with a full, well-formed vigorous frame, and clear, smooth, florid complexion. His hair, sandy in youth, was worn when gray, loose and unpowdered. His eyes were bright blue, of medium size, but uncommonly brilliant. There are four portraits of him. The earliest by Charles Wilson Peale, now in Independence Hall, was never like the original, and Mrs. Morris could not bear it in her sight, or to hear it mentioned as a likeness of Mr. Morris. The second, a miniature by Trumbull, is now in Virginia, in possession of his granddaughter, Mrs. Ambler. The third was painted by Robert Edge Pine, the English artist, for whom Mr. Morris built a house in Eighth Street below Market, and is the most familiar one, as from it all the engraved portraits have been taken. It is believed to have been a very fair likeness, and is now in possession of the family of his son Henry Morris. The latest portrait was painted by the great genius Gilbert Stuart, and is a masterpiece of this great artist's work. As you look upon the canvas you forget it is inanimate, and feel as if you were in the very presence of the man, while that intuitive something tells you it is like as life. The original is in New York, in possession of the family of his son Thomas Morris, and a duplicate is in possession of his granddaughter Miss Nixon, of Philadelphia. Mr. Morris possessed naturally great intellectual qualities. His mind was acute, penetrating, and logical. His conversation was cheerful, affable, and engaging. His public speaking was fluent, forcible, and impressive, and he was listened to always with the profound attention and respect his great experience and practical good sense so justly merited. In debate, his argumentative eloquence is described as being of a high order, expressing himself in a terse and correct manner. His extensive public and private correspondence was conducted in a graceful, clear style. His manners were gracious and simple, and free from the formality which generally prevailed, while at heart he was an aristocrat, and looked upon as the leader of the aristocratic party in the republic. He was noted for his great cheerfulness and urbanity of disposition, which even under the most distressing circumstances never for sook him, and from the prison house in adversity as from the counting-house in prosperity, he sent familiar notes filled with amusing and sprightly expressions; but his sarcasm and invective were as sharp and severe as his benevolence and kindness were unbounded. In all his misfortunes he seldom uttered a complaint, placing them where they justly belonged-to his ambition for accumulating wealth. None of the many worthies of the Revolution stood higher in the esteem or approached nearer to the heart of Washington than Robert Morris. The pater patria's adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, says, "If I am asked- And did not Washington unbend and admit to familiarity and social friendship some one person to whom age and long and interesting associations gave peculiar privilege, the privilege of the heart?'-I answer that favored individual was Robert Morris." In the fall of 1798, when Washington repaired to Philadelphia to superintend the organization of his last army, called together on the apprehension of war with France, "he paid his first visit to the prison house of Robert Morris. The old man wrung the hand of the Chief in silence, while his tearful eye gave the welcome to such a home." Well may we repeat Whittier's words :— "What has the gray haired prisoner done? Has murder stained his hands with gore? God made the old man poor." C. H. H. FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE. BY SAMUEL L. CLEMENS ("MARK TWAIN"). (Centennial Collection.) This man's life-work was so inconspicuous, that his name would now be wholly forgotten, but for one thing-he signed the Declaration of Independence. Yet his life was a most useful and worthy one. It was a good and profitable voyage, though it left no phosphorescent splendors in its wake. A sketch of Francis Lightfoot Lee can be useful for but one purpose, as showing what sort of material was used in the construction of congressmen in his day; since to sketch him is to sketch the average congressman of his time. He came of an old and excellent family; a family which had borne an unsullied name, and held honorable place on both sides of the water; a family with a reputation to preserve and traditions to perpetuate; a family which could not afford to soil itself with political trickery, or do base things for party or for hire; a family which was able to shed as much honor upon official station as it received from it. He dealt in no shams; he had no ostentations of dress or equipage; for he was, as one may say, inured to wealth. He had always been used to it. His own ample means were inherited. He was educated. He was more than that-he was finely cultivated. He loved books; he had a good library, and no place had so great a charm for him as that. The old Virginian mansion which was his home was also the home of that old-time Virginian hospitality which hoary men still hold in mellow memory. Over their port and walnuts he and his friends of the gentry discussed a literature which is dead and forgotten now, and political matters which were drowsy with the absence of corruption and "investigations." Sundays he and they drove to church in their lumbering coaches, with a due degree of grave and seemly pomp. Weekdays they inspected their domains, ordered their affairs, attended to the needs of their dependents, consulted with their overseers and tenants, busied themselves with active benevolences. They were justices of the peace, and performed their unpaid duties with arduous and honest diligence, and with serene, unhampered impartiality toward a society to which they were not beholden for their official stations. In short, Francis Lightfoot Lee was a gentleman-a word which meant a great deal in his day, though it means nothing whatever in ours. Mr. Lee defiled himself with no juggling, or wire-pulling, or begging, to acquire a place in the provincial legislature, but went thither when he was called, and went reluctantly. He wrought there industriously during four years, never seeking his own ends, but only the public's. His course was purity itself, and he retired unblemished when his work was done. He retired gladly, and sought his home and its superior allurements. No one dreamed of such a thing as “investigating" him. Immediately the people called him again-this time to a seat in the Continental Congress. He accepted this unsought office from a sense of duty only, and during four of the darkest years of the Revolution he labored with all his might for his country's best behests. He did no brilliant things, he made no brilliant speeches; but the enduring strength of his patriotism was manifest, his fearlessness in confronting perilous duties and compassing them was patent to all, the purity of his motives was unquestioned, his unpurchasable honor and uprightness were unchallenged. His good work finished, he hurried back to the priceless charms of his home once more, and begged hard to be allowed to spend the rest of his days in the retirement and repose which his faithful labors had so fairly earned; but this could not be, he was solicited to enter the State Legislature; he was needed there; he was a good citizen, a citizen of the best and highest type, and so he put self aside and answered to the call. He served the State with his accustomed fidelity, and when at last his public career was ended, he retired honored of all, applauded by all, unaccused, unsmirched, utterly stainless. This is a picture of the average, the usual Congressman of Francis Lightfoot Lee's time, and it is vividly suggestive of what that people must have been that preferred such men. Since then we have Progressed one hundred years. Let us gravely try to conceive how isolated, how companionless, how lonesome, such a public servant as this would be in Washington to-day. NOTE. The subject of this sketch was born on the fourteenth day of October, 1734, and died in April, 1797.—ED. 24 GENERAL JAMES POTTER. Ja. Potter Vice Prevedent “General James Potter, of the Pennsylvania Militia, of whom little is known."-See note, p. 18, No. 1, PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, 1877. Intelligent persons who have made Pennsylvania history an object, who have ever consulted Scott, Watson, Day, Hazard, great Trego, Reed, Sergeant, Huston, Sypher, or Egle, know a Ideal more of General Potter than of the Robert Morton, whose "diary," the above note is intended to illustrate.1 Active public service in various positions for more than thirty years has left James Potter a record, most of it in printed This annotation was not made without consideration, as but little was known of James Potter, in general history, commensurate with the services he rendered his State. The view expressed was confirmed by the following extracts from an article printed in the Historical Record, of August, 1872, by Mr. John B. Linn, of Bellefonte, Centre County, Pennsylvania :— em "General Potter," he says, "left a vast quantity of correspondence, bracing letters from all the prominent characters of the Revolution, from General Washington to Lady Harriett Ackland; yet no memoir has appeared of this most trusty of Washington's Generals;" and again, one can this day tell where his bones are mouldering." Since the ever "Yetno publica tion of Mr. Linn's article, he has issued his valuable History of the Buffalo Valley, in which we have his later investigations regarding Gen. Potter. The interesting reply that has been elicited will, we think, by its freshness Ivindicate the truth of the note to "Morton's Diary," as but little that it contains will be found in any of the authorities cited by our correspondent, as containing more regarding James Potter than of Robert Morton, a fact not surprising, as the latter never held any public position, and his journal only printed on account of the interesting historical data it contained.—ED. was |