Robert Morris was born in Liverpool, England in 1734 and as a young teenager followed his father, a successful tobacco merchant, to the New World. Orphaned at age 16--his father was killed in a freak accident involving a fly and a misfired cannon--Morris had only one year of formal education before he began apprenticing as a clerk in Philadelphia. "From a young age , Morris had this innate ability to succeed as a merchant," says Ryan Smith, a history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Robert Morris's Folly: The Archetectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder. "It was a notoriously difficult trade--the monetary system was messed up, your ships could be attacked by pirates, the market could collapse--but Morris had a good nose, and the firm of Willing Morris & Company became one of the largest and richest in the colonies."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Morris was a global capitalist before Adam Smith had even defined such a term. He became one of the first colonial insurers of cargo vessels and opened up China and the Mediteranean to American trade. He was nominated as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Second Continental Congress and threw the full weight of his reputation and resources behind the war effort. Morris became a One-Man Treasury while Congress begged the states and European allies for loans. On the brink of economic ruin, Congress appointed Morris as the Superintendent of Finance, the government's very first executive office. (Washington offered Morris the position of Secretary of the Treasury before Alexander Hamilton, but he declined.)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Unlike the later Secretary of the Treasury, Morris was invested with nearly unchecked powers. He leveraged his business contacts in the shipping world and relationships with foreign investors to procure desperately needed supplies and munitions, and to borrow millions of dollars backed by his own promissory notes. When Washington needed gunpowder, Morris smuggled it past British blockades. When the Continental Navy needed ships, Morris supplied three of his own. When all other American currencies collapsed, Congress paid troops and bought supplies using "Morris notes," essentially IOUs guaranteed by Morris's immense wealth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              While Morris put his own substantial fortune and resources on the line to supply food and weaponry for the war effort, he conducted much of the overseas trade through his own businesses, which earned handsome profits. But questions about that relationship lingered. After the Constitution was ratified and Morris was elected Senator from Pennsylvania, some of his fellow congressmen openly asked whether Morris had bankrolled the Revolution or whether the Revolution had bankrolled him. After a dust-up with congress, Morris left political life and returned to his original passion, making money.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   But Morris's biggest gamble was in real estate. He soon accumulated 6 million acres of land with the expectation of flipping it all for a handsome profit. Morris had taken out millions of dollars in loans from American and foreign creditors, which he used to cover the mortgage and tax payments on his land. When few buyers showed up, those creditors came calling. He was on the hook for an estimated $3 million dollars, an inconceivable amount in the late 18th century. Since bankrupcy laws were only beginning to be adopted at the time, debtors were still rounded up and thrown into debtor's prison. He tried to evade arrest by hiding in his country manor for months, but he eventually relented and served three years behind bars. The Bankrupcy Act of 1800 enabled him to liquidate assets, including his ostentatious Philadelphia mansion, which he never lived in.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Morrris left prison a humbled man and lived his remaining five years quietly with his wife, supported by a meagre stripend.