14 THE BOROUGH OF THE BRONX 



their lives and fortunes in the freedom and independency of those who are 

 to judge them — may possibly not think themselves so secure in either of them 

 as the laws and his Majesty intend they should be. . . . As to my in- 

 tegrity, I have given you no occasion to call it in question. I have been in this 

 office about twenty years. My hands were never soiled by a bribe; nor am I con- 

 scious to myself, that power or poverty hath been able to induce me to be par- 

 tial in the favor of either of them; and as I have no reason to expect any 

 favor of you, so I am neither afraid nor ashamed to stand the test of the 

 strictest inquiry you can make concerning my conduct. I have served the 

 public faithfully, according to the best of my knowledge; and I dare, and do, 

 appeal to it for my justification." 



For this act of "impertinence," however, he was dismissed 

 from the bench by Governor Cosby, and was replaced by the aris- 

 tocratic royalist, James De Lancey. Morris then ran for repre- 

 sentative in the Assembly in opposition to William Forster, who 

 was supported by the Governor. Despite Cosby's unfair tactics 

 of depriving the Quakers of their vote, Morris was elected by a 

 majority of eighty, thus indicating that the people were on his side. 



When Lewis Morris, Second, called Senior, died in 1746 at 

 the age of seventy-three, the estate was divided into two portions, 

 the Mill Brook having served as the dividing line. The section 

 east of the Mill Brook was given over to his son, Lewis, Third, 

 called Junior; while the remainder of the manor was bequeathed 

 to his wife, Isabella Graham. Upon the death of the latter, Lewis 

 Morris, Junior, who served as a judge in several courts, and as 

 representative of Westchester County in the New York Legisla- 

 ture, came into possession of the entire estate. 



Judge Lewis Morris had three sons by his first wife, Elizabeth 

 Staats: namely, Lewis, called the Signer; Staats Long, a general 

 in the British army, and the Honorable Richard Morris; and by 

 his second wife, Sarah Gouverneur, he had one son, the Honorable 

 Gouverneur Morris, and four daughters. 



Upon the death of Judge Lewis Morris, Junior, in 1762, the 

 estate was again divided into two portions. The section west of 

 the Mill Brook was bequeathed to Lewis Morris, who was later 

 a signer of that great human document — the Declaration of In- 

 dependence, — and the easterly portion descended to Staats Long 

 Morris, afterwards a Lieutenant General in the British army 

 and a Governor of Quebec. Upon the removal of Staats Long 

 Morris to Canada, his portion of the patrimony was purchased in 

 1786 by the Honorable Gouverneur Morris, the distinguished 



