After Mr. Morris was placed in authority over this vital branch of government, he reduced the expenditures for military operations from eighteen millions of dollars a year, to about five millions; and thus enabled the continental congress to prosecute the war successfully, when, without this retrenchment, its means would have been inadequate to meet the increasing demands, and the cause of liberty, to all human appearance, must have been abandoned. Like a Roman Curtius, he pledged his own fortune to save his country, and disenthral her from the chains of tyranny. To demonstrate this, I will mention one of the many instances of supplies being obtained upon his private credit. When the expedition was planned by Washington against Cornwallis at Yorktown, the government treasury was empty, and her credit shivering in the wind. The army was in a destitute situation: the means of prosecuting a siege were to be provided, and Mr. Morris informed the commander-in-chief that unless he arrived at the conclusion that the necessary supplies could be raised on his (Mr. Morris,) credit, the expedition must fail. Washington expressed his entire confidence in the ability of the financier, and immediately took up the line of march. In the short space of four weeks, Mr. Morris, aided by the patriotic Richard Peters, furnished near eighty pieces of battering cannon and one hundred pieces of field artillery, and all other necessary supplies not furnished from other sources, and became personally responsible to the amount of ONE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, upon his own notes, which were promptly paid at maturity. This, united with aid from Virginia and some of the other states, enabled the American army to give the finishing stroke to the revolution, and triumph, in victory complete, over a proud and merciless foe.