The Const.i.tutional Convention of New York led a most checkered life; for the victorious British chevied it up and down the State, hunting 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 attendance alternately dwindled and swelled in a wonderful manner, now resolving 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 Const.i.tution, 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.
He was also chairman of a committee which was appointed to look after the Tories, and prevent 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 system of confiscation of Tory estates was begun. So greatly were the Tories feared and hated, and so determined were the attempts 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 interfere 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 danger. We could wish the Congress would pa.s.s some resolve to quiet their fears, and we are confident that it would 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, including his elder brother. The family house, where his mother resided, was within the British lines; and not only did he feel the disapproval 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 uncertain, to avow, with a sternness unusual to 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 mountain 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 const.i.tution was not ready to report until March, 1777. Then the convention devoted itself solely to the consideration 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 Const.i.tution 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 different 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 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 advantage, 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 governor 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 governor, the legislature retaining the power of confirmation or rejection; but the convention, under the lead of Jay, rejected this proposition, and after some discussion adopted in its place the c.u.mbrous and foolish plan of a "council of appointment," to consist of the governor and several senators. As might have been expected, this artificial body worked nothing but harm, and became simply a peculiarly odious political machine.
Again, Morris advocated giving the governor a qualified veto over the acts pa.s.sed 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 appointment, in the shape of the equally complicated and anomalous council of revision, consisting of the governor, chancellor, and judges of the supreme court, by whom all the acts of the legislature 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 hara.s.sed her Catholic subjects in a hundred different ways, while in France Protestants were treated far worse, and, in fact, could scarcely be regarded as having any legal standing whatever. On no other one point do the statesmen of the 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 advanced by what they did in the matter.
But in the New York convention toleration was not obtained without a fight. There always 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 discriminated against the adherents of the Church of Rome, denying them the rights of citizenship until they should solemnly swear before the supreme court, first, "that they verily believe 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 d.a.m.nable 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 const.i.tution; as to the 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 sentence 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 toleration granted should not be held to "justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of this State." This proviso of Morris remains in the Const.i.tution to this day; and thus, while absolute religious liberty is guaranteed, the State reserves to itself full right of protection, 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 were a little too much in advance of the age, and failed. They made every effort to have a clause introduced into the const.i.tution recommending to the future legislature of New York to abolish slavery as soon as it could be done consistently with 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." Although 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 Const.i.tution was finally adopted by the convention almost unanimously, and went into effect forthwith, as there was no ratification by the people at large.
As soon as it was adopted a committee, which included Morris, Jay, and Livingston, was appointed to start and organize the new government. The courts of justice were speedily put in running order, and thus one of the most crying 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 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 constant 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, a.s.sisted 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 condition to the president of the council of safety. Burgoyne"s army had come steadily on. He first destroyed Arnold"s flotilla on Lake Champlain. Then he captured the forts along the Lakes, and utterly wrecked the division of the American army that had been told off to defend them, under the very unfortunate General St.
Clair. He was now advancing through the great reaches of wooded wilderness towards the head of the Hudson. Schuyler, a general of fair capacity, was doing what he could to hold the enemy back; but his one efficient supporter was the 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, the other half militia. The 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 Engenders won the battle of Bennington, actually marched off his whole force the day before the battle of Stillwater, alleging the expiration of the 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 the Mohawk valley the dismay was extreme, and the militia could not be got out at all. Jay was so angered by the abject terror in this quarter that he advised leaving the inhabitants to shift for themselves; sound advice, too, for when the pinch came and they were absolutely forced to take arms, they did very fairly at Oriskany.
It was even feared that the settlers of the region which afterwards became Vermont would go over to the enemy; still, time and s.p.a.ce 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 hara.s.s the British in every way, without risking a stand-up fight, while laying waste the country through which they were to pa.s.s 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 Ma.s.sachusetts Bay went off this morning, in spite of the opposition--we should have said, entreaties--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; and the remainder, officers excepted, will soon discharge themselves."
The council of safety grew so nervous over the outlook that their letters became fairly querulous; 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 opening paragraph being: "We have received yours of the 19th, which has afforded us great pleasure, 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.
Meanwhile the repeated disasters in the north had occasioned much clamor against Schuyler, who, if not a brilliant general, had still done what he could in very trying circ.u.mstances, 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 intriguing against him, under the lead of Roger Sherman and others, and finally brought about his replacement by Gates, a much inferior man, with no capacity whatever for command. Morris and Jay both took up Schuyler"s cause very warmly, seeing clearly, 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 disappointed in his hopes of a Tory uprising in his 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 harvests, 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 hindered his men than otherwise; and the latter were turbulent and p.r.o.ne to disobey orders. But they were now in fine feather for fighting, 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 commanders, 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, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 success.
Schuyler was a man of high character and public spirit, and he behaved really n.o.bly in the midst of his disappointment; his conduct throughout affording a very striking contrast to that of McClellan, under somewhat similar circ.u.mstances 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 zealously as before, and he made his words good; but Gates was jealous of the better man whose downfall he had been the instrument of accomplishing, and declined to profit by his help.
In a later letter to Schuyler, written September 18, 1777, Morris praised the latter very warmly for the way he had behaved, and commented 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 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 characteristic 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 a.s.sembly 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 CONGRESS.
At the end of 1777, while still but twenty-five years old, Morris was elected to the Continental 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 Washington"s headquarters at Valley Forge and examine 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, shivered 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 of half-pay in the future. Some of the delegates, headed by Samuel Adams, were actually 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 determined under no circ.u.mstances whatever to acknowledge final defeat.
To Jay, with whom he was always intimate, Morris wrote in strong terms from Valley Forge, painting things as they were, but without 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 last sentence refers to what he saw of Schuyler"s forces, when affairs in New York State were at the blackest, just before the tide began to turn against Burgoyne. He then went on to beseech Jay to exert himself to the utmost 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 Congress, of which he had just become a member, he did not esteem very highly, 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 d.a.m.nable 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 approval of Congress for Washington"s various plans.
In urging one of the most important of these he encountered very determined opposition. Washington was particularly desirous of securing a permanent provision for the officers by the establishment of a system of half-pay, stating 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 very favorable light as compared with their descendants at the time of the great rebellion; and the Continental Congress makes a still worse showing.
When Morris tried to push through a measure providing for half-pay for life he was fought, tooth and nail, by many of his colleagues, including, to their lasting discredit be it said, every delegate from New England. The folly of these ultra-democratic delegates almost pa.s.ses belief. They seemed incapable of learning how the fight for liberty should be made. Their leaders, like Samuel Adams and John Hanc.o.c.k, did admirable service in exciting the Americans to make the struggle; but once it was begun, their function ended, and from thence onward they hampered almost as much as they helped the patriot cause. New England, too, had pa.s.sed through the period when its patriotic fervor 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 amendments 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 soldier 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 frauds had become a most serious evil; Jay, in one of his letters to Morris, had already urgently requested him to turn his attention especially 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 years 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 themselves; they had seen power so abused that they feared its very use; they were anxious to a.s.sert their independence of all mankind, even of each other. Stubborn, honest, and fearless, they were taught with difficulty, 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 enforced only by might, that union was to the full as important as liberty, 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 ma.s.ses 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 European powers, the faults of our leaders sink out of sight when matched against the ferocious frivolity of the French n.o.blesse, or the ign.o.ble, sordid, b.l.o.o.d.y baseness of those swinish German 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 French Revolution swept their carca.s.ses from off the world they c.u.mbered.
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 Virginian"s warmest supporters in Congress, and took the lead in championing his cause at every turn. He was the leader in putting down intrigues like that of the French-Irish adventurer Conway, his ready tongue and knowledge 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 freely, 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 as soon as they brightened a little. Morris replied with one of his bright caustic letters, sparing his a.s.sociates very little, their pompous tediousness and hesitation being peculiarly galling to a man so far-seeing and so prompt to make up his 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 members who compose our multifarious body been only wise _enough_, our business would long since have been completed. But our superior abilities, or the desire of appearing to possess them, lead us to such exquisite tediousness of debate that the most precious moments pa.s.s unheeded away.... As to what you mention of the extraordinary demeanor of some 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 _safe_ and certainly you are not to learn that, however ignorant of that happy art in your own person, the bulk of us bipeds know well how to balance solid pudding against empty praise. There are other things, my dear sir, beside virtue, which are their own _reward_."
Washington chose Morris as his confidential friend and agent to bring privately before Congress 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 employment 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 commanded by Americans. Washington had the greatest dislike 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 following 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 principles from those which govern the rest." To Lafayette, indeed, America owes as much as to any of her own children, for his devotion to us was as disinterested and sincere as it was effective; and it is a pleasant thing to remember that we, in our turn, not only repaid him 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.
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 running order, and in extricating it from the frightful 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 chairmanship 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 had been sent over, in the spring 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 taxation, about which the quarrel had originally arisen, and the second authorizing the commissioners 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 because of the fear of an American alliance with France, which was then, indeed, almost concluded.
Three years before, these bills would have achieved their end; but now they came by just that much time too late. The embittered warfare 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.