He came to New York after a short residence in the West Indies and purchased an estate at Harlem, which was invested by the Governor with manorial rights. His son Lewis succeeded to the estate and during the last eight years of his life was Governor of New Jersey. His eldest son, Lewis, became a member of the New York Legislature. The second Lewis had four sons, of whom the youngest was Gouverneur, who was born January 31, 1752. At an early age he was placed in the family of M. Tetar, at New Rochelle, where he acquired a thorough knowledge of the French language. At the age of sixteen he graduated at King's College, distinguishing himself by a floridaddress on " Wit and Beauty." He then studied law in the office of William Smith, colonial historian of New York, and at the age of eighteen began the publication of a series of anonymous newspaper articles against a proposition in the Assembly for raising money by emitting bills of credit. In

1775 he was elected a member of the Provincial Congress, in which he soon attracted attention by a speech on the mode of issuing a paper currency by the Continental Congress. Its chief suggestions were afterwards adopted by that body. In 1777 he was elected a member of the Continental Congress and the following winter was one of the committee appointed to inquire into the state of the army, then stationed at Valley Forge. He was also chairman of the committee appointed in 1779 to consider the dispatches from the American commissioners in Europe, which were the basis of the subsequent treaty of peace. In the discussion of the question as to the jurisdiction of the State of New York over the New Hampshire grants, now the State of Vermont, Morris was supposed to be in favor of the independence of that region and consequently lost his election by the Legislature to Congress.