Salomon, Haym | A Bill of Exchange issued by the United States to support the Revolutionary War, endorsed by the financier-patriot Haym Salomon

Salomon, Haym

Autograph endorsement ("Haym Salomon") on the verso of Bill of Exchange drawn on "the Hon. Dr. Benjamin Franklin, or the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of North American, at the Court of Versailles"

Printed document (205 x 95 mm; watermarked United States 2) cut from a sheet of four bills of exchange, Numb. 52, this being the second of the four for "Four Hundred Mexican Dollars, or Two Thousand Livres Tournois; Value received by the United States," accomplished in a clerical hand in favor of Salomon, [Philadelphia], 14 December 1780, signed by Treasurer of Loans (and signer of the Declaration of Independence), Francis Hopkinson ("F. Hopkinson"), countersigned by the Commissioner of the Continental Loan-Office in the State of Pennsylvania ("Thos. Smith"), also endorsed on the verso by Thomas Patterson. Matted and mounted between two sheets of Plexiglas, housed in a red morocco folding-case by Heinke Penske-Adam, extensively gilt-lettered, opening to reveal a self-contained easel on which the document can be displayed.

A scarce and handsomely formatted bill of exchange, evidently designed by Francis Hopkinson. This is one of many such instruments issued to pay the interest of the domestic debt of the United States and to allow it to draw on its gold reserves in Europe to raise immediate specie in order to purchase supplies and prosecute the War for Independence. Such bills of exchange "were the eighteenth-century equivalent of modern checks; they enabled persons having funds available in other places to raise money for local use" (Edgar J. McManus, in American National Biography).

The bills would be sold, usually at a discount, to merchants, financers, and patriots. The most significant of the "bill brokers" was Haym Salomon. Salomon (1740–1785) was born in Lissa, Poland, and emigrated to New York City shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution. He acted as a secret agent against the British in occupied New York, was arrested twice and condemned to death, before bribing his way out of prison and fleeing to Philadelphia. He reestablished his brokerage firm and became the principal bill broker for Hopkinson and then for Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris. Salomon, who was fluent in French, essentially acted as paymaster general for Rochambeau, and advanced money to army officers and Congressional delegations. He also personally advanced funds to members of the Continental Congress (including James Madison) and other federal officers, charging interest and commissions well below the market rates. Salomon also played a prominent role in the Philadelphia and national Jewish community affairs. In 1783, Salomon and other prominent Jewish Philadelphians addressed the Pennsylvania Council of Censors to request the removal of a religious test oath required for office-holding under the state constitution.

His health compromised by his imprisonment by the British, Salomon died in January 1785, holding more than $350,000 in depreciated Continental currency and heavily discounted government notes and securities; the market value of his estate was about twelve cents to the dollar. The Pennsylvania Packet mourned him as "an eminent broker … remarkable for his skill and integrity in his profession and for his generous and humane deportment." 

The companion fourth bill of exchange Numb. 52 is in the American Jewish Historical Society, as featured in an online exhibition "A History of Jewish Philanthropy in America" (http://contributors.cjh.org/learn/founding-freedom). The bills were issued in sets of four so that the holder could still redeem it if the the first was lost or captured at sea. "As soon as a bill made it to Paris, the others in the set lost all value. Presently no first bill of exchange is known to have survived, second bills [like the present] are rare …" (Anderson, pp. 87–88).

REFERENCE

Celebration of My Country 88; cf. William G. Anderson, The Price of Liberty: The Public Debt of the American Revolution (1983), passim