Whether any considerable amount of Mr. Bassett’s large fortune was invested in public securities at the inception of the new government it is impossible to ascertain, on account of the meagre records of the state of Delaware preserved in the Treasury Department. In the later documents of the central office of the Treasury there appears the remnant of “an old account” to the amount of a few hundred dollars worth of 3 per cents and 6 per cents under dates of 1796 and 1797.[[119]] A reasonable inference from the entry would be that Bassett, like other members of Congress, carried on his transactions directly with the Treasury (whose early records are missing), and that these holdings were based on paper originally funded.
Gunning Bedford, of Delaware, was the son of a “substantial land owner”[[120]] and a Bedford of that name appears on the tax lists of Newcastle county for the year 1776 for the amount of sixteen pounds, a moderate sum for those days.[[121]] He was a lawyer, but the extent of his practice is not known. He was of high standing in the community, and was elected governor of his state a few years after the Convention met. He took an interest in the financial affairs of the state, and under his administration as governor the Bank of Delaware was organized. How far Bedford had an interest in public securities cannot be determined on account of the fact that only a few scraps of the loan office papers for Delaware seem to be preserved in the Treasury Department. An old loan office volume shows a Gunning Bedford down for one $400 certificate of May, 1779[[122]] and traces of the financial connections of the member of the Convention with the government are to be found in the Pennsylvania loan office records.[[123]]
John Blair, of Virginia, was born in that state about 1731. He received a collegiate education, prepared for the law, and “in a very few years rose to the head of his profession.”[[124]] Pierce, in his notes on the men of the Convention, says: “Mr. Blair is one of the most respectable men in Virginia, both on account of his Family as well as fortune. He is one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and acknowledged to have a very extensive knowledge of the Laws. Mr. Blair is however no orator, but his good sense and most excellent principles compensate for other deficiencies.”[[125]]
Blair took advantage of the excellent opportunity afforded by the formation of the new Constitution to profit by the rise of securities. He appears frequently in the fiscal transactions between the federal government and the Virginia loan office, of which a few illustrations need be given here. In March, 1791, he presented £577:16:7 in Virginia certificates toward the United States loan; and of these securities £249 had been invested by Blair himself in 1782. The remaining amount he had purchased on his own account.[[126]] In the same year an agent of Blair presented two small certificates which had evidently been purchased by the principal because they were issued to other parties in 1778.[[127]] In September of that year, Blair himself turned in nearly $10,000 worth of paper on the United States loan, of which a part was purchased and a part original issues to the holder.[[128]]
William Blount, of North Carolina, was the son of Jacob Blount who died in 1789, “leaving a large estate.”[[129]] Of the younger Blount’s property interests in 1787 it is impossible to speak in detail. Very early after the establishment of the new government he was connected with land speculations on a large scale.[[130]] In 1790 he was appointed by Washington to the post of governor of the Territory South of the Ohio and it seems that he did not consider the employment of public office for personal gain as incompatible with the discharge of his administrative duties. In July, 1797, President Adams sent a message to Congress asserting that there was a conspiracy in the southwest to wrest New Orleans and the Floridas from the King of Spain and transfer them to the English crown, and adding that Blount, who was then a Senator from Tennessee, was implicated in the plot. The United States Senate immediately took action, and after inquiry expelled him by a vote of twenty-five to one on the charge of “high misdemeanor inconsistent with public trust and duty.” When the sergeant-at-arms went to arrest him and take him to Philadelphia for trial he refused to go; and in his refusal he was warmly supported by his friends, of whom he had a legion, for, as his biographer remarks, “He was a man of commanding presence, courtly yet simple manners, and having a large salary and large private means, he entertained lavishly at his house.”[[131]]
It does not appear that Blount combined dealings in securities with speculations in land, for the loan office of North Carolina credits him with only a small holding, and the origin of that is not apparent.[[132]] It is true that the records of that state are incomplete, but Blount’s appointment to the western post at the beginning of Washington’s administration must have precluded extensive operations in securities.
David Brearley, of New Jersey, was the grandson of John Brearley, who “owned 1600 acres of land near Newton, N. J. ... a hundred acre plantation on the Delaware ... besides several thousand acres of land near Lawrenceville.”[[133]] A brief sketch of him states that he “received the honors of Princeton at the age of eighteen. On leaving that celebrated seminary, he commenced the study of law, and in a few years stood foremost at the bar of his native state.”[[134]] In 1779 he was appointed chief justice of New Jersey, a post which he held until 1789 when he resigned to accept a position as judge of the United States district court of that state.[[135]]
Brearley died in the summer of 1790 and consequently could not have established any fiscal relations with the new government. The incompleteness of the early loan office records for New Jersey, preserved in the Treasury Department, renders impossible a positive statement concerning Brearley’s holdings of securities at the time of the Convention. Only one small entry appears in his name for a few hundred dollars in a certificate purchased in 1779;[[136]] his relatives, however, appear frequently on the loan office books of his state; but their aggregate holdings were small. Joseph Brearley’s name occurs several times, for example in July, 1791, for $505.80 worth of 3 per cents;[[137]] David Brearley had a son and a brother bearing that name.[[138]] Elizabeth Brearley is also among the small holders, and the Chief Justice’s first and second wife and a daughter bore that name.[[139]] The name of Zerujah Brearley—a sister of the member of the Convention[[140]]—also appears.
Jacob Broom, of Delaware, was born at Wilmington, in 1752. His father “originally a blacksmith was regarded as one of ‘the gentry’ of the day, and was ‘a man of considerable substance, in real estate, silver, and gold,’ although not one of the very wealthiest of his class. ‘Class’ distinctions, arising from birth, education, and worldly possessions were not wholly ignored at that time by those who came to this land, to find a home, a sanctuary, and liberty. And so in the transactions of the period we find James Broom, Jacob’s father, referred to as James Broom, Gentleman; and Jacob Broom as Surveyor. And both of these men had lands and houses to rent and sell and gold and silver to loan on good security. And both of them sold and rented and loaned.”[[141]]
Broom was a man of diversified financial resources. He was interested in cotton mills and other enterprises. He was one of the original stockholders of the Insurance Company of North America organized at Philadelphia in 1792.[[142]] He was also one of the organizers and original stockholders of the Delaware Bank established under Bedford’s administration.[[143]] As mentioned above, the fragmentary records of Delaware in the Treasury Department throw little light on the public security holders of that state at the time of the formation of the Constitution; but the ledgers of the central Treasury show that Broom was a holder of a small amount of 3 per cents in 1797 and that this was a remnant of an older account.[[144]] Broom was also willing to serve the new government in an official capacity, for he applied to Madison in April, 1789, for an appointment as collector at Wilmington.[[145]]