To Benjamin Franklin from the Trustees of the General Loan Office: Bill of Exchange, 20 October 1761
From the Trustees of the General Loan Office: Bill of Exchange5
Printed form with blanks filled in: The Franklin Inn, Philadelphia
Philadelphia, October 20th 1761.
At Thirty Days Sight of this our Fourth per Exchange (our First, Second and Third, of the same Tenor and Date, unpaid) pay unto John Reynell6 or Order, Three hundred Pounds Sterling, for Value received, and charge it to the Province of Pennsylvania; but if it is not paid at said Thirty Days Sight, then pay Interest on that Sum, from the Expiration of the said Thirty Days, until paid, at the Rate of Six Pounds per Centum per Annum; and if this Bill and Interest is not paid in one Year from the Date hereof, we do hereby oblige ourselves, our Heirs, Executors, and Administrators, to pay the said Bill with Interest from the Date thereof, at the above Rate, until paid, when it shall be returned with a Protest to us, but no other Damages; on this Condition, nevertheless, that if Payment be not demanded within Six Months after the Date of the said Protest, the Interest from that Time shall determine and cease.
Chas. Norris
Thos Leech
Mahlon Kirkbride
| To | Benjamin Franklin Esqr. |
| in London |
Endorsed: Pay the Contents to Hillary & Scott7 on Order
John Reynell
5. An example of the printed bills of exchange the trustees of the General Loan Office had prepared for use in drawing funds from the parliamentary grant of 1758. The text follows precisely the form of their undated draft memorandum now among the Isaac Norris Papers, Hist. Soc. Pa. See above, p. 362 n. No attempt has been made to locate and reproduce other surviving bills of this series.
6. John Reynell (1708–1784), Quaker shipping and commission merchant of Philadelphia, treasurer of the Pa. Hospital, 1751–52; president of its Board of Managers, 1757–80. PMHB, LVI (1932), 158–86. Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia 1682–1763 (Chapel Hill, 1948), contains much information on Reynell’s business activities and reproduces a silhouette now in Hist. Soc. Pa.
7. Probably a Liverpool mercantile firm; see above, p. 41.