Meanwhile, continued war in Europe constricted credit, exposing the precariousness of the North American Land Company scheme and others like it. Rampant business failure plagued Eastern port cities by late 1796, and land speculators less preeminent than Morris soon found themselves in debtors’ prison. Among these was James Wilson, whose confinement, combined with rumors of Morris’s imprisonment, caused panic. Morris and Nicholson’s notes, by now totaling $10,000,000, began trading at just one-eighth their value. By 1797, their paper pyramid collapsed altogether.