Then General Washington, in confidence, revealed to Robert Morris his intention to transport his army to Virginia. To effect this operation the general required all the light vessels of the Delaware and Chesapeake, six hundred barrels of provisions for the march, a vast supply in Virginia, five hundred guineas in gold for secret service, and a month's pay in silver for the army. When this information reached the superintendent he was already at his wits' end, and really supposed that he had exhausted every resource.
"I am sorry to inform you," he wrote to the general, "that I find money matters in as bad a situation as possible."
And he mentions in his diary of the same date that, during a recent visit to camp, he had had with him one hundred and fifty guineas; but so many officers came to him with claims upon the government, that he thought it best to satisfy none, and brought the money home again. After unheard-of exertions, he contrived to get together provisions and vessels for the transportation. But to raise the hard money to comply with General Washington's urgent request for a month's pay for the troops, was beyond his power. At the last moment he laid the case before the French admiral, and borrowed for a few weeks from the fleet treasury twenty thousand silver dollars. Just in the nick of time, Colonel Laurens arrived from France with five hundred thousand dollars in cash, which enabled Morris to pay this debt, and to give General Washington far more efficient support than he had hoped.
To Robert Morris we owe one of the most pleasing accounts of the manner in which the surrender of Cornwallis was celebrated at Philadelphia. He records that on the third of November, 1781, on the invitation of the French Minister, he attended the Catholic Church, where Te Deum was sung in acknowledgment of the victory. Soon after, all the flags captured from the enemy were brought to Philadelphia by two of General Washington's aids, the city troop of Light Horse going out to meet them several miles. The flags were twenty-four in number, and each of them was carried into the city by one of the light horsemen. Morris concludes his account of this great day with affecting simplicity:
"The American and French flags preceded the captured trophies, which were conducted to the State House, where they were presented to Congress, who were sitting; and many of the members tell me, that instead of viewing the transaction as a mere matter of joyful ceremony, which they expected to do, they instantly felt themselves impressed with ideas of the most solemn nature. It brought to their minds the distresses our country has been exposed to, the calamities we have repeatedly suffered, the perilous situations which our affairs have almost always been in; and they could not but recollect the threats of Lord North that he would bring America to his feet on unconditional terms of submission."
When the war was over, the finances of the country did not improve. In conjunction with General Washington and Robert R. Livingston, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, he hit upon a plan to recall the State legislatures to a sense of their duty. He engaged Thomas Paine, at a salary of eight hundred dollars a year, to employ his pen in reconciling the people to the necessity of supporting the burden of taxation, in setting forth, in his eloquent manner, the bravery and good conduct of the soldiers whose pay was so terribly in arrears, and in convincing the people of the need of a stronger confederated government.
"It was also agreed," says Morris in his private diary, "that this allowance should not be known to any other persons except General Washington, Mr. Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, and myself, lest the publications might lose their force if it were known that the author is paid for them by government."
The expedient did not suffice. The States were backward in voting contributions, and, in 1784, Robert Morris resigned his office after discharging all his personal obligations incurred on account of the Government. He then resumed his private business. He was the first American citizen who ever sent to Canton an American vessel. This was in 1784, and he continued for many years to carry on an extensive commerce with India and China.
Unhappily, in his old age, for some cause or causes that have never been recorded, he lost his judgment as a business man. About 1791, he formed a land company, which bought from the Six Nations in the State of New York a tract of land equal in extent to several of the German Principalities of that time, and they owned some millions of acres in five other States. These lands, bought for a trifling sum, would have enriched every member of the company if they had not omitted from their calculations the important element of time. But a gentleman sixty years of age cannot wait twenty years for the development of a speculation. Confident in the soundness of his calculations and expecting to be speedily rich beyond the dreams of avarice, he erected in Philadelphia a palace for his own abode, of the most preposterous magnificence. The architect assured him that the building would cost sixty thousand dollars, but the mere cellars exhausted that sum. He imported from Europe the most costly furniture and fine statuary for this house.
But ardent speculators do not take into consideration the obvious and certain truth that no country enjoys a long period of buoyancy in money affairs. Hamilton's financial schemes led to such a sudden increase of values as to bring on a period of the wildest speculation; which was followed, as it always is, by reaction and collapse. Then came the threatened renewal of the war with Great Britain, followed by the long imbroglio with France, which put a stop to emigration for years. The Western lands did not sell. The bubble burst. Robert Morris was ruined. He was arrested in 1797 upon the suit of one Blair McClenachan, to whom he owed sixteen thousand dollars, and he was confined in the debtors' prison in Philadelphia, as before mentioned, for four years. Nor would he have ever been released but for the operation of a new bankrupt law. A paragraph from one of his letters, written when he had been in prison two weeks, few people can read without emotion. These are the words of a man who had been a capitalist and lived in luxury more than forty years: