?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 20,000
SIGNED BY TWO OF MOST IMPORTANT FINANCIERS OF REVOLUTION (AMERICAN REVOLUTION.) MORRIS, ROBERT; AND HAYM SALOMON. Partly-printed Document Signed, a bill of exchange signed by Morris, "Rob'tMorris, / S[uper]I[ntendent] of Finance," and with Signature by Haym transferring payee on verso. The document, in French, requesting that Mr. Grande at the Bank of Paris pay 4,500 livres tournois to Salomon Haym in 60 days. Three other payment transfers signed on verso, including Samuel Inglis, who made the final transfer to Messrs. Bingham, Inglis & Gilmer. 4x10 1/4 inches; some chipping at edges with minor loss to extreme end of Morris's holograph title, minor staining at side and lower edges, folds. Philadelphia, 11 July 1782
When Robert Morris became the first and only U.S. Superintendent of Finance in 1781, the government was nearing bankruptcy and public credit was on the verge of collapse. The Bank of North America, which Morris had helped establish in part to finance the closing chapter of the Revolutionary War, depended upon Morris's own private fortune and loans from abroad. Haym Salomon (1740-1785), a Jewish Polish-American businessman who had joined the Sons of Liberty in NY and served as paymaster for the French forces in North America during the Revolution, was contracted by Morris to sell the bills of exchange he issued beginning in 1781. By July 12, 1782, Salomon was advertising his services on behalf of the U.S. as "Broker to the Office of Finance," designating the work he continued until 1784. Although the nation's economy would not recover for many years, the Bank of North America and other financial reforms Morris had set in motion enabled the fledgling country to endure.
