ly drew down ruin, both in North and South-Carolina, on the royal interest."

The victory of the Cowpens was to the south, what that of Bennington had been to the north. General Morgan, whose former services had placed him high in public estimation, was now deservedly ranked among the most illustrious defenders of his country. Starke fought an inferior, Morgan a superior foe. The former contended with a German corps; the latter with the elite of the southern army, composed of British troops. Starke was nobly seconded by colonel Warner and his continentals; Morgan derived very great aid from Pickens and his militia, and was effectually supported by Howard and Washington. The weight of the battle fell on Howard; who sustained himself gloriously in trying circumstances, and seized with decision the critical moment to complete with the bayonet the advantage gained by his fire.

Greene was now appointed to the command of the south. After the battle of the Cowpens, a controversy ensued between that general and Morgan, as to the route which the latter should observe in his retreat. He insisted on passing the mountains; a salutary precaution, if applied to himself, but which was at the same time fatal to the operations of Greene. He informed the general that if that route was denied him, he would not be responsible for the consequences. "Neither shall you," replied the restorer of the south; "I will assume them all on myself." Morgan continued in his command until the two divisions of the army united at Guilford courthouse, when, neither persuasion, entreaty, nor excitement, could induce him to remain in the service any longer. He retired and devoted himself exclusively to the improvement of his farm and of his fortune.

He remained here, in the bosom of retirement, at Frederic, until he was summoned by president Washington to repress, by the force of the bayonet, the insurrection in the western counties of Pennsylvania. The executive of Virginia then detached Morgan to take the field, at the head of the militia of that state.

Upon the retreat of the main body, Morgan remained in the bosom of the insurgents, until the ensuing spring, when he received orders from the president to withdraw. For the first time in his life, he now appears to have entertained ideas of political distinction. Baffled in his first attempt, he succeeded in his second, and was elected a member of the house of representatives of the United States, for the district of Frederic. Having served out the constitutional term, he declined another election. His health being much impaired, and his constitution gradually sinking, he removed from Sa

ratoga to the scene of his juvenile years, Berrysville, (Battletown) and from thence to Winchester, where he closed his long, laborious and useful life.

Brigadier Morgan was stout and active, six feet in height, strong, not too much encumbered with flesh, and was exactly fitted for the toils and pomp of war. His mind was discriminating and solid, but not comprehensive and combining. His manners plain and decorous, neither insinuating nor repulsive. His conversation grave, sententious and considerate, unadorned and uncaptivating. He reflected deeply, spoke little, and executed with keen perseverance whatever he undertook. He was indulgent in his military command, preferring always the affection of his troops, to that dread and awe which surround the rigid disciplinarian.

No man ever lived who better loved this world, and no man more reluctantly quitted it: yet no man valued less his life than Morgan, when duty called him to meet his foe. Stopped neither by danger nor by difficulty, he rushed into the hottest of the battle, enamored with the glory which encircles victory.

General Morgan, like thousands of mortals, when nearly worn out by the hand of time, resorted for mental comfort to the solace of religion. He manifested great penitence for the follies of his early life; this was followed by joining the presbyterian church in full communion, with which he continued to his last day.

MORRIS, ROBERT, superintendant of the finances of the United States, during the revolutionary war, was born at Liverpool, England, on the 20th day of January, 1734. He came to this country at the age of thirteen, with his father, who was a respectable merchant. Immediately on his arrival, he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Gordon, of Maryland, who was well qualified to finish the mould of the youthful mind. His father died two years after his arrival in this country, and Robert was placed in the countinghouse of Charles Willing, Esq. at that time a distinguished merchant in Philadelphia. After he had served the usual term of years, he was established in his business by his patron.

About the year 1769, he renounced the unnatural solitude of batchelorship, and intermarried with Mary, the daughter of colonel White, and sister of the present amiable and learned bishop of that name. She was elegant, accomplished and rich, and, in every respect, qualified to carry the fecility of connubial life to its highest perfection.

The objects and employments of Mr. Morris's life, for some years after this change in his domestic character, were entire

ly of a commercial nature. On the appearance of a rupture with the British government, however, he was sent to congress, as a member for Pennsylvania, at the close of the year 1775; and, during that session, was employed in some financial arrangements of the greatest importance to the operations of the army and navy.

During the march of the British troops through the Jerseys, in 1776, the removal of congress to Baltimore is well known. For reasons of a commercial nature, Mr. Morris was left at Philadelphia, to remain as long as circumstances would permit. At this crisis, a letter from the commander in chief was received by the government, announcing, that while the enemy were accurately informed of all his movements, he was compelled, from the want of hard money, to remain in complete ignorance of their arrangements, and requiring a certain sum as absolutely necessary to the safety of the army. Information of this demand was sent to Mr. Morris, in the hope that, through his credit, the money might be obtained; the communication reached him at his office, in the way from which to his dwelling-house, immediately afterwards, he was met by a gentleman of the society of Friends, with whom he was in habits of business and acquaintance, and who accosted him with his customary phrase, "Well, Robert, what news?" "The news is," said Mr. Morris, "that I am in immediate want of a sum of hard money," mentioning the amount," and that you are the man who must procure it for me. Your security is to be my note of hand and my honour." After a short hesitation, the gentleman replied, "Robert, thou shalt have it;" and, by the punctual performance of his promise, enabled congress to comply with the requisition of the general.

The situation of general Greene, in South Carolina, was equally critical; his distresses rendering it scarcely practicable to keep his troops together, when a gentleman, Mr. Hall of that state, by stepping forward, and advancing the necessary sums, enabled him to stem the danger. On the return of general Greene to Philadelphia, after the war had terminated, he repaired to the office of finance to settle his accounts, when the secret was divulged, that Mr. Hall had acted under the direction of Mr. Morris. The general was hurt at such an apparent want of confidence in him; but on re-considering the subject, he admitted the wisdom of the caution which had been used; "I give you my opinion," said he, "that you never did a wiser thing: for, on other occasions, I was sufficiently distressed to have warranted my drawing on you, had I known that I might have done so, and I should have availed myself of the privilege." Mr. Morris rejoin

ed, that, even as matters had been conducted, the southern expedition had gone nearer than the operations in any other quarter, to the causing of an arrest of his commercial busi

ness.

By a resolution of congress, the office of financier was established in 1781, and Mr. Morris was unanimously elected as the superintendant. Previous to this election, he had formed a mercantile connection with I. and R. Hazlehurst, and his fear lest the duties of an official situation of such importance should interfere with his engagements in business, prevented his acceptance of office, until congress had specifically resolved, that his fulfilment of his commercial obligations was not incompatible with the performance of the public services required of him.

To trace him through all the acts of his financial administration, would be to make this biography a history of the last two years of the revolutionary war. When the exhausted credit of the government threatened the most alarming consequences; when the soldiers were utterly destitute of the necessary supplies of food and clothing; when the military chest had been drained of its last dollar; and even the intrepid confidence of Washington was shaken; upon his own credit, and from his own private resources, did Mr. Morris furnish those pecuniary means, but for which the physical energies of the country, exerted to their utmost, would have been scarcely competent to secure that prompt and glorious issue which ensued.

One of the first acts of his financial government was the proposition to congress of his plan for the establishment of the bank of North America, which was chartered forth with, and opened on the 7th of January, 1782. At this time, "the states were half a million of dollars in debt on that year's taxes, which had been raised by anticipation, on that system of credit which Mr. Morris had created:" and, but for this establishment, his plans of finance must have been entirely frustrated. On his retirement from office, it was affirmed, by two of the Massachusetts delegates, "that it cost congress at the rate of eighteen millions per annum, hard dollars, to carry on the war, till he was chosen financier, and then it cost them but above five millions!"

By the representations of a committee of congress, Mr. Morris was induced to abandon his intention of quitting office, in 1783, and he accordingly continued to superintend the department of finance, to the 30th September, 1784, when, in a letter to the commissioners of the treasury board, he resigned his office, and immediately issued an advertisement, pledging himself to the payment of all his outstanding debts, as they should arrive at maturity.

Fatigued with political cares, which, from the time of his election to a seat in the senate of the first congress, under the federal constitution, had so completely engrossed his mind, he was now anxious to retire to the relaxation of private life. That he was not avaricious after influence, may be sufficiently established from the fact of his refusal to accept the situation of secretary of the treasury, which general Washington wished him to fill.

That his long continuance in the public service, and his unremitted attention to the business of his country, had caused some confusion in his private affairs, he assigned as a reason for declining to comply with the solicitations of the city of Philadelphia, which had sent a delegation to request he would become its representative in congress. It is true, indeed, that he was subsequently induced to resume his situation as a delegate from Pennsylvania, and that he continued to fill this distinguished character, for several years after his retirement from the financial department; but it is equally true, that this compliance with the public wish was rather the effect of a powerful sense of political duty, than of inclination. His long inattention to his private affairs was productive of great embarrassments of mind and circumstances, the results of which cast a shade over those declining years which unembarrassed repose and honorable affluence ought to have soothed and cherished.

After a life of inestimable utility, Mr. Morris died in Philadelphia, on the 8th of May, 1806, in the 7 3d year of his age. That his arrangements for the raising of pecuniary supplies, and the support of the credit of his country, in her greatest need, essentially conduced to the glorious termination of the contest for liberty, is established in the evidence of the illustrious Washington himself: and it may as truly be said of him, as it was of the Roman Curtius, that he sacrificed himself for the safety of the commonwealth.

MOULTRIE, WILLIAM, a major-general in the revolutionary war, was devoted to the service of his country at an early period of his life. An Englishman by birth, he had, like many others of his countrymen, fled from the tyranny and oppression of the old world, and sought freedom and security in the new. At the commencement of the opposition to the measures of the British ministry, he stood high in the estimation of his fellow citizens of Carolina; and his name is found, in every convention which assembled at Charleston, for the pur. pose of devising ways and means of resisting those encroachments on the rights of the citizen which were first attempted at Boston, and which, with the noiseless tread of the savage, assailed the person and habitation of every American with