Chapter II: Part 2

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore."

But, no; not on July second. The transaction was not yet complete. As soon as the vote was recorded, Mr. Jefferson's draft of the Declaration was taken from the table, and discussed paragraph by paragraph. Many alterations were made, thirty-four in all, most of them for the better. This discussion lasted the rest of that day, all the next, and most of the next, which was the fourth. Late in that afternoon the members present signed the document, and so the day we celebrate is the FOURTH OF JULY.

ANECDOTES OF JOHN ADAMS.

The first office ever held by President John Adams was that of Roadmaster to his native town. The young barrister, as he himself confesses, was very indignant at being elected to a post, with the duties of which he was unacquainted, and which he considered beneath his pretensions. His friend, Dr. Savil, explained to him that he had nominated him to the office to prevent his being elected constable.

"They make it a rule," said the Doctor, "to compel every man to serve either as constable or surveyor of the highways, or to pay a fine."

"They might as well," said Mr. Adams, "have chosen any boy in school, for I know nothing of the business; but since they have chosen me at a venture, I will accept it in the same manner, and find out my duty as I can."

Accordingly he went to plowing, ditching, and blowing rocks and built a new stone bridge over a stream. He took infinite pains with his bridge, and employed the best workmen; "but," says he, "the next spring brought down a flood that threw my bridge all into ruins." The blame, however, fell upon the workmen, and all the town, he tells us, agreed that he had executed his office with "impartiality, diligence, and spirit."

Mr. Adams was an extremely passionate man. One evening, just before the breaking out of the Revolution, while spending an evening in company with an English gentleman, the conversation turned upon the aggressions of the mother country. He became furious with anger. He said there was no justice left in Britain; that he wished for war, and that the whole Bourbon family was upon the back of Great Britain. He wished that anything might happen to them, and, as the clergy prayed for enemies in time of war, that "they might be brought to reason or to ruin." When he went home he was exceedingly repentant for having lost his temper, and wrote in his diary the following remarks:

"I cannot but reflect upon myself with severity for these rash, inexperienced, boyish, wrong, and awkward expressions. A man who has no better government of his tongue, no more command of his temper, is unfit for anything but children's play, and the company of boys. A character can never be supported, if it can be raised, without a good, a great share of self-government. Such flights of passion, such starts of imagination, though they may strike a few of the fiery and inconsiderate, yet they sink a man with the wise. They expose him to danger, as well as familiarity, contempt, and ridicule."

One of the most interesting events in the life of John Adams was his nomination of George Washington to the command of the Revolutionary armies. One day, in 1775, when Congress was full of anxiety concerning the army near Boston, and yet hesitated to adopt it as their own, fearing to take so decisive a step, John and Samuel Adams were walking up and down the State House yard in Philadelphia before the opening of the session, and were conversing upon the situation.

"What shall we do?" asked Samuel Adams, at length.

His kinsman said: "You know I have taken great pains to get our colleagues to agree upon _some_ plan that we might be unanimous upon; but you know they will pledge themselves to nothing; but I am determined to take a step which shall compel them, and all the other members of Congress, to declare themselves for or against _something_. I am determined this morning to make a direct motion that Congress shall adopt the army before Boston, and appoint Colonel Washington commander of it."

Samuel Adams looked grave at this proposition, but said nothing. When Congress had assembled, John Adams rose, and, in a short speech, represented the state of the colonies, the uncertainty in the minds of the people, the distresses of the army, the danger of its disbanding, the difficulty of collecting another if it should disband, and the probability that the British army would take advantage of our delays, march out of Boston, and spread desolation as far as they could go. He concluded by moving that Congress adopt the army at Cambridge and appoint a general.

"Although," he continued, "this is not the proper time to nominate a general, yet, as I have reason to believe that this is a point of the greatest difficulty, I have no hesitation to declare that I have but one gentleman in my mind for that important command, and that is a gentleman from Virginia, who is among us, and is very well known to all of us; a gentleman whose skill and experience as an officer, whose independent fortune, great talents, and excellent universal character will command the approbation of all America, and unite the cordial exertions of all the colonies better than any other person in the Union."

When Mr. Adams began this speech, Colonel Washington was present; but as soon as the orator pronounced the words "Gentleman from Virginia," he darted through the nearest door into the library. Mr. Samuel Adams seconded the motion which, as we all know, was, on a future day, unanimously carried. Mr. Adams relates that no one was so displeased with this appointment as John Hancock, the President of Congress.

"While I was speaking," says John Adams, "on the state of the colonies, he heard me with visible pleasure; but when I came to describe Washington for the commander, I never remarked a more sudden and striking change of countenance. Mortification and resentment were expressed as forcibly as his face could exhibit them."

Hancock, in fact, who was somewhat noted as a militia officer in Massachusetts, was vain enough to aspire to the command of the colonial forces.

They had a fashion, during the Revolutionary war, John Adams tells us, of turning pictures of George III. upside down in the houses of patriots. Adams copied into his diary some lines which were written "under one of these topsey-turvey kings":

Behold the man who had it in his power
To make a kingdom tremble and adore.
Intoxicate with folly, see his head
Placed where the meanest of his subjects tread.
Like Lucifer the giddy tyrant fell,
He lifts his heel to Heaven, but points his head to Hell.

It is evident, from more than one passage in the diary of John Adams, that he, too, in his heart, turned against Gen. Washington during the gloomy hours of the Revolution. At least he thought him unfit for the command. Just before the surrender of Burgoyne, Adams wrote in his diary the following passage:

"Gates seems to be acting the same timorous, defensive part which has involved us in so many disasters. Oh, Heaven grant us one great soul! One leading mind would extricate the best cause from that ruin which seems to await it for the want of it. We have as good a cause as ever was fought for: we have great resources; the people are well tempered; one active, masterly capacity would bring order out of this confusion, and save this country."

Thus it is always in war-time. When the prospect is gloomy, and when disasters threaten to succeed disasters, there is a general distrust of the general in command, though at that very time he may be exhibiting greater qualities and greater talents than ever before.

John Adams tells us the reason why Thomas Jefferson, out of a committee of five, was chosen to write the Declaration of Independence.

"Writings of his," says Mr. Adams, "were handed about, remarkable for the peculiar felicity of expression. Though a silent member in Congress, he was so frank, explicit and decisive upon committees and in conversation (not even Samuel Adams was more so) that he soon seized upon my heart; and upon this occasion I gave him my vote, and did all in my power to procure the votes of others. I think he had one more vote than any other, and that placed him at the head of the committee. I had the next highest number, and that placed me the second. The committee met, discussed the subject, and then appointed Mr. Jefferson and me to make the draft, because we were the two first upon the list."

When this sub-committee of two had their first meeting, Jefferson urged Mr. Adams to make the draft; whereupon the following conversation occurred between them:

"I will not," said Mr. Adams.

"You should do it," said Jefferson.

"Oh no," repeated Adams.

"Why will you not?" asked Jefferson. "You ought to do it."

"I will not," rejoined Adams.

"Why?" again asked Jefferson.

"Reasons enough," said Adams.

"What can be your reasons?" inquired Jefferson.

"Reason first--you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second--I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third--you can write ten times better than I can."

"Well," said Jefferson, "if you are decided, I will do as well as I can."

"Very well," said Mr. Adams; "when you have drawn it up, we will have a meeting."

Thus it was that Thomas Jefferson became the author of this celebrated document. Mr. Adams informs us that the original draft contained "a vehement philippic against negro slavery," which Congress ordered to be stricken out.

Mr. Adams relates an amusing story of his sleeping one night with Doctor Franklin, when they were on their way to hold their celebrated conference with Lord Howe on Staten Island. It was at Brunswick, in New Jersey, where the tavern was so crowded that two of the commissioners were put into one room, which was little larger than the bed, and which had no chimney and but one small window. The window was open when the two members went up to bed, which Mr. Adams seeing, and being afraid of the night air, shut it close.

"Oh," said Doctor Franklin, "don't shut the window, we shall be suffocated."

Mr. Adams answered that he was afraid of the evening air; to which Doctor Franklin replied:

"The air within this chamber will soon be, and indeed is now, worse than that without doors. Come, open the window and come to bed, and I will convince you. I believe you are not acquainted with my theory of colds."

Mr. Adams complied with both these requests. He tells us that when he was in bed, the Doctor began to harangue upon air, and cold, and respiration, and perspiration, with which he was so much amused that he soon fell asleep. It does not appear that any ill consequences followed from their breathing during the night the pure air of heaven.

THE WRITING AND SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

We happen to know what kind of weather it was in Philadelphia on Thursday, the Fourth of July, 1776. Mr. Jefferson was in the habit, all his life, of recording the temperature three times a day, and not unfrequently four times. He made four entries in his weather record on this birthday of the nation, as if anticipating that posterity would be curious to learn every particular of an occasion so interesting. At six that morning the mercury marked sixty-eight degrees. At nine, just before going round to the State House to attend the session of Congress, he recorded seventy-two and a half degrees. At one, while he was at home during the recess for dinner, he found the mercury at seventy-six. At nine in the evening, when the great deed had been done, the instrument indicated seventy-three and a half degrees.

From another entry of Mr. Jefferson's we learn that he paid for a new thermometer on that day. The following are the three entries in his expense-book for July fourth, 1776:

"Paid Sparhawk for a thermometer...................£3 15s.
Pd. for 7 pr. women's gloves....................... 27s.
Gave in charity.................................... 1s. 6d."

The price that he paid for his thermometer was equivalent to about twenty dollars in gold; and as Mr. Jefferson was not likely to spend his money for an elaborately decorated thermometer, we may infer that instruments of that nature were at least ten times as costly then as they are now. An excellent standard thermometer at the present time can be bought for five dollars, and the sum which Mr. Jefferson paid in 1776 was fully equal, in purchasing power, to fifty dollars in our present currency.

Mr. Jefferson lived then on the south side of Market street, not far from the corner of Seventh, in Philadelphia. As it was the only house then standing in that part of the street, he was unable in after years to designate the exact spot, though he was always under the impression that it was a corner house, either on the corner of Seventh street or very near it. The owner of the house, named Graaf, was a young man, the son of a German, and then newly married. Soon after coming to Philadelphia, Mr. Jefferson hired the whole of the second floor, ready furnished; and as the floor consisted of but two rooms--a parlor and a bed-room--we may conjecture that the house was of no great size. It was in that parlor that he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

The writing-desk upon which he wrote it exists in Boston, and is still possessed by the venerable friend and connection of Mr. Jefferson to whom he gave it. The note which the author of the Declaration wrote when he sent this writing-desk to the husband of one of his grand-daughters, has a particular interest for us at this present time. It was written in 1825, nearly fifty years after the Declaration was signed, about midway between that glorious period and the Centennial. It is as follows:

"Thomas Jefferson gives this writing-desk to Joseph Coolidge, Jr., as a memorial of affection. It was made from a drawing of his own by Benj. Randolph, cabinet-maker, at Philadelphia, with whom he first lodged on his arrival in that city, in May, 1776, and is the identical one on which he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Politics as well as religion has its superstitions. These, gaining strength with time, may one day give imaginary value to this relic for its associations with the birth of the Great charter of our Independence."

The note given above, although penned when Mr. Jefferson was eighty-two years of age, is written in a small, firm hand, and is quite as legible as the type which the reader is now perusing. There is no indication of old age in the writing; but I observe that he has spelt the most important word of the note French fashion, thus: "_Independance_." It certainly is remarkable that the author of the Declaration of Independence should have made a mistake in spelling the word. Nor can it be said that the erroneous letter was a slip of the pen, because the word occurs twice in the note, and both times the last syllable is spelt with an _a_. Mr. Jefferson was a very exact man, and yet, like most men of that day, he used capitals and omitted them with an apparent carelessness. In the above note, for example, the following words occur, "Great charter." Here he furnishes the adjective with a capital, and reduces his noun to the insignificance of a small letter.

The Declaration was written, I suppose, about the middle of June; and, while he was writing it, Philadelphia was all astir with warlike preparation. Seldom has a peaceful city, a city of Quakers and brotherly love, undergone such a transformation as Philadelphia did in a few months. As Mr. Jefferson sat at his little desk composing the Declaration, with the windows open at that warm season, he must have heard the troops drilling in Independence Square. Twice a day they were out drilling, to the number of two thousand men, and more. Perhaps he was looking out of the window on the eleventh of June, the very day after the appointment of the committee to draw up the Declaration, when the question of independence was voted upon by the whole body of Philadelphia volunteers, and they all voted for independence except twenty-nine men, four officers and twenty-five privates. One of these objectors made a scene upon the parade. He was so much opposed to the proceeding that he would not put the question to his company. This refusal, said the newspaper of that week, "Gave great umbrage to the men, one of whom replied to him in a genteel and spirited manner."

Besides this morning and afternoon drill in the public squares of the town, preparations were going forward to close the river against the ascent of a hostile fleet. Dr. Franklin, as I have related, had twenty or thirty row galleys in readiness, which were out on the river practising every day, watched by approving groups on the shore. Men were at work on the forts five miles below the city, where, also, Dr. Franklin was arranging his three rows of iron-barbed beams in the channel, which were called _chevaux de frise_. In a letter of that day, written to Captain Richard Varick, of New York, I find these French words spelt thus: "Shiver de freeses." Committees were going about Philadelphia during this spring buying lead from house to house at sixpence a pound, taking even the lead clock-weights and giving iron ones in exchange. So destitute was the army of powder and ball that Dr. Franklin seriously proposed arming some regiments with javelins and crossbows.

Mr. Jefferson was ready with his draft in time to present it to Congress on the first of July; but it was on the second, as I conjecture, that the great debate occurred upon it, when the timid men again put forward the argument that the country was not yet ripe for so decisive a measure. Mr. Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, a true patriot, but a most timorous and conservative gentleman, who had opposed Independence from the beginning, delivered a long and eloquent speech against the measure.

The author of the Declaration used to relate after dinner to his guests at Monticello, that the conclusion of the business was hastened by a ridiculous cause. Near the hall was a livery stable, from which swarms of flies came in at the open windows, and attacked the trouserless legs of members, who wore the silk stockings of the period. Lashing the flies with their handkerchiefs, they became at length unable to bear a longer delay, and the decisive vote was taken. On the Monday following, in the presence of a great crowd of people assembled in Independence Square, it was read by Captain Ezekiel Hopkins, the first commodore of the American Navy, then just home from a cruise, during which he had captured eighty cannon, a large quantity of ammunition, and stores, and two British vessels. He was selected to read the Declaration from the remarkable power of his voice. Seven weeks later, the Declaration was engrossed upon parchment, which was signed by the members, and which now hangs in the Patent Office at Washington.

ROBERT MORRIS,

THE FINANCIER OF THE REVOLUTION.

Robert Morris, who had charge of the financial affairs of the thirteen States during the Revolutionary War, and afterwards extended his business beyond that of any other person in the country, became bankrupt at last, spent four years of his old age in a debtor's prison, and owed his subsistance, during his last illness, to a small annuity rescued by his wife from the wreck of their fortunes.

Morris was English by birth, a native of Lancashire, where he lived until he was thirteen years of age. Emigrating to Philadelphia in 1747, he was placed in the counting-house of one of the leading merchants, with whose son he entered into partnership before he had completed his twenty-first year. This young firm, Willing, Morris & Co., embarked boldly and ably in commerce, until at the beginning of the Revolution it was the wealthiest commercial firm in the Colonies south of New England, and only surpassed in New England by two. When the contention arose between the Mother country and the colonies, his interest was to take the side of the Mother country. But he sided with the Colonies--to the great detriment of his private business. He served in Congress during nearly the whole of the War, and was almost constantly employed in a struggle with the financial difficulties of the situation.

I do not see how the revolution could have been maintained unless some such person could have been found to undertake the finances. When all other resources gave out he never refused to employ his private resources, as well as the immense, unquestioned credit of his firm, in aid of the cause. On several occasions he borrowed money for the use of the government, pledging all his estate for the repayment. In 1780, aided by the powerful pen of Thomas Paine, he established a bank through which three million rations were provided for the army. Fortunately, he was reputed to be much richer than he was, and thus he was several times enabled to furnish an amount of assistance far beyond the resources of any private individual then living in America.

His greatest achievement was in assisting General Washington in 1781 to transport his army to Virginia, and to maintain it there during the operations against Lord Cornwallis. In the spring of that year the revolution appeared to be all but exhausted. The treasury was not merely empty, but there was a floating debt upon it of two millions and a half, and the soldiers were clamorous for their pay. The Superintendent of Finance rose to the occasion. He issued his own notes to the amount of fourteen hundred thousand dollars by which the army was supplied with provisions and the campaign carried on to the middle of August.

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:

"I have tried in vain," he wrote, "to get a room exclusively to myself, and hope to be able to do so in a few days, but at a high rent which I am unable to bear. Then I may set up a bed in it, and have a chair or two and a table, and so be made comfortable. Now I am very uncomfortable, for I have no particular place allotted me. I feel like an intruder everywhere; sleeping in other people's beds, and sitting in other people's rooms. I am writing on other people's paper with other people's ink. The pen is my own. That and the clothes I wear are all that I can claim as mine here."

Released in 1802, he lived with his wife in a small house on the outskirts of the city, where he died in 1806 aged seventy-two.

It was often proposed in Congress to appropriate some of the money belonging to the industrious and frugal people of the United States to pay the debts of this rash speculator; and many writers since have censured the government for not doing something for his relief. The simple and sufficient answer is, that Congress has no constitutional power to apply the people's money to any such purpose. The government holds the public treasure _in trust_. It is a trustee, not a proprietor. It can spend public money only for purposes which the constitution specifies; and, among these specified purposes, we do _not_ find the relief of land speculators who build gorgeous palaces on credit.

JOHN JAY,

THE FIRST CHIEF-JUSTICE.

It was the tyranny of Louis XIV., King of France, that drove the ancestor of John Jay to America. Pierre Jay, two hundred years ago, was a rich merchant in the French city of Rochelle. He was a Protestant--one of those worthy Frenchmen whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes expelled from the country of which they were the most valuable inhabitants. In 1685, the Protestant Church which he attended at Rochelle was demolished, and dragoons were quartered in the houses of its members. Secretly getting his family and a portion of his property on board of a ship, he sent them to England, and contrived soon after in a ship of his own, laden with a valuable cargo, to escape himself.

It was not, however, from Pierre Jay that our American Jays were immediately descended, but from Augustus, one of his sons. It so happened that Augustus Jay, at the time of his father's flight, was absent from France on a mercantile mission to Africa, and he was astonished on returning to Rochelle to find himself without home or family. Nor was he free from the danger of arrest unless he changed his religion. Assisted by some friends, he took passage in a ship bound to Charleston in South Carolina which he reached in safety about the year 1686. Finding the climate of South Carolina injurious to his health, he removed to New York, near which there was a whole village of refugees from his native city, which they had named New Rochelle, a village which has since grown to a considerable town, with which all New Yorkers are acquainted. His first employment here was that of supercargo, which he continued to exercise for several years, and in which he attained a moderate prosperity.

In 1697 Augustus Jay married Ann Maria Bayard, the daughter of a distinguished Dutch family, who assisted him into business, and greatly promoted his fortunes. The only son of this marriage was Peter Jay, who, in his turn, married Mary Van Cortlandt, the child of another of the leading Dutch families of the city. This Peter Jay had ten children of whom John, the subject of this article, was the eighth, born in New York in 1745. In him were therefore united the vivacious blood of France with the solid qualities of the Dutch; and, accordingly, we find in him something of the liveliness of the French along with a great deal of Dutch prudence and caution.

After graduating from King's College, [Footnote: Now Columbia] John Jay became a law student in the city of New York, in the office of Benjamin Kissam--still a well-known New York name. An anecdote related of this period reveals the French side of his character. He asked his father to allow him to keep a saddle horse in the city, a request with which the prudent father hesitated to comply.

"Horses," said he, "are not very good companions for a young man; and John, why do you want a horse?"

"That I may have the means, sir," adroitly replied the son, "of visiting you frequently."

The father was vanquished, gave him a horse, and was rewarded by receiving a visit from his son at his country house in Rye, twenty-five miles from the city, every other week.

Another anecdote betrays the Frenchman. Soon after his admission to the bar, being opposed in a suit to Mr. Kissam, his preceptor, he somewhat puzzled and embarrassed that gentleman in the course of his argument. Alluding to this, Mr. Kissam pleasantly said:

"I see, your honor, that I have brought up a bird to pick out my own eyes."

"Oh, no," instantly replied Mr. Jay; "not to pick out, but to open your eyes."

Inheriting a large estate, and being allied either by marriage or by blood with most of the powerful families of the province, and being himself a man of good talents and most respectable character, he made rapid advance in his profession, and gained a high place in the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens; so that when the first Congress met at Philadelphia, in 1774, John Jay was one of those who represented in it the colony of New York. He was then twenty-nine years of age, and was, perhaps, the youngest member of the body, every individual of which he outlived.

Some of the best written papers of that session were of his composition. It was he who wrote that memorable address to the people of Great Britain, in which the wrongs of the colonists were expressed with so much eloquence, conciseness, and power. He left his lodgings in Philadelphia, it is said, and shut himself up in a room in a tavern to secure himself from interruption, and there penned the address which was the foundation of his political fortunes.

At an early period of the Revolution he was appointed Minister to Spain, where he struggled with more persistance than success to induce a timid and dilatory government to render some substantial aid to his country. He was afterwards one of the commissioners who negotiated the treaty with Great Britain, in which the independence of the United States was acknowledged, and its boundaries settled. Soon after his return home Congress appointed him Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which was the most important office in their gift, and in which he displayed great ability in the dispatch of business.

Like all the great men of that day--like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Patrick Henry, John Randolph, and all others of similar grade--John Jay was an ardent abolitionist. He brought home with him from abroad one negro slave, to whom he gave his freedom when he had served long enough to repay him the expense incurred in bringing him to America.

Mr. Jay, upon the division of the country into Republicans and Federalists, became a decided Federalist, and took a leading part in the direction of that great party. President Washington appointed him Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court, an office which he soon resigned. The most noted of all his public services was the negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain in 1794. The terms of this treaty were revolting in the extreme, both to the pride of Americans and to their sense of justice; and Mr. Jay was overwhelmed with the bitterest reproaches from the party opposed to his own. No man, however, has ever been able to show that better terms were attainable; nor can any candid person now hold the opinion that the United States should have preferred war to the acceptance of those terms. If a very skillful negotiator could have done somewhat better for his country, Mr. Jay did the best he could, and, probably, as well as any man could have done.

Never was a public man more outrageously abused. On one occasion, a mob paraded the streets of Philadelphia, carrying an image of Mr. Jay holding a pair of scales. One of the scales was labeled, "American Liberty and Independence," and the other, "British Gold," the latter weighing down the former as low as it could go, while from the mouth of the effigy issued the words:

"Come up to my price and I will sell you my country."

The effigy was finally burnt in one of the public squares.

Notwithstanding this storm of abuse, Mr. Jay was elected Governor of New York, from which office he retired to his pleasant seat at Bedford, where he spent the remainder of his life. He lived to the year 1829, when he died, aged eighty-four years, leaving children and grandchildren who have sustained his high character, illustrated his memory, and continued his work.

FISHER AMES,

THE ORATOR OF THE FOURTH CONGRESS.

And who was Fisher Ames, that his "Speeches" should be gathered and re-published sixty-three years after his death? He was a personage in his time. Let us look upon him in the day of his greatest glory.

It was April 28, 1796, at Philadelphia, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, of which Fisher Ames was a member. The House and country were highly excited respecting the terms of the treaty which John Jay had negotiated with the British government. To a large number of the people this treaty was inexpressibly odious; as, indeed, _any_ treaty would have been with a power so abhorred by them as England then was. Some of the conditions of the treaty, we cannot deny, were hard, unwise, unjust; but, in all probability, it was the best that could then have been obtained, and Mr. Jay had only the alternative of accepting the conditions, or plunging his country into war. One great point, at least, the British government had yielded. After the Revolutionary war, the English had retained several western posts, to the great annoyance of settlers, and the indignation of the whole country. These posts were now to be surrendered, provided the treaty was accepted and its conditions fulfilled.

President Washington and the Senate had ratified the treaty--with reluctance, it is true; but still they had ratified it; and nothing remained but for the House of Representatives to appropriate the money requisite for carrying the treaty into effect. But here was the difficulty. The treaty was so unpopular that members of Congress shrunk from even seeming to approve it. There had been riotous meetings in all the large cities to denounce it. In New York, Alexander Hamilton, while attempting to address a meeting in support of it, was pelted with stones, and the people then marched to the residence of Mr. Jay, and burned a copy of the treaty before his door.

"Blush," said a Democratic editor, "to think that America should degrade herself so much as to enter into any kind of treaty with a power now tottering on the brink of ruin, whose principles are directly contrary to the spirit of Republicanism!"

A Virginia newspaper advised that, if the treaty negotiated by "that arch-traitor, John Jay, with the British tyrant, should be ratified," Virginia should secede from the Union. Indeed, the public mind has seldom been excited to such a degree upon any public topic.

It was in these circumstances that Fisher Ames rose to address the House of Representatives, in favor of the treaty. There was supposed to be a majority of ten against it in the House, and the debate had been for some days in progress. Madison and all the leading Democrats had spoken strongly against it; while Fisher Ames, the greatest orator on the side of the Administration, was suffering from the pulmonary disease from which he afterward died, and had been ordered by his physician not to speak a word in the House. Inaction at such a time became insupportable to him, and he chafed under it day after day.

"I am like an old gun," he wrote, in one of his letters, "that is spiked, or the trunnions knocked off, and yet am carted off, not for the worth of the old iron, but to balk the enemy of a trophy. My political life is ended, and I am the survivor of myself; or, rather, a troubled ghost of a politician that am condemned to haunt the field where he fell."

But as the debate went on, he could no longer endure to remain silent. He determined to speak, if he never spoke again; and the announcement of his intention filled the Representatives' Chamber with a brilliant assembly of ladies and gentlemen. Vice-President Adams came to the chamber to hear him, among other persons of note. The orator rose from his seat pale, feeble, scarcely able to stand, or to make himself heard; but as he proceeded he gathered strength, and was able to speak for nearly two hours in a strain of eloquence, the tradition of which fills a great place in the memoirs of the time. The report of it which we possess is imperfect, and the reading of it is somewhat disappointing; but here and there there is a passage in the report which gives us some notion of the orator's power. One of his points was, that the faith of the country had been pledged by the ratification of the treaty, and that consequently a refusal of the House to appropriate the money would be a breach of faith. This led him to expatiate upon the necessity of national honor.

"In Algiers," said he, "a truce may be bought for money; but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise or too just to disown and annul its obligation.... If there could be a resurrection from the foot of the gallows; if the victims of justice could live again, collect together and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make justice--that justice under which they fell--the fundamental law of their State."

This speech was afterward called Fisher Ames' Tomahawk Speech, because he endeavored to show that, if the posts were not surrendered and not garrisoned by American troops, the Indians could not be kept in check, and would fill the frontier with massacre and fire.

"On this theme," the orator exclaimed, "my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log-house beyond the mountains. I would say to the inhabitants, Wake from your false security! Your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed; the wounds yet unhealed are to be torn open again; in the daytime your path through the woods will be ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father--the blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-fields. You are a mother--the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle."

He continued in this strain for some time, occasionally blazing into a simile that delighted every hearer with its brilliancy, while flashing a vivid light upon the subject; and I only wish the space at my command permitted further extracts. The conclusion of the speech recalled attention to the orator's feeble condition of health, which the vigor of his speech might have made his hearers forget.

"I have, perhaps," said he, "as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should arise, as it will, with the public disorders, to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive the government and constitution of my country."

With these words the orator resumed his seat. The great assembly seemed spell-bound, and some seconds elapsed before the buzz of conversation was heard. John Adams turned to a friend, Judge Iredell, who happened to sit next to him, as if looking for sympathy in his own intense admiration.

"My God!" exclaimed the Judge, "how great he is--how great he has been!"

"Noble!" said the Vice-President.

"Bless my stars!" resumed Judge Iredell, "I never heard anything so great since I was born."

"Divine!" exclaimed Adams.

And thus they went on with their interjections, while tears glistened in their eyes. Mr. Adams records that tears enough were shed on the occasion.

"Not a dry eye in the house," he says, "except some of the jackasses who had occasioned the oratory.... The ladies wished his soul had a better body."

After many days' further debate, the House voted the money by a considerable majority; a large number of Democrats voting with the administration. Fisher Ames was not so near his death as he supposed, for he lived twelve years after the delivery of this speech, so slow was the progress of his disease. He outlived Washington and Hamilton, and delivered eloquent addresses in commemoration of both.

The great misfortune of his life was that very ill-health to which he alluded in his speech. This tinged his mind with gloom, and caused him to anticipate the future of his country with morbid apprehension. When Jefferson was elected President in 1800, he thought the ruin of his country was sure, and spoke of the "chains" which Jefferson had forged for the people. When Hamilton died, in 1804, he declared that his "soul stiffened with despair," and he compared the fallen statesman to "Hercules treacherously slain in the midst of his unfinished labors, leaving the world over-run with monsters." He was one of the most honest and patriotic of men; but he had little faith in the truths upon which the Constitution of his country was founded.

He died at his birthplace, Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 4th of July, 1808, in the fifty-first year of his age. His father had been the physician of that place for many years--a man of great skill in his profession, and gifted with a vigorous mind. Doctor Ames died when his son was only six years of age, and it cost the boy a severe and long struggle to work his way through college to the profession of the law, and to public life. If he had had a body equal to his mind, he would have been one of the greatest men New England ever produced.

THE PINCKNEYS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

In the political writings of Washington's day, we frequently meet with the name of Pinckney; and, as there were several persons of that name in public life, readers of history are often at a loss to distinguish between them. This confusion is the more troublesome, because they were all of the same family and State, and their career also had a strong family likeness.

The founder of this family in America was Thomas Pinckney, who emigrated to South Carolina in the year 1692. He possessed a large fortune, and built in Charleston a stately mansion, which is still standing, unless it was demolished during the late war. A curious anecdote is related of this original Pinckney, which is about all that is now known of him. Standing at the window of his house one day, with his wife at his side, he noticed a stream of passengers walking up the street, who had just landed from a vessel that day arrived from the West Indies. As they walked along the street, he noticed particularly a handsome man who was very gayly dressed; and turning to his wife he said:

"That handsome West Indian will marry some poor fellow's widow, break her heart, and ruin her children."

Strange to relate, the widow whom this handsome West Indian married was no other than Mrs. Pinckney herself; for Thomas Pinckney soon after died, and his widow married the West Indian. He did not break her heart, since she lived to marry a third husband, but he was an extravagant fellow, and wasted part of her children's inheritance. Thomas Pinckney, then, is to be distinguished from others of the name as the _founder_ of the family in America.

The eldest son of Thomas, that grew to man's estate, was Charles Pinckney, who embraced the legal profession, and rose to be Chief Justice of the Province of South Carolina, and hence he is usually spoken of and distinguished from the rest of the family as "Chief Justice Pinckney." He was educated in England, and was married there. Returning to Charleston, he acquired a large fortune by the practice of his profession. A strange anecdote is related of his wife also. After he had been married many years without having children, there came to Charleston from England, on a visit of pleasure a young lady named Eliza Lucas, daughter of an officer in the English army. She was an exceedingly lovely and brilliant girl, and made a great stir in the province. She was particularly admired by the wife of the Chief Justice, who said one day in jest:

"Rather than have Miss Lucas return home, I will myself step out of the way, and let her take my place."

Within a few months after uttering these words she died, and soon after her death the Chief Justice actually married Miss Lucas. This lady was one of the greatest benefactors South Carolina ever had; for, besides being an example of all the virtues and graces which adorn the female character, it was she who introduced into the province the cultivation of rice. In addition to the other services which she rendered her adopted home, she gave birth to the two brothers Pinckney, who are of most note in the general history of the country. The elder of these was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, born in 1746, and the younger was Thomas, born in 1750.

When these two boys were old enough to begin their education, their father, the Chief Justice, like a good father as he was, went with them to England, accompanied by all his family, and there resided for many years, while they were at school; for at that day there were no means of education in South Carolina. The boys were placed at Westminster school in London, and completed their studies at the University of Oxford. After leaving the University they began the study of the law in London, and were pursuing their studies there, or just beginning practice, when the troubles preceding the Revolutionary War hastened their return to their native land. They had been absent from their country twenty-one years, and were much gratified on reaching Charleston to witness its prosperity and unexpected growth. The elder of these brothers could remember when the first planter's wagon was driven into Charleston. This was about the year 1753. Pointing to this wagon one day, his father said to him:

"Charles, by the time you are a man, I don't doubt there will be at least twenty wagons coming to town."

Often in after life, when he would meet a long string of wagons in the country loaded with cotton or rice, he would relate this reminiscence of his childhood, and add:

"How happy my father would have been in the growth and prosperity of Carolina!"

These young men from the beginning of the Stamp Act agitation, when they were just coming of age, sympathized warmly with their oppressed countrymen on the other side of the ocean, and soon after their return home they entered the Continental army and served gallantly throughout the war. In 1780 we find Charles Cotesworth Pinckney writing to his wife in the following noble strain: