The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris
• Chapter I.
• Chapter II.
• Chapter III.
• Chapter IV.
• Chapter V.
• Chapter VI.
• Chapter VII.
• Chapter VIII.
• Chapter IX.
• Chapter X.
• Chapter XI.
• Chapter XII.
• Chapter XIII.
• Chapter XIV.
• Chapter XV.
• Chapter XVI.
• Chapter XVII.
• Chapter XVIII.
• Chapter XIX.
• Chapter XX.
• Chapter XXI.
• Chapter XXII.
• Chapter XXIII.
• Chapter XXIV.
• Chapter XXV.
• Chapter XXVI.

PREFACE

The desire which has been repeatedly expressed by persons cognizant of its existence, that the important and interesting manuscript left by Gouverneur Morris should be brought to light—the portion buried in Mr. Jared Sparks’s history as well as the large and more piquant part excluded therefrom—induced me to undertake the work of editing the diary and letters of my grandfather.

The chief object I had in view was to put in such a form as might prove attractive to the public his letters and the notes which he daily jotted down during that most momentous epoch of modern history—the period of the Revolution in France.

With no political principles to advance or maintain, and with no hero of romance or of the sword upon whose merits to descant, my effort was simply to cull, from a voluminous manuscript, all the varied and striking incidents in the world of politics in the cabinet, and of society in the boudoir and salon; and, by the light of the keen delineations of character, so full of the verve and essence of the moment, therein contained, to bring into strong relief the motives and actions of men and women.

Americans will doubtless accord a ready sympathy to a man who was truly an American, and at a time when thus to proclaim his principles attested an independence careless of unpopularity. Possibly, too, our kindred over seas may find something of interest in the career of one who, though a rebel against England, spent the best years of his life assisting in the formation of a government under which the poor of the earth might find an asylum, and whose views were consistently “favorable to the peace and happiness of mankind.”