Soon afterward, Morris sent Marshall the promised shares of stock, apparently to enable him to return shares to some person in Richmond from whom he had borrowed them.
"You will receive herewith enclosed the Certificates for four shares of Bank Stock of the United States placed in your name to enable you to return the four shares to the Gentlemen of whom you borrowed them, this I thought better than remitting the money lest some difficulty should arise about price of shares. Two other shares in the name of Mr Geo Pickett is also enclosed herewith and I will go on buying and remitting others untill the number of Ten are completed for him which shall be done before the time limited in your letter of the 12h Inst The dividends shall also be remitted speedily."[515]
Again Washington desired Marshall to fill an important public office, this time a place on the joint commission, provided for in the Jay Treaty, to settle the British claims. These, as we have seen, had been for many years a source of grave trouble between the two countries. Their satisfactory adjustment would mean, not only the final settlement of this serious controversy, but the removal of an ever-present cause of war.[516] But since Marshall had refused appointment to three offices tendered him by Washington, the President did not now communicate with him directly, but inquired of Charles Lee, Attorney-General of Virginia, whether Marshall might be prevailed upon to accept this weighty and delicate business.
"I have very little doubt," replied Lee, "that Mr. John Marshall would not act as a Commissioner under the Treaty with Great Britain, for deciding on the claims of creditors. I have been long acquainted with his private affairs, and I think it almost impossible for him to undertake that office. If he would, I know not any objection that subsists against him.
"First, he is not a debtor.[517] Secondly, he cannot be benefitted or injured by any decision of the Commissioners. Thirdly, his being employed as counsel, in suits of that kind, furnishes no reasonable objection; nor do I know of any opinions that he has published, or professes, that might, with a view of impartiality, make him liable to be objected to.
"Mr. Marshall is at the head of his profession in Virginia, enjoying every convenience and comfort; in the midst of his friends and the relations of his wife at Richmond; in a practice of his profession that annually produces about five thousand dollars on an average; with a young and increasing family; and under a degree of necessity to continue his profession, for the purpose of complying with contracts not yet performed."[518]
The "contracts" which Marshall had to fulfill concerned the one important financial adventure of his life. It was this, and not, as some suppose, the condition of his invalid wife, to which Marshall vaguely referred in his letter to Washington declining appointment as Attorney-General and as Minister to France.
The two decades following the establishment of the National Government under the Constitution were years of enormous land speculation. Hardly a prominent man of the period failed to secure large tracts of real estate, which could be had at absurdly low prices, and to hold the lands for the natural advance which increasing population would bring. The greatest of these investors was Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, the second richest man of the time,[519] and the leading business man of the country.
