When General Green took the command of the troops in South Carolina, their destitute situation was deplorable. They were only partially covered with tattered garments; their food was of the coarsest kind, and but a scanty supply of that; their quantity of ammunition was small, and nothing but certain destruction seemed to hover around them. At that alarming crisis, Mr. Hall, of that state, advanced the necessary funds to supply the immediate wants of the army, and enable General Green to commence vigorous operations. After the war had closed, and an account of the disbursements was exhibited, it was found that Mr. Hall had acted under the direction of Robert Morris, who had furnished the needful at the very time it was necessary to save the southern army from dissolution. General Green, on being made acquainted with the fact on his final settlement at the office of finance, was at first displeased with the measure, but upon reflection, greatly applauded and admired the wisdom of this secrecy, “because,” said he, “if I had known that I might have drawn upon Robert Morris, I should have demanded larger sums, and effected no more than was accomplished with the means placed in my hands.” The advances of Mr. Morris to the southern army were near accomplishing his pecuniary ruin. As a financier his genius was of the most prolific kind. When he found one resource after another exhausted; the American troops writhing under the keenest privations; the credit of the infant Republic paralyzed, and her treasury drained of the last dollar, had his mind been cast in an ordinary mould, he must have fainted by the way. But amidst the embarrassments that surrounded him, he stood calm and undismayed upon the firm basis of his own resources. When he found that they were becoming crippled, he submitted to congress the plan of chartering the Bank of North America, which, after much discussion, was approved and adopted on the 7th of January, 1782. The year preceding, the office of finance had been established, and Mr. Morris appointed financier. Previous to that, it appears he had not, at any time, been the disbursing agent of the public monies; and that no system had been adopted by Congress that gave any one individual the control, under them, of this important department. The consequence was, that the monies raised for the supplies of the army often fell into the hands of irresponsible agents and never reached their pristine destination.