America Discovered by the Welsh in 1170 A.D Part 11

Robert Morris, who came to this country when a child, served an apprentices.h.i.+p with a merchant, became a successful business man by his energy and integrity, and during the Revolution his fortune and unlimited commercial credit were superior to Congress itself. In the darkest days, when the army was unfed and unclothed, Was.h.i.+ngton could turn to his dear friend Robert Morris for help. He gave his immense means to his country, and died, in comparative poverty, in 1806, aged seventy-three years.

Gouverneur Morris, who wrote the first connected draft of the American Const.i.tution, was a Welshman.

Among those who fought in the Revolution may be found a long list of Welsh by nativity or descent:

GENERALS.

Charles Lee, Isaac Shelby, Anthony Wayne, Morgan Lewis, William R. Davie, Edward Stevens, Richard Winn, Daniel Morgan, John Cadwallader, Andrew Lewis, Otho H. Williams, John Thomas, Joseph Williams, James Reese.

COLONELS.

David Humphreys, Lambert Cadwallader, Richard Howell, Ethan Allen, Henry Lee, Thomas Marshall, James Williams (_killed at Bennington_).

CAPTAINS.

John Marshall (_afterwards Chief Justice_), Isaac Davis, Anthony Morris, Captain Rogers.

Besides these, there was a host of subordinate officers who could claim descent from the Welsh.

In the navy were Commodore Hopkins and others; and at a later period Commodores Rogers, Perry, Jacob Jones, and Ap Catesby Jones.

Dr. John Morgan was Surgeon-in-Chief of the American army, and one of the founders of the Philadelphia Medical School, the first of the kind established in America, and the beginning of the great University. He came from a Welsh family.

Among the divines were Revs. David Jones, Samuel Davie, David Williams, Morgan Edwards, and others. Perhaps the most distinguished of these was Mr. Jones. His ancestors came from Wales, and settled on the "Welsh Tract" in Delaware county, Pa. He was on a mission among the Shawanese and Delaware Indians in 1772-73. In 1776 he was appointed chaplain to Colonel St. Clair's regiment, and was on duty at Ticonderoga when the enemy was momentarily expected from Crown Point. He delivered a characteristic discourse, which produced a powerful impression upon the troops. When with General Wayne, he saw an English dragoon alight and enter a house for refreshments. The chaplain went to the dragoon's horse, took the pistols from the holsters, went into the house, made him a prisoner, and marched him into camp: Wayne complimented him for his bravery. He was also with General Gates; also at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth; with the army at Valley Forge, and in all subsequent campaigns to the surrender of Yorktown by Cornwallis.

At the age of seventy-six he served as chaplain in the War of 1812. He died in February, 1820, aged eighty-four.

Rev. Samuel Davies became President of Princeton College. When Was.h.i.+ngton was colonel, and after Braddock's defeat, Mr. Davies, who was addressing the volunteer company, used this language in allusion to Was.h.i.+ngton: "I cannot but hope that Providence has. .h.i.therto preserved him in so signal a manner for some important service to his country."

General Was.h.i.+ngton's family a.s.sociations were with the descendants of the Welsh. His wife, Martha, whom he called, familiarly "Patsy," was the grand-daughter of Rev. Orlando Jones, who came to Virginia from Wales.

Colonel Fielding Lewis, of Welsh descent, married Was.h.i.+ngton's sister; and his son, George Was.h.i.+ngton Lewis, was commander of the general's life-guard.

Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale College, Jonathan Edwards, Daniel Webster, Charles Davies the mathematician, and a long array of brilliant men and women who have adorned every station in American society, were of Welsh origin or descent. Mr. Webster, however, was descended only from his mother's side.

Seven Presidents of the United States have descended from the Welsh race,--John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and William Henry Harrison.

Chief-Justice John Marshall, the first to expound the Const.i.tution, was the grandson of a native of Wales; and, as if the office should continue in such a lineage, Chief-Justice Roger B. Taney was sprung from a family descended from the northern part of Wales.

William Penn, founder of the great State of Pennsylvania, Thomas Floyd, the first Governor of the colony, and Anthony Morris, the first mayor of the refined city of Philadelphia, were Welsh.

Oliver Evans, so famous for his inventions in high-pressure engines, by means of which all turbid streams could be successfully navigated, was born of a Welsh family near that city. It was found that the sediment of the water choked up or wore off the sliding-valves of the low-pressure engines. He was the third person who received a patent from the United States--Samuel Hopkins being the first--for his inventions, and concerning which President Jefferson remarked that they were "too valuable to be covered by a patent, for they were such things that the people could not do without, once they were known."

Mrs. De Witt Clinton was the daughter of Dr. Thomas Jones, the son of a Welsh physician whose father settled at Jamaica, Long Island, and who was widely known as Dr. John Jones. He was attached to the Revolutionary army as a surgeon, and a personal friend of Was.h.i.+ngton and Franklin. He was one of the founders of the New York Hospital, and a professor in the medical faculty in Columbia College at its inst.i.tution. He was the first successful lithotomist in the country. Mrs. Clinton was his grand-daughter, having Dr. Thomas Jones for her father, and a daughter of Philip Livingston, signer of the Declaration, for her mother. Maturin Livingston, a son of Philip, married a daughter of General Morgan Lewis. Of Mrs. Clinton it has been said that "she was in every sense a remarkable woman,--not less for her strength of mind than for her n.o.ble good breeding, purity, and polish of manners. She was liberal and frank, and fully appreciated the great mind of her n.o.ble husband; and the harder the storms of personal and political strife blew upon him, the closer her affections twined around him, while she n.o.bly and devoutly cherished his memory to the last."

Their services, in connection with those of almost every other land, have helped to lay the foundations, deep and broad, of the great American republic, whose majestic proportions are rising higher and still higher, commanding the wonder and admiration of all; but, while the later builders are at work, they will not forget to offer some souvenir in behalf of those who worked so wisely and so well.

The memory of ALL "smells sweet, and blossoms in the dust."

CHAPTER XVII.

ADDRESS OF REV. DAVID JONES TO GENERAL ST. CLAIR'S BRIGADE, AT TICONDEROGA, WHEN THE ENEMY WERE HOURLY EXPECTED, OCTOBER 20, 1776.

"My countrymen, fellow-soldiers, and friends:

"I am sorry that during this campaign I have been favored with so few opportunities of addressing you on subjects of the greatest importance, both with respect to this life and that which is to come; but what is past cannot be recalled, and NOW time will not admit an enlargement, as we have the greatest reason to expect the advancement of our enemies as speedily as Heaven will permit. [The wind blew strongly to the north.]

Therefore, at present let it suffice to bring to your remembrance some necessary truths.

"It is our common faith, and a very just one too, that all events on earth are under the notice of that G.o.d in whom we live, move, and have our being: therefore we must believe that in this important struggle with the worst of enemies he has a.s.signed us our post here at Ticonderoga. Our situation is such that, if properly defended, we shall give our enemies a fatal blow, and in a great measure prove the means of the salvation of North America. Such is our present case, that we are fighting for all that is near and dear to us, while our enemies are engaged in the worst of causes, their design being to subjugate, plunder, and enslave a free people that have done them no harm. Their tyrannical views are so glaring, their cause so horribly bad, that there still remains too much goodness and humanity in Great Britain to engage unanimously against us: therefore they have been obliged--and at a most amazing expense, too--to hire the a.s.sistance of a barbarous, mercenary people, that would cut your throat for the small reward of a sixpence.

No doubt these have hopes of being our task-masters, and would rejoice at our calamities.

"Look, oh, look, therefore, at your respective States, and antic.i.p.ate the consequences if these va.s.sals are suffered to enter! It would fail the most fruitful imagination to represent in a proper light what anguish, what horror, what distress, would spread over the whole! See, oh, see the dear wives of your bosoms forced from their peaceful habitations, and perhaps used with such indecency that modesty would forbid the description! Behold, the fair virgins of your land, whose benevolent souls are now filled with a thousand good wishes and hopes of seeing their admirers return home crowned with victory, would not only meet with a doleful disappointment, but also with such insults and abuses that would induce their tender hearts to pray for the shades of death! See your children exposed as vagabonds to all the calamities of this life! Then, oh, then adieu to all felicity this side of the grave!

Now, all these calamities must be prevented if our G.o.d be for us,--and who can doubt of this who observes the point in which the wind now blows?--if you will only acquit yourselves like men, and with firmness of mind go forth against your enemies, _resolving either to return with victory or to die gloriously_.

"Every one who may fall in this dispute will be justly esteemed a martyr to liberty, and his name will be had in precious memory while the love of freedom remains in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men. All whom G.o.d will favor to see a glorious victory will return to their respective States with every mark of honor, and be received with joy and gladness of heart by all friends to liberty and lovers of mankind. As our present case is singular, I hope, therefore, that the candid will excuse me if I conclude with an uncommon address, in substance princ.i.p.ally extracted from the writings of the Bible, though at the same time it is freely acknowledged that I am not possessed of any similar power either of blessing or cursing.

"1. Blessed be that man who is possessed of a true love of liberty; and let all the people say, _Amen_.

"2. Blessed be that man who is a friend to the United States of America; and let all the people say, _Amen_.

"3. Blessed be that man who will use his utmost endeavors to oppose the tyranny of Great Britain, and to vanquish all her forces invading North America; and let all the people say, _Amen_.

"4. Blessed be that man who is resolved never to submit to Great Britain; and let all the people say, _Amen_.

"5. Blessed be that man who in the present dispute esteems not his life too good to fall a sacrifice in defence of his country: let his posterity, if any he has, be blessed with riches, honor, virtue, and true religion; and let all the people say, _Amen_.

"Now, on the other hand, as far as is consistent with the Holy Scriptures, let all these blessings be turned into curses to him who deserts the n.o.ble cause in which we are engaged, and turns his back to the enemy before he receives proper orders to retreat; and let all the people say, _Amen_.

"Let him be abhorred by all the United States of America.

"Let faintness of heart and fear never forsake him on earth.

"Let him be a _major miserabile_, a terror to himself and all around him.

"Let him be accursed in his outgoings, and cursed in his incomings; cursed in his lying down, and cursed in his uprising; cursed in basket, and cursed in store.

"Let him be cursed in all his connections, till his wretched head, with dishonor, is laid low in the dust; and let all the soldiers say, _Amen_.

"And may the G.o.d of all grace, in whom we live, enable us, in defence of our country, to acquit ourselves like men, to his honor and praise.

_Amen_ and _Amen_."

There were no traitors or cowards _that_ day; and the deeds of the patriots have been emblazoned in prose and song, in monuments of bra.s.s and stone, in a great and glorious government, and in the praise and grat.i.tude of a free people who meet to do them honor.

THE END.