The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2 - Online Library of ...

Online Library of Liberty: The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2
may be given, taken, or parcelled out, but right is entire, and must be wholly kept or
lost. To its full support national honor is pledged. Under these views of the subject, it
is not easy to perceive how men of clear head and sound heart can support the bill. . . .
In the case before us the bill, giving up by implication the claim of right, may, when
combined with the manifold disgraces of our jack-pudding warfare, be considered as a
project to silence by quibbles the fire of seventy-fours. The American people cannot
fail to suspect a design to plunge them, by engaging their passions, both in follies and
crimes for the notable purpose of gathering soap-bubbles. The day of delusion is past.
They who were pre-eminent in the Revolutionary War gave practical lessons of
disinterested patriotism. Disdaining professions, they prepared the way for gentlemen
professors.”
Morris had no faith in the new loan proposed by the Government. “I would not,” he
wrote to Robert Oliver, February 13th, “take it at twenty per cent. discount and ten per
cent. interest, for I am of opinion that it will never be paid. If there be a severance of
the Union, we in the North won’t pay it. The South can’t pay, and wouldn’t pay if
they could. Smuggling has already got far ahead, and, with the increase of duties,
must advance, so that we never shall collect as much in that way as was once
collected. Duties on exports are, you know, prohibited. The question, therefore, is
short. Will they agree to internal taxes for payment of the public debt who will not
even propose such taxes to carry on the war. In my opinion they will not, and they
have a majority in the Senate, which majority will be increased by new States
whenever the dominant party foresee the want of them. Professions will not be
wanting now, but those who trust to professions from that quarter deserve to suffer.
Of such men it may be said, ‘If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will
they believe, though one should rise from the dead’—Madison’s proclamation.
“Bonaparte is, I have no doubt, ruined. Long before the first report of the Russian
success I had fixed, in my little circle, the 20th of October for his departure from
Moscow. I believe the varlet was off a day sooner than I supposed he could have
taken the needful arrangements for so long a march. I believed and said he would
endeavor to gain Cracow and cross the mountains so as to winter at Prague, the capital
of Bohemia. If he save a remnant of fifty to eighty thousand, and reach Warsaw, he is
not the less ruined. God grant that those who trusted in him and his patron-saint
Beelzebub may with him meet their deserts.”
On the 4th of March Mr. Madison entered upon his second term of office. Of his
inaugural address Morris wrote to Mr. Parish, on March 6th: “When I read Mr.
Madison’s message I supposed him to be out of his senses, and have since been told
that he never goes sober to bed. Whether intoxicated by opium or wine was not said,
but I learned last winter that pains in his teeth had driven him to use the former too
freely. The administration can do nothing, if the British ministers be not crazy too, for
these cannot but know how impossible it is for us to prosecute the war. Of course,
their reply to our overtures is, ‘We will consider.’”
Again to Mr. Parish he wrote on the 26th: “I was asked, ‘Do you believe that Mr.
Madison has accepted the proffered mediation of Russia?’ I replied, ‘If it was offered,
it was accepted.’ The question was then put, ‘How does this accord with your idea
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