1. On the dateline, Morris wrote and then crossed out “Decr 23d 1796.”

2. See Morris to GW, 25 Aug., and n.1 to that document. The quoted phrase contains only minor modifications from Morris’s 25 Aug. letter. For more on the land in western New York acquired by Morris from Massachusetts, see Seneca Chiefs to GW, 10 Jan. 1791, and n.3 to that document; and Tobias Lear to GW, 8 May 1791, and n.5.

3. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering had written Morris on 27 Aug. to enclose Attorney General Charles Lee’s opinion “on the powers of the President in the appointment of a Commissioner to negociate a treaty with an Indian tribe” (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters). Lee’s opinion, dated 26 May 1796, states that the “President alone and without the advice of the Senate” was prohibited from appointing a commissioner to make a treaty with an Indian tribe “for the purpose of purchasing and extinguishing their title to land” in the United States. Lee also cited section 12 of the “Act to regulate Trade and Intercourse with the Indian Tribes …,” passed by Congress on 19 May 1796, which made it a misdemeanor for an individual “not employed under the authority of the United States” to negotiate such a treaty. Lee defined that “authority” as “the constitutional authority of the United States which … cannot be bestowed on any person but by the President with the advice of the Senate” (DNA: RG 59, Domestic Letters; 1 Stat. description begins Richard Peters, ed. The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, from the Organization of the Government in 1789, to March 3, 1845 . . .. 8 vols. Boston, 1845-67. description ends 469–74). Pickering had written GW to inform him that he had shown Lee’s opinion to Morris (see Pickering to GW, 27 Aug., found at Morris to GW, 25 Aug., n.5).

4. No reply to Morris from GW has been found.

In February 1797, GW consulted Secretary of War James McHenry about potential candidates to serve as the commissioner to treat with the Seneca Indians. On 2 March 1797, GW wrote the U.S. Senate with a nomination: “Application having been made to me, to permit a treaty to be held with the Seneka Nation of Indians, to effect the purchase of a parcel of their land under a preemption right derived from the State of Massachusetts and situated within the State of New York, and it appearing to me reasonable that such opportunity should be afforded, provided, the negociation shall be conducted at the expence of the applicant, and at the desire and with the consent of the Indians; always considering these as prerequisites, I now nominate Isaac Smith to be a Commissioner to hold a Treaty with the Seneka Nation for the aforesaid purpose” (LS, DNA: RG 46, entry 52; LB, DLC:GW; see also GW to McHenry, 28 Feb. 1797). The Senate approved U.S. congressman Smith’s nomination on 3 March, but he declined the appointment, and Jeremiah Wadsworth was later appointed in his place (see Senate Executive Journal description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America: From the commencement of the First, to the termination of the Nineteenth Congress. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C., 1828. description ends , 229, 232; see also ASP description begins Walter Lowrie et al., eds. American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. 38 vols. Washington, D.C., Gales and Seaton, 1832–61. description ends , Indian Affaires, 1:626).

Negotiations among the Seneca Indians, Wadsworth, and Thomas Morris (Robert Morris’s representative and son) were held at Genesee, Ontario County, N.Y., in late summer 1797, and an agreement was signed on 15 September. According to the “Contract entered into, under the sanction of the United States of America, between Robert Morris and the Seneca nation of Indians,” the Seneca agreed to sell Morris most, but not all, of the lands in question for the sum of $100,000 “to be by … Robert Morris vested in the stock of the bank of the United States, and held in the name of the President of the United States, for the use and behoof” of the Seneca Indians (ASP description begins Walter Lowrie et al., eds. American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States. 38 vols. Washington, D.C., Gales and Seaton, 1832–61. description ends , Indian Affairs, 1:627–28). For more details about the treaty, see Ryan K. Smith, Robert Morris’s Folly: The Architect and Financial Failures of an American Founder (New Haven and London, 2014), 157–63.