When Nathanael Greene returned to Rhode Island in late 1783, he was greeted by all as a great military hero and given a number of state receptions. Underneath the pleasure he received from being home, however, lurked the threat of financial ruin. Greene found himself much deeper in debt than he originally believed. The problem stemmed form the financial escapades of John Banks, the man whom Greene used to feed and clothe his ragged army. Greene had agreed to guarantee Banks’ debts and now he was forced to act to pay Banks’ creditors. At that time he wrote to his wife, Caty, saying, “I am not anxious to be rich, but wish to be independent…To have a decent income is much to be wished, but to be free from debt more so….”
The pleasant feeling of being a returned hero, basking in the friendship of his fellow citizens, was short-lived in his native state as economic problems quickly darkened the bright days. While some Rhode Islanders prospered, notably Nicholas and John Brown, Nathanael and many of his relatives did not. Nicholas Brown was able to purchase the Potowomut estate of the Tory Richard Greene, and within a few years after the war John Brown had prospered to the degree that he built a magnificent mansion, which still stands on the corner of Benefit and Power Streets in Providence. He also acquired the John Greene Occupassnestuxet estate in Warwick.
Nathanael, on the other hand, was in dire straits. In this respect, he was not alone, as many of his soldier colleagues found themselves in like predicaments. The entire country seemed to be having similar difficulties. The federal debt was over $45 million, the various debts of the 13 states amounted to $25 million, and Rhode Island had a war debt of over $700,000 – all staggering sums for the late 18th century.
When Greene returned to Rhode Island he came to Newport since his Coventry home, which he built in 1770 along the Pawtuxet River near the Greene family forge, had gone to his brother Jacob to satisfy family financial problems. The economic problems at home, plus those that resulted from the association with Banks, did much to reduce Nathanael’s fortune, but even as late as 1784 he was still fairly affluent as, in addition to his Rhode Island holdings, he owned land in New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
Within a short time, however, it became evident that the Greenes were “land-rich” and “money-poor,” and he was forced to borrow money from wealthy friends Robert Morris, the Marquis de Lafayette and Jeremiah Wadsworth in order to meet his immediate obligations. Even before the war ended in 1783 Greene was having serious difficulties in acquiring hard money. Always an indulgent husband, he was forced to reprimand Caty for spending large amounts of money in Philadelphia. She had presented him a bill of $1,400 for a “phaeton and a pair of horses and…a chariot.” He remarked, after getting the bill, “How of where to get the money God knows for I don’t.”
The Stegemans, in their biography of Caty Greene, write that when Nathanael returned to Rhode Island he informed his wife that “the situation was bleak; all of his investments had gone bad and he had lost a fortune. Stocks that had been put in Jeremiah Wadsworth’s hands – originally worth 1,000 pounds N could not be redeemed for more than fifty. The shipping concern with his brothers, in the name of Jacob Greene, had lost heavily, and his various partnerships with Wadsworth, John Cox, and Charles Petit had lost many thousands of pounds. Only the land grants provided by Georgia and the Carolinas stood between his family and utter ruin.”
It was soon obvious that Greene could not recoup his fortune or even pay his debts as long as he remained in Rhode Island. As a result, Nathanael decided to devote himself to the plantation of Mulberry Grove in Georgia that the colony had given him in gratitude for the magnificent campaign he conducted in driving the British from the south.
The story of Caty Greene and the last days of Nathanael’s short life will be continued.
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