To John Jay from the Committee for Foreign Affairs, 12 July 1780, enclosing Descriptions and Secret Checks for Bills of Exchange
From the Committee for Foreign Affairs
[In Committee of Foreign Affairs,] 12 July 1780
Sir,
Enclosed you have Description of the Bills of exchange concerning which we have written you.1 The secret checks accompany it. They are just furnished us by the Treasury-board, and we are sorry that the paper is so indifferent, but hope it will answer the purpose of information— We are assured the copy is exact; it is however necessary to observe that unless the impression of the Bills is very fine & clear, it will be very difficult to discover the whole of the secret checks perfectly. We are, Sir, Your very humble Servants
James Lovell
Wm: Churchill Houston
[Enclosures]
[Descriptions and Secret Checks for Bills of Exchange]
Description of the Bills of Exchange which came under cover of the foregoing Letter [12 July 1780]—
Treasury Office Decr. 18th 1779—
The Board of Treasury took into consideration the Resolution of Congress of the 23d & 29th of Novr: last2 respecting Bills of Exchange on Spain—
Ordered— That the Bills of exchange to be drawn on Spain shall consist of three Denominations and be printed in Types, & Copper plate in Sets of four bills each, according to the following schedule vizt.
| 1 Denomination— | 1000 | Sets of 225 | Mexican | Dollars— | 225,000 |
| 2 ditto— | 326 | do of 333 | ditto | do— | 108,558 |
| 3 ditto— | 250 | do of 444 | ditto | do— | 110,0003 |
| 443,558 |
That the teint of the Letter press be in red ink, & of the rolling press in blue ink—
That the following check Letters be inserted on each side of the broad Margin—
| In the first Denomination | H | J |
| S | P | |
| A | N | |
| T | A | |
| In the second Denomination | C | A |
| S | T | |
| J | L | |
| L | E | |
| In the third Denomination | V | A |
| L | E | |
| N | C | |
| J | A |
That the narrow Letter Press border on the right hand be formed of thirteen States4 interspersed with the denomination of the bill in very small types.
That in the several denominations the word “Commissioner” of the Continental Loan Office in the State of 5 shall be printed & spelled as follows—
| In the first denomination— | “Comissioner”6 | |
| In the second | ditto— | “Commissioner” |
| In the third | ditto— | “Commissioner” |
That the following be the form of the Bill—
Exchange for 225 Mexican dollars. United States of North America— Day of At Six Months sight of this first of Exchange, second, third, and fourth of the same Tenor and Date unpaid: Pay to the order of two hundred and twenty five Mexican dollars. Value received by the United States
Treasurer of Loans
To the Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States of North
America, at the Court of Madrid
HJ Countersigned
Commissioner of the Continental
Loan Office in the State of
In the second denomination the form of the bill shall be like the first denomination, except the figures on the top of the bill, which shall be 333 dollars, and in the Body of the Bill to express that number in types three hundred & thirty three, in all other respects conforming to the directions before given—
In like manner the third denomination shall be printed, inserting the top of the bill the figures 444 dollars, & in the body of the bill the value of these figures in letters conforming in other respects to the directions herein before given—
Extract from the minutes
Charles Lee Secy
Description of the copper plate impression of the Loan
Bills of Exchange on Spain and Holland—
There is a broad Margin to the left hand composed of the words “Exchange on public credit” thro’ which the knife must pass, leaving part of those letters in the book of the vender, & the remainder on the bills sold—the Bills consist of four Sets, separated by ornamental borders, thro’ which the knife must also pass, so that a first & second draft must exactly fit with respect to the engravings, as also must the second & third, & the third & fourth—
Secret Checks
In the first bill there is one large dot seeming to be part of the ornament at the bottom of the letter t in the word credit.
In the second bill there are two such dots—vizt—one at the bottom of the letter c, & the other at the bottom of b in the word public—
In the third Bill there are three such dots, vizt: one at the bottom of the tail of the P. one at the end of the flourish of the last stroke of the N. & the third at the bottom of the middle stroke of the N—
In the fourth bill are four such dots vizt: one under the middle stroke of the N—one under the first stroke of the A & two under the X—
In the third bill there is a natural mark in the plate in the finishing stroke of the E in Exchange thus E—
At the top of the first bill & on the left hand, near the broad margin in the first broad stroke of a flourish, on near inspection will be found a figure 1 in white in this position ⁄ and there are eleven lines on which the number of the bill is to be written. There is also a manifest irregularity between the fifth & sixth of these lines counting from the bottom, & a slip of the Engraver on the fourth line—lastly in the bottom Ornament, & close to the top thereof near the end of the label containing the word THE will be seen on examination a very small 1 in white—
In the second bill, in the second broad stroke of the flourish to the left hand are two small white spots, & in the dividing boarder immediatey above the o in No. is a small 2 in white— There are ten lines on which the number of the bill is to be written, & a strong natural mark in the plate on the seventh line from the bottom—
In the third bill on the last broad stroke of the left hand flourish is the number III in white— There are eight lines on which the number of the bill is to be written, & in the division border on a leaf neatly over the R is a small figure 3 not white—
In the fourth bill under the first broad stroke of the left hand flourish are four oval drops under E; in the division border is a small figure 4 in white— In the principal stroke of the last flourish is the number III in white— There are twelve strokes on which the number of the bill is to be written & the second of these strokes from the top crosses the finest stroke of the N.
NB. These secret checks are not much to be depended on, as they will very frequently fail for want of great care in the copper plate printer, & owing to the colours being too thick, as well as other accidental causes—
Memorandum of the particular words in the bills of Exchange on Spain—
225 Mexican dollars Second Mexican dollars court Madrid
333 Mexican dollars exchange Mexican dollars Madrid Loan-Office
444 Mexican dollars forty four Mexican dollars Madrid Loan Office
Charles Lee Secy. to the Board of Treasury
N.B. The several letters with a black mark under them in the several words above written are somewhat different from the other letters in the same word—
Cs Lee Secy.
Honble John Jay
C, with enclosures, in the hand of Henry Brockholst Livingston, NNC: JJ Lbk. 4. A similar letter, in the hand of Houston and signed by Houston and Lovell, was sent to John Adams. RC, MHi: Adams. LbkCs, addressed to both JJ and JA, DNA: PCC, item 79, 1: 270–71; app.: 132–33 (EJ: 9933, 13503); , 15: 435–36.
1. On these bills, see Committee for Foreign Affairs to JJ, 11 Dec. 1779, above. JJ acknowledged receipt of this letter on 30 Nov., below. JJ and JA were expected to examine the bills presented to them for these characteristics and secret checks to ensure that they were genuine. The checks described are representative of the various techniques developed at the time as deterrents to the counterfeiting of notes and bills. See, for example, the discussion of indenture, printing, engraving, and papermaking techniques; hand-numbering and signing; and other anticounterfeiting techniques for paper money described in Eric P. Newman, The Early Paper Money of America (Racine, Wis., 1967), 16–21.
2. In its 29 Nov. 1779 resolution “relative to the drawing bills of exchange on Mr. Jay and Mr. Laurens,” Congress specified “That the bills be prepared under the direction of the Board of Treasury, and with such checks as they may devise to prevent counterfeits.” , 15: 1326. Each bill was water-marked with “United States” and the number 1, 2, 3, or 4, depending on whether it was the first, second, third, or fourth bill in the set. The border designs were the work of Francis Hopkinson, the treasurer of loans. George E. Hastings, The Life and Works of Francis Hopkinson (Chicago, 1926), 240. See figure 5 for an example of a bill for $225 from the private collection of Ned W. Downing. Another example, of a bill for $333, from the collection of John Herzog, is printed in William C. Anderson, The Price of Liberty: The Public Debt of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, Va., 1983), 90.
3. This figure should be 111,000, making the total below 444,558. See the account in DNA: PCC, item 34, 41.
4. The 13 states are represented in the border by 13 stars.
5. Here and below, spaces left blank in manuscript.
6. Based on the evidence of the two extant copies found, both issued by Nathaniel Appleton, the loan officer for Massachusetts, on 5 July 1780, the printer failed to misspell commissioner on at least the fourth bill of the lowest denomination, $225 (see figure 5). The designated misspelling, “comissioner,” instead appears on a second bill of the second ($333) denomination printed by Anderson. Whether this change of the denomination on which the misspelling appears applies to all four bills of each denomination has not been determined.