WILLIAM FLOYD.-Wales, in Great Britain, was the fatherland of William Floyd. His grandfather came hither from that country in the year 1680, and settled at Setauket, on Long Island. He was distinguished for his wealth, and possessed great influence among his brother agriculturists. The subject of this memoir was born on the seventeenth day of December, 1734. His wealthy father gave him every opportunity for acquiring useful knowledge. He had scarcely closed his studies, before the death of his father called him to the supervision of the estate, and he performed his duties with admirable skill and fidelity. His various excellencies of character, united with a pleasing address, made him very popular; and having espoused the republican cause in opposition to the oppressions of the mother country, he was soon called into active public life. Mr. Floyd was elected a delegate from New York to the first Continental Congress, in 1774, and was one of the most active members of

that body. He had previously been appointed commander of the militia of Suffolk County; and early in 1775, after his return from Congress, learning that a naval force threatened an invasion of the Island, and that troops were actually debarking, he placed himself at the head of a division, marched toward the point of intended debarkation, and awed the invaders into a retreat to their ships. He was again returned to the General Congress, in 1775, and the numerous committees of which he was a member attest his great activity. He ably supported the resolutions of Mr. Lee, and cheerfully voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence. While attending faithfully to his public duties in Congress, he suffered greatly in the destruction of his property and the exile of his family from their home. After the battle of Long Island, in August, 1776, and the retreat of the American army across to York Island, his fine estate was exposed to the rude uses of the British soldiery, and his family were obliged to seek shelter and protection in Connecticut. His mansion was the rendezvous for a party of cavalry, his cattle and sheep were used as provision for the British army, and for seven years he derived not a dollar of income from his property. Yet he abated not a jot in his zeal for the cause, and labored on hopefully, alternately in Congress and in the Legislature of New York.* Through his skill.

After the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the States organized governments of their own. General Floyd was elected a Senator in the first legislative body that convened in New York, after the organization of the new government, and was a most useful member in getting the new machinery into successful operation.

ful management, in connection with one or two others, the State of New York was placed, in 1779, in a very prosperous financial condition, at a time when it seemed to be on the verge of bankruptcy. The depreciation of the continental paper money, had produced alarm and distress wide-spread, and the speculations in bread-stuffs threatened a famine; yet William Floyd and his associates ably steered the bark of state clear of the Scylla and Charybdis. On account of impaired health, General Floyd asked for and obtained leave of absence from Congress, in April, 1779, and in May he returned to New York. He was at once called to his seat in the Senate, and placed upon the most important of those committees of that body, who were charged with the delicate relations with the General Congress. In 1780 he was again elected to Congress, and he continued a member of that body until 1783, when peace was declared. He then returned joyfully, with his family, to the home from which they had been exiled for seven years, and now miserably dilapidated. He declined a re-election to Congress, but served in the Legislature of his State until 1778, when, after the newly-adopted Constitution was ratified, he was elected a member of the first Congress that convened under that charter in the city of New York, in 1789. He declined an election the second time, and retired from public life. In 1784 General Floyd purchased some wild land upon the Mohawk, and when he retired to private life, he commenced the clearing up and cultivation of those lands. So productive was the soil, and so attractive was the beauty of that country, that in 1803 he moved thither, although then sixty-nine years old. In 1800 he was

chosen a Presidential Elector; and in 1801 he was a delegate in the Convention that revised the Constitution of the State of New York. He was subsequently

chosen a member of the State Senate. He died on the fourth day of August, 1821, when he was eighty-seven years of age. His life was a long and active one; and, as a thorough business man, his services proved of great public utility during the stormy times of the Revolution, and the no less tempestuous and dangerous period when our government was settling down upon its present steadfast basis.

LEWIS MORRIS was born at Morrisania, Westchester County, New York, in the year 1726. Being the eldest son, he inherited his father's manorial estate,* which placed him in affluent circumstances. At the age of sixteen years he entered Yale College, and under the presidency of the excellent Rev. Mr. Clapp, he received his education. He graduated with the usual honors at twenty, and returned to the supervision of his large estate. When Great Britain oppressed her children here, he hardly felt the unkind hand, yet his sympathy for others was aroused, and he was among the first to risk ease, reputation and fortune, by coalescing with the patriots of Massachusetts and Virginia. His clear perception saw the end from the beginning, and those delusive hopes which the repeal of obnoxious acts held forth, had no power over Lewis Morris. Neither could they influence his patriotism, for he was a stranger to a vacillating, temporizing spirit. He refused office under the Colonial Government, for

*At that time, the English primogeniture law prevailed in America, and even after the Revolution, Virginia and some other States retained it.

his domestic ease and comfort were paramount to the ephemeral enjoyments of place. Hence, when he forsook his quiet hearth, and engaged in the party strife of the Revolution, hazarding fortune and friends, no sinister motive could be alleged for his actions, and all regarded him as a patriot without selfish alloy. He looked upon war with the mother country as inevitable; and so boldly expressed his opinion upon these subjects, that the still rather lukewarm Colony of New York did not think proper to send him as a delegate to the General Congress of 1774.* But the feelings of the people changed, and in April, 1775, Mr. Morris was elected a member of the second Congress that met in May following. During the summer of 1775, he was sent on a mission of pacification to the Indians on the western frontier. He was again elected to Congress in 1776, and when the question of independence came up, he boldly advocated the measure, although it seemed in opposition to all his worldly interests. Like the others of the New York delegation, he was embarrassed by the timidity of the Provincial Congress, which seemed unwilling to sanction a measure so widely antipodent to all reconciliation with Great Britain. But the con

* New York was so peculiarly exposed to the attacks of the British fleet under Lord Howe, then hovering upon our coast, and so forewarned by the miseries of Boston, and the destruction of Falmouth, that Toryism, or loyalty to the crown, found ample nutriment among the people of the city. It was in the city of New York that the names of Whig and Tory were first applied to the distinctive political parties.

He plainly foresaw what actually happened-his house ruined, his farm wasted, his forest of a thousand acres despoiled, his cattle carried off, and his family driven into exile by the invading foc.