Virginia Delegates in Congress to Virginia Auditors of Public Accounts, 11 September 1780
Virginia Delegates in Congress
to Virginia Auditors of Public Accounts
RC (Virginia State Library). The note appears to be in John Walker’s hand.
Philada. Sepr. 11th. 1780.
Gentlemen:1
Please to pay to Mr. Michael Gratz2 or order Thirty Thousand Dollars & charge the same to our Acct. as Delegates to Congress.3
1. By a law enacted in December 1778 the legislature of Virginia created a Board of Auditors, comprising three men to be elected by joint ballot of the two houses of the Assembly. In September 1780 the auditors were Harrison Randolph, Leighton Wood, and Edward Archer, Jr. ( , October 1778, p. 111; , IX, 536–40; Calendar of Virginia State Papers, I, 355, 414). Harrison Randolph (ca. 1740–ca. 1801) of Brunswick County became a state auditor in May 1780 and remained on the board until 1784. In 1793 he was appointed clerk of the Virginia district court for his district (Brunswick County Court Records, Deed Book, No. 15, p. 183, microfilm in Virginia State Library; Brunswick County Property Tax Books, 1801–1802). Leighton Wood (1740–1805) of Hanover County had been a commissioner to investigate accounts of public trade in 1777–1778. His tenure as auditor was only seven months, for he became state solicitor general on 29 December 1780 ( , October 1777, p. 116; May 1780, p. 21; October 1780, pp. 76, 78). Edward Archer, Jr. (ca. 1741–1807), a merchant from Norfolk, was named to the Board of Auditors in 1779 and remained until 1781. He was a member of the Norfolk County Committee of Safety in 1775 and the state Board of Naval Commissioners from 1776 to 1779. With the establishment of the federal government he became a supporter of the first Bank of the United States (St. Paul’s Church, 1832, originally the Borough Church, 1739, Elizabeth River Parish, Norfolk, Virginia [Norfolk, 1934], p. 90; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, LXIII [1955], 333; , October 1776, p. 104; May 1779, pp. 53, 64; October 1781, p. 17).
2. Michael Gratz (1740–1811), a prominent Philadelphia merchant who for a time had lived and traded in Virginia. He frequently handled the business of members of Congress.
3. For a detailed statement of JM’s financial accounts during his first six months in Congress, see below, 25 September 1780 and 20 December 1780.
4. Below the text of this note is written, probably by one of the auditors, “30,000 Dollars a[t] 75 for 1 is £120.” That is, $30,000 divided by 75 (the depreciation rate in September 1780 was 75 to 1) equals $400. One pound Virginia currency was equated as $3.33 continental currency. Hence, $400 divided by $3.33 is £120. Beneath the sentence in quotation marks appears the following, apparently written at least four years later:
“NB.
“Mr. Maddison has credited his third part of the above[.] Colo Bland render’d an acct. of his third part, but it was not charged to him & the settlemt. consequently the public is not answerable for it[.] Mr. Walker is charged with his third part July 21, 1784, but had not rendered any acct as Delegate in Congress at that period[.]”