Great Americans and their noble deeds; containing the lives of almost fifty of our nation's heroes and heroines .. . lad of fifteen he wasput in a Philadelphiacounting house, and whenhe reached the age oftwenty he became a part-ner in the firm and com-menced to amass a for-tune. By the time the war-cloud with England be-gan to gather he was avery wealthy man, fam-ous for his honesty andability. No firm in Penn-sylvania—then one of themost important and weal-thy of all the Colonies—did a larger business thanthat of Willing & when the troublesthickened with England,he boldly sided wit
Great Americans and their noble deeds; containing the lives of almost fifty of our nation's heroes and heroines .. . lad of fifteen he wasput in a Philadelphiacounting house, and whenhe reached the age oftwenty he became a part-ner in the firm and com-menced to amass a for-tune. By the time the war-cloud with England be-gan to gather he was avery wealthy man, fam-ous for his honesty andability. No firm in Penn-sylvania—then one of themost important and weal-thy of all the Colonies—did a larger business thanthat of Willing & when the troublesthickened with England,he boldly sided with the patriots, and sacrificed a great deal of trade forthe sake of principle, for his house was then doing a large and profitablebusiness with the mother country. Ten years later he was a member of the Continental Congress, andalthough, like many others, he felt that the time had not yet come toadopt it, he signed the Declaration of Independence. For several yearsafter, he served on the Committee of Ways and Means, and by his carefulmanagement and judicious advice upon money matters was of the greatest. ROBKRT MORRIS. 116 ROBERT MORRIS. service to the cause. When our little Treasury grew low, or was empty,and Congress was very close to failure, lie gave all lie had himself, andborrowed large sums of money on his own credit, or used the honorablename of his firm to obtain funds which would never have been risked toCongress, whose cause seemed very likely to fail anyway. But Robert Morriss name was as good as the gold, and when thedestitute troops were on the verge of an outbreak among themselves, andWashington was almost in despair, the signature of the honored mer-chant raised fifteen millions of dollars from the French, and made it possi-ble for the Commander tocarryforward his last cam-paign and force the sur-render of Cornwallis atYorktown. After the war, he wastwice a member of thePennsylvania Legislatureand helped to frame theFederal Constitution. Heserved as a Senato
Size: 1429px × 1748px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidgreatamerica, bookyear1901
