French gentlemen ; 
 and their measures were so well taken that they 
 would doubtless have succeeded had not the 
 king's nerve invariably failed him at the critical 
 
 .1 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE, 255 
 
 moment, and brought delay after delay. The 
 Swiss guards, faithful to their salt, were always 
 ready to cover his flight, and Lafayette would 
 have helped them. 
 
 Louis preferred Morris's plan to any of the 
 others offered, and gave a most striking proof 
 of his preference by sending to the latter, to- 
 wards the end of July, to say how much he 
 regretted that his advice had not been fol- 
 lowed, and to ask him if he would not take 
 charge of the royal papers and money. Morris 
 was unwilling to take the papers, but finally 
 consented to receive the money, amounting in 
 all to nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 livres, which was to be paid out in hiring and 
 bribing the men who stood in the way of the 
 escape ; for most of the revolutionists were as 
 venal as they were bloodthirsty. Still the 
 king lingered ; then came the 10th of August ; 
 the Swiss guards were slaughtered, and the 
 whole scheme was at an end. Some of the men 
 engaged in the plot were suspected; one, D'An- 
 gremont, was seized and condemned, but he 
 went to his death without betraying his fellows. 
 The others, by the liberal use of the money in 
 Morris's possession, were saved, the authorities 
 being bribed to wink at their escape or conceal- 
 ment. Out of the money that was left ad- 
 vances were made to Monciel and others; finally, 
 
266 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 in 1796, Morris gave an accurate account of the 
 expenditures to the dead king's daughter, the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, then at the Austrian 
 court, and turned over to her the remainder, 
 consisting of a hundred and forty-seven pounds. 
 
 Of course all this was work in which no min- 
 ister had the least right to share ; but the whole 
 crisis was one so completely without precedent 
 that it is impossible to blame Morris for what 
 he did. The extraordinary trust reposed in 
 him, and the feeling that his own exertions 
 were all that lay between the two unfortunate 
 sovereigns and their fate, roused his gallantry 
 and blinded him to the risk he himself ran, as 
 well as to the hazard to which he put his coun- 
 try's interests. He was under no illusion as 
 to the character of the people whom he was 
 trying to serve. He utterly disapproved the 
 queen's conduct, and he despised the king, not- 
 ing the latter's feebleness and embarrassment, 
 even on the occasion of bis presentation at 
 court ; he saw in them " a lack of mettle which 
 would ever prevent them from being truly 
 royal " ; but when in their mortal agony they 
 held out their hands to him for aid, his generous 
 nature forbade him to refuse it, nor could he 
 look on unmoved as they went helplessly down 
 to destruction. 
 
 The rest of his two years' history as minister 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 257 
 
 forms one of the most brilliant chapters in our 
 diplomatic annals. His boldness, and the frank- 
 ness with which he expressed his opinions, 
 though they at times irritated beyond measure 
 the factions of the revolutionists who succes- 
 sively grasped a brief but tremendous power, 
 yet awed them, in spite of themselves. He soon 
 learned to combine courage and caution, and 
 his readiness, wit, and dash always gave him a 
 certain hold over the fiery nation to which he 
 was accredited. He was firm and dignified in 
 insisting on proper respect being shown our 
 flag, while he did all he could to hasten the 
 payment of our obligations to France. A very 
 large share of his time, also, was taken up with 
 protesting against the French decrees aimed 
 at neutral — which meant American — com- , 
 merce, and with interfering to save American 
 ship-masters, who had got into trouble by un- 
 wittingly violating them. Like his successor, 
 Mr. Washburne, in the time of the commune, 
 Morris was the only foreign minister who re- 
 mained in Paris during the terror. He stayed 
 at the risk of his life ; and yet, while fully 
 aware of his danger, he carried himself as coolly 
 as if in a time of profound peace, and never 
 flinched for a moment when he was obliged for 
 his country's sake to call to account the rulers of 
 France for the time being — men whose power 
 
258 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 was as absolute as it was ephemeral and bloody, 
 who had indulged their desire for slaughter 
 with the unchecked ferocity of madmen, and 
 who could by a word have had him slain as 
 thousands had been slain before him. Few 
 foreign ministers have faced such difficulties, 
 and not one has ever come near to facing such 
 dangers as Morris did during his two years' 
 term of service. His feat stands by itself in 
 diplomatic history ; and, as a minor incident, 
 the letters and despatches he sent home give 
 a very striking view of the French Revolution. 
 As soon as he was appointed he went to see 
 the French minister of foreign affairs ; and in 
 answer to an observation of the latter stated 
 with his customary straightforwardness that it 
 was true that, while a mere private individual, 
 sincerely friendly to France, and desirous of 
 helping her, and whose own nation could not 
 •be compromised by his acts, he had freely taken 
 part in passing events, had criticised the con- 
 stitution, and advised the king and his minis- 
 ters ; but he added that, now that he was a pub- 
 lic man, he would no longer meddle with their 
 affairs. To this resolution he kept, save that, 
 as already described, sheer humanity induced 
 him to make an effort to save the king's life. 
 He had predicted what would ensue as the re- 
 sult of the exaggerated decentralization into 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE, 259 
 
 which the opponents of absolutism had rushed ; 
 when they had split the state up into more than 
 forty thousand sovereignties, each district the 
 sole executor of the law, and the only judge of 
 its propriety, and therefore obedient to it only 
 so long as it listed, and until rendered hostile by 
 the ignorant whim or ferocious impulse of the 
 moment ; and now he was to see his predictions 
 come true. In that brilliant and able state 
 paper, the address he had drawn up for Louis to 
 deliver when, in 1791, the latter accepted the 
 constitution, the key-note of the situation was 
 struck in the opening words : " It is no longer a 
 king who addresses you, Louis XVI. is a private 
 individual " ; and he had then scored off, point 
 by point, the faults in a document that created 
 an unwieldy assembly of men unaccustomed tp 
 govern, that destroyed the principle of author- 
 ity, though no other could appeal to a people 
 helpless in their new-born liberty, and that 
 created out of one whole a jarring multitude of 
 fractional sovereignties. Now he was to see 
 one of these same sovereignties rise up in suc- 
 cessful rebellion against the government that 
 represented the whole, destroy it and usurp its 
 power, and establish over all France the rule 
 of an anarchic despotism which, by what seems 
 to a free American a gross misnomer, they 
 called a democracy. 
 
260 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 All through June, at the beginning of which 
 month Morris had been formally presented at 
 court, the excitement and tumult kept increas- 
 ing. When, on the 20th, the mob forced the 
 gates of the chateau, and made the king put 
 on the red cap, Morris wrote in his Diary that 
 the constitution had given its last groan. A 
 few days afterwards he told Lafayette that in 
 six weeks everything would be over, and tried 
 to persuade him that his only chance was to 
 make up his mind instantly to fight either for 
 a good constitution or for the wretched piece 
 of paper which bore the name. Just six weeks 
 to a day from the date of this prediction came 
 the 10 th of August to verify it. 
 
 Throughout July the fevered pulses of the 
 people beat with always greater heat. Looking 
 at the maddened mob the American minister 
 thanked God from his heart that in his own 
 country there was no such populace, and prayed 
 with unwonted earnestness that our education 
 and morality should forever stave off such an 
 evil. At court even the most purblind dimly 
 saw their doom. Calling there one morning 
 he chronicles with a matter of fact brevity, im- 
 pressive from its very baldness, that nothing of 
 note had occurred except that they had stayed 
 up all night expecting to be murdered. He 
 wrote home that he could not tell "whether the 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 261 
 
 king would live through the storm ; for it blew 
 hard." 
 
 His horror of the base mob, composed of peo- 
 ple whose kind was absolutely unknown in 
 America, increased continually, as he saw them 
 going on from crimes that were great to crimes 
 that were greater, incited by the demagogues 
 who flattered them and roused their passions 
 and appetites ; and blindly raging because they 
 were of necessity disappointed in the golden 
 prospects held out to them. He scorned the 
 folly of the enthusiasts and doctrinaires who 
 had made a constitution all sail and no ballast, 
 that overset at the first gust ; who had freed 
 from all restraint a mass of men as savage and 
 licentious as they were wayward ; who had put 
 the executive in the power of the legislature, 
 and this latter at the mercy of the leaders who 
 could most strongly influence and inflame the 
 mob. But his contempt for the victims almost 
 exceeded his anger at their assailants. The 
 king, who could suffer with firmness, and who 
 could act either not at all, or else with the 
 worst possible effect, had the head and heart 
 that might have suited the monkish idea of a 
 female saint, but which were hopelessly out of 
 place in any rational being supposed to be fitted 
 for doing good in the world. Morris wrote 
 home that he knew his friend Hamilton had no 
 
262 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 particular aversion to kings, and would not be- 
 lieve them to be tigers ; but that if Hamilton 
 came to Europe to see for himself, he would 
 surely believe them to be monkeys ; the Em- 
 press of Russia was the only reigning sovereign 
 whose talents were not " considerably below 
 par." At the moment of the final shock the 
 court was involved in a set of paltry intrigues 
 " unworthy of anything above the rank of a 
 footman or a chambermaid. Every one had his 
 or her little project, and every little project had 
 some abettors. Strong, manly counsels fright- 
 ened the weak, alarmed the envious, and 
 wounded the enervated minds of the lazy and 
 luxurious." The few such counsels that ap- 
 peared were always approved, rarely adopted, 
 and never followed out. 
 
 Then in the sweltering heat of August, the 
 end came. A raving, furious horde stormed 
 the chateau, and murdered, one by one, the 
 brave mountaineers who gave their lives for a 
 sovereign too weak to be worthy of such gal- 
 lant bloodshed. King and queen fled to the 
 National Assembly, and the monarchy was 
 over. Immediately after the awful catastrophe 
 Morris wrote to a friend : " The voracity of the 
 court, the haughtiness of the nobles, the sensu- 
 ality of the church, have met their punishment 
 in the road of their transgressions. The op- 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 263 
 
 pressor has been squeezed by the hands of the 
 oppressed ; but there remains yet to be acted 
 an awful scene in this great tragedy, played on 
 the theatre of the universe for the instruction 
 of mankind." 
 
 Not the less did he dare everything, and 
 jeopardize his own life in trying to save some 
 at least among the innocent who had been over- 
 thrown in the crash of the common ruin. When 
 on the 10th of August the whole city lay abject 
 at the mercy of the mob, hunted men and 
 women, bereft of all they had, and fleeing from 
 a terrible death, with no hiding-place, no friend 
 who could shield them, turned in their terror- 
 struck despair to the one man in whoo v. -fearless- 
 ness and generous gallantry they coula trust. 
 The shelter of Morris's house and flag was 
 sought from early morning till past midnight 
 by people who had nowhere else to go and who 
 felt that within his walls they were sure of at 
 least a brief safety from the maddened sav- 
 ages in the streets. As far as possible they 
 were sent off to places of greater secu':it^ ; but 
 some had to stay with him till the storm lulled 
 for a moment. An American gentleman who 
 was in Paris on that memorable day, after view- 
 ing the sack of the Tuileries, thought it right 
 to go to the house of the American minister. 
 He found him surrounded by a score of people, 
 
264 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 of both sexes, among them the old Count 
 d'Estaing, and other men of note, who had 
 fought side by side with us in our war for in- 
 dependence, and whom now our flag protected 
 in their hour of direst need. Silence reigned, 
 only broken occasionally by the weeping of the 
 women and children. As his visitor was leav- 
 ing, Morris took him to one side, and told him 
 that he had no doubt there were persons on the 
 watch who would find fault with his conduct 
 as a minister in receiving and protecting these 
 people; that they had come of their own accord, 
 uninvited. '' Whether my house will be a pro- 
 tection to them or to me, God only knows; but 
 I will n(M; turn them out of it, let what will hap- 
 pen t J me ; you see, sir, they are all persons to 
 whom our country is more or less indebted, and 
 had they no such claim upon me, it would be 
 inhuman to force them into the hands of the 
 assassins." No one of Morris's countrymen 
 can read his words even now without feeling a 
 throb of pride in the dead statesman, who, a 
 centu y ago, held up so high the honor of his 
 nation's name in the times when the souls of 
 all but the very bravest were tried and found 
 wanting. 
 
 Soon after this he ceased writing in his Diary, 
 for fear it might fall into the hands of men who 
 would use it to incriminate his friends ; and for 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 265 
 
 the same reason he had also to be rather wary 
 in what he wrote home, as his letters fre- 
 quently bore marks of being opened, thanks to 
 what he laughingly called "patriotic curiosity." 
 He was, however, perfectly fearless as regards 
 any ill that might befall himself ; his circum- 
 spection was only exercised on behalf of others, 
 and his own opinions were given as frankly as 
 ever. 
 
 He pictured the French as huddled together, 
 in an unreasoning panic, like cattle before a 
 thunderstorm. Their every act increased his 
 distrust of their capacity for self-government. 
 They were for the time agog with their repub- 
 lic, and ready to adopt any form of govern- 
 ment with a huzza ; but that they would adopt 
 a good form, or, having adopted it, keep it, he 
 did not believe ; and he saw that the great 
 mass of the population were already veering 
 round, under the pressure of accumulating 
 horrors, until they would soon be ready to wel- 
 come as a blessing even a despotism, if so they 
 could gain security to life and property. They 
 had made the common mistake of believing 
 that to enjoy liberty they had only to abolish au- 
 thority ; and the equally common consequence 
 was, that they were now, through anarchy, on 
 the high road to absolutism. Said Morris : 
 " Since I have been in this country I have seen 
 
266 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the worship of many idols, and but little of the 
 true God. I have seen many of these idols 
 broken, and some of them beaten to the dust. 
 I have seen the late constitution in one short 
 year admired as a stupendous monument of hu- 
 man vrisdom, and ridiculed as an egregious pro- 
 duction of folly and vice. I wish much, very 
 much, the happiness of this inconstant people. 
 I love them, I feel grateful for their efforts in 
 our cause, and I consider the establishment of 
 a good constitution here as the principal means, 
 under Divine Providence, of extending the 
 blessings of freedom to the many millions of 
 my fellow-men who groan in bondage on the 
 continent of Europe. But I do not greatly in- 
 dulge the flattering illusions of hope, because I 
 do not yet perceive that reformation of morals 
 without which liberty is but an empty sound." 
 These words are such as could only come from 
 a genuine friend of France, and champion of 
 freedom ; from a strong, earnest man, saddened 
 by the follies of dreamers, and roused to stern 
 anger by the licentious wickedness of scoun- 
 drels who used the name of liberty to cloak the 
 worst abuses of its substance. 
 
 His stay in Paris was now melancholy indeed. 
 The city was shrouded in a gloom only relieved 
 by the frenzied tumults that grew steadily more 
 numerous. The ferocious craving once roused 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 267 
 
 could not be sated ; the thirst grew ever stronger 
 as the draughts were deeper. The danger to 
 Morris's own person merely quickened his 
 pulses, and roused his strong, brave nature ; he 
 liked excitement, and the strain that would 
 have been too tense for weaker nerves keyed 
 his own up to a fierce, half-exultant thrilling. 
 But the woes that befell those who had be- 
 friended him caused him the keenest grief. It 
 was almost unbearable to be seated quietly at 
 dinner, and hear by accident " that a friend 
 was on his way to the place of execution," and 
 to have to sit still and wonder which of the 
 guests dining with him would be the next to go 
 to the scaffold. The vilest criminals swarmed 
 in the streets, and amused themselves by tear- 
 ing the earrings from women's ears, and snatch- 
 ing away their watches. When the priests 
 shut up in the carries^ and the prisoners in the 
 ahhaie were murdered, the slaughter went on 
 all day, and eight hundred men were engaged 
 in it. 
 
 He wrote home that, to give a true picture 
 of France, he would have to paint it like an 
 Indian warrior, black and red. The scenes 
 that passed were literally beyond the imagina- 
 tion of the American mind. The most hideous 
 and nameless atrocities were so common as to 
 be only alluded to incidentally, and to be re- 
 
268 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 cited in the most matter-of-fact way in connec- 
 tion with other events. For instance, a man 
 applied to the Convention for a recompense for 
 damage done to his quarry, a pit dug deep 
 through the surface of the earth into the stone 
 bed beneath : the damage consisted in such a 
 number of dead bodies having been thrown into 
 the pit as to choke it up so that he could no 
 longer get men to work it. Hundreds, who had 
 been the first in the land, were thus destroyed 
 without form or trial, and their bodies thrown 
 like dead dogs into the first hole that offered. 
 Two hundred priests were killed for no other 
 crime than having been conscientiously scrupu- 
 lous about taking the prescribed oath. The 
 guillotine went smartly on, watched with a 
 devilish merriment by the fiends who were 
 themselves to perish by the instrument their 
 own hands had wrought. " Heaven only knew 
 who was next to drink of the dreadful cup ; as 
 far as man could tell, there was to be no lack 
 of liquor for some time to come." 
 
 Among the new men who, one after another, 
 sprang into the light, to maintain their unsteady 
 footing as leaders for but a brief time before 
 toppling into the dark abyss of death or oblivion 
 that waited for each and all, Dumouriez was for 
 the moment the most prominent. He stood 
 towards the Gironde much as Lafayette had 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 269 
 
 stood towards the Constitutionalists of 1789: 
 he led the army, as Lafayette once had led it; 
 and as the constitutional monarchists had fallen 
 before his feHow-republicans, so both he and 
 they were to go down before the even wilder 
 extremists of the *' Mountain." For the factions 
 in Paris, face to face with the banded might of 
 the European monarchies, and grappling in a 
 grim death-struggle with the counter -revolu- 
 tionists of the provinces, yet fought one another 
 with the same ferocity they showed towards the 
 common foe. Nevertheless, success was theirs; 
 for against opponents only less wicked than 
 themselves they moved with an infinitely su- 
 perior fire and enthusiasm.. Reeking with the 
 blood of the guiltless, steeped in it to the lips, 
 branded with fresh memories of crimes and in- 
 famies without number, and yet feeling in their 
 very marrow that they were avenging centuries 
 of grinding and intolerable thralldom, and that 
 the cause for which they fought was just and 
 righteous ; with shameless cruelty and corrup- 
 tion eating into their hearts' core, yet with their 
 foreheads kindled by the light of a glorious 
 morning, — they moved with a ruthless energy 
 that paralyzed their opponents, the worn-out, 
 tottering, crazy despotisms, rotten with vice, 
 despicable in their ludicrous pride of caste, 
 moribund in their military pedantry, and fore- 
 
270 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 doomed to perish in the conflict they had 
 courted. The days of Danton and Robespierre 
 are not days to which a French patriot cares to 
 look back ; but at any rate he can regard them 
 without the shame he must feel when he thinks 
 of the times of Louis Quinze. Danton and his 
 like, at least, were men, and stood far, far above 
 the palsied coward — a eunuch in his lack of all 
 virile virtues — who misruled France for half 
 a century ; who, with his followers, indulged 
 in every crime and selfish vice known, save 
 only such as needed a particle of strength, or 
 the least courage, in the committing. 
 
 Morris first met Dumouriez when the latter 
 was minister of foreign affairs, shortly before 
 the poor king was driven from the Tuilleries. 
 He dined with him, and afterwards noted down 
 that the society was noisy and in bad style ; 
 for the grace and charm of French social life 
 were gone, and the raw republicans were ill at 
 ease in the drawing-room. At tliis time Mor- 
 ris commented often on the change in the look 
 of Paris : all his gay friends gone ; the city 
 sombre and uneasy. When he walked through 
 the streets, in the stifling air of a summer hot 
 beyond precedent, as if the elements sympa- 
 thized with the passions of men, he met, instead 
 of the brilliant company of former days, only 
 the few peaceable citizens left, hurrying on their 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 271 
 
 ways with frightened watchfulness; or else 
 groups of lolling ruffians, with sinister eyes and 
 brutalized faces ; or he saw in the Champs de 
 Mars squalid ragamuffins signing the petition 
 for the decheance. 
 
 Morris wrote Washington that Dumouriez 
 was a bold, determined man, bitterly hostile to 
 the Jacobins and all the extreme revolutionary 
 clubs, and, once he was in power, willing to 
 risk his own life in the effort to put them down. 
 However, the hour of the Jacobins had not yet 
 struck, and the Revolution had now been per- 
 mitted to gather such headway that it could be 
 stopped only by a master genius ; and Dumou- 
 riez was none such. 
 
 Still he was an able man, and, as Morris 
 wrote home, in his military operations he com- 
 bined the bravery of a skilled soldier and the 
 arts of an astute politician. To be sure, his 
 victories were not in themselves very note- 
 worthy; the artillery skirmish at Valmy was 
 decided by the reluctance of the Germans to 
 come on, not by the ability of the French to 
 withstand them ; and at Jemappes the impe- 
 rialists were hopelessly outnumbered. Still the 
 results were most important, and Dumouriez 
 overran Flanders in the face of hostile Europe. 
 He at once proceeded to revolutionize the gov- 
 ernment of his conquest in the most approved 
 
272 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 French fashion, which was that all the neigh- 
 bors of France should receive liberty whether 
 or no, and should moreover pay the expense 
 of having it thrust upon them ; accordingly he 
 issued a proclamation to his new fellow-citizens, 
 " which might be summed up in a few words as 
 being an order to them to be free forthwith, 
 according to his ideas of freedom, on pain of 
 military execution." 
 
 He had things all his own way for the mo- 
 ment, but after a while he was defeated by the 
 Germans ; then while the Gironde tottered to 
 its fall, he fled to the very foes he had been 
 fighting, as the only way of escaping death from 
 the men whose favorite he had been. Morris 
 laughed bitterly at the fickle people. One an- 
 ecdote he gives is worth preserving: *'It is a 
 year ago that a person who mixed in tumults to 
 see what was doing, told me of a sans culottes 
 who, bellowing against poor Lafayette, when 
 Petion appeared, changed at once his note to 
 ' Vive Petion ! ' and then, turning round to one 
 of his companions, ' Vois tu ! C'est notre ami, 
 n'est ce pas? Eb bien, il passera comme les 
 autres.' And, lo ! the prophecy is fulfilled ; and 
 I this instant learn that Petion, confined to his 
 room as a traitor or conspirator, has fled, on the 
 24th of June, 1793, from those whom he sent, 
 on the 20th of June, 1792, to assault the king 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 273 
 
 in the Tuileries. In short you will find, in the 
 list of those who were ordered by their brethren 
 to be arrested, the names of those who have 
 proclaimed themselves to be the prime movers 
 of the revolution of the 10th of August, and the 
 fathers of the republic." 
 
 About the time the sans culottes had thus 
 bellowed against Lafayette, the latter met Mor- 
 ris, for the first time since he was presented at 
 court as minister, and at once spoke to him in 
 his tone of ancient familiarity. The French- 
 man had been brought at last to realize the 
 truth of his American friend's theories and pre- 
 dictions. It was much too late to save himself, 
 however. After the 10th of August he was 
 proclaimed by the Assembly, found his troops 
 falling away from him, and fled over the fron- 
 tier ; only to be thrown into prison by the allied 
 monarchs, who acted with their usual folly and 
 baseness. Morris, contemptuously impatient of 
 the part he had played, wrote of him : '^ Thus 
 his circle is completed. He has spent his for- 
 tune on a revolution, and is now crushed by the 
 wheel which he put in motion. He lasted longer 
 than I expected." But this momentary indig- 
 nation soon gave way to a generous sympathy 
 for the man who had served America so well, 
 and who, if without the great abilities necessary 
 to grapple with the tumult of French affairs, 
 
274 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 had yet always acted with such unselfish purity 
 of motive. Lafayette, as soon as he was impris- 
 oned, wrote to the American minister in Hol- 
 land, alleging that he had surrendered his po- 
 sition as a French subject, and was now an 
 American citizen, and requesting the American 
 representatives in Europe to procure his release. 
 His claim was of course untenable ; and, though 
 the American government did all it could on his 
 behalf through its foreign ministers, and though 
 Washington himself wrote a strong letter of 
 appeal to the Austrian emperor, he remained 
 in prison until the peace, several years later. 
 
 All Lafayette's fortune was gone, and while 
 in prison he was reduced to want. As soon 
 as Morris heard this, he had the sum of ten 
 thousand florins forwarded to the prisoner by 
 the United States bankers at Amsterdam ; 
 pledging his own security for the amount, which 
 was, however, finally allowed by the govern- 
 ment under the name of compensation for La- 
 fayette's military services in America. Morris 
 was even more active in befriending Madame 
 de Lafayette and her children. To the former 
 he lent from his own private funds a hundred 
 thousand livres, enabling her to pay her debts 
 to the many poor people who had rendered ser- 
 vices to her family. To the proud, sensitive 
 lady the relief was great, much though it hurt 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 275 
 
 her to be under any obligation : she wrote to her 
 friend that he had broken the chains that loaded 
 her down, and had done it in a way that made 
 her feel the consolation, rather than the weight, 
 of the obligation. But he w;is to do still more 
 for her ; for, when she was cast into prison by 
 the savage Parisian mob, his active influence 
 on her behalf saved her from death. In a let- 
 ter to him, written some time later, she says, 
 after speaking of the money she had borrowed; 
 " This is a slight obligation, it is true, compared 
 with that of my life, but allow me to remember 
 both while life lasts, with a sentiment of grati- 
 tude which it is precious to feel." 
 
 There were others whose fortunes turned with 
 the wheel of fate, for whom Morris felt no such 
 sympathy as for the Lafayettes. Among the 
 number was the Duke of Orleans, now tran^ 
 formed into citoyen Egalite. Morris credited 
 this graceless debauchee with criminal ambi- 
 tions which he probably did not possess, saying 
 that he doubted the public virtue of a profli- 
 gate, and could not help distrusting such a 
 man's pretensions ; nor is it likely that he re- 
 gretted much the fate of the man who died 
 under the same guillotine which, with his as- 
 sent, had fallen on the neck of the king, his 
 cousin. 
 
 It needed no small amount of hardihood for 
 
276 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 a man of Morris's prominence and avowed sen* 
 timents to stay in Paris when Death was mowing 
 round him with a swath at once so broad and 
 so irregular. The power was passing rapidly 
 from hand to hand, through a succession of men 
 fairly crazy in their indifference to bloodshed. 
 Not a single other minister of a neutral nation 
 dared stay. In fact, the foreign representatives 
 were preparing to go away even before the final 
 stroke was given to the monarchy, and soon 
 after the 10th of August the entire corps diplo- 
 matique left Paris as rapidly as the various 
 members could get their passports. These the 
 new republican government was at first very 
 reluctant to grant ; indeed, when the Venetian 
 ambassador started off he was very ignomin- 
 iously treated and brought back. Morris went 
 to the British ambassador's to take leave, hav- 
 ing received much kindness from him, and hav- 
 ing been very intimate in his house. He found 
 Lord Gower in a tearing passion because he 
 could not get passports ; he had burned his 
 papers, and strongly advised his guest to do 
 likewise. On this advice the latter refused to 
 act, nor would he take the broad hints given 
 him to the effect that honor required him to 
 quit the country. Morris could not help show- 
 ing his amusement at the fear and anger exhib- 
 ited at the ambassador's, " which exhibition of 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 217 
 
 spirits his lordship could hardly bear." Talley- 
 rand, who was getting his own passport, also 
 did all in his power to persuade the American 
 minister to leave, but without avail. Morris 
 was not a man to be easily shaken in any deter- 
 mination he had taken after careful thought. 
 He wrote back to Jefferson that his opinion 
 was directly opposed to the views of such people 
 as had tried to persuade him that his own 
 honor, and that of America, required him to 
 leave France ; and that he was inclined to at- 
 tribute such counsel mainly to fear. It was 
 true that the position was not without danger ; 
 but he presumed that, when the president named 
 him to the embassy, it was not for his own per- 
 sonal pleasure or safety, but for the interests of 
 the country ; and these he could certainly sei^ve 
 best by staying. "\.^ 
 
 He was able to hold his own only by a mix- 
 ture of tact and firmness. Any signs of flinch- 
 ing would have ruined him outright. He would 
 submit to no insolence. The minister of for- 
 eign affairs was, with his colleagues, engaged in 
 certain schemes in reference to the American 
 debt, which were designed to further their own 
 private interests ; he tried to bully Morris into 
 acquiescence, and, on the latter's point-blank 
 refusal, sent him a most insulting letter. Mor- 
 ris promptly retorted by demanding his pass- 
 
278 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ports. France, however, was very desirous not 
 to break with the United States, the only friend 
 she had left in the world ; and the offending 
 minister sent a sullen letter of apology, ask- 
 ing hira to reconsider his intention to leave, 
 and offering entire satisfaction for every point 
 of which he complained. Accordingly Morris 
 stayed. 
 
 He was, however, continually exposed to in- 
 sults and worries, which were always apologized 
 for by the government for the time being, on 
 the ground, no doubt true, that in such a period 
 of convulsions it was impossible to control their 
 subordinate agents. Indeed, the changes from 
 one form of anarchy to another went on so 
 rapidly that the laws of nations had small 
 chance of observance. 
 
 One evening a number of people, headed by 
 a commissary of the section, entered his house, 
 and demanded to search it for arms said to be 
 hidden therein. Morris took a high tone, and 
 was very peremptory with them ; told them 
 that they should not examine his house, that it 
 held no arms, and moreover that, if he had pos- 
 sessed any, they should not touch one of them ; 
 he also demanded the name of " the blockhead 
 or rascal " who had informed against him, an- 
 nouncing his intention to bring him to punish- 
 ment. Finally he got them out of the house, 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 279 
 
 and the next morning the commissary called 
 with many apologies, which were accepted. 
 
 Another time he was arrested in the street 
 for not having a carte de citoyen^ but he was 
 released as soon as it was found out who he was. 
 Again he was arrested while traveling in the 
 country, on the pretence that his passport was 
 out of date ; an insult for which the government 
 at once made what amends they could. His 
 house was also visited another time by armed 
 men, whom, as before, he persuaded to go away. 
 Once or twice, in the popular tumults, even his 
 life was in danger ; on one occasion it is said 
 that it was only saved by the fact of his having 
 a wooden leg, which made him known to the 
 mob as "a cripple of the American war for 
 freedom." Rumors even got abroad in England 
 and America that he had been assassinated. 
 
 Morris's duties were manifold, and as harass- 
 ing to himself as they were beneficial to his 
 country. Sometimes he would interfere on be- 
 half of America as a whole, and endeavor to 
 get obnoxious decrees of the Assembly repealed ; 
 and again he would try to save some private 
 citizen of the United States who had got him- 
 self into difficulties. Reports of the French 
 minister of foreign affairs, as well as reports of 
 the comite de salut public^ alike bear testimony 
 to the success of his endeavors, whenever sue- 
 
280 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 cess was possible, and unconsciously show the 
 value of the services he rendered to his country. 
 Of course it was often impossible to obtain com- 
 plete redress, because, as Morris wrote home, 
 the government, while all-powerful in certain 
 cases, was in others not merely feeble, but en- 
 slaved, and was often obliged to commit acts the 
 consequences of which the nominal leaders both 
 saw and lamented. Morris also, while doing 
 all he could for his fellow-citizens, was often 
 obliged to choose between their interests and 
 those of the nation at large ; and he of course 
 decided in favor of the latter, though well 
 aware of the clamor that was certain to be 
 raised against him in consequence by those 
 who, as he caustically remarked, found it the 
 easiest thing in the world to get anything they 
 wanted from the French government until they 
 had tried. 
 
 One of his most important transactions was 
 in reference to paying off the debt due by 
 America for amounts loaned her during the 
 war for independence. The interest and a part 
 of the principal had already been paid. At 
 the time when Morris was made minister, the 
 United States had a large sum of money, des- 
 tined for the payment of the public debt, lying 
 idle in the hands of the bankers at Amsterdam ; 
 and this sum both Morris and the American 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 281 
 
 minister to Holland, Mr. Short, thought could 
 be well applied to the payment of part of our 
 remaining obligation to France. The French 
 government was consulted, and agreed to receive 
 the sum ; but hardly was the agreement en- 
 tered into before the monarchy w^as overturned. 
 The question at once arose as to whether the 
 money could be rightfully paid over to the men 
 who had put themselves at the head of affairs, 
 and who, a month hence, might themselves be 
 ousted by others who would not acknowledge 
 the validity of a payment made to them. Short 
 thought the payment should be stopped, and, as 
 it afterwards turned out, the home authorities 
 agreed with him. But Morris thought other- 
 wise, and paid over the amount. Events fully 
 justified his course, for France never made^ 
 any difficulty in the matter, and even had she 
 done so, as Morris remarked, America had the 
 staff in her own hands, and could walk which 
 way she pleased, for she owed more money, and 
 in the final adjustment could insist on the 
 amount paid being allowed on account of the 
 debt. 
 
 The French executive council owed Morris 
 gratitude for his course in this matter ; but they 
 became intensely irritated with him shortly 
 afterwards because he refused to fall in with 
 certain proposals they made to him as to the 
 
282 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 manner of applying part of the debt to the pur- 
 chase of provisions and munitions for San Do- 
 mingo. Morris had good reason to believe that 
 there was a private speculation at the bottom of 
 this proposal, and declined to accede to it. The 
 urgency with which it was made, and the wrath 
 which his course excited, confirmed his suspi- 
 cions, and he persisted in his refusal although 
 it almost brought about a break with the men 
 then carrying on the government. Afterwards, 
 when these men fell with the Gironde, he 
 wrote home : " I mentioned to you the plan 
 of a speculation on drafts to have been made 
 on the United States, could my concurrence 
 have been procured. Events have shown that 
 this speculation would have been a good one to 
 the parties, who would have gained (and the 
 French nation of course have lost) about fifty 
 thousand pounds sterling in eighty thousand. 
 I was informed at that time that the disap- 
 pointed parties would attempt to have me 
 recalled, and some more tractable character 
 sent, who would have the good sense to look 
 after his own interest. Well, sir, nine months 
 have elapsed, and now, if I were capable of 
 such things, I think it would be no diflficult 
 matter to have some of them hanged ; indeed 
 it is highly probable that they will experience 
 a fate of that sort." 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 283 
 
 Much of his time was also taken up in re- 
 monstrating against the attacks of French 
 privateers on American shipping. These, how- 
 ever, went steadily on until, half a dozen years 
 afterwards, we took the matter into our own 
 hands, and in the West Indies inflicted a smart 
 drubbing, not only on the privateers of France, 
 but on her regular men-of-war as well. He 
 also did what he could for the French officers 
 who had served in America during the War of 
 Independence, most of whom were forced to flee 
 from France after the outbreak of the Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 His letters home, even after his regular du- 
 ties had begun to be engrossing, contained a 
 running commentary on the events that were 
 passing around him. His forecasts of events 
 within France were remarkably shrewd, and 
 he displayed a wonderful insight into the mo- 
 tives and characters of the various leaders; 
 but at first he was all at sea in his estimate 
 of the military situation, being much more at 
 home among statesmen than soldiers. He had 
 expected the allied sovereigns to make short 
 work of the raw republican armies, and was 
 amazed at the success of the latter. But he 
 very soon realized how the situation stood; 
 that whereas the Austrian and Prussian troops 
 simply came on in well-drilled, reluctant obedi- 
 
284 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 ence to their commanding officers, the soldiers 
 of France, on the contrary, were actuated by a 
 fiery spirit the like of which had hardly been 
 seen since the crusades. The bitterness of 
 the contest was appalling, and so was the way 
 in which the ranks of the contestants were 
 thinned out. The extreme republicans believed 
 in their creed with a furious faith ; and they 
 were joined by their fellow - citizens with an 
 almost equal zeal, when once it had become 
 evident that the invaders were hostile not only 
 to the Republic but to France itself, and very 
 possibly meditated its dismemberment. 
 
 When the royal and imperial forces invaded 
 France in 1792, they threatened such ferocious 
 vengeance as to excite the most desperate resist- 
 ance, and yet they backed up their high sound- 
 ing words by deeds so faulty, weak, and slow 
 as to make themselves objects of contempt 
 rather than dread. The Duke of Brunswick 
 in particular, as a prelude to some very harm- 
 less military manoeuvres, issued a singularly 
 lurid and foolish manifesto, announcing that he 
 would deliver up Paris to utter destruction and 
 would give over all the soldiers he captured to 
 military execution. Morris said that his ad- 
 dress was in substance, " Be all against me, 
 for I am opposed to you all, and make a good 
 resistance, for there is no longer any hope ; " and 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 285 
 
 added that it would have been wiser to have be- 
 gun with some great success and then to have 
 carried the danger near those whom it was de- 
 sired to intimidate. As it was, the Duke's cam- 
 paign failed ignominiously, and all the inva- 
 ders were driven back, for France rose as one 
 man, her warriors overflowed on every side, 
 and bore down all her foes by sheer weight 
 of numbers and impetuous enthusiasm. Her 
 government was a despotism as^well as an an- 
 archy ; it was as totally free from the draw- 
 backs as from the advantages of the demo- 
 cratic system that it professed to embody. 
 Nothing could exceed the merciless energy of 
 the measures adopted. Half-way wickedness 
 might have failed ; but a wholesale murder of 
 the disaffected, together with a confiscation of 
 all the goods of the rich, and a vigorous coii- 
 scription of the poor for soldiers, secured suc- 
 cess, at least for the time being. The French 
 made it a war of men ; so that the price of labor 
 rose enormously at once, and the condition of 
 the working classes forthwith changed greatly 
 for the better- — one good result of the Revo- 
 lution, at any rate. 
 
 Morris wrote home very soon after the lOth 
 of August that the then triumphant revolution- 
 ists, the Girondists or party of Brissot, who had 
 supplanted the moderate party of Lafayette ex- 
 
286 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 actly as the latter had succeeded the aristoc- 
 racy, would soon in their turn be overthrown 
 by men even more extreme and even more 
 bloodthirsty; and that thus it would go on, 
 wave after wave, until at last the wizard arose 
 who could still them. By the end of the year 
 the storm had brewed long enough to be near 
 the bursting point. One of the promoters of 
 the last outbreak, now himself marked as a 
 victim, told Morris that he personally would die 
 hard, but that most of his colleagues, though 
 like him doomed to destruction, and though so 
 fierce in dealing with the moderate men, now 
 showed neither the nerve nor hardihood that 
 alone could stave off the catastrophe. 
 
 Meanwhile the king, as Morris wrote home, 
 showed in his death a better spirit than his 
 life had promised ; for he died in a manner 
 becoming his dignity, with calm courage, pray- 
 ing that his foes might be forgiven and his 
 deluded people be benefited by his death, — his 
 words from the scaffold being drowned by the 
 drums of Santerre. As a whole, the Gironde 
 had opposed putting the king to death, and 
 thus capping the structure whose foundations 
 they had laid; they held back all too late. 
 The fabric of their system was erected on a 
 quagmire, and it now settled down and crushed 
 the men who had built it. " All people of moral- 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 287 
 
 ity and intelligence had long agreed that as yet 
 republican virtues were not of Gallic growth ; " 
 and so the power slipped naturally into the 
 grasp of the lowest and most violent, of those 
 who were loudest to claim the possession of 
 republican principles, while in practice show- 
 ing that they had not even the dimmest idea 
 of what such principles meant. 
 
 The leaders were quite at the mercy of the 
 gusts of fierce passion that swayed the breasts 
 of their brutal followers. Morris wrote home 
 that the nominal rulers, or rather the fe.w by 
 whom these rulers were directed, had finally 
 gained very just ideas of the value of popular 
 opinion ; but that they were not in a condition 
 to act according to their knowledge ; and that if 
 they were able to reach harbor there would be 
 quite as much of good luck as of good manage* 
 ment about it, and, at any rate, a part of the 
 crew would have to be thrown overboard. 
 
 Then the Mountain rose under Danton and 
 Marat, and the party of the Gironde was en- 
 tirely put down. The leaders were cast into 
 prison, with the certainty before their eyes that 
 the first great misfortune to France would call 
 them from their dungeons to act as expiatory 
 victims. The Jacobins ruled supreme, and un- 
 der them the government became a despotism 
 in principle as well as in practice. Part of the 
 
288 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Convention arrested the rest ; and the revolu- 
 tionary tribunals ruled red - handed, with a 
 whimsical and ferocious tyranny. Said Morris : 
 " It is an emphatical phrase among the patriots 
 that terra?' is the order of the day ; some years 
 have elapsed since Montesquieu wrote that the 
 principle of arbitrary governments is fearJ" 
 The prisons were choked with suspects^ and 
 blood flowed more freely than ever. Terror had 
 reached its highest point. Danton was soon to 
 fall before Robespierre. Among a host of other 
 victims the queen died, with a brave dignity 
 that made people half forget her manifold 
 faults ; and Philippe Egalite, the dissolute and 
 unprincipled scoundrel, after a life than which 
 none could be meaner and more unworthy, now 
 at the end went to his death with calm and 
 unflinching courage. 
 
 One man had a very narrow escape. This 
 was Thomas Paine, the Englishman, who had 
 at one period rendered such a striking ser- 
 vice to the cause of American independence, 
 while the rest of his life had been as ignoble as 
 it was varied. He had been elected to the Con- 
 vention, and, having sided with the Gironde, was 
 thrown into prison by the Jacobins. He at 
 once asked Morris to demand him as an Amer- 
 ican citizen ; a title to which he of course had 
 no claim. Morris refused to interfere too 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE, 289 
 
 actively, judging rightly that Paine would be 
 saved by his own insignificance and would serve 
 his own interests best by keeping still. So the 
 filthy little atheist had to stay in prison, 
 "where he amused himself with publishing a 
 pamphlet against Jesus Christ." There are 
 infidels and infidels ; Paine belonged to the va- 
 riety — whereof America possesses at present 
 one or two shining exauiples — that apparently 
 esteems a bladder of dirty water as the proper 
 weapon with which to assail Christianity. It 
 is not a type that appeals to the sympathy of 
 an onlooker, be said onlooker religious or other- 
 wise. 
 
 Morris never paid so much heed to the mili- 
 tary events as to the progress of opinion in 
 France, believing " that such a great country 
 must depend more upon interior sentiment than 
 exterior operations." He took a half melan- 
 choly, half sardonic interest in the overthrow of 
 the Catholic religion by the revolutionists ; who 
 had assailed it with the true French weapon, 
 ridicule, but ridicule of a very grim and un- 
 pleasant kind. The people who five years be- 
 fore had fallen down in the dirt as the conse- 
 crated matter passed by, now danced the car- 
 magnole in holy vestments, and took part in 
 some other mummeries a great deal more 
 blasphemous. At the famous Feast of Reason, 
 
290 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 which Morris described as a kind of opera 
 performed in Notre Dame, the president of the 
 Convention, and other public characters, adored 
 on bended knees a girl who stood in the place 
 ci-devant most holy to personate Reason her- 
 self. This girl, Saunier by name, followed the 
 trades of an opera dancer and harlot ; she was 
 " very beautiful and next door to an idiot as to 
 her intellectual gifts." Among her feats was 
 having appeared in a ballet in a dress especially 
 designed, by the painter David, at her bidding, 
 to be more indecent than nakedness. Alto- 
 gether she was admirably fitted, both morally 
 and mentally, to personify the kind of reason 
 shown and admired by the French revolution- 
 ists. 
 
 Writing to a friend who was especially hos- 
 tile to Romanism, Morris once remarked, with 
 the humor that tinged even his most serious 
 thoughts, " Every day of my life gives me rea- 
 son to question my own infallibility ; and of 
 course leads me further from confiding in that 
 of the pope. But I have lived to see a new re- 
 ligion arise. It consists in a denial of all reli- 
 gion, and its votaries have the superstition of 
 not being superstitious. They have this with 
 as much zeal as any other sect, and are as 
 ready to lay waste the world in order to make 
 proselytes." Another time, speaking of his coun- 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 291 
 
 try place at Sainport, to which he had retired 
 from Paris, he wrote : " We are so scorched by 
 a long drought that in spite of all philosophic 
 notions we are beginning our procession to ob- 
 tain the favor of the hon dieu. Were it proper 
 for U7i homme public et protestant to interfere, I 
 should be tempted to tell them that mercy is 
 before sacrifice." Those individuals of arrested 
 mental development who now make pilgrim- 
 ages to our Lady of Lourdes had plenty of 
 prototypes, even in the atheistical France of 
 the Revohition. 
 
 In his letters home Morris occasionally made 
 clear-headed comments on American affairs. 
 He considered that " we should be unwise in the 
 extreme to involve ourselves in the contests of 
 European nations, where our weight could be 
 but small, though the loss to ourselves would 
 be certain. We ought to be extremely watch- 
 ful of foreign affairs, but there is a broad line 
 between vigilance and activity." Both France 
 and England had violated their treaties with 
 us ; but the latter " had behaved worst, and with 
 deliberate intention." He especially laid stress 
 upon the need of our having a navy ; " with 
 twenty ships of the line at sea no nation on 
 earth will dare to insult us ; " even aside from 
 individual losses, five years of war would involve 
 more national expense than the support of a 
 
292 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 navy for twenty years, and until we rendered 
 ourselves respectable, we should continue to be 
 insulted. He never showed greater wisdom 
 than in his views about our navy ; and his party, 
 the federalists, started to give us one ; but it 
 had hardly been begun before the Jeffersonians 
 came into power, and, with singular foolishness, 
 stopped the work. 
 
 Washington heartily sympathized with Mor- 
 ris's views as to the French Revolution ; he 
 wrote him that events had more than made 
 good his gloomiest predictions. Jefferson, how- 
 ever, was utterly opposed to his theories, and 
 was much annoyed at the forcible way in which 
 he painted things as they were ; characteristi- 
 cally enough, he only showed his annoyance by 
 indirect methods, — leaving Morris's letters un- 
 answered, keeping him in the dark as to events 
 at home, etc. MoitIs understood all this per- 
 fectly, and was extremely relieved when Ran- 
 dolph became secretary of state in Jefferson's 
 stead. Almost immediately afterwards, how- 
 ever, he was himself recalled. The United 
 States, having requested the French government 
 to withdraw Genet, a harlequin rather than a 
 diplomat, it was done at once, and in return a 
 request was forwarded that the United States 
 would reciprocate by relieving Morris, which of 
 course had to be done also. The revolutionary 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 293 
 
 authorities both feared and disliked Morris ; he 
 could neither be flattered nor bullied, and he 
 was known to disapprove of their excesses. 
 They also took umbrage at bis haughtiness ; an 
 unfortunate expression he used in one of his 
 oflicial letters to them, '-'• ma cour," gave great 
 offense, as being unrepublican — precisely as 
 they had previously objected to Washington's 
 using the phrase *' your people " in writing to 
 the king. 
 
 Washington wrote him a letter warmly ap- 
 proving of his past conduct. Nevertheless 
 Morris was not over-pleased at being recalled. 
 He thought that, as things then were in France, 
 any minister who gave satisfaction to its gov- 
 ernment would prove forgetful of the interests 
 of America. He was probably right ; at any 
 rate, what he feared was just what happened, 
 under his successor, Monroe — a very amiable 
 gentleman, but distinctly one who comes in the 
 category of those whose greatness is thrust upon 
 them. However, under the circumstances, it 
 was probably impossible for our government to 
 avoid recalling Morris. 
 
 He could say truthfully : " I have the conso- 
 lation to have made no sacrifice either of per- 
 sonal or national dignity, and I believe I should 
 have obtained everything if the American gov- 
 ernment had refused to recall me." His ser- 
 
294 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 vices had been invaluable to us ; he had kept 
 our national reputation at a high point, by the 
 scrupulous heed with which he saw that all our 
 obligations were fulfilled, as well as by the firm 
 courage with which he insisted on our rights 
 being granted us. He believed " that all our 
 treaties, however onerous, must be strictly ful- 
 filled according to their true intent and meaning. 
 The honest nation is that which, like the honest 
 man, ' hath to its plighted faith and vow for- 
 ever firmly stood, and though it promise to its 
 loss, yet makes that promise good ; ' " and in 
 return he demanded that othei's should mete to 
 us the same justice we meted to them. He met 
 each difiiculty the instant it arose, ever on the 
 alert to protect his country and his countrymen ; 
 and what an ordinary diplomat could barely 
 have done in time of peace, he succeeded in 
 doing amid the wild, shifting tumult of the Re- 
 volution, when almost every step he made was at 
 his own personal hazard. He took precisely the 
 right stand; had he taken too hostile a position, 
 he would have been driven from the country, 
 whereas had he been a sympathizer, he would 
 have more or less compromised America, as his 
 successor afterwards did. We have never had 
 a foreign minister who deserved more honor 
 than Morris. 
 
 One of the noteworthy features in his letters 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. * 295 
 
 home was the accuracy with which he foretold 
 the course of events in the political world. Lu- 
 zerne once said to him, " Vous dites toujours les 
 choses extraordinaires qui se realisent ; " and 
 many other men, after some given event had 
 taken place, were obliged to confess their won- 
 der at the way in which Morris's predictions 
 concerning it had been verified. A notable in- 
 stance was his writing to Washington : " What- 
 ever may be the lot of France in remote futu- 
 rity ... it seems evident that she must soon 
 be governed by a single despot. Whether she 
 will pass to that point through the medium of 
 a triumvirate or other small body of men, seems 
 as yet undetermined. I think it most probable 
 that she will." This was certainly a remarka- 
 bly accurate forecast as to the precise stages by 
 which the already existing despotism was to be 
 concentrated in a single individual. He always 
 insisted that, though it was difficult to foretell 
 how a single man would act, yet it was easy 
 with regard to a mass of men, for their pecu- 
 liarities neutralized each other, and it was ne- 
 cessary only to pay heed to the instincts of the 
 average animal. He also gave wonderfully 
 clear-cut sketches of the more prominent actors 
 in affairs ; although one of his maxims was that 
 " in examining historical facts we are too apt 
 to ascribe to individuals the events which are 
 
296 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 produced by general causes." Dan ton, for in- 
 stance, he described as always believing, and, 
 what was worse for himself, maintaining, that 
 a popular system of government was absurd in 
 France ; that the people were too ignorant, too 
 inconstant, too corrupt, and felt too much the 
 need of a master ; in short, that they had 
 reached the point where Cato was a madman, 
 and Caesar a necessary evil. He acted on these 
 principles ; but he was too voluptuous for his 
 ambition, too indolent to acquire supreme 
 power, and he cared for great wealth rather 
 than great fame; so he "fell at the feet of 
 Robespierre." Similarly, said Morris, there 
 passed away all the men of the 10th of August, 
 all the men of the 2d of September ; the same 
 mob that hounded them on with wild applause 
 when they grasped the blood-stained reins of 
 power, a few months later hooted at them with 
 ferocious dei-ision as they went their way to the 
 guillotine. Paris ruled France, and the sans 
 culottes ruled Paris ; factions continually arose, 
 waging inexplicable war, each in turn acquiring 
 a momentary influence which was founded on 
 fear alone, and all alike unable to build up any 
 stable or lasting government. 
 
 Each new stroke of the guillotine weak- 
 ened the force of liberal sentiment, and di- 
 minished the chances of a free system. Mor- 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 297 
 
 ris wondered only that, in a country'' ripe for a 
 tyrant's rule, four years of convulsions among 
 twenty-four millions of people had brought 
 forth neither a soldier nor yet a statesman, 
 whose head was fitted to wear the cap that for- 
 tune had woven. Despising the mob as utterly 
 as did Oliver Cromwell himself, and realizing 
 the supine indifference with which the French 
 people were willing to accept a master, he yet 
 did full justice to the pride with which they re- 
 sented outside attack, and the enthusiasm with 
 which they faced their foes. He saw the im- 
 mense resources possessed by a nation to whom 
 war abroad was a necessity for the preservation 
 of peace at home, and with whom bankruptcy 
 was but a starting-point for fresh efforts. The 
 whole energy and power lay in the hands of the 
 revolutionists ; the men of the old regime had 
 fled, leaving only that " waxen substance," the 
 propertied class, "■ who in foreign wars count so 
 much, and in civil wars so little." He had no 
 patience with those despicable beings, the trad- 
 ers and merchants who have forgotten how to 
 fight, the rich who are too timid to guard their 
 wealth, the men of property, large or small, 
 who need peace, and yet have not the sense and 
 courage to be always prepared to conquer it. 
 
 In his whole attitude towards the Revolution, 
 Morris represents better than any other man 
 
298 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the clear-headed, practical statesman, who is 
 genuinely devoted to the cause of constitutional 
 freedom. He was utterly opposed to the old 
 system of privilege on the one hand, and to the 
 wild excesses of the fanatics on the other. The 
 few liberals of the Revolution were the only 
 men in it who deserve our true respect. The 
 republicans who champion the deeds of the 
 Jacobins, are traitors to their own principles ; 
 for the spirit of Jacobinism, instead of being 
 identical with, is diametrically opposed to the 
 spirit of true liberty. Jacobinism, socialism, 
 communism, nihihsm, and anarchism — these 
 are the real foes of a democratic republic, for 
 each one, if it obtains control, obtains it only 
 as the sure forerunner of a despotic tyranny 
 and of some form of the one-man power. 
 
 Morris, an American, took a clearer and truer 
 view of the French Revolution than did any of 
 the contemporary European observers. Yet 
 while with them it was the all-absorbing event 
 of the age, with him, as is evident by his writ- 
 ings, it was merely an important episode ; for 
 to him it was dwarfed by the American Revo- 
 lution of a decade or two back. To the Euro- 
 peans of the present day, as yet hardly awake 
 to the fact that already the change has begun 
 that will make Europe but a fragment, instead 
 of the whole, of the civilized world, the French 
 
MINISTER TO FRANCE. 299 
 
 Revolution is the great historical event of our 
 times. But in reality it affected only the peo- 
 ple of western and central Europe ; not the 
 Russians, not the English-speaking nations, not 
 the Spaniards who dwelt across the Atlantic. 
 America and Australia had their destinies 
 moulded by the crisis of 1776, not by the crisis 
 of 1789. What the French Revolution was to 
 the states within Europe, that the American 
 Revolution was to the continents without. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 STAY IN EUROPE. 
 
 Monroe, as Morris's successor, entered upon 
 his new duties with an immense flourish, and 
 rapidly gave a succession of startling proofs that 
 he was a minister altogether too much to the 
 taste of the frenzied Jacobinical republicans to 
 whom he was accredited. Indeed, his capers 
 were almost as extraordinary as their own, and 
 seem rather like the antics of some of the early 
 French commanders in Canada, in their efforts 
 to ingratiate themselves with their Indian allies, 
 than like the performance we should expect 
 from a sober Virginian gentleman on a mission 
 to a civilized nation. He stayed long enough 
 to get our affairs into a snarl, and was then 
 recalled by Washington, receiving from the 
 latter more than one scathing rebuke. 
 
 However, the fault was really less with him 
 than with his party and with those who sent 
 him. Monroe was an honorable man with a 
 very un-original mind, and he simply reflected 
 the wild, foolish views held by all his fellows 
 
STAY IN EUROPE, 301 
 
 of the Jeffersonian democratic - republican 
 school concerning France — for our politics 
 were still French and English, but not yet 
 American. His appointment was an excellent 
 example of the folly of trying to carry on a 
 government on a ''non-partisan" basis. Wash- 
 ington was only gradually weaned from this 
 theory by bitter experience ; both Jefferson 
 and Monroe helped to teach him the lesson. It 
 goes without saying that in a well-ordered gov- 
 ernment the great bulk of the employees in the 
 civil service, the men whose functions are mere- 
 ly to execute faithfully routine departmental 
 work, should hold office during good behavior, 
 and should be appointed without reference to 
 their politics ; but if the higher public servants, 
 such as the heads of departments and the for- 
 eign ministers, are not in complete accord ■s^ith 
 their chief, the only result can be to introduce 
 halting indecision and vacillation into the coun- 
 sels of the nation, without gaining a single com- 
 pensating advantage, and without abating by 
 one iota the virulence of party passion. To 
 appoint Monroe, an extreme Democrat, to 
 France, while at the same time appointing Jay, 
 a strong Federalist, to England, was not only 
 an absurdity which did nothing towards recon- 
 ciling the Federalists and Democrats, but, bear- 
 ing in mind how these parties stood respectively 
 
302 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 towards England and France, it was also an 
 actual wrong, for it made our foreign policy- 
 seem double-faced and deceitful. While one 
 minister was formally embracing such of the 
 Parisian statesmen as had hitherto escaped 
 the guillotine, and was going through various 
 other theatrical performances that do not ap- 
 peal to any but a Gallic mind, his fellow was 
 engaged in negotiating a treaty in England that 
 was so obnoxious to France as almost to bring 
 us to a rupture with her. The Jay treaty was 
 not altogether a good one, and a better might 
 perhaps have been secured ; still, it was better 
 than nothing, and Washington was right in 
 urging its adoption, even while admitting that 
 it was not entirely satisfactory. But certainly, 
 if we intended to enter into such engagements 
 with Great Britain, it was rank injustice to 
 both Monroe and France to send such a man 
 as the former to such a country as the latter. 
 
 Meanwhile Morris, instead of returning to 
 America, was forced by his business affairs to 
 prolong his stay abroad for several years. 
 During this time he journeyed at intervals 
 through England, the Netherlands, Germany, 
 Prussia, and Austria. His European reputation 
 was well established, and he was everywhere 
 received gladly into the most distinguished 
 society of the time. What made him especially 
 
STAY IN EUROPE. 303 
 
 welcome was his having now definitely taken 
 sides with the anti-revolutionists in the great 
 conflict of arms and opinions then raging 
 through Europe ; and his brilliancy, the bold- 
 ness with which he had behaved as minister 
 during the Terror, and the reputation given him 
 by the French emigrSs, all joined to cause him 
 to be hailed with pleasure by the aristocratic 
 party. It is really curious to see the consider- 
 ation with which he was everywhere treated, 
 although again a mere private individual, and 
 the terms of intimacy on which he was admitted 
 into the most exclusive social and diplomatic 
 circles at the various courts. He thus became 
 an intimate friend of many of the foremost 
 people of the period. His political observation, 
 however, became less trustworthy than hereto- 
 fore ; for he was undoubtedly soured by his 
 removal, and the excesses of the revolutionists 
 had excited such horror in his mind as to make 
 him no longer an impartial judge. His fore- 
 casts and judgments on the military situation 
 in particular, although occasionally right, were 
 usually very wild. He fully appreciated Napo- 
 leon's utter unscrupulousness and marvelous 
 mendacity; but to the end of his life he re- 
 mained unwilling to do justice to the emperor's 
 still more remarkable warlike genius, going so 
 far, after the final Russian campaign, as to 
 
304 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Speak of old Kutusoff as his equal. Indeed, in 
 spite of one or two exceptions, — notably his 
 predicting almost the exact date of the retreat 
 from Moscow, — his criticisms on Napoleon's 
 military operations do not usually stand much 
 above the rather ludicrous level recently reached 
 by Count Tolstoi. 
 
 Morris was relieved by Monroe in August, 
 1794, and left Paris for Switzerland in October. 
 He stopped at Coppet and spent a day with 
 Madame de Stael, where there was a little 
 French society that lived at her expense and was 
 as gay as circumstances would permit. He had 
 never been particularly impressed with the much 
 vaunted society of the salon, and this small sur- 
 vival thereof certainly had no overpowering at- 
 traction for him, if we may judge by the entry 
 in his diary : " The road to her house is up-hill 
 and execrable, and I think I shall not again go 
 thither." Mankind was still blind to the grand 
 beawty of the Alps, — it must be remembered 
 that the admiration of mountain scenery is, to 
 the shame of our forefathers be it said, almost 
 a growth of the present century, — and Morris 
 took more interest in the Swiss population than 
 in their surroundings. He wrote that in Switz- 
 erland the spirit of commerce had brought 
 about a baseness of morals which nothing could 
 cure but the same spirit carried still further: — 
 
STAY IN EUROPE, 305 
 
 " It teaches eventually fair dealing as the most 
 profitable dealing. The first lesson of trade is, 
 My son, get money. The second is, My son, 
 get money, honestly if you can, but get money. 
 The third is. My son, get money ; but honestly, 
 if you would get much money." 
 
 He went to Great Britain in the following 
 summer, and spent a year there. At one time 
 he visited the North, staying with the Dukes 
 of Argyle, Atholl and Montrose, and was very 
 much pleased with Scotland, where everything 
 he saw convinced him that the country was 
 certain of a rapid and vigorous growth. On 
 his return he stopped with the Bishop of Lan- 
 daff, at Colgate Park. The bishop announced 
 that he was a stanch opposition man, and a 
 firm whig; to which statement Morris addsjn 
 his diary : " Let this be as it will, he is certainly 
 a good landlord and a man of genius." ^ 
 
 But Morris was now a favored guest in min- 
 isterial, even more than in opposition circles ; 
 he was considered to belong to what the czar 
 afterwards christened the " parti sain de I'Eu- 
 rope." He saw a good deal of both Pitt and 
 Grenville, and was consulted by them not only 
 about American, but also about European 
 affairs ; and a number of favors, which he asked 
 for some of his friends among the emigres^ were 
 granted. All his visits were not on business, 
 
306 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 however ; as, for instance, on July 14tli : 
 " Dine at Mr. Pitt's. We sit down at six. 
 Lords Grenville, Chatham, and another come 
 later. The rule is established for six precisely, 
 which is right, I think. The wines are good 
 and the conversation flippant." Morris helped 
 Grenville in a number of ways, at the Prussian 
 court for instance ; and was even induced by 
 him to write a letter to Washington, attempting 
 to put the English attitude toward us in a 
 good light. Washington, however, was no 
 more to be carried off his feet in favor of the 
 English than against them ; and the facts he 
 brought out in his reply showed that Morris 
 had rather lost his poise, and had been hurried 
 into an action that was ill advised. He was 
 quite often at court ; and relates a conversa- 
 tion with the king, wherein that monarch's 
 language seems to have been much such as tra- 
 dition assigns him — short, abrupt sentences, 
 repetitions, and the frequent use of " what." 
 
 He also saw a good deal of the royalist refu- 
 gees. Some of them he liked and was intimate 
 with; but the majority disgusted him and made 
 him utterly impatient with their rancorous 
 folly. He commented on the strange levity 
 and wild negotiations of the Count d'Artois, 
 and prophesied that his character was such as 
 to make his projected attempt on La Vendue 
 
STAY IN EUROPE. 307 
 
 hopeless from the start. Another day he was 
 at the Marquis de Spinola's : " The conversation 
 here, where our company consists of aristocrats 
 of the first feather, turns on French affairs. 
 They, at first, agree that union among the 
 French is necessary. But when they come to 
 particulars, they fly off and are mad. Madame 
 Spinola would send the Duke of Orleans to 
 Siberia. An abbe, a young man, talks much 
 and loud, to show his esprit ; and to hear them 
 one would suppose they were quite at their ease 
 in a 'petit souper de Paris,'''' Of that ponderous 
 exile, the chief of the House of Bourbon, and 
 afterwards Louis XVIII, he said that, in his 
 opinion, he had nothing to do but to try to get 
 shot, thereby redeeming by valor the foregone 
 follies of his conduct. 
 
 In June, 1796, Morris returned to the conti- 
 nent, and started on another tour, in his own 
 carriage ; having spent some time himself in 
 breaking in his young and restive horses to 
 their task. He visited all the different capitals, 
 at one time or another ; among them, Berlin, 
 where, as usual, he was very well received. 
 For all his horror of Jacobinism, Morris was 
 a thorough American, perfectly independent, 
 without a particle of the snob in his disposition, 
 and valuing his acquaintances for what they 
 were, not for their titles. In his diary he puts 
 
308 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 down the Qaeen of England as " a well-bred, 
 sensible woman," and the Empress of Austria 
 as "a good sort of little woman," and contemp- 
 tuously dismisses the Prussian king with a word, 
 precisely as he does with any one else. One 
 of the entries in his journal, wliile he was stay- 
 ing in Berlin, offers a case in point. " July 23d, 
 I dine, very much against my will, with Prince 
 Ferdinand. I was engaged to a very agreeable 
 party, but it seems the highnesses must never 
 be denied, unless it be from indisposition. I 
 had, however, written a note declining the in- 
 tended honor ; but the messenger, upon looking 
 at it, for it was a letter patent, like the invita- 
 tion, said he could not deliver it ; that nobody 
 ever refused ; all of which I was informed of 
 after he was gone. On consulting I found that 
 I must go or give mortal offense, which last I 
 have no inclination to do ; so I write another 
 note, and send out to hunt up the messenger. 
 While I am abroad this untoward incident is 
 arranged, and of course I am at Bellevue." 
 While at court on one occasion he met, and 
 took a great fancy to, the daughter of the fa- 
 mous Baroness Piedesel ; having been born in 
 the United States, she had been christened 
 America. 
 
 In one of his conversations with the king, 
 who was timid and hesitating, Morris told him 
 
STAY IN EUROPE. 309 
 
 that the Austrians would be all right if he 
 would only lend them some Prussian generals 
 — a remark upon which Jena and Auerstadt 
 later on offered a curious commentary. He be- 
 came very impatient with the king's inability to 
 make up his mind ; and wrote to the Duchess 
 of Cumberland that " the guardian angel of the 
 French Republic kept him lingering on this side 
 of the grave." He wrote to Lord Grenville 
 that Prussia was " seeking little things by little 
 means," and that the war with Poland was pop- 
 ular " because the moral principles of a Prus- 
 sian go to the possession of whatever he can 
 acquire. And so little is he the slave of what 
 he calls vulgar prejudice, that, give him oppor- 
 tunity and means, and he will spare you the 
 trouble of finding a pretext. This liberality 
 of sentiment greatly facilitates negotiation, for 
 it is not necessary to clothe propositions in hon- 
 est and decent forms." Morris was a most start- 
 ling phenomenon to the diplomatists of the day, 
 trampling with utter disregard on all their he- 
 reditary theories of finesse and cautious duplic- 
 ity. The timid formalists, and more especially 
 those who considered double - dealing as the 
 legitimate, and in fact the only legitimate, 
 weapon of their trade, were displeased with 
 him ; but he was very highly thought of by 
 such as could see the strength and originality 
 
310 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 of the views set forth in his frank, rather over- 
 bold language. 
 
 At Dresden he notes that he was late on the 
 day set down for his presentation at court, 
 owing to his valet having translated halh zwolf 
 as half past twelve. The Dresden picture gal- 
 leries were the first that drew from him any 
 very strong expressions of admiration. In the 
 city were numbers of the emigres^ fleeing from 
 their countrymen, and only permitted to stop 
 in Saxony for a few days ; yet they were serene 
 and gay, and spent their time in busy sight- 
 seeing, examining everything curious which 
 they could get at. Morris had become pretty 
 well accustomed to the way in which they met 
 fate ; but such lively resignation surprised even 
 him, and he remarked that so great a calamity 
 had never lighted on shoulders so well fitted to 
 bear it. 
 
 At Vienna he made a long stay, not leaving 
 it until January, 1797. Here, as usual, he fra- 
 ternized at once with the various diplomatists ; 
 the English ambassador. Sir Morton Eden, in 
 particular, going out of his way to show him 
 every attention. The Austrian prime minis- 
 ter, M. Thugut, was also very polite ; and so 
 were the foreign ministers of all the powers. 
 He was soon at home in the upper social circles 
 of this German Paris ; but from the entries in 
 
STAY IN EUROPE.- 311 
 
 his journal it is evident that he thought very 
 little of Viennese society. He liked talking and 
 the company of brilliant conversationalists, and 
 he abominated gambling ; but in Vienna every 
 one was so devoted to play that there was no 
 conversation at all. He considered a dumb 
 circle round a card-table as the dullest society 
 in the world, and in Vienna there was little 
 else. Nor was he impressed with the ability 
 of the statesmen he met. He thought the Aus- 
 trian nobles to be on the decline ; they stood 
 for the dying feudal system. The great families 
 had been squandering their riches with the 
 most reckless extravagance, and were becoming 
 broken and impoverished ; and the imperial 
 government was glad to see the humiliation of 
 the haughty nobles, not perceiving that, if pre- 
 served, they would act as a buffer between it 
 and the new power beginning to make itself 
 felt throughout Europe, and would save the 
 throne if not from total overthrow, at least 
 from shocks so fierce as greatly to weaken it. 
 
 Morris considered Prince Esterhazy as an 
 archtypical representative of the class. He was 
 captain of the noble Hungarian Guard, a small 
 body of tall, handsome men on fiery steeds, 
 magnificently caparisoned. The Prince, as its 
 commander, wore a Hungarian dress, scarlet, 
 with fur cape and cuffs, and yellow morocco 
 
312 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 boots ; everything embroidered with pearls, 
 four hundred and seventy large ones, and many 
 thousand small, but all put on in good taste. 
 He had a collar of large diamonds, a plume of 
 diamonds in his cap ; and his sword-hilt, scab- 
 bard, and spurs were inlaid with the same 
 precious stones. His horse was equally be- 
 jeweled ; steed and rider, with their trappings, 
 " were estimated at a value of a quarter of a 
 million dollars." Old Blucher would surely 
 have considered the pair *' very fine plunder." 
 
 The Prince was reported to be nominally the 
 richest subject in Europe, with a revenue that 
 during the Turkish war went up to a million 
 guilders annually ; yet he was hopelessly in 
 debt already and getting deeper every year. 
 He lived in great magnificence, but was by no 
 means noted for lavish hospitality; all his ex- 
 travagance was reserved for himself, especially 
 for purposes of display. His Vienna stable 
 contained a hundred and fifty horses ; and dur- 
 ing a six weeks' residence in Frankfort, where 
 he was ambassador at the time of an imperial 
 coronation, he spent eighty thousand pounds. 
 Altogether, an outsider may be pardoned for 
 not at first seeing precisely what useful function 
 such a merely gorgeous being performed in the 
 body politic ; yet when summoned before the 
 bar of the new world-forces, Esterhazy and his 
 
STAY IN EUROPE. 318 
 
 kind showed that birds of such fine feathers 
 sometimes had beaks and talons as well, and 
 knew how to use them, the craven flight of the 
 French noblesse to the contrary notwithstand- 
 ing. 
 
 Morris was often at court, where the con- 
 stant theme of conversation was naturally the 
 struggle with the French armies under Moreau 
 and Bonaparte. After one of these mornings 
 he mentions : " The levee was oddly arranged, 
 all the males being in one apartment, through 
 which the Emperor passes in going to chapel, 
 and returns the same way with the Empress 
 and imperial family ; after which they go 
 through their own rooms to the ladies as- 
 sembled on the other side." 
 
 The English members of the Corps Diplo- 
 matique in all the European capitals were es- 
 pecially civil to him ; and he liked them more 
 than their continental brethren. But for some 
 of their young tourist countrymen he cared 
 less ; and it is curious to see that the ridicule 
 to which Americans have rightly exposed them- 
 selves by their absurd fondness for uniforms 
 and for assuming military titles to which they 
 have no warrant, was no less deservedly earned 
 by the English at the end of the last cenfury. 
 One of Morris's friends, Baron Groshlaer, being, 
 like the other Viennese, curious to know the 
 
314 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 object of his stay, — they guessed aright that 
 he wished to get Lafayette liberated, — at last 
 almost asked him outright about it. " Finally 
 I tell him that the only difference between me 
 and the young Englishmen, of whom there is 
 a swarm here, is, that I seek instruction with 
 gray hairs and they with brown. ... At the 
 Archduchess's one of the little princes, brother 
 to the Emperor, and who is truly an arc^-duke, 
 asks me to explain to him the different uniforms 
 worn by the young English, of whom there are 
 a great number here, all in regimentals. Some 
 of these belong to no corps at all, and the others 
 to yeomanry, fencibles and the like, all of 
 which purport to be raised for the defense of 
 their country in case she should be invaded; but 
 now, when the invasion seems most imminent, 
 they are abroad, and cannot be made to feel 
 the ridiculous indecency of appearing in regi- 
 mentals. Sir M. Eden and others have given 
 them the broadest hints without the least effect. 
 One of them told me that all the world should 
 not laugh him out of his regimentals. I 
 bowed. ... I tell the prince that I really am 
 not able to answer his question, but that, in 
 general, their dresses I believe are worn for 
 convenience in traveling. He smiles at this. 
 ... If I were an Englishman I should be hurt 
 at these exhibitions, and as it is I am sorry for 
 
STAY IN EUROPE, 315 
 
 them. ... I find that here they assume it as 
 unquestionable that the young men of England 
 have a right to adjust the ceremonial of 
 Vienna. The political relations of the two 
 countries induce the good company here to treat 
 them with politeness ; but nothing prevents 
 their being laughed at, as I found the other 
 evening at Madame de Groshlaer's, where the 
 young women as well as the girls were very 
 merry at the expense of these young men." 
 
 After leaving Vienna he again passed 
 through Berlin, and in a conversation with the 
 king he foreshadowed curiously the state of 
 politics a century later, and showed that he 
 thoroughly appreciated the cause that would in 
 the end reconcile the traditional enmity of the 
 Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs. " After some 
 trifling things I tell him that I have just seen 
 his best friend. He asks who ? and, to his 
 great surprise, I reply, the Emperor. He 
 speaks of him well personally, and I observe 
 that he is a very honest young man, to which 
 his Majesty replies by asking, " Mais, que 
 pensez vous de Thugut." " Quant a cela, c'est 
 une autre affaire, sire." I had stated the in- 
 terest, which makes him and the Emperor good 
 friends, to be their mutual apprehensions from 
 Russia. "But suppose we all three unite?" 
 " Ce sera un diable de fricassee, sire, si vous 
 vous mettez tous les trois a casser les oeufs." 
 
316 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 At Brunswick he was received with great 
 hospitality, the Duke, and particularly the 
 Duchess Dowager, the King of England's 
 sister, treating him very hospitably. He here 
 saw General Riedesel, with whom he was 
 most friendly ; the general in the course of 
 conversation inveighed bitterly against Bur- 
 goyne. He went to Munich also, where he was 
 received on a very intimate footing by Count 
 Rumford, then the great power in Bavaria, 
 who was busily engaged in doing all he could 
 to better the condition of his country. Morris 
 was much interested in his reforms. They 
 were certainly needed ; the Count told his 
 friend that on assuming the reins of power, the 
 abuses to be remedied were beyond belief — 
 for instance, there was one regiment of cavalry 
 that had five field oflBcers and only three 
 horses. With some of the friends that Morris 
 made — such as the Duchess of Cumberland, 
 the Princess de la Tour et Taxis and others — 
 he corresponded until the end of his life. 
 
 While at Vienna he again did all he could 
 to get Lafayette released from prison, where 
 his wife was confined with him ; but in vain. 
 Madame de Lafayette's sister, the Marquise de 
 Montagu, and Madame de Stael, both wrote 
 him the most urgent appeals to do what he 
 could for the prisoners; the former writing, 
 
STAY IN EUROPE. 317 
 
 " My sister is in danger of losing the life you 
 saved in the prisons of Paris . . . has not he 
 whom Europe numbers among those citizens 
 of whom North America ought to be most 
 proud, has not he the right to make himself 
 heard in favor of a citizen of the United States, 
 and of a wife, whose life belongs to him, since 
 he has preserved it?" Madame de Stael felt 
 the most genuine grief for Lafayette, and very 
 sincere respect for Morris; and in her letters 
 to the latter she displayed both sentiments with 
 a lavish exaggeration that hardly seems in good 
 taste. If Morris had needed a spur the letters 
 would have supplied it ; but the task was an 
 impossible one, and Lafayette was not released 
 until tlie peace in 1797, when he was turned 
 over to the American consul at Hamburg,^ in 
 31orris's presence. C^ 
 
 Morris was able to render more effectual h^lp 
 to an individual far less worthy of it than La- 
 fayette. This was the then Duke of Orleans, 
 afterwards King Louis Philippe, who had fled 
 from France with Dumouriez. Morris's old 
 friend, Madame de Flahaut, appealed to him 
 almost hysterically on the duke's behalf ; and 
 he at once did even more than she requested, 
 giving the duke money wherewith to go to 
 America, and also furnishing him with unlimited 
 credit at his own New York banker's, during his 
 
318 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 wanderings in the United States. This was 
 done for the sake of the Duchess of Orleans, 
 to whom Morris was devotedly attached, not 
 for the sake of the duke himself. The latter 
 knew this perfectly, writing: "Your kindness 
 is a blessing I owe to my mother and to our 
 friend " (Madame de Flahaut). The bourgeois 
 king admirably represented the meanest, small- 
 est side of the bourgeois character ; he was not 
 a bad man, but he was a very petty and con- 
 temptible one ; had he been bom in a different 
 station of life, he would have been just the in- 
 dividual to take a prominent part in local tem- 
 perance meetings, while he sanded the sugar 
 he sold in his corner grocery. His treatment 
 of Morris's loan was characteristic. When he 
 came into his rights again, at the Restoration, 
 he at first appeared to forget his debt entirely,* 
 and when his memory was jogged, he merely 
 sent Morris the original sum, without a word 
 of thanks ; whereupon Morris, rather nettled, 
 and as prompt to stand up for his rights against 
 a man in prosperity as he had been to help him 
 when in adversity, put the matter in the hands 
 of his lawyer, through whom he notified Louis 
 Philippe that if the affair was to be treated on 
 a merely business basis, it should then be treated 
 in a strictly business way, and the interest for 
 the twenty years that had gone by should be 
 
STAY IN EUROPE. 319 
 
 forwarded also. This was accordingly done, 
 although not until after Morris's death, the en- 
 tire sum refunded being seventy thousand 
 francs. 
 
 Morris brought his complicated business af- 
 fairs in Europe to a close in 1798, and sailed 
 from Hamburg on October 4th of that year, 
 reaching New York after an exceedingly tedi- 
 ous and disagreeable voyage of eighty days. 
 
CHAPTER Xir. 
 
 SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 
 
 MOERIS was very warmly greeted on his re- 
 turn ; and it was evident that the length of his 
 stay abroad had in nowise made him lose 
 ground with his friends at home. His natural 
 affiliations were all with the Federalist party, 
 which he immediately joined. 
 
 During the year 1799 he did not take much 
 part in politics, as he was occupied in getting 
 his business affairs in order and in putting to 
 rights his estates at Morrisania. The old manor 
 house had become such a crazy, leaky affair 
 that he tore it down and built a new one ; a 
 great, roomy building, not in the least showy, 
 but solid, comfortable, and in perfect taste ; 
 having, across the tree-clad hills of Westchester, 
 a superb view of the Sound, with its jagged 
 coast and capes and islands. 
 
 Although it was so long since he had prac- 
 ticed law, he was shortly engaged in a very im- 
 portant case that was argued for eight days 
 before the Court of Errors in Albany. Few 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 321 
 
 trials in the State of New York have ever 
 brought together such a number of men of re- 
 markable legal ability ; for among the lawyers 
 enorao:ed on one side or the other were Morris, 
 Hamilton, Burr, Robert Livingstone, and Troup. 
 There were some sharp passages of arms : and 
 the trial of wits between Morris and Hamilton 
 in particular were so keen as to cause a passing 
 coolness. 
 
 During the ten years that had gone by since 
 Morris sailed for Europe, the control of the 
 national government had been in the hands of 
 the Federalists ; when he returned, party bitter- 
 ness was at the highest pitch, for the Democrats 
 were preparing to make the final push for 
 power which should overthrow and ruin their 
 antagonists. Four-fifths of the talent, ability, 
 and good sense of the country were to be found 
 in the Federalist ranks ; for the Federalists 
 had held their own so far, by sheer force of 
 courage and intellectual vigor, over foes in real- 
 ity more numerous. Their great prop had been 
 Washington. His colossal influence was to the 
 end decisive in party contests, and he had in 
 fact, although hardly in name, almost entirely 
 abandoned his early attempts at non-partisan- 
 ship, had grown to distrust Madison as he long 
 before had distrusted Jefferson, and had come 
 into constantly closer relations with their ene- 
 
322 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 mies. His death diminislied greatly the chances 
 of Federalist success ; there were two other 
 causes at work that destroyed them entirely. 
 
 One of these was the very presence in the 
 dominant party of so many men nearly equal in 
 strong will and great intellectual power ; their 
 ambitions and theories clashed ; even the lofti- 
 ness of their aims, and their disdain of every- 
 thing small, made them poor politicians, and 
 with Washington out of the way there was no 
 one commander to overawe the rest and to keep 
 down the fierce bickerings constantly arising 
 among them ; while in the other party there 
 was a single leader, Jefferson, absolutely with- 
 out a rival, but supported by a host of sharp 
 political workers, most skillful in marshaling 
 that unwieldy and hitherto disunited host of 
 voters who were inferior in intelligence to their 
 fellows. 
 
 The second cause lay deep in the nature of 
 the Federalist organization ; it was its distrust 
 of the people. This was the fatally weak 
 streak in Federalism. In a government such as 
 ours it was a foregone conclusion that a party 
 which did not believe in the people would 
 sooner or later be thrown from power unless 
 there was an armed break-up of the system. 
 Tlie distrust was felt, and of course excited 
 corresponding and intense hostility. Had the 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 323 
 
 Federalists been united, and had they freely 
 trusted in the people, the latter would have 
 shown that the trust was well founded ; but 
 there was no hope for leaders who suspected 
 each other and feared their followers. 
 
 Morris landed just as the Federalist reaction, 
 brought about by the conduct of France, had 
 spent itself, — thanks partly to some inoppor- 
 tune pieces of insolence from England, in 
 which country, as Morris once wrote to a foreign 
 friend, "on a toujours le bon esprit de vouloir 
 prendre les mouches avec du vinaigre." The 
 famous alien and sedition laws were exciting 
 great disgust, and in Virginia and Kentucky 
 Jefferson was using them as handles wherewith 
 to guide seditious agitation — not that he be- 
 lieved in sedition, but because he considered it 
 good party policy, for the moment, to excite 
 it. The parties hated each other with rancor- 
 ous virulence ; the newspapers teemed with the 
 foulest abuse of public men, accusations of 
 financial dishonesty were rife, Washington him- 
 self not being spared, and the most scurrilous 
 personalities were bandied about between the 
 different editors. The Federalists were split 
 into two factions, one following the President, 
 Adams, in his efforts to keep peace with France, 
 if it could be done with honor, while the others, 
 under Hamilton's lead, wished war at once. 
 
324 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Pennsylvanian politics were already very low. 
 The leaders who had taken control were men of 
 mean capacity and small morality, and the 
 State was not only becoming rapidly democratic 
 but was also drifting along in a disorganized, 
 pseudo-jacobinical, half insurrectionary kind of 
 way that Avould have boded ill for its future 
 had it not been fettered by the presence of 
 healthier communities round about it. New 
 England was the only part of the community, 
 excepting Delaware, where Federalism was on 
 a perfectly sound footing ; for in that section 
 there was no caste spirit, the leaders and their 
 followers were thoroughly in touch, and all the 
 citizens, shrewd, thrifty, independent, were used 
 to self-government, and fully awake to the fact 
 that honesty and order are the prerequisites of 
 liberty. Yet even here Democracy had made 
 some inroads. 
 
 South of the Potomac the Federalists had lost 
 ground rapidly. Virginia was still a battlefield ; 
 as long as Washington lived, his tremendous 
 personal influence acted as a brake on the dem- 
 ocratic advance, and the state's greatest orator, 
 Patrick Henry, had halted beside the grave to 
 denounce the seditious schemes of the disunion 
 agitators with the same burning, thrilling elo- 
 quence that, thirty years before, had stirred to 
 their depths the hearts of his hearers when he 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 325 
 
 bade defiance to the tyrannous might of the 
 British king. But when these two men were 
 dead, Marshall, — though destined, as chief and 
 controlling influence in the third division of our 
 governmental system, to mould the whole of 
 that system on the lines of Federalist thought, 
 and to prove that a sound judiciary could 
 largely affect an unsound executive and legisla- 
 ture, — even Marshall could not, single-handed, 
 stem the current that had gradually gathered 
 head. Virginia stands easily first among all 
 our commonwealths for the statesmen and war- 
 riors she has brought forth ; and it is note- 
 worthy that during the long contest between 
 the nationalists and separatists, which forms 
 the central fact in our history for the first 
 three quarters of a century of our national life, 
 she gave leaders to both sides at the two great 
 crises : Washington and Marshall to the one, 
 and Jefferson to the other, when the question 
 was one of opinion as to whether the Union 
 should be built up ; and when the appeal to 
 arms was made to tear it down, Farragut and 
 Thomas to the north, Lee and Jackson to the 
 south. 
 
 There was one eddy in the tide of demo- 
 cratic success that flowed so strongly to the 
 southward. This was in South Carolina. The 
 fierce little Palmetto state has always been a 
 
326 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 free lance among her southern sisters ; for 
 instance, though usually ultra-democratic, she 
 was hostile to the two great democratic chiefs, 
 Jefferson and Jackson, though both were from 
 the south. At the time that Morris came 
 home, the brilliant little group of Federalist 
 leaders within her bounds, headed by men of 
 national renown like Pinckiiey and Harper, 
 kept her true to Federalism by downright force 
 of intellect and integrity ; for they were among 
 the purest as well as the ablest statesmen of 
 the day. 
 
 New York had been going through a series 
 of bitter party contests ; any one examining a 
 file of papers of that day will come to the con- 
 chision that party spirit was even more violent 
 and uni-easonable then than now. The two 
 great Federalist leaders, Hamilton and Jay, 
 stood bead and shoulders above all their demo- 
 cratic competitors, and they were backed by the 
 best men in the state, like Rufus King, Schuy- 
 ler and others. But, though as orators and 
 statesmen they had no rivals, they were very 
 deficient in the arts of pohtical management. 
 Hamilton's imperious haughtiness had alienated 
 the powerful family of the Livingstones, who 
 had thrown in their lot with the Clintonians ; 
 and a still more valuable ally to the latter had 
 arisen in that consummate master of *' machine" 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 327 
 
 politics, Aaron Burr, In 1792, Jay, then chief 
 justice of the United States, had run for gov- 
 ernor against Clinton, and had received the 
 majority of the votes ; but had been counted 
 out by the returning board in spite of the pro- 
 test of its four Federalist members — Ganse- 
 voort, Roosevelt, Jones, and Sands. The indig- 
 nation was extreme, and only Jay's patriotism 
 and good sense prevented an outbreak. How- 
 ever, the memory of the fraud remained fresh 
 in the minds of the citizens, and at the next 
 election for governor he was chosen by a heavy 
 majority, having then just come back from his 
 mission to England. Soon afterwards his treaty 
 was published, and excited a whirlwind of in- 
 dignation ; it was only ratified in the senate 
 through Washington's great influence, backed 
 by the magnificent oratory of Fisher Ames, 
 whose speech on this occasion, when he was 
 almost literally on his death-bed, ranks among 
 the half dozen greatest of our country. The 
 treaty was very objectionable in certain poiaits, 
 but it was most necessary to our well-being, 
 and Jay was probably the only American who 
 could have negotiated it. As with the Ashbur- 
 ton treaty many years later, extreme sections in 
 England attacked it as fiercely as did the ex- 
 treme sections here ; and Lord Sheffield voiced 
 their feelings when he hailed the war of 1812 
 
328 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 as offering a chance to England to get back tlie 
 advantages out of which " Jay had duped Gran- 
 ville." 
 
 But the clash with France shortly afterwards 
 swept away the recollection of the treat}^, and 
 Jay was reelected in 1798. One of the argu- 
 ments, by the way, which was used against him 
 in the canvass was that he was an abolitionist. 
 But, in spite of his reelection, the New York 
 Democrats were steadily gaining ground. 
 
 Such was the situation when Morris returned. 
 He at once took higli rank among the Federal- 
 ists, and in April, 1800, just before the final 
 wreck of their party, was chosen by them to 
 fill an unexpired term of three years in the 
 United States Senate. Before this he had made 
 it evident that his sympathies lay with Hamil- 
 ton and those who did not think highly of 
 Adams. He did not deem it wise to renomi- 
 nate the latter for the Presidency. He had 
 even written to Washington, earnestly beseech- 
 ing him to accept the nomination ; but Wash- 
 ington died a day or two after the letter was 
 sent. In spite of the jarring between the lead- 
 ers, the Federalists nominated Adams and 
 Pinckney. In the ensuing Presidential election 
 many of the party chiefs, notably Marshall of 
 Virginia, already a strong Adams man, faith- 
 fully stood by the ticket in its entirety ; but 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 329 
 
 Hamilton, Morris, and many others at the 
 North probably hoped in their hearts that, by 
 the aid of the curious electoral system which 
 then existed, some chance would put the great 
 Carolinian in the first place and make him 
 President. Indeed, there is little question that 
 this might have been done, had not Pinckney, 
 one of the most high-minded and disinterested 
 statesmen we have ever had, emphatically de- 
 clined to profit in any way by the hurting of 
 the grim old Puritan. 
 
 The house thus divided against itself natu- 
 rally fell, and Jefferson was chosen President. 
 It was in New York that the decisive struggle 
 took place, for that was the pivotal state ; and 
 there the Democrats, under the lead of the Liv- 
 ingstones and Clintons, but above all by the 
 masterly political manoeuvres of Aaron Burr, 
 gained a crushing victory. Hamilton, stung to 
 madness by the defeat, and sincerely believing 
 that the success of his opponents would be fatal 
 to the republic, — for th,e two parties hated each 
 other with a blind fury unknown to the organi- 
 zations of the present day, — actually proposed 
 to Jay, the governor, to nullify the action of the 
 people by the aid of the old legislature, a Fed- 
 eralist body, which was still holding over, al- 
 though the members of its successor had been 
 chosen. Jay, as pure as he was brave, refused 
 
830 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 to sanction any such scheme of unworthy parti- 
 sanship. It is worth noting that the victors in 
 this election introduced for the first time the 
 *' spoils system," in all its rigor, into our state 
 affairs ; imitating the bad example of Pennsyl- 
 vania a year or two previously. 
 
 When the Federalists in Congress, into which 
 body the choice for President had been thrown, 
 took up Burr, as a less objectionable alternative 
 than Jefferson, Morris, much to his credit, 
 openly and heartily disapproved of the move- 
 ment, and was sincerely glad that it failed. For 
 he thought Burr far the more dangerous man of 
 the two, and, moreover, did not believe that 
 the evident intention of the people should be 
 thwarted. Both he and Hamilton, on this oc- 
 casion, acted more wisely and more honestly 
 than did most of their heated fellow-partisans. 
 Writing to the latter, the former remarked: 
 " It is dangerous to be impartial in politics ; 
 you, who are temperate in drinking, have never 
 perhaps noticed the awkward situation of a 
 man who continues sober after the company are 
 drunk." 
 
 Morris joined the Senate at Philadelphia in 
 May, 1800, but it almost immediately adjourned, 
 to meet at Washington in November, when he 
 was again present. Washington, as it then 
 was, was a place whose straggling squalor has 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 331 
 
 often been described. Morris wrote to tha 
 Princess de hi Tour et Taxis, that it needed 
 nothing " but houses, cellars, kitchens, well-in- 
 formed men, amiable women, and other little 
 trifles of the kind to make the city perfect ; " 
 that ifc was " the very best city in the world for 
 a future residence," but that as he was " not 
 one of those good people whom we call poster- 
 ity," he would meanwhile like to live some- 
 where else. 
 
 During his three years' term in the Senate he 
 was one of the strong pillars of the Federalist 
 party ; but he was both too independent and 
 too erratic to act always within strict party 
 lines, and while he was an ultra-Federalist on 
 some points, he openly abandoned his fellows 
 on others. He despised Jefferson as a tricky 
 and incapable theorist, skillful in getting votes, 
 but in nothing else; a man who believed '^in 
 the wisdom of mobs, and the moderation of 
 Jacobins," and who found himself "in the 
 wretched plight of being forced to turn out 
 good officers to make room for the unworthy." 
 
 After the election that turned them out of 
 power, but just before their opponents took of- 
 fice, the Federalists in the Senate and House 
 passed the famous judiciary bill, and Adams 
 signed it. It provided for a number of new 
 federal judges to act throughout the states, 
 
332 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 while the supreme court was retained as the 
 ultimate court of decision. It was an excellent 
 measure, inasmuch as it simplified the work of 
 the judiciary, saved the highest branch from 
 useless traveling, prevented the calendars from 
 being choked with work, and supplied an up- 
 right federal judiciary to certain districts where 
 the local judges could not be depended upon to 
 act honestly. On the other hand, the Federal- 
 ists employed it as a means to keep themselves 
 partly in power, after the nation had decided 
 that they should be turned out. Although the 
 Democrats had bitterly opposed it, yet if, as was 
 only right, the ofiBces created by it had been left 
 vacant until Jefferson came in, it would prob- 
 ably have been allowed to stand. But Adams, 
 most improperly, spent the last hours of his ad- 
 ministration in putting in the new judges. 
 
 Morris, who heartily championed the measure, 
 wrote his reasons for so doing to Livingstone ; 
 giving, with his usual frankness, those that 
 were political and improper, as well as those 
 based on some public policy, but apparently not 
 appreciating the gravity of the charges he so 
 lightly admitted. He said: "The new judi- 
 ciary bill may have, and doubtless has, many 
 little faults, but it answers the double purpose 
 of bringing justice near to men's doors, and of 
 giving additional fibre to the root of govern- 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 333 
 
 ment. You must not, my friend, judge of other 
 states by your own. Depend on it, that in 
 some parts of this Union, justice cannot be 
 readily obtained in the state courts." So far, 
 he was all right, and tlie truth of his statements, 
 and the soundness of his reasons, could not be 
 challenged as to the propriety of the law itself ; 
 but he was much less happy in giving his views 
 of the way in which it would be carried out : 
 " That the leaders of the federal party may use 
 this opportunity to provide for friends and ad- 
 herents is, I think, probable ; and if they were 
 my enemies, I should blame them for it. 
 Whether I should do the same thing myself is 
 another question. . . . They are about to ex- 
 perience a heavy gale of adverse wind ; can 
 they be blamed for casting many anchors to 
 hold their ship through the storm ? " Most 
 certainly they should be blamed for casting 
 this particular kind of anchor ; it was a very 
 gross outrage for them to " provide for friends 
 and adherents " in such a manner. 
 
 The folly of their action was seen at once ; 
 for they had so maddened the Democrats that 
 the latter repealed the act as soon as they came 
 into poAver. This also was of course all wrong, 
 and was a simple sacrifice of a measure of good 
 government to partisan rage. Morris led the 
 fight against it, deeming the repeal not only in 
 
334 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 the highest degree unwise but also unconstitu- 
 tional. After the repeal was accomplished, the 
 knowledge that their greed to grasp office under 
 the act was probably the cause of the loss of an 
 excellent law, must have been rather a bitter 
 cud for the Federalists to chew. Morris always 
 took an exaggerated view of the repeal, regard- 
 ing it as a death-blow to the constitution. It 
 was certainly a most unfortunate affair through- 
 out ; and much of the blame attaches to the Fed- 
 eralists, although still more to their antagonists. 
 The absolute terror with which even mod- 
 erate Federalists had viewed the victory of the 
 Democrats was in a certain sense justifiable ; 
 for the leaders who led the Democrats to 
 triumph were the very men who had fought 
 tooth and nail against every measure necessary 
 to make us a free, orderly, and powerful nation. 
 But the safety of the nation really lay in the 
 very fact that the policy hitherto advocated by 
 the now victorious party had embodied princi- 
 ples so wholly absurd in practice that it was 
 out of the question to apply them at all to the 
 actual running of the government. Jefferson 
 could write or speak — and could feel too — the 
 most high-sounding sentiments; but once it 
 came to actions he was absolutely at sea, and 
 on almost every matter — especially where he 
 did well — he had to fall back on the Federalist 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 335 
 
 theories. Almost the only important point on 
 which he allowed himself free scope was that of 
 the national defenses ; and here, particularly as 
 regards the navy, he worked very serious harm 
 to the country. Otherwise he generally adopted 
 and acted on the views of his predecessors ; 
 as Morris said, the Democrats " did more to 
 strengthen the executive than Federalists dared 
 think of, even in Washington's day." As a 
 consequence, though the nation would certainly 
 have been better ofE if men like Adams or 
 Pinckney had been retained at the head of af- 
 fairs, yet the change resulted in far less harm 
 than it bade fair to. 
 
 On the other hand the Federalists cut a very 
 sorry figure in opposition. We have never had 
 another party so little able to stand adversity. 
 They lost their temper first and they lost their 
 principles next, and actually began to take up 
 the heresies discarded by their adversaries. 
 Morris himself, untrue to all his previous record, 
 advanced various states-rights doctrines ; and 
 the Federalists, the men who had created the 
 Union, ended their days under the grave sus- 
 picion of having desired to break it up. Morris 
 even opposed, and on a close vote temporarily 
 defeated, the perfectly unobjectionable proposi- 
 tion to change the electoral system by designat- 
 ing the candidates for President and Vice-Pres- 
 
836 
 
 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, 
 
 ident ; the reason he gave was that he believed 
 parties should be forced to nominate both of 
 their best men, and that he regarded the Jef- 
 ferson-Burr tie as a beautiful object-lesson for 
 teaching this point ! 
 
 On one most important question, however, he 
 cut loose from his party, who were entirely in 
 the wrong, and acted with the administration, 
 who were behaving in strict accordance with 
 Federalist precepts. This was in reference to 
 the treaty by which we acquired Louisiana. 
 
 While in opposition, one of the most dis- 
 creditable features of the Republican-Demo- 
 cratic party had been its servile truckling to 
 France, which at times drove it into open dis- 
 loyalty to America. Indeed this subservience 
 to foreigners was a feature of our early party 
 history ; and the most confirmed pessimist 
 must admit that, as regards patriotism and in- 
 dignant intolerance of foreign control, the party 
 organizations of to-day are immeasurably supe- 
 rior to those of eighty or ninety years back. 
 But it was only while in opposition that either 
 party was ready to throw itself into the arms 
 of outsiders. Once the Democrats took the 
 reins they immediately changed their attitude. 
 The West demanded New Orleans and the 
 valley of the Mississippi ; and what it de« 
 manded it was determined to get. When we 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 337 
 
 only had the decaying weakness of Spain to 
 deal with, there was no cause for hurry ; but 
 when Louisiana was ceded to France., at the 
 time when the empire of Napoleon was a match 
 for all the rest of the world put together, the 
 country was up in arms at once. 
 
 The Administration promptly began to nego- 
 tiate for the purchase of Louisiana. Morris 
 backed them up heartily, thus splitting off 
 from the bulk of the Federalists, and earnestly 
 advocated far stronger measures than had been 
 taken. He believed that so soon as the French 
 should establish themselves in New Orleans, 
 we should have a war with tliem ; he knew it 
 would be impossible for the haughty chiefs of 
 a military despotism long to avoid collisions 
 with the reckless and warlike backwoodsmen 
 of the border. Nor would he have been sorry 
 had such a war taken place. He said that it 
 was a necessity to us, for we were dwindling 
 into a race of mere speculators and driveling 
 philosophers, whereas ten years of warfare 
 would bring forth a crop of heroes and states- 
 men, fit timber out of which to hew an em- 
 pire. 
 
 Almost his last act in the United States Sen- 
 ate was to make a most powerful and telling 
 speech in favor of at once occupying the terri- 
 tory in dispute, and bidding defiance to Na- 
 
338 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 poleon. He showed that we could not submit 
 to having so dangerous a neighbor as France, 
 an ambitious and conquering nation, at whose 
 head was the greatest warrior of the age. With 
 ringing emphasis he claimed the western re- 
 gions as peculiarly our heritage, as the prop- 
 erty of the fathers of America which they held 
 in trust for their children. It was true that 
 France was then enjoying the peace which she 
 had wrung from the gathered armies of all 
 Europe ; yet he advised us to fling down the 
 gauntlet fearlessly, not hampering ourselves by 
 an attempt at alliance with Great Britain or 
 any other power, but resting confident that, if 
 America was heartily in earnest, she would be 
 able to hold her own in any struggle. The cost 
 of the conquest he brushed contemptuously 
 aside; he considered "that counting-house 
 policy, which sees nothing but money, a poor, 
 short-sighted, half-witted, mean, and miserable 
 thing, as far removed from wisdom as is a 
 monkey from a man." He wished for peace ; 
 but he did not believe the Emperor would 
 yield us the territory, and he knew that his 
 fellow-representatives, and practically all the 
 American people, were determined to fight for 
 it if they could get it in no other way; there- 
 fore he advised them to begin at once, and 
 gain forthwith what they wanted, and perhaps 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, 339 
 
 their example would inspirit Europe to rise 
 against the tyrant. 
 
 It was bold advice, and if need had arisen it 
 would have been followed ; for we were bound 
 to have Louisiana, if not by bargain and sale 
 tlien by fair shock of arms. But Napoleon 
 yielded, and gave us the land for fifteen mil- 
 lions, of which, said Morris, " I am content to 
 pay my share to deprive foreigners of all pre- 
 text for entering our interior country ; if noth- 
 ing else were gained by the treaty, that alone 
 would satisfy me." 
 
 Morris's term as senator expired on March 
 4th, 1803, and he was not reelected ; for New 
 York State had passed into the hands of the 
 Democrats. But he still continued to play a 
 prominent part in public affairs, for he was the 
 leader in starting the project of the Erie canal. 
 It was to him that we owe the original idea of 
 this great water-way, for he thought of it and 
 planned it out long before any one else. He 
 liad publicly proposed it during the revolution- 
 ary period; in 1803 he began the agitation in 
 its favor that culminated in its realization, and 
 he was chairman of the Canal Commissioners 
 from the time of their appointment, in 1810, 
 until within a few months of his death. The 
 three first reports of the Commission were all 
 from his pen. As Stephen Van Rensselaer, 
 
340 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 himself one of the commissioners from the 
 beginning, said, " Gouverneur Morris was the 
 father of our great canal." He hoped ultimate- 
 ly to make it a ship canal. While a member 
 of the commission, he not only discharged his 
 duties as such with characteristic energy and 
 painstaking, but he also did most effective out- 
 side work in advancing the enterprise, while 
 he mastered the subject more thoroughly in all 
 its details than did any other man. 
 
 He spent most of his time at Morrisania, but 
 traveled for two or three months every sum- 
 mer, sometimes going out to the then " far 
 West," along the shores of Lakes Erie and On- 
 tario, and once descending the St. Lawrence. 
 At home he spent his time tilling his farm, 
 reading, receiving visits from his friends, and 
 cari-ying on a wide correspondence on business 
 and politics. Jay's home was within driving 
 distance, and the two fine old fellows saw much 
 of each other. On the 25th of December, 1809, 
 Morris, tlien fifty-six years old, married Miss 
 Anne Gary Randolph, a member of the famous 
 Virginia family ; he was very happy with her, 
 and by her he had one son. Three weeks after 
 the marriage he wrote Jay a pressing request 
 to visit him : " I pray you will, with your 
 daughters, embark immediately in your sleigh, 
 after a very early breakfast, and push on so as 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 341 
 
 to reacli this house in the evening. My wife 
 sends her love, and says she longs to i-eceive 
 her husband's friend ; that his sickness must be 
 no excuse, for she will nurse him. Come, then, 
 and see your old friend perform his part in an 
 old-fashioned scene of domestic enjoyment." 
 Jay was very simple in his way of living ; but 
 Morris was rather formal. When he visited 
 his friend he always came with his valet, was 
 shown straight to his room without seeing any 
 one, dressed himself with scrupulous nicety, — 
 being very particular about his powdered hair, 
 — and then came down to see his host. 
 
 Although his letters generally dealt with 
 public matters, he sometimes went into home 
 details. He thus wrote an amusing letter to a 
 good friend of his, a lady, who was desirous, 
 following the custom of the day, to send her 
 boy to what was called a " college "at an ab- 
 surdly early age ; he closed by warning her 
 that " these children of eleven, after a four 
 years' course, in which they may learn to smat- 
 ter a little of everything, become bachelors of 
 arts before they know how to button their 
 clothes, and are the most troublesome and use- 
 less, sometimes the most pernicious, little ani- 
 mals that ever infested a commonwealth." 
 
 At one time he received as his guest Moreau, 
 the exiled French general, then seeking service 
 
342 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 in the United States. Writing in his diary an 
 account of the visit, he says : " In the course 
 of our conversation, touching very gently the 
 idea of his serving (in case of necessity) against 
 France, he declares frankly that, when the oc- 
 casion arrives, he shall feel no reluctance ; that 
 France having cast him out, he is a citizen of 
 the country where he lives, and has the same 
 right to follow his trade here as any other man." 
 He took the keenest pleasure in his life, and 
 always insisted that America was the pleasant- 
 est of all places in which to live. Writing to 
 a friend abroad, and mentioning that he re- 
 spected the people of Britain, but did not find 
 them congenial, he added : " But were the man- 
 ners of those countries as pleasant as the people 
 are respectable, I should never be reconciled to 
 their summers. Compare the uninterrupted 
 warmth and splendor of America, from the first 
 of May to the last of Sept( mber, and her au- 
 tumn, truly celestial, with your shivering June, 
 your July and August sometimes warm but 
 often wet, your uncertain September, your 
 gloomy October, an-d your dismal November. 
 Compare these things, and then say how a man 
 who prizes the charm of Nature can think of 
 making the exchange. If you were to pass one 
 autumn with us, you would not give it for the 
 best six months to be found in any other coun- 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 343 
 
 try. . . . There is a brilliance in our atmos- 
 phere of which you can have no idea." 
 
 He thoroughly appreciated the marvelous 
 future that lay before the race on this continent. 
 Writing in 1801, he says : " As yet we only 
 crawl along the outer shell of our country. The 
 interior excels the part we inhabit in soil, in 
 climate, in everything. The proudest empire 
 in Europe is but a bauble compared to what 
 America will he, must be, in the course of two 
 centuries, perhaps of one ! " And again, " With 
 respect to this country, calculation outruns 
 fancy, and fact outruns calculation." 
 
 Until his hasty, impulsive temper became so 
 soured by partisanship as to warp his judg- 
 ment, Morris remained as well satisfied with 
 the people and the system of government as 
 with the land itself. In one of his first letters 
 after his return to America he wrote : '' There 
 is a fund of good sense and calmness of charac- 
 ter here, which will, I think, avoid all danger- 
 ous excesses. We are free : we know it : and 
 we know how to continue free." On another 
 occasion, about the same time, he said : " Nil 
 desperandum de repuhlica is a sound principle." 
 Again, in the middle of Jefferson's first term : 
 " We have indeed a set of madmen in the ad- 
 ministration, and they will do many foolish 
 things ; but there is a vigorous vegetative 
 
344 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 principle at the root which will make our tree 
 flourish, let the winds blow as they may." 
 
 He at firsrt took an equally just view of our 
 political system, saying that in adopting a re- 
 publican form of government he "not only took 
 it, as a man does his wife, for better or worse, 
 but, what few men do with their wives, know- 
 ing all its bad qualities." He observed that 
 there was always a counter current in human 
 affairs, which opposed alike good and evil. 
 " Thus the good we hope is seldom attained, 
 and the evil we fear is rarely realized. The 
 leaders of faction must for their own sakes avoid 
 errors of enormous magnitude ; so that, while 
 the republican form lasts, we shall be fairly 
 well governed." He thought this form the 
 one best suited for us, and remarked that "every 
 kind of government was liable to evil ; that the 
 best was that which had fewest faults ; that 
 the excellence even of that best depended 
 more on its fitness for the nation where it was 
 established than on intrinsic perfection." He 
 denounced, with a fierce scorn that they richly 
 merit, the despicable demagogues and witless 
 fools who teach that in all cases the voice of the 
 majority must be implicitly obeyed, and that 
 public men have only to carry out its will, and 
 thus " acknowledge themselves the willing in- 
 struments of folly and vice. They declare that 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 345 
 
 in order to please the people they will, regardless 
 alike of what conscience may dictate or reason 
 approve, make the profligate sacrifice of public 
 right on the altar of private interest. What 
 more can be asked by the sternest tyrant of the 
 most despicable slave ? Creatures of this sort 
 are the tools which usurpers employ in building 
 despotism." 
 
 Sounder and truer maxims never were ut- 
 tered ; but unfortunately the indignation nat- 
 urally excited by the utter weakness and folly 
 of Jefferson's second term, and the pitiable in- 
 competence shown both by him, by his suc- 
 cessor, and by their party associates in dealing 
 with affairs, so inflamed and exasperated Morris 
 as to make him completely lose his head, and 
 hurried him into an opposition so violent that 
 his follies surpassed the worst of the follies he 
 condemned. He gradually lost faith in oiii^ re- 
 publican system, and in the Union itself. His 
 old jealousy of the West revived more strongly 
 than ever ; he actually proposed that our enor- 
 mous masses of new territory, destined one day 
 to hold the bulk of our population, "should be 
 governed as provinces, and allowed no voice in 
 our councils." So hopelessly futile a scheme 
 is beneath comment ; and it cannot possibly be 
 reconciled with his previous utterances when 
 he descanted on our future greatness as a people, 
 
346 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 and claimed the West as the heritage of our chil- 
 dren. His conduct can only be unqualifiedly- 
 condemned ; and he has but the poor palliation 
 that, in our early history, many of the leading 
 men in New York, and an even larger pro- 
 portion in New England, felt the same nar- 
 row, illiberal jealousy of the West which had 
 formerly been felt by the English statesmen for 
 America as a whole. 
 
 It is well indeed for our land that we of 
 this generation have at last learned to think 
 nationally, and, no matter in what state we live, 
 to view our whole country with the pride of 
 personal possession. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE NOETHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT AMONG 
 THE FEDERALISTS. 
 
 It is a painful thing to have to record that 
 the closing act in a great statesman's career not 
 only compares ill with what went before, but 
 is actually to the last degree a discreditable and 
 unworthy performance. 
 
 Morris's bitterness and anger against the gov- 
 ernment grew apace ; and finally his hatred 
 for the administration became such, that, to 
 hurt it, he was willing also to do irreparable 
 harm to the nation itself. He violently op- 
 posed the various embargo acts, and all the 
 other governmental measures of the decade be- 
 fore the war ; and worked himself up to such 
 a pitch, when hostilities began, that, though one 
 of the founders of the Constitution, though for- 
 merly one of the chief exponents of the national 
 idea, and though once a main upholder of the 
 Union, he abandoned every patriotic principle 
 and became an ardent advocate of Northern 
 secession. 
 
348 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 To any reasoning student of American "history- 
 it goes without saying that there was very good 
 cause for his anger with the administration. 
 From the time the House of Virginia came 
 into power, until the beginning of Monroe's ad- 
 ministration, there was a distinctly anti-New 
 England feeling at Washington, and much of 
 the legislation bore especially heavily on the 
 Northeast. Excepting Jefferson, we have never 
 produced an executive more helpless than Mad- 
 ison, when it came to grappling with real dan- 
 gers and difficulties. Like his predecessor, he 
 was only fit to be President in a time of pro- 
 found peace ; he was utterly out of place the 
 instant matters grew turbulent, or difficult prob- 
 lems arose to be solved, and he was a ridicu- 
 lously incompetent leader for a war with Great 
 Britain. He was entirely too timid to have 
 embarked on such a venture of his own accord, 
 and was simply forced into it by the threat of 
 losing his second term. The fiery young Dem- 
 ocrats of the South and West, and their broth- 
 ers of the Middle States, were the authors of 
 the war ; they themselves, for all their bluster, 
 were but one shade less incompetent than 
 their nominal chief, when it came to actual 
 work, and were shamefully unable to make 
 their words good by deeds. 
 
 The administration thus drifted into a war 
 
THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 349 
 
 which it had neither the wisdom to avoid, nor 
 the forethought to prepare for. In view of the 
 fact that the war was their own, it is impossi- 
 ble to condemn sufficiently strongly the incred- 
 ible folly of the Democrats in having all along 
 refused to build a navy or provide any other 
 adequate means of defense. In accordance with 
 their curiously foolish theories, they persisted 
 in relying on that weakest of all weak reeds, 
 the militia, who promptly ran away every time 
 they faced a foe in the open. This applied 
 to all, whether eastern, western, or southern ; 
 the men of the northern states in 1812 and 
 1813 did as badly as, and no worse than, the 
 Virginians in 1814. Indeed, one of the good 
 results of the war was that it did away forever 
 with all reliance on the old-time militia, the 
 most expensive and inefficient species of sol^ 
 diery that could be invented. During the first 
 year the monotonous record of humiliations and 
 defeats was only relieved by the splendid vic- 
 tories of the navy which the Federalists had 
 created twelve years previously, and which had 
 been hurt rather than benefited in the inter- 
 vening time. Gradually, however, the people 
 themselves began to bring out leaders : two, 
 Jackson and Scott, were reall}^ good generals, 
 under whom our soldiers became able to face 
 even the English regulars, then the most for- 
 
350 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 midable fighting troops in the world ; and it 
 must be remembered that Jackson won his 
 fights absolutely uuhelped by the administra- 
 tion. In fact, the government at Washington 
 does not deserve one shred of credit for any of 
 the victories we won, although to it we directly 
 owe the greater number of our defeats. 
 
 Granting, however, all that can be said as to 
 the hopeless inefficiency of the administration, 
 both in making ready for and in waging the 
 war, it yet remains true that the war itself was 
 eminently justifiable, and was of the greatest 
 service to the nation. We had been bullied by 
 England and France until we had to fight to 
 preserve our national self-respect ; and we very 
 properly singled out our chief aggressor, though 
 it would perhaps have been better still to have 
 acted on the proposition advanced in Congress, 
 and to have declared war on both. Although 
 nominally the peace left things as they had 
 been, practically we gained our point; and we 
 certainly came out of the contest with a greatly 
 increased reputation abroad. In spite of the 
 ludicrous series of failures which began with 
 our first attempt to invade Canada, and culmi- 
 nated at Bladensburg, yet in a succession of con- 
 tests on the ocean and the lakes, we shattered 
 the charmed shield of British naval invincibility; 
 while on the northern frontier we developed 
 
THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 351 
 
 under Scott and Brown an infantry which, un- 
 like any of the armies of continental Europe, 
 was able to meet on equal terms the British in- 
 fantry in pitched battle in the open ; and at 
 New Orleans we did what the best of Napo- 
 leon's marshals, backed by the flower of the 
 French soldiers, had been unable to accomplish 
 during five years of warfare in Spain, and in- 
 flicted a defeat such as no English army had 
 suffered during a quarter of a century of un- 
 broken warfare. Above all, the contest gave 
 an immense impetus to our national feeling, 
 and freed our politics forever from any depen- 
 dence on those of a foreign power. 
 
 The war was distinctly worth fighting, and 
 resulted in good to the country. The blame 
 that attaches to Madison and the elder demo- 
 cratic-republican leaders, as well as to their 
 younger associates. Clay, Calhoun, and the rest, 
 who fairly flogged them into action, relates to 
 their utter failure to make any preparations for 
 the contest, to their helpless inability to carry 
 it on, and to the extraordinary weakness and 
 indecision of their policy throughout ; and on 
 all these points it is hardly possible to visit 
 them with too unsparing censure. 
 
 Yet, grave though these faults were, they 
 were mild compared to those committed by 
 Morris and the other ultra-Federalists of New 
 
352 GOUVEENEUR MORRIS. 
 
 York and New England. Morris's opposition 
 to the war led him to the most extravagant 
 lengths. In his hatred of the opposite party 
 he lost all loyalty to the nation. He cham- 
 pioned the British view of their right to impress 
 seamen from our ships ; he approved of peace 
 on the terms they offered, which included a cur- 
 tailment of our western frontier, and the erec- 
 tion along it of independent Indian sovereign- 
 ties under British protection. He found space 
 in his letters to exult over the defeats of Bona- 
 parte, but could spare no word of praise for our 
 own victories. 
 
 He actually advocated repudiating our war 
 debt,^ on the ground that it was void, being 
 founded on a moral wrong ; and he wished the 
 Federalists to make public profession of their 
 purpose, so that when they should come back 
 to power, the holders might have no reason to 
 complain that there had been no warning of 
 their intention. To Josiah Quincy, on May 
 15th, he wrote : " Should it be objected, as 
 it probably will to favor lenders and their 
 associates, that public faith is pledged, it may 
 be replied that a pledge wickedly given is not 
 to be redeemed." He thus advanced the theory 
 that in a government ruled by parties, which 
 
 ^ As, for instance, in a letter to David R. Ogden, April 5, 
 1813. 
 
THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 353 
 
 come into power alternately, any debt could be 
 repudiated, at any time, if the party in power 
 happened to disapprove of its originally being 
 incurred. No greenback demagogue of the 
 lowest type ever advocated a proposition more 
 dishonest or more contemptible. 
 
 He wrote that he agreed with Pickering that 
 it was impious to raise taxes for so unjust a 
 war. He endeavored, fortunately in vain, to 
 induce Rufus King in the Senate to advocate 
 the refusal of supplies of every sort, whether of 
 men or money, for carrying on the war ; but 
 King was far too honorable to turn traitor. 
 Singularly forgetful of his speeches in the 
 Senate ten years before, he declared that he 
 wished that a foreign power might occupy and 
 people the West, so as, by outside pressure, 
 to stifle our feuds. He sneered at the w^rds 
 union and constitution, as being meaningless. 
 He railed bitterly at the honest and loyal ma- 
 jority of his fellow-Fedoralists in New York, 
 who had professed their devotion to the Union ; 
 and in 'a letter of April 29th, to Harrison 
 Gray Otis, — who was almost as bad as him- 
 self, — he strongly advocated secession, writing 
 among other things that he wished the New 
 York Federalists to declare publicly that " the 
 Union, being the means of freedom, should be 
 prized as such, but that the end should not be 
 
354 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 sacrificed to the means." By comparing this 
 with Calhoun's famous toast at the Jefferson 
 birthday dinner in 1830, "The Union ; next to 
 our liberty the most dear ; may we all remem- 
 ber that it can only be preserved by respecting 
 the rights of the states and distributing equally 
 the benefit and the burden of the Union," it 
 can be seen how completely Morris's utterances 
 went on all fours with those of the great nul- 
 lifier. 
 
 To Pickering he wrote, on October 17th, 1814 : 
 *' I hear every day professions of attachment to 
 the Union, and declarations as to its importance. 
 I should be glad to meet with some one who 
 could tell me what has become of the Union, in 
 what it consists, and to what useful purpose it 
 endures." He regarded the dissolution of the 
 Union to be so nearly an accomplished fact that 
 the only question was whether the boundary 
 should be '' the Delaware, the Susquehanna, or 
 the Potomac " ; for he thought that New York 
 would have to go with New England. He nour- 
 ished great hopes of the Hartford convention, 
 which he expected would formally come out for 
 secession ; he wrote Otis that the convention 
 should declare that the Union was already 
 broken, and that all that remained to do was 
 to take action for the preservation of the inter- 
 ests of the Northeast. He was much chagrined 
 
THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 355 
 
 when the convention fell under the control of 
 Cabot and the moderates. As late as January 
 10, 1815, he wrote that the only proceeding 
 from which the people of his section would gain 
 practical benefit would be a *' severance of the 
 Union." 
 
 In fact, throughout the war of 1812 he ap- 
 peared as the open champion of treason to the 
 nation, of dishonesty to the nation's creditors, 
 and of cringing subserviency to a foreign power. 
 It is as impossible to reconcile his course with 
 his previous career and teachings as it is to try 
 to make it square with the rules of statesman- 
 ship and morality. His own conduct affords a 
 conclusive condemnation of his theories as to 
 the great inferiority of a government conducted 
 by the multitude, to a government conducted 
 by the few who should have riches and educa- 
 tion. Undoubtedly he was one of these few ; 
 he was an exceptionally able man, and a 
 wealthy one; but he went farther wrong at 
 this period than the majority of our people — 
 the " mob " as he would have contemptuously 
 called them — have ever gone at any time ; for 
 though every state in turn, and almost every 
 statesman, has been wrong upon some issue or 
 another, yet in the long run the bulk of the 
 people have always hitherto shown themselves 
 true to the cause of right. Morris strenuously 
 
356 GO U VERNE UR MORRIS. 
 
 insisted upon the need of property being de- 
 fended from the masses ; yet he advocated re- 
 pudiation of the national debt, which he should 
 have known to be quite as dishonest as the re- 
 pudiation of his individual liabilities, and he 
 was certainly aware that the step is a short one 
 between refusing to pay a man what ought to 
 be his and taking away from him what actually 
 is his. 
 
 There were many other Federalist leaders 
 in the same position as himself, especially in 
 the three southern New England states, where 
 the whole Federalist party laid itself open to 
 the gravest charges of disloyalty. Morris was 
 not alone in his creed at this time. On the 
 contrary, his position is interesting because it is 
 typical of that assumed by a large section of his 
 party throughout the Northeast. In fact, the 
 Federalists in this portion of the Union had 
 split in three, although the lines of cleavage 
 were not always well marked. Many of them 
 remained heartily loyal to the national idea ; 
 the bulk hesitated as to whether they should go 
 all lengths or not ; while a large and influential 
 minority, headed by Morris, Pickering, Quincy, 
 Lowell and others, were avowed disunionists. 
 Had peace not come when it did, it is probable 
 that the moderates would finally have fallen 
 under the control of these ultras. The party 
 
 I 
 
TEE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 357 
 
 developed an element of bitter unreason in de- 
 feat ; it was a really sad sight to see a body of 
 able, educated men, interested and skilled in 
 the conduct of public affairs, all going angrily 
 and stupidly wrong on the one question that 
 was of vital concern to the nation. 
 
 It is idle to try to justify the proceedings of 
 the Hartford convention, or of the Massachu- 
 setts and Connecticut legislatures. The deci- 
 sion to keep the New England troops as an 
 independent command was of itself sufficient 
 ground for condemnation ; moreover, it was not 
 warranted by any show of superior prowess on 
 the part of the New Englanders, for a portion of 
 Maine continued in possession of the British till 
 the close of the war. The Hartford resolutions 
 were so framed as to justify seceding or riot se- 
 ceding as events turned out ; a man like Morris 
 could extract comfort from them, while it was 
 hoped they would not frighten those who were 
 more loyal. The majority of the people in New 
 England were beyond question loyal, exactly as 
 in 1860 a majority of Southerners were opposed 
 to secession ; but the disloyal element was active 
 and resolute, and hoped to force the remainder 
 into its own way of thinking. It failed sig- 
 nally, and was buried beneath a load of dis- 
 grace ; and New England was taught thus early 
 and by heart the lesson that wrongs must be 
 
358 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 righted within, and not without the Union. It 
 would have been well for her sistei- section of 
 the South, so loyal in 1815, if forty-five years 
 afterwards she had spared herself the neces- 
 sity of learning the same lesson at an infinitely 
 greater cost. 
 
 The truth is that it is nonsense to reproach 
 any one section with being especially disloyal 
 to the Union. At one time or another almost 
 every state has shown strong particularistic 
 leanings ; Connecticut and Pennsylvania, for 
 example, quite as much as Virginia or Ken- 
 tucky. Fortunately the outbursts were never 
 simultaneous in a majority. It is as impossible 
 to question the fact that at one period or an- 
 other of the past, many of the states in each 
 section have been very shaky in their allegiance 
 as it is to doubt that they are now all heartily 
 loyal. The secession movement of 1860 was 
 pushed to extremities, instead of being merely 
 planned and threatened, and the revolt was pe- 
 culiarly abhorrent, because of the intention to 
 make slavery the " corner-stone " of the new 
 nation, and to reintroduce the slave-trade, to the 
 certain ultimate ruin of the Southern whites ; 
 but at least it was entirely free from the 
 meanness of being made in the midst of a 
 doubtful struggle with a foreign foe. Indeed, 
 in this respect the ultra-Federalists of New 
 
THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 359 
 
 York and New England in 1814 should be com- 
 pared with the infamous Northern copperheads 
 of the Vallandigham stripe rather than with 
 the gallant confederates who risked and lost 
 all in fighting for the cause of their choice. 
 Half a century before the " stars and bars '* 
 waved over Lee's last intrenchments, perfervid 
 New England patriots were fond of flaunting 
 " the flag with five stripes," and drinking to the 
 health of the — fortunately stillborn — new na- 
 tion. Later on, the disunion movement among 
 the Northern abolitionists, headed by Garrison, 
 was perhaps the most absolutely seilseless of all, 
 for its success meant the immediate abandon- 
 ment of every hope of abolition. 
 
 In each one of these movements men of 
 the highest character and capacity took part. 
 Morris had by previous services rendered the 
 whole nation his debtor; Garrison was one^of 
 the little band who, in the midst of general 
 apathy, selfishness, and cowardice, dared to de- 
 mand the cutting out of the hideous plague 
 spot of our civilization ; while Lee and Jackson 
 were as remarkable for stainless purity and 
 bigh-mindedness as they were for their consum- 
 mate military skill. But the disunion move- 
 ments in which they severally took part were 
 wholly wrong. An Englishman of to-day may 
 be equally proud of the valor of Cavalier and 
 
360 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 Roundhead ; but, if competent to judge, he 
 must admit that the Roundhead was right. So 
 it is with us. The man who fought for secession 
 warred for a cause as evil and as capable of 
 working lasting harm as the doctrine of the 
 divine right of kings itself. But we may feel 
 an intense pride in his gallantry ; and we may 
 believe in his honesty hs heartily as we believe 
 in that of the only less foolish being who wishes 
 to see our government strongly centralized, 
 heedless of the self-evident fact that over such 
 a vast land as ours the nation can exist only 
 as a Federal Union ; and that, exactly as the 
 liberty of the individual and the rights of the 
 states can only be preserved by upholding the 
 strength of the nation, so this same localizing 
 of power in all matters not essentially national 
 is vital to the wellbeing and durability of the 
 government. 
 
 Besides the honorable men drawn into such 
 movements there have always been plenty who 
 took part in or directed them for their own self- 
 ish ends, or whose minds were so warped and 
 their sense of political morality so crooked as to 
 make tliem originate schemes that would have 
 reduced us to the impotent level of the Spanish- 
 American republics. These men were peculiar 
 to neither section. In 1803, Aaron Burr of 
 New York was undoubtedly anxious to bring 
 
TEE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 361 
 
 about in tlie Northeast what sixty years later 
 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi so nearly suc- 
 ceeded in doing in the South ; and the attempt 
 in the South to make a hero of the one is as 
 foolish as it would be to make a hero of the 
 other in the North. If there are such virtues 
 as loyalty and patriotism, then there must exist 
 the corresponding crime of treason ; if there is 
 any merit in practicing the first, then there must 
 be equal demerit in committing the last. Emas- 
 culated sentimentalists may try to strike from 
 the national dictionary the word treason ; but 
 until that is done, Jefferson Davis must be 
 deemed guilty thereof. 
 
 There are, however, very few of our states- 
 men whose characters can be painted in simple, 
 uniform colors, like Washington and Lincoln 
 on the one hand, or Burr and Davis on the^ 
 other. Nor is Morris one of these few. HEis 
 place is alongside of men like Madison, Samuel 
 Adams, and Patrick Henry, who did the nation 
 great service at times, but each of whom, at 
 some one or two critical junctures, ranged him- 
 self with the forces of disorder. 
 
 After the peace Morris accommodated himself 
 to the altered condition with his usual buoyant 
 cheerfulness ; he was too light-hearted, and, to 
 say the truth, had too good an opinion of him- 
 self, to be cast down even by the signal failure 
 
 1 People sometimes forget that Burr was as willing to try 
 sedition in the East as in the West. 
 
362 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 of his expectations and the memory of the by 
 no means creditable part he had played. Be- 
 sides, he had the great virtue of always good- 
 humoredly yielding to the inevitable. He 
 heartily wished the country well, and kept up 
 a constant correspondence with men high in 
 influence at Washington. He disliked the 
 tariff bill of 1816; he did not believe in duties 
 or imposts, favoring internal, although not di- 
 rect, taxation. He was sharp-sighted enough 
 to see that the Federal party had shot its bolt 
 and outlived its usefulness, and that it was time 
 for it to dissolve. To a number of Federalists 
 at Philadelphia, who wished to continue the 
 organization, he wrote strongly advising them 
 to give up the idea, and adding some very sound 
 and patriotic counsel. " Let us forget party 
 and think of our country. That country em- 
 braces both parties. We must endeavor, there- 
 fore, to save and benefit both. This cannot be 
 effected while political delusions array good 
 men against each other. If you abandon the 
 contest, the voice of reason, now drowned in 
 factious vociferation, will be listened to and 
 heard. The pressure of distress will accelerate 
 the moment of reflection ; and when it arrives 
 the people will look out for men of sense, ex- 
 perience, and integrity. Such men may, I trust, 
 be found in both parties ; and if our country be 
 
THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 363 
 
 delivered, what does it signify whether those 
 who operate her salvation wear a federal or 
 democratic cloak ? " These words formed al- 
 most his last public utterance, for they were 
 penned but a couple of months before his death ; 
 and he might well be content to let them 
 stand as a fit closing to his public career. 
 
 He died November 6, 1816, when sixty-four 
 years old, after a short illness. He had suf- 
 fered at intervals for a long time from gout ; 
 but he had enjoyed general good health, as his 
 erect, commanding, well-built figure showed; 
 for he was a tall and handsome man. He was 
 buried on his own estate at Morrisania. 
 
 There has never been an American statesman 
 of keener intellect or more brilliant genius. 
 Had he possessed but a little more steadiness 
 and self-control he would have stood amt)ng the 
 two or three very foremost. He was gallant 
 and fearless. He was absolutely upright and 
 truthful ; the least suggestion of falsehood was 
 abhorrent to him. His extreme, aggressive 
 frankness, joined to a certain imperiousness of 
 disposition, made it difficult for him to get 
 along well with many of the men with whom 
 he was thrown in contact. In politics he was 
 too much of a free lance ever to stand very 
 high as a leader. He was very generous and 
 hospitable; he was witty and humorous, a 
 
864 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 
 
 charming companion, and extremely fond of 
 good living. He had a proud, almost hasty 
 temper, and was quick to resent an insult. He 
 was strictly just ; and he made open war on all 
 traits that displeased him, especially meanness 
 and hypocrisy. He was essentially a strong 
 man, and he was an American through and 
 through. 
 
 Perhaps his greatest interest for us lies in the 
 fact that he was a shrewder, more far-seeing 
 observer and recorder of contemporary men and 
 events, both at home and abroad, than any 
 other American or foreign statesman of his 
 time. But aside from this he did much lasting 
 work. He took a most prominent part in bring- 
 ing about the independence of the colonies, and 
 afterwards in welding them into a single power- 
 ful nation, whose greatness he both foresaw and 
 foretold. He made the final draft of the United 
 States Constitution ; he first outlined our pres- 
 ent system of national coinage ; he originated 
 and got under way the plan for the Erie Canal ; 
 as minister to France he successfully performed 
 the most difficult task ever allotted to an Amer- 
 ican representative at a foreign capital. With 
 all his faults, there are few men of his gener- 
 ation to whom the country owes more than to 
 Gouverneur Morris. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, John, 52; appointed com- 
 missioner, 119 ; repudiates com- 
 mand of Congress, 120 ; share in 
 most important treaty, 124 ; ab- 
 sent from National Convention, 
 133 ; nominated for the Presiden- 
 cy, 328 ; signs judiciary bill, 331 ; 
 appoints new judges, 332. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 77, 79, 128. 
 
 Allen, Ethan, 46. 
 
 America, successful, 117, 118, 131, 
 132, 144. 
 
 American army, suffering of, 76, 77 ; 
 commissioners, 119, 120, 121, 123, 
 124 ; Constitutional Convention, 
 delegates in, 133 ; contrasted with 
 States General of France, 134, 
 135, 136 ; independence, 122, 123 ; 
 leaders compared with European, 
 82, 83 ; navy, 196, 291 ; triumph, 
 123, 124. 
 
 Americans, in Revolutionary War, 
 5 ; of 1776, compared with those of 
 Civil War, 49, 50. 
 
 Ames, Fisher, 327. 
 
 Assembly, 33, 36, 37, 44. 
 
 Bank of North America, 103. 
 
 Bastile, the, 211, 225, 226. 
 
 Battle of Bennington, 69 ; Brandy- 
 wine, 75 ; Princeton, 48 ; Trenton, 
 48, 49; Guilford Court House, 
 113. 
 
 Battles on soil of New York, 3, 4. 
 
 British allies, 49, 50, 68, 119 ; war- 
 ships, 43, 47. 
 
 Brunswick, Duke of, 284, 285. 
 
 Burgoyne, 49, 68. 72, 74, 78 ; breach 
 of faith with, 125. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 39. 
 
 Burr, Aaron, 329, 330, 360 ; and Jef- 
 ferson Davis, 361. 
 
 Butler, 147, 157. 
 
 Calhoun, famous toast of, 354. 
 
 Canada, 45, 89, 90. 
 
 Carolinas, the, 8, 11, 30, 45, 50. 
 
 Carroll, 40. 
 
 Church of Rome, 65. 
 
 Churches, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19. 
 
 Civil War, people m the, 49, 50. 
 
 Clermont-Tounerre, Count de, 179, 
 203. 
 
 Clmton, George, 10 ; chosen gov- 
 ernor, 68, 327 ; as a politician, 
 97, 128. 
 
 Clintons, the, 10, 20, 68. 
 
 Colonial contests, 3 ; legislature, 
 
 . 20, 21, 33. 
 
 Colonies, 11. 
 
 Confederation, condition of, after 
 the war, 126. 
 
 Congress. See Continental ; see 
 Provincial. , — ' ^ 
 
 Connecticut, 45, 46. 
 
 Constitution, its character, 136, 141, 
 142 ; opposition to its adoption, 
 165, 167. 
 
 Continental Congress, the, 36; dis- 
 honorable acts, 73, 78, 79, 80 ; its 
 condition at end of 1779, 99 ; es- 
 tablishes four departments, 103; 
 instructions to commissioners, 
 119, 120. 
 
 Convention, New York, 59, 65 ; na- 
 tional, 133-139. 
 
 CornwaUis, 114, 116. 
 
 Council of appointment, 64, 155 ; of 
 revisions, 64, 155 ; of safety, 67, 
 68, 71. 
 
 Cruger, 14, 45. 
 
 Currency, condition of, 105 ; table 
 proposed, 107. 
 
 Dalrymple, General, 125 
 Danton, 270, 287, 296. 
 Davis, Jefferson, 361. 
 
366 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 D'Artois, Count (Charles X.), 217, 
 
 306. 
 
 Deane, Silas, 93. 
 
 Decimal system, 104, 107. 
 
 Declaration, of Independence, 47, 
 53 ; of Rights, 178. 
 
 De Lancys, 16, 21, 45. 
 
 D'Estaing, Count, 264. 
 
 De Flahaut, Madame, 204-207. 
 
 Democracy, 145. 
 
 Democrats, 137, 138. 
 
 Departments, 103. 
 
 De Stael, 203 ; Madame, 179, 199 ; 
 vanity of, 200, 201 ; want of deli- 
 cacy, 202, 203; her estimate of 
 the Abb«5 Sieyes, 247 ; grief for 
 Lafayette, 317. 
 
 Disunion movements, 358, 359, 360. 
 
 Dollar, the Spanish, 106, 107. 
 
 Dumouriez, 269-272. 
 
 Dutch, descendants of, 9 ; language, 
 13 ; republicans, 17 ; battle with 
 English, 115 ; in war with Spain, 
 132. 
 
 Ellsworth, Oliver, 160. 
 
 England, treatment of her Ameri- 
 can subjects, 4, 5 ; grounds of 
 complaint, 5 ; courage, 116 ; inso- 
 lence, 323. 
 
 English, stock, people of, 5, 126 ; 
 language, 12, 13 ; historians, 117 ; 
 hostile feeling, 228, 229 ; society, 
 230, 231 ; climate, 342. 
 
 Episcopalians, 13, 16, 18, 21, 60. 
 
 Esterhazy, 311, 312. 
 
 Extremists, 20. 
 
 Federalism, 138, 322, 323. 
 
 Federalist party, leaders of, 92, 137, 
 138 
 
 Federalists, 141, 156, 321, 323, 331, 
 334, 335. 
 
 Foreign or non-English elements, 
 11, 12, 13, 34. 
 
 Foreigners, movement against, 157. 
 
 Fox, 123, 233, 236. 
 
 France, treaty with, 88 ; would have 
 Americans dependent allies, 121, 
 122, 123 ; contrasted with Amer- 
 ica, 184 ; destitute of statesmen, 
 241. 
 
 Franklin appointed commissioner, 
 119, 120, 124 ; delegate to National 
 Convention, 133 ; advocate of weak 
 central government, 137. 
 
 French, motives, 89, 90 ; struggles 
 with England, 115 ; navy, 116 ; 
 admirals, 117; government, 121; 
 character, 186-189 ; noblesse and 
 
 common people, 212 ; Revolution, 
 170-175, 244, 258-263. 
 
 Gates, 71, 72, 73, 74. 
 
 Generals, of Revolution, 52, 116 ; in 
 Civil War, 52. 
 
 Genet, 292. 
 
 George III., 8, 228, 231. 
 
 Georgia, 8, 11, 50, 160. 
 
 Gerard, 89, 90, 122. 
 
 German auxiliaries, 119. 
 
 Germany, 144, 145, 165. 
 
 Gibraltar, 115, 116, 122. 
 
 Government, 130, 131, 144, 145. 
 
 Governor, name obnoxious, 62, 63. 
 
 Gower, Lord, 276. 
 
 Great Britain and American sub- 
 jects, 4, 6 ; odds against, 115 ; hos- 
 tility to American trade, 128. 
 
 Greene, 45, 52, 86, 113, 115, 116, 117. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 10, 52, 92, 
 102, 104, 111 ; delegate to National 
 Convention, 133 ; advocate of 
 strong government, 137, 138 ; in 
 favor of domestic manufactures, 
 156 ; proposes basis of representa- 
 tion, 158 ; assisted in writing the 
 " Federalist," 166 ; procures rati- 
 fication of the Constitution, 167 ; 
 passing coolness with Morris, 
 320 ; his haughtiness, 326 ; defeat 
 by Democrats, 329. 
 
 Hancock, John, 79. 
 I Hartford Convention, 357. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 128, 324. 
 
 Herkomer, 10. 
 
 HoUand, 116. 
 
 Huguenots, 9, 10, 65. 
 
 Impressment of American sailora, 
 
 233, 234. 
 Independence, 55, 56, 88. 
 India, 115, 116. 
 Indian warfare, 3, 4, 8, 74. 
 Infidels, 289. 
 Irish, in New England, 12 ; of 1776, 
 
 21 ; in Revolutionary armies, 34 ; 
 
 in Civil War, 35. 
 
 Jackson, General, 349, 350. 
 
 Jay, John, admitted to the bar, 23 ; 
 in Continental Congress, 41, 42 ; 
 resolution indorsing Declaration 
 of Independence, 58; plan for 
 state constitution, 62, 63 ; article 
 on toleration, 65 ; would abolish 
 slavery, 66, 67 ; on committee to 
 organize state government, 67 ; 
 defends Schuyler's cause, 72 ; re- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 867 
 
 Inforcements for Gates, 73 ; chief 
 justice, 75 ; wishes well to Old 
 England, 92 ; of Puritanic moral- 
 ity, 110 ; friendship with Morris, 
 111 ; minister to Spain, 111 ; views 
 on education of children. 111 ; af- 
 fection for America, 112 ; com- 
 missioner, 119 ; repudiates com- 
 mand of Congress, 120; true 
 policy summed up, 123 ; his the 
 chief part in treaty, 124 ; secre- 
 tary for foreign affairs, 133 ; helps 
 Hamilton on the " Federalist," 
 166 ; a strong Federalist, 301, 326 ; 
 appointed to negotiate treaty in 
 England, 301, 302, 327 ; governor, 
 327, 328, 329 ; visits to and from 
 Morris, 3i0, 341. 
 
 Jefferson, 52, 104, 107, 108, 129, 131, 
 133 ; important truth taught by 
 him, 138 ; American minister to 
 France, 176, 177; treatment of 
 Morris, 292 ; incompetence when 
 President, 334, 335, 348. 
 
 Johnsons, the, 17, 38, 45. 
 
 Judiciary bill, 331-334. 
 
 King, Rufus, 252, 353. 
 King's College, 3, 18. 
 
 Lafayette, 85, 86, 117, 176, 177, 178, 
 180, 181, 184, 187 ; his cliaracter, 
 221, 222, 273 ; ideas impracticable, 
 240, 241 ; proclaimed and impris- 
 oned, 273, 274 ; released, 317. 
 
 Lafayette, Madame de, 181, 274, 
 275. 
 
 Lake Champlain, 4, 68. 
 
 Lake George, 3. 
 
 Leaders, 52 ; loyalist, 16, 45 ; revo- 
 lutionary, 16, 49. 
 
 Lecky, 117, 118. 
 
 Leeds, Duke of, 231, 233, 237. 
 
 Lincoln, 52, 133, 138. 
 
 Lineage, 10, 34. 
 
 Livingston, Robert, 10, 59 ; on com- 
 mittee to organize state govern- 
 ment, 67 ; chancellor, 75 ; secre- 
 tary of foreign affairs, 103. 
 
 Livingstons, the, 21, 326. 
 
 Louis XVI., 216, 250, 254, 255, 256, 
 286. 
 
 Louis XVII., 307. 
 
 Louis Philippe, 317, 318. 
 
 Louisiana, 336. 337, 339. 
 
 Loyalists, 16, 29, 45, 119, 167. 
 
 Luzerne, 236. 
 
 Madison, 129 ; delegate to National 
 Convention, 133 ; during forma- 
 
 tion of Constitution, 139, 140, 145, 
 150, 153, 162 ; compUment to Mor- 
 ris, 165 ; assists Hamilton in wri- 
 ting the "Federalist," 166; as 
 President, 348. 
 
 Manorial families, 14, 15, 19. 
 
 Marie Antoinette, 225, 288. 
 
 Marmontel, 247. 
 
 Marshall, 325. 
 
 Mason, George, 160. 
 
 Merchants, 15, 19, 21. 
 
 Militia, 69, 70, 72, 113, 114. 
 
 Mirabeau, 136, 174, 200, 222, 223. 
 
 Mississippi, 90, 91, 95, 112, 113, 148. 
 
 Money, 24, 37, 128. 
 
 Monroe, 293; recalled and rebuked, 
 300 ; a foolish minister, 301, 302. 
 
 Moutmorin, Count de, 218, 249. 
 
 Moreau, General, 341, 342. 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, birth, 1 ; de- 
 scent, 2 ; boyhood, 3 ; college ca- 
 reer, 20, 22 ; takes part in public 
 affairs, 23, 24 ; desire for foreign 
 travel, 25 ; narrow means, 26 ; in 
 society, 27 ; little faith in extreme 
 democracy, 30, 31 ; dislike for 
 mobs, 31, 32 ; plans for reunion 
 with Great Britain, 32, 33 ; dele- 
 gate to Provincial Congress, 35, 
 36; report and speech, 37, 38; 
 objects to eighth article of report, 
 41 ; at head of patriotic party, 46, 
 47, 53; able speech in favor of 
 new governments, 53-58 ; mem- 
 ber of committees, 59 ; position in 
 
 regard to the Tories, 60, 61 ; for- 
 
 mation of State Constitution, 62- ~" 
 67 ; at Schuyler's headquarters, 
 68-71 ; efforts in behalf of Schuy- 
 ler, 72 ; secures reinforcements for 
 Gates, 73 ; letters to Schuyler, 74, 
 75 ; elected to Continental Con- 
 gress, 76 ; visits Valley Forge, 77 ; 
 a good fmancier, 78, 80, 86 ; en- 
 deavors to secure approval of 
 Washington's plans, 78, 79, 83, 85 ; 
 letter to Washington, 84 ; friend- 
 ship with Greene, 86 ; report on 
 Lord North's conciliatory bills, 
 
 88 ; prepares " Observations on 
 the American Revolution," 88; 
 drafts instructions to Franklin, 
 
 89 ; reply to French minister, 91 ; 
 " Observations on the Finances of 
 America," 91 ; his loyalist rela- 
 tives, 92, 93 ; controversy with 
 Thomas Paine, 93, 94 ; drafts in- 
 structions to our foreign minis- 
 ters, 94, 95 ; dispute of New York 
 with Vermont, 96, 97 ; fails of re- 
 
368 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 election, 98 ; life in Philadelphia, 
 99 ; publishes essays on the finan- 
 ces, 100, 101, 102 ; assistant finan- 
 cier, 103 ; founder of national 
 coinage, 104, 105, lOG, 107 ; enjoy- 
 ment in society, 108, 110 ; serious 
 injury, 109 ; want of insight into 
 the future, 112, 113 ; foresees final 
 success of Greene, 113 ; letters to 
 Jay, 118, 120, 127; advocates a 
 firmer Union, 129, 130 ; in Con- 
 stitutional Convention, 133, 139, 
 140; has no regard for States- 
 rights, 142-145 ; jealousy of the 
 West, 14G, 147 ; views on the 
 suftrage, 149-153 ; on the power 
 of the President, 153, 154 ; on the 
 judiciary, 155 ; on Congress, 156 ; 
 speeches on the slavery question, 
 158, 159 ; a warm advocate of 
 the Constitution, 166 ; return to 
 New York, 167 ; acts in behalf of 
 loyalists, 167; residence in France, 
 169 ; letters and diary, 170, 175, 
 176, 183 ; hostile to spirit of 
 French Revolution, 170-175 ; at 
 home in Parisian society, 176 ; 
 opinion of Jefferson, 177; of La- 
 fayette, 178, 181 ; views on French 
 politics, 183-186 ; distrust of 
 French character, 185, 186, 188, 
 189 ; National Assembly, 190, 191 ; 
 a true republican and American, 
 193, 194 ; minor services to Wash- 
 ington, 195 ; correspondence with 
 Paul Jones, 196 ; life in Paris. 197, 
 198, 199; opinion of Madame de 
 Stael, 199-204; intimacy with 
 Madame de Flahaut, 204-207 ; ac- 
 quaintance with the Duchess of 
 Orleans, 207-211, 245, 246; liter- 
 ary life of the salSn, 213-215; 
 judgment of his contemporaries, 
 216, 219-223; of French people, 
 224 ; advice to a certain painter, 
 226 ; mission to British govern- 
 ment, 227, 228 ; English not con- 
 genial, 229, 230 ; impatience at 
 delay, 233 ; interview with Pitt, 
 234 ; is blamed for failure of ne- 
 gotiations, 236 ; trip through 
 Netherlands and up the Rhine, 
 237 ; speculations of various kinds, 
 238, 239; advice to Lafayette, 
 240-243. 260 ; letter to Washing- 
 ton, 243-245 ; fondness for the 
 theatre, 247 ; dislike to priest- 
 hood, 248, 249 ; interest in home 
 affairs, 250 ; made minist^^r to 
 France, 252 ; is advised by Wash- 
 
 ington, 252, 253 ; plans for escape 
 of the king and qusen, 254, 255, 
 256 ; his, a brilliant chapter in 
 American diplomacy, 257, 258 ; 
 horror of the mob, 260, 261 ; his 
 house a place of refuge, 263, 264 ; 
 picture of the French, 265-268; 
 generosity to Lafayette family, 
 274, 275 ; remains in Paris, 276, 
 277 ; spirited conduct when har- 
 assed, 278, 279 ; payment of Amer- 
 ican debt, 280, 281 ; irritates the 
 executive council, 281, 282; French 
 privateers, 283 ; commentary on 
 passing events, 283-291 ; is re- 
 called, 292, 293 ; as foreign min- 
 ister to be honored, 264, 294; 
 accurate forecast of events, 295 ; 
 clear views of French Revolution, 
 298 ; journeys in Europe, 302 ; no 
 longer an impartial judge, 303 ; 
 estimate of Napoleon, 303, 304; 
 in Switzerland, 304; in Great 
 Britain, 305 ; opinion of royalist 
 refugees, 306, 307 ; in Berlin, 308, 
 315 ; in Vienna, 310-315 ; dealings 
 with Louis Philippe, 317, 318; 
 return to New York, 320 ; elected 
 to Senate, 328 ; disapproves of 
 Burr, 330 ; opinion of Jefferson, 
 331 ; speech in favor of occupying 
 Louisiana, 337, 338; fails of re- 
 election, 339 ; leader in project of 
 Erie canal, 339, 340 ; life at Mor- 
 risania, 340 ; marriage, 340 ; form- 
 ality, 341 ; compares America and 
 England, 342 ; loses his satisfac- 
 tion with the people and the gov- 
 ernment, and becomes soured, 345; 
 advocates northern secession, 347 ; 
 loses his loyalty to the nation, 
 352-359 ; closing acts of his career 
 unworthy of him, 352-355 ; after 
 the peace, 361 ; gives sound and 
 patriotic counsel, 362, 363 ; death, 
 363; character and services, 363, 
 364. 
 
 Morris, Robert, 102, 103, 133. 
 
 Morris, Staats Long, 15, 61, 167. 
 
 Morrisania, 1, 167, 340. 
 
 Morrises, the, 2. 
 
 Narbonne, Chevalier de, 202, 203. 
 
 National Union, 126, 140. 
 
 Nationalists, 141. 
 
 Necker, 199, 200, 218, 219, 220. 
 
 New England, 11, 161, 324; Puri- 
 tans, 5; militia, 69; members of 
 Continentnl Congress, 71, 79, 80. 
 
 New Rochelle, 3. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 369 
 
 New York city, 1 ; society in, 26 ; 
 exposed positions, 43 ; entered by 
 Continental forces, 46 ; left by 
 peaceable citizens, 48 ; held by 
 British, 116. 
 
 New York colony, 1,3; battles in, 
 3, 4 ; claim of liberty as a right, 
 6 ; loyalty, 7,8; many nationali- 
 ties, 9, 10 ; churches, 9 ; etlmic 
 type, 11 ; rivalries, 14 ; govern- 
 ment, 14 ; three parties, 19 ; in 
 debt, 23 ; not in full sympathy 
 with the patriots, 35, 36 ; soldiers 
 in royal armies, 44 ; famous Tory 
 leaders, 45 ; second Provincial 
 Congress, 46 ; third Provincial 
 Congress, 47 ; Declaration of In- 
 dependence ratified, and State 
 Constitution organized, 47 ; adop- 
 tion of the national Constitution, 
 165, 167. 
 
 New York State, 48 ; party contests, 
 326. 
 
 New Yorkers, 13, 33, 96. 
 
 North Carolina, 165. 
 
 North, Lord, conciliatory bills of, 
 87. 
 
 OflBcers, in trade, 81 ; foreign, 85 ; 
 
 French, in American Revolution, 
 
 264. 
 Oriskany, fight at, 10, 12, 72. 
 Orleans, Duchess of, 207, 208, 209, 
 
 245, 246. 
 Orleans, Duke of (Egalit^), 207, 216, 
 
 275, 288. 
 Otis, Harrison Gray, 353. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 93, 208, 289. 
 
 Paris, 266, 267 ; factions in, 269 ; 
 
 changed, 270. 
 Paul Jones, 196. 
 Pennsylvania, 28, 157, 166, 324. 
 Philadelphia, 110. 
 Pinckney, 145, 326, 328, 329. 
 Pitt, 233, 234, 237. 
 Presbyterians, 14, 18, 21. 
 Prisoners, exchange of, 125. 
 Provincial Congress, 34, 35, 38, 39, 
 
 43, 46, 47, 53, 58. 
 Proviso regarding toleration, 66. 
 Prussia, 308, 309. 
 
 Quebec, 10 ; bUl, 41. 
 Queen's County, 44, 46. 
 
 Randolph, 292. 
 
 Representation of slave states, 157, 
 
 158, 164. 
 Republican party, 141. 
 
 Republicanism, extreme, 20. 
 Revolution, enemies in, 49, 68 ; two 
 
 sides of, 30 ; officers of, 79 ; men 
 of, 81 , 82 ; influence of, compared 
 with that of French, 298, 299. 
 Revolutionary armies compared 
 with those in Civil War, 50, 51, 81 
 Rhode Island, 120, 165, 189. 
 ! Riedesel, " America," 308 ; GeneraL 
 I 316. 
 I Rodney, 116, 117. 
 
 Rohan, Cardinal de, 249. 
 I Roman Catholics, 9, 39, 64, 65. 
 I Royalist party, 19, 20. 
 I Rumford, Count, 316. 
 Russia, 168. 
 
 Schuyler, Philip, 10, 68, 69, 71 ; re- 
 placed by Gates, 71, 72, 73; hia 
 noble behavior, 74. 
 
 Scott, General, 349. 
 
 Sherman, Roger, 71. 
 
 Sieyes, the Abbe, 136, 246. 
 
 Six Nations, 3. 
 
 Slavery, question of, 66, 67, 157-165. 
 
 Sons of Liberty, 31, 43. 
 
 South Carohna, 80, 145, 160, 325. 
 
 Southern States, 115, 147, 148, 158, 
 161, 162, 163. 
 
 Spain, 90, 91, 112, 115, 120, 121, 122, 
 123, 148. 
 
 Spanish-Americans, 131, 132. 
 
 St. Clair, General, 69. 
 
 St. Patrick's Day, 21. 
 
 Stamp Act, 4. 
 
 Stark, 69. 
 
 States General, 134, 184, 224. 
 
 Statesmen, 51, 52, 134. 
 
 Suffrage not an inborn or natural 
 right, 149, 150, 157. 
 
 Taine, 183. 
 
 Talleyrand, 204, 221, 247, 277. 
 Tarleton, Colonel, 247. 
 Tesst5, Coratesse de, 181, 182. 
 Toleration, 39, 64, 65, 66. 
 Tories, 35, 44, 50, 00, 61, 68, 92, 167. 
 Tory leaders, 45. 
 
 Treaty, 124 ; obligations of, unful- 
 filled, 227, 228 ; Jay's. 327. 
 Trio, great American, 133. 
 Tryon, royal governor, 44. 
 
 Valley Forge, 49, 76. 
 Vergennes, 121,237. 
 Vermont, 70, 96, 98. 
 Virginia, 114, 160, 161, 165; her 
 statesmen and warriors, 325. 
 
 War of 1812, 14S, 349, 350. 
 
370 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Warriors, 51, 52, 325. 
 
 Washington, 33, 44, 47, 48 ; states- 
 man, soldier, patriot, 52 ; diflBcul- 
 ties, 78, 79 ; confidence in Morris, 
 83 ; dislike to foreign officers, 85 ; 
 letter to Jay, 118 ; delegate in 
 National Convention, 133 ; letter 
 to Morris, 189, 190; views witli 
 regard to French Revolution, 191, 
 192, 252, 292, 293; a watch for, 
 195 ; statue by Hudon, 196 ; kind 
 
 advice, 252, 253 ; recalls Monroe, 
 300; reply to letter of Morris, 
 306 ; distrust of Jefferson, and 
 Madison, 321. 
 
 West, the, 146, 147, 148. 
 
 Whig families, 20, 21. 
 
 White Plains, 53. 
 
 Wisdom of many worth more than 
 wisdom of one, 136, 137. 
 
 Yorktown, 76, 116. 
 
9lmertcatt Statesmen* 
 
 A Series of Biographies of Men famous in the 
 
 Political History of the United States. Edited by 
 
 John T. Morse, Jr. Each volume, i6mo, 
 
 gilt top, $1.25; half morocco, $2.50. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. By Henry Cabot Lodge, 
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 HENRY CLA Y, By Carl Schurz. 2 vols. 
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 admirable example to his coadjutors in respect of interesting 
 narrative, just proportion, and judicial candor. — New Yor-k 
 Evening Post. 
 
 HAMILTON. '^^^ biography of Mr. Lodge is calm and 
 dignified throughout. He has the virtue 
 — rare indeed among biographers — of impartiality. He has 
 done his work with conscientious care, and the biography of 
 Hamilton is a book which cannot have too many readers. It is 
 more than a biography ; it is a study in the science of govern- 
 ment. — St. Paul Pioneer-Pi'ess. 
 
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 political career of the great South Carolinian 
 is portrayed in these pages. The work is superior to any other 
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 passed by any of those that are to come. The whole discussion 
 in relation to Calhoun's position is eminently philosophical and 
 just. — The Dial (Chicago). 
 
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 -^ ' the justest long estimate of Jackson that has 
 
 had itself put between the covers of a book. — Neio Yo7'k 
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 RANDOLPH '^"^^ book has been to me intensely inter- 
 esting. . . It is rich in new facts and side 
 lights, and is worthy of its place in the already brilliant series 
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 MONROE ^^^ clearness of style, and in all points of liter- 
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 volume is well-nigh perfect. There are also a calmness of judg- 
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 ^EEEE R S O N '^^^ book is exceedingly interesting and 
 "^ * readable. The attention of the reader is 
 
 strongly seized at once, and he is carried along in spite of him- 
 self, sometimes protesting, sometimes doubting, yet unable to 
 lay the book down. — Chicago Standard. 
 
 WEBSTER ^^ ^'"^^ ^® ^^^^ ^y students of history ; it will 
 ^ ' be invaluable as a work of reference ; it 
 
 will be an authority as regards matters of fact and criticism ; it 
 hits the keynote of Webster's durable and ever-growing fame ; 
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C ALLATIN ^^ ^^ "^"^ "^ ^^^ most carefully prepared of 
 * these very valuable volumes, . . . abound- 
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 •^ covers the ground thoroughly, and 
 
 gives just the sort of simple and succinct account that is wanted. 
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 MARSHALL, ^^^1 done, with simplicity, clearness, pre- 
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 SAMUEL ADAMS. Thoroughly appreciative and sym- 
 pathetic, yet fair and critical. . . . 
 This biography is a piece of good work — a clear and simple 
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 CX^^ Y. ^^ ^^^^ ""^ *^^^s life of Henry Clay a biography of 
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