member of the Committee of Ways
and Means, he backed the government's credit with his own. Without his
aid, the last campaigns of the war would have been impossible. It was he
who supplied General Green with munitions of war for the great campaign
of the south, and shortly afterwards raised a million and a half on his
own notes to assist Washington in the movement which resulted in the
capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown. A year later, when the financial
situation of the government had become desperate, he organized the Bank
of North America to assist in financing it. For three years, he acted as
superintendent of finance, with complete control of the monetary affairs
of the country. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and
when the new government was organized, Washington asked him to accept
the treasury portfolio, but he declined, suggesting instead Alexander
Hamilton. That was not the least of his services to America, for
Hamilton was preeminently the man for the place.

It was the striking irony of fate that the man who had controlled the
finances of a nation and by his personal exertions saved it from
bankruptcy should himself die in a debtor's prison; yet such was the
case. A series of unfortunate land speculations swept away his wealth
and ruined his credit; he found himself unable to meet his obligations
and was seized by his creditors and thrown into prison, where he
remained for some years, and where death found him in 1806.

So Robert Morris was not one of the founders of great fortunes. Turn we
to the earliest and perhaps most successful of these, John Jacob Astor,
the very type of the astute, large-minded, and far-sighted financier.
Born at Waldorf, Germany, in 1763, the son of a poor butcher in whose
shop he worked until sixteen years of age, there was nothing in his life
or circumstances to indicate the future which lay before him. One of his
brothers, however, had come to America and settled at New York, and
young John Astor resolved to join him in the land of opportunity. At the
age of twenty, he was able to do so, bringing with him some musical
instruments to sell on commission, but a chance acquaintance which he
made on shipboard changed the whole course of his life.

This acquaintance was that of a furrier, who told young Astor of the
great profits to be made by buying furs from the Indians and selling
them to the large dealers. Perhaps he exaggerated the profits of the
business; at any