Willing letters and papers, edited with a biographical essay of Thomas Willing of Philadelphia (1631-1821)

Preface

Philadelphia has had among her sons three financiers, each of whom in his day and generation took a leading part in upholding and maintaining the credit of America — Thomas Willing, Stephen Girard and Jay Cooke.

"Old Square Toes," as Thomas Willing was often affectionately called by his relatives, descendants, and intimate friends — a nickname given him because of the broad toed shoes that he wore, and a cognomen that in the public mind symbolized the sound and sure basis of his financial operations — has not yet received a fair recognition of the important services he rendered to the development first of the Province of Pennsylvania and then of the United States. Beginning with the meeting of the Albany Congress, for a period of almost sixty years, he played a potent though not spectacular role in American affairs. That so little attention has as yet been given to his public services, is no doubt due to the fact that during the Revolution his junior partner was for more than two years Financier General, or as we would say today, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. The name "Financier," appealed easily to

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viii PREFACE.

the popular imagination. As a result the more spectacular doings of the junior partner of the firm of Willing and Morris have been pushed into the limelight, while it has been entirely forgotten that Robert Morris for his financial operations for the government had at his back the credit and prestige of his firm — the leading firm in all the colonies — of which Thomas WiUing was the head and directing mind. Robert Morris was indeed the partner of Thomas Willing.

There is only one thing in the career of Thomas Willing of which, as one of his descendants, I am not proud. That is that his firm sold slaves. Of course it was in accord with the custom of the times; everyone did it in the colonial period. With this exception, however, the descendants of Thomas Willing can look upon his whole career with great pride. In this connection I take a personal pleasure in the fact that my paternal grandfather manumitted his slaves in Frederick County, Maryland, in the late twenties and the early thirties of the nineteenth century.

This volume of Thomas Willing's letters and writings, and other Willing papers, together with a biographical essay giving some idea of his career, is printed in a limited edition. The best collection

PREFACE. IX

of Willing papers is the one I have presented to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. They are all printed in the present volume, together with letters that are elsewhere. But undoubtedly there are numerous other of Thomas Willing's letters in various receptacles, and it is hoped that the present publication will bring some of them to light. There is all the more reason to publish his letters so that the man's fine character can be revealed in them to all who may wish to study and write American history. In collecting the facts and information upon which this essay is based, I have received aid of one kind or another from many sources: among others I may mention my mother (the late Mrs. Thomas Balch), John Thompson Spencer, Esq., the present Thomas Francis Bayard, Esq., Charles Willing, Esq., (son of the late Richard Lloyd Willing, Esq.), Mrs. George Peirce (who was Miss Lucy Spotswood), Miss Constance R. Beale, Mrs. Howard Gardiner, Hampton Lawrence Carson, Esq., the Hon. Simon Gratz, Dr. Thomas Lynch Montgomery, and Messrs. Ernest Spofiford, and Albert Cooke Myers. To these gracious women and curtious men as well as others, my best thanks are due.

T. W. B.

Philadelphia, the 10th of November, 1922.

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(1731-1821)

When, by the peace of Paris in 1763, France ceded Canada and all her North American continental possessions as far west as the Mississippi River to Great Britain, all fear of future French attacks was removed from the thoughts of the English colonists along the Atlantic shore of North America. The fear of that aggression had been a real one for many a decade, and had caused the colonists to look to and rely upon the mother land for protection against the repeated attacks of the French and their Indian allies under Frontenac and Montcalm. But with the signing of peace and the removal of the French menace to the future peace and happiness of the English colonies, the chief factor that cemented the colonies and the mother land into a close unison of mutual concern vanished. And soon a divergence of interests between them began to appear. For as the mother land had been put to great expense

II THOMAS WILLING

to carry on both in America and Europe the repeated wars with France, the British King and his advisers decided that it was proper that the colonists should bear a proportion of the burdens of taxation. But the Americans thought they should not be taxed by the British Parliament in which they were not represented. Accordingly where concord had obtained between the colonies and the mother land before the peace of 1763, antagonism and discord began to appear after that date. And so was started a rivalry that eventually broke out into strife upon the field of battle and resulted under the lead of Washington in the separation of the colonies from Great Britain and the establishment of thirteen new independent and sovereign members of the family of Nations. These thirteen States eventually came to be welded and forged into the one present Nation, the United States of America.

During all the years from 1760 until the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century, a period of half a century, one of the potent but not spectacular figures in the development of the colonies and the United States, was Thomas Willing of Philadelphia, in his time the leading merchant of the British North American

OF PHILADELPHIA. Ill

colonies and the first great banker of the young United States.

Thomas WilHng's great-grandfather, Joseph WilHng of Gloucestershire, England, married on the 1st of July, 1672, first Elizabeth Plaver, who died on the 14th of October, 1675, by whom he had issue two sons: George, born on the r2th of September, 1673, and Joseph, born on the 22nd of September, 1675. The next year, he took unto himself a second wife, Ava Lowle of Glouchester, whom he married on the 24th of May, 1676. She was an heiress of Saxon family and good estate. She died the 31st of December, ^7^7- Joseph Willing upon his marriage to Ava Lowle, assumed her arms: "Sable, a hand couped at the wrist, grasping three darts, one in pale and two in sallure argent." By this lady he had issue six children. Their eldest son was Thomas Willing of Bristol, England, where he was a prosperous and influential merchant. He was born on the 6th of January, 1679-80; and married on the i6th of July, 1704, Anne Harrison, who was a grand-daughter of two of the regicides. One was the redoubtable Major- General Thomas Harrison of Cromwell's time and a member of the Long Parliament, and the other

IV THOMAS WILLING

Simon Mayne of Lincolnshife.^ Thomas Willing of Bristol, who married Mary Syms, by whom he left surviving issue in England, first visited America in 1720 in company with his younger brother Richard Willing. They returned to Bristol in 1725. The latter, who was born the 26th of May, 1 68 1, and died the 6th of September, 1736, is said to be buried in the mayor's chapel at Bristol.

Having been much impressed during this first trans-Atlantic visit with the future potential greatness of the English North American colonies, Thomas Willing of Bristol, in 1728, again crossed the Atlantic on a second visit to America. This time he took with him his eldest son, Charles Willing, then a youth of eighteen, to establish him in business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the rising metropolis of the colonies. Returning after a time to Bristol, Thomas Willing, the father, died there in 1760. But during more than two decades he kept up a constant correspondence with his son Charles in Philadelphia until the latter's death in 1754.

^ Thomas Balch : Letters and Papers relating chiefly to the Provincial History of Pennsylvania {The Shippen Papers), Philadelphia, 1855, page c et seq. — R. Winder Johnson: The Ancestry of Rosalie Johnson; Philadelphia, 1905, page 240.

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As the first of the family to remain permanently in America, Charles Willing may be looked upon as the founder of the family in the New World. He married at Philadelphia on the 2 1 St of January, 1730, Anne, daughter of Joseph Shippen and his wife Abigail Grosse Shippen,^ and granddaughter of Edward Shippen, first mayor of Philadelphia under Penn's charter of 1 70 1. Charles Willing prospered in business and

^ The arms borne by the Willings since the marriage of Joseph Willing to his second wife, Ava Lowle, originally the arms of the Lowles, are foirnd on ancient silver of the Willings, bequeathed by will prior to 1754. These arms, ''Sable, a hand couped at the wrist, grasping three darts, one in pale and two in sallure argent," are found on an expensively cut seal impaling the arms of Shippen. As is obvious from the impalement of the arms of Shippen, and as is otherwise known, this seal belonged to Charles Willing of Philadelphia, the founder of the family in America.

Concerning the Shippen family see Thomas Balch: Letters and Papers relating chiefly to the Provincial History of Pennsylvania {The Shippen Papers), Philadelphia, 1855; — and Thomas Willing Balch: The English Ancestors of the Shippens and Edward Shippen of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1904: This article is also printed in The Pennsylvania Magazine, Philadelphia, 1904.

Abigail Grosse, grandmother of Thomas Willing of Philadelphia, was descended from Adam Winthrop of England, the grandfather of Governor John Winthrop of the Massachxisetts Bay colony. See note by Arthur Winfred Hodgman in the New England Historic and Genealogical Register, July 1919, pages 238-239. This Grosse- Winthrop genealogy was called to my attention by Colonel J. Granr ville Leach,

VI THOMAS WILLING

became a leading citizen of the city and the colony. In 1747 he joined as a captain the Associated Regiment that was organized for the defense of Philadelphia and the region of Delaware Bay against a possible attack by the French. In 1748 the non-Quaker element of the city, fearing a French attack, elected him mayor of the city. About this time he built a handsome house. Describing it in The Republican Court, published in 1855, Griswold says:^

"His house, still standing at the south west comer of Third Street and Willing's Alley, though now deprived of its noble grounds, running back to Fourth Street and far onward down to Spruce Street, and shaded with oaks that might be regarded as of the primeval forests, is still remarked for its spacious comfort and its old-fashioned repose." In a foot-note on the same page, Griswold further comments on the Willing grounds as follows: "The west end of this lot, fronting on Fourth Street, M^ Thomas Willing, son of [Charles Willing above] mentioned, surrendered to his son-in-law and nephew, M". Thomas Willing Francis, who built

^ Rufus Wilmot Griswold: The Republican Court, New York, 185s, page 15.

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Upon it the beautiful mansion now occupied by M^ Joseph R. IngersoU. On the southern part, Charles Willing himself built a residence, which has since given place to other buildings, for his son-in-law, Colonel William Byrd of Westover in Virginia. General Washington for some time had his head-quarters at Philadelphia in this house. It was afterwards the residence of Chief Justice Chew."

In 1749 Charles Willing was chosen one of the first trustees of the University of Pennsylvania.* In 1754 he was again chosen the chief magistrate of the city. During his first term in office he was an original subscriber to the Assembly dances, and to-day his blood runs in the veins of more subscribers to the historic Philadelphia Assemblies than that of any subscriber whose name is found on the first subscription list of 1748-49. During his second term as mayor in 1754, the yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia. And Charles Willing, his strength undermined by his exertions in his

* University of Pennsylvania: Matriculates of the College, 1749- 1893, Philadelphia, 1894, page xi. Thomas Harrison Montgomery: A History of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1900, page 52.

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official capacity to combat that dreaded disease, fell one of its victims. Upon his death he was succeeded in his business by his son Thomas Willing of Philadelphia in which city he was born the 19th of December, 1731.

Thomas Willing was sent in his youth to England, where under the care, first of his grandmother Willing he was educated at Bath, and afterwards under direction of his uncle Thomas Willing, of Bristol and London, he read law in the Inner Temple. He was entered as a student in the Inner Temple on the 5th of October, 1748.

Returning home to Philadelphia in 1749, he subscribed for the second season of the Assembly Dances. And for the season of 1755, he was a manager of those now historic dances, as a card still extant tells us.

In the previous year, 1754, at the age of twenty-three, he began his long career of service to the State, which was to run on until 1811 when he was eighty years of age, a period of fifty- seven years, by serving as a secretary of the Pennsylvania delegation to the congress of delegates from the colonies that was held at Albany. That was the first gathering of

OF PHILADELPHIA. IX

representatives from the various provinces that was convened to deliberate upon their common welfare and future interests. And at that Congress began in actual practice that American policy that eventually, step by step, drew the colonies ever closer together, until finally they became in the first place thirteen independent members of the family of Nations and subsequently, owing in large part to the danger of attack from outside, they became fused, upon the adoption of the Federal Constitution, into one prosperous and powerful member of that family circle.

On the 8th of July, 1760, Thomas Willing was elected a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania,^ and served in that office until he retired in 1791.^ He was chosen, along with Richard Peters and Benjamin Chew, one of the seven commissioners to have surveyed the Pennsylvania- Maryland boundary line, form-

^ Thomas Harrison Montgomery: A History of the University of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, 1900, page 105.

^ University of Pennsylvania: Biographical Catalogue of the Matriculates of the College together with a list of the members of the College Faculties and the Trustees, Officers and recipients of honorary degrees ^ i^4j-i8qj; Philadelphia, 1894, page xii.

X THOMAS WILLING

ing a part of the famous Mason and Dixon Line.^

On the 6th of June, 1761, he was appointed a judge of the Orphans's Court for the City and County of Philadelphia.^ In the year 1763, he was chosen mayor of Philadelphia. And he was the first to sign the address of welcome which "The Merchants and Traders of the City of Philadelphia" addressed on the 21st of November in that year to John Penn upon his arrival to assume the duties of Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Provinces.^ In 1765 his name likewise headed the list of Philadelphia merchants who signed the Non-Importation Resolutions, in which the signers declared the Stamp Act unconstitutional and against the best interests both of the colonies and Great Britain. ^^ And he was appointed the chairman of the committee that was to

'Walter Lefferts: The Story of Pennsylvania's Southern Boundary; Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, January-October, 1920, page 97.

* John Hill Martin: Bench and Bar of Philadelphia, 1883, page 69.

® Original manuscript in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. See post, page 23.

^° Original manuscript in the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. See post, page 29.

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call on the merchants of the city to sign these important resolutions. In part those resolutions read as follows :

"First, it is unanimously resolved and agreed that in all orders, any of the Subscribers to this Paper, may send to Great Britain for goods, they shall and will direct their Correspondents not to ship them until the Stamp Act is repealed.

"Secondly, That, all those amongst the Subscribers that have already sent orders to Great Britain for goods, shall and will immediately countermand the same until the Stamp Act is Repealed. * * *

"Thirdly, that, none of the Subscribers hereto, shall or will send any Goods or Merchandise whatsoever that shall be ship'd them on Commission from Great Britain after the first Day of January next unless the Stamp Act he repeal 'd."

In 1767, Thomas WiUing was appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of the Province of Pennsylvania, and in that judicial office he was one of the last to act in February, 1777, under the colonial form of government.

On the loth of January, 1768, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society,

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the oldest learned society in the new world and a Philadelphia institution.

On the 1 8th of June, 1774, he and John Dickinson, presided together over a meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia held in State House Yard, at which it was resolved that the Act of Parliament closing the port of Boston was unconstitutional and that it was expedient on the part of America to convene a Continental Congress. The next month, from the 15th to the 22nd of July, a Provincial Congress of delegates from the counties of Pennsylvania was held in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. As the first citizen of the American metropolis, regard being had to the sources and weight of Thomas Willing 's influence, he was chosen to preside over this Provincial Congress of Pennsylvania. Some of the resolutions voted, sometimes by a majority, sometimes unanimously, were as follows:"

"4. That the inhabitants of these colonies are entitled to the same rights and liberties within these colonies, that the subjects born in England are entitled to within that realm.

*^ Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd series, Harrisburg, 1875, Volume IIL, pages 547-548.

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"5. That the power assumed by the ParHament of Great Britain to bind the people of these colonies, 'by statutes in all cases whatsoever,' is unconstitutional, and therefore the source of these unhappy differences.

"6. That the Act of Parliament for shutting the port of Boston, is unconstitutional; oppressive to the inhabitants of that town; dangerous to the liberties of the British Colonies; and, therefore, that we consider our brethren at Boston as suffering in the common cause of these Colonies.

"9. That there is an absolute necessity that a Congress of deputies from the several Colonies be immediately assembled, to consult together and form a general plan of conduct to be observed by all the Colonies, for the purpose of procuring relief for our suffering brethren, obtaining redress of our grievances, preventing future dissensions, firmly establishing our rights, and restoring harmony between Great Britain and her Colonies on a Constitutional foundation.

"14. That the people of this province will break, off all trade, commerce and dealing, and

XIV THOMAS WILLING

will have no trade, commerce or dealing of any kind with any colony on this continent, or with any city or town in such colony, or with any individual in any such colony, city or town which shall refuse, decline or neglect to adopt and carry into execution such general plan as shall be agreed to in Congress."

After the passage of these resolutions, a committee of the Provincial Congress went to the Pennsylvania Assembly, then in session in the State House on Chestnut Street above Fifth Street, to urge the Assembly to appoint delegates to the proposed Continental Congress. The next day the Provincial Assembly named as delegates to represent Pennsylvania in the "first named American Congress, "^^ Joseph Galloway, the speaker of the Assembly, Samuel Rhoads, Thomas Mifflin, Charles Humphreys, John Morton, George Ross and Edward Biddle.^^

While not a member of the first Continental Congress, Thomas Willing was in confidential

^^ Carpenter's Hall Historical Association, published by the Company, Philadelphia, 1876, page 19. An Historical account of the Old State House of Pennsylvania, now known as the Hall of Independence , Boston, 1876, by Frank M. Etting.

^' Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1776, Vol. VL, page 520.

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touch and saw a great deal of most of the men who were, and entertained many of them at his house at the south west corner of South Third Street and WilHng's Alley. Writing of a dinner party at WilHng's at which were present Washington, John Jay, Philip Livingston, Patrick Henry, Peyton Randolph, William Paca and Samuel Chase — John Adams in his diary says :

"Sunday, it October, 1774.

"There is such a quick and constant succession of new scenes, characters, persons and events turning up before me, that I can't keep any regular account. * * * Dined at M^ WilHng's, who is Judge of the Supreme Court here, and the gentlemen from Virginia, Maryland and New York, a most splendid feast again, turtle and everything else. M^ Willing is the most sociable, agreeable man of all."

In 1775, Thomas Willing was elected by the Pennsylvania Assembly one of the delegates of the colony to the Second Continental Congress, which met on the loth of May, 1775, in the Pennsylvania State House. His co-delegates were John Dickinson, Robert Morris, James Wilson, Charles Humphreys, Edward Biddle,

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Andrew Allen, Benjamin Franklin, and John Morton.'^

In the course of 1775 he made a live and practical contribution to the development of settling controversies between the colonies or States by judicial means. In that year the Pennsylvania-Connecticut dispute over the possession of the Wyoming Valley came up before the Continental Congress. Before the Revolution, according to the practice that had developed in colonial times, the question had been appealed to the King in Council for a judicial judgment. But a decision had not been rendered. In 1775 the Pennsylvania Assembly appealed the question to the Congress. John Rutledge of South Carolina said it should be referred to two commissioners, one to be appointed respectively by each colony. Thereupon, Thomas Willing of the Pennsylvania delegation and a justice of the Supreme Court of that province, pointed out that to insure a decision it would be necessary to appoint a third commissioner or umpire. ^^ That

^* Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1776, Vol. VI., pages 555, 586 and 587.

'^ Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1780, Worthington Chauncey Ford, editor: Washington, 1908, Volume III., page 487. — Thomas Willing Balch: A World Court in the Light of the United States Supreme Court; Philadelphia, 1918, pages 14-29.

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practical comment was one of the factors that resulted in the provision in the articles of Confederation (1782) creating the setting up of Inter-State Tribunals ad hoc to judge between the member States of the Confederation. And it was such an ad hoc Court, the Trenton Tribunal, that judged between Pennsylvania and Connecticut and finally decided by a judicial decision the Wyoming controversy between them.

The war between the North American Colonies and Great Britain was begun to defend the political rights of the colonies, but without any idea of finally severing the political ties that bound the colonies to the motherland. Thus the First Continental Congress in October, 1774, used these words in its address to George the Third: "Your royal authority over us, and our connection with Great Britain, we shall always carefully and zealously endeavor to support and maintain. "^^ And the Second Continental Congress, in its address of the 6th of July, 1775, in which it stated the causes and reasons why the Colonies took up arms, said: "Lest this

^^ Journal of the Continental Congress, 17 74-1 789, Worthington Chauncey Ford, editor, Washington, 1904, Volume I., page 119,

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declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the Empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. "^^ It was Thomas Jefferson who wrote this public document, and it was received with marks of approval throughout the Colonies.

On the 8th of September, 1775, the Provincial Congress of North Carolina disclaimed most earnestly any idea of seeking to bring about independence of Great Britain. ^^

The Pennsylvania Assembly gave, on the 9th of November, 1775, the following instructions to the delegates it had elected to the Second Continental Congress:^®

"Gentlemen: The trust reposed in you is of

" Journal of the Continental Congress, 17 74-1 789, Worthington Chatmcey Ford, editor, Washington, 1905, Volume IL, page 155.

^^ Francois-Xavier Martin: History of North Carolina, New Orleans, 1829, Volvime IL, pages 366-368. John H. Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina, Philadelphia, 1851, Volume L, page 74.

^^ Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1776, Volume VL, page 647. These instructions were drafted by John Dickinson. See Charles J. Stills, LL.D.: The Life and Times of John Dickinson, Philadelphia, 1891, page 165.

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such a Nature, and the Modes of executing it may be so diversified in the Course of your Deliberations, that it is scarcely possible to give you particular Instructions respecting it.

We therefore, in general, direct that you, or any Four of you, meet in Congress the Delegates of the several Colonies now assembled in this City, and any such Delegates as may meet in Congress next Year; that you consult together on the present critical and alarming State of public Affairs; that you exert your utmost Endeavours to agree upon, and recommend, such Measures as you shall judge to afford the best Prospect of obtaining Redress of American Grievances, and restoring that Union and Harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies so essential to the Welfare and Happiness of both Countries.

"Though the oppressive Measures of the British Parliament and Administration have compelled us to resist their Violence by Force of Arms, yet we strictly enjoin you, that you, in Behalf of this Colony, dissent from, and utterly reject, any Propositions, should such be made, that may cause, or lead to, a Separation from our Mother Country, or a Change of the Form

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of this Government [that is the Charter Government of Pennsylvania].

"You are directed to make Report of your Proceedings to this House.

"Signed by order of the House:

^'November 9, 1775. JOHN MORTON,

Speaker.'"

Thus the delegates of Pennsylvania in the Second Continental Congress were bound by those instructions of the Assembly of the Province — which were much more explicitly and positively expressed against independence than the instructions given to the delegates to the First Continental Congress^'' — not to vote for independence of Great Britain.

On the 28th of November the Assembly of New Jersey likewise bound the delegates of that colony to resist any attempt to bring on independence.^^ The instructions to the New Jersey delegates were as follows:

"i. Resolved, That reports of Independency,

^° Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, 1776, volume VI, page 587.

^^ Minutes of the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey, Trenton, 1879, page 300.

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in the apprehension of this House, are groundless.

"2. Resolved, That it be recommended to the Delegates of the Colony to use their utmost endeavours for the obtaining a redress of American grievances and for restoring the union between the Colonies and Great Britain, upon constitutional principles.

"3. Resolved, That the said Delegates be directed not to give their assent to, but utterly to reject any proposition, if such should be made that they may separate this Colony from the Mother Country, or change the form of Government thereof."

On the 14th of December the Provincial Congress of New York said that the people of New York were still loyal to the Crown and the state of unrest and turmoil in New York was not a result of "a desire to become independent of the British Crown. "'^ Qn the 25th of December, Portsmouth in the colony of New Hampshire, instructed its delegates to the Provincial Congress of New Hampshire to oppose any attempt to form a local government, for fear

22 ^g^ York Journal or the General Advertiser, December 21, 177s, No. 1720, page 3.

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it might be inferred that "we are aiming at independence, which we totally disallow. "^^ On the 1 2th of January, 1776, the Maryland Convention instructed the Maryland delegates to the Continental Congress to oppose any move toward independence until the delegation had convened and consulted the Convention.^* The Convention in its instructions to the delegates to the Continental Congress said:

"The experience we and our ancestors have had of the mildness and equity of the English Constitution, under which we have grown up to and enjoyed a state of felicity, not exceeded among any people we know of, until the grounds of the present controversy were laid by the ministry and parliament of Great Britain, has most strongly endeared to us that form of government from whence these blessings have been derived, and makes us ardently wish for a reconciliation with the mother country, upon terms that may insure

to these colonies an equal and permanent freedom. *******