1. Samuel Holten (1738–1816), a physician from Danvers, Mass., became active in town government in 1761 and served his initial term in the Massachusetts General Assembly in 1768. Staunchly backing the Patriot cause, Holten entered the Continental Congress in 1778 as a delegate from Massachusetts and held that office for two years. He remained politically active after the war and spent nearly two decades of his later life as judge of the probate court for Essex County, Massachusetts. For a biographical sketch, see Harriet S. Tapley, “Some Personal Characteristics of Doctor Samuel Holten: As Revealed by His Letters and Journals and the Testimony of Contemporaries,” The Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society 10 (1922): 49–68.

2. Raised in a prosperous and devoutly Calvinist Connecticut farm family, Oliver Ellsworth (1745–1807) attended Yale College before leaving to graduate from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) in 1766. Abandoning ministerial studies for a legal career, he gained admittance to the bar in 1771 and became interested in politics. Ellsworth held offices in Connecticut prior to entering the Continental Congress in 1778. He remained a delegate until the end of the war and subsequently served as a Connecticut state judge (1785–89), U.S. senator (1789–96), and chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1796–1800).

3. Congress had appointed Schuyler, Holten, Ellsworth, New York delegate Robert R. Livingston, New Jersey delegate William Churchill Houston, and North Carolina delegate Thomas Burke to a fiscal committee on 9 March (see JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 16:242–43). In his diary entries for 10 and 11 March, Holten mentioned committee meetings (see Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:484). The committee presented its report to Congress on 13 March (see JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 16:255). Schuyler explained his work in committee when he wrote a letter from Philadelphia on 11 March, presumably to Jacob Cuyler, commissary general of purchases at Albany: “The subject of Finance has for some time past engrossed the attention of Congress in a Committee of the whole, but paradoxical as it may seem, that a part should be more competent than the whole, it has been thought necessary to refer the business to a lesser Committee … my object is a fixture of the present Circulating Medium at a given ratio calling it in, speedily destroying it, a new Emission quoted to States and sent forth on permanent funds, the Quantum to be emitted to be proportioned to the periodical destruction of the present Bills, the new ones to bear a Specie Interest payable at their redemption or in bills on France at the option of the holders. I believe the reports will bear this Complexion, but what transformation it will undergo in the House is impossible to determine, as every Man wishes to be thought a Financier and must have his Ideas” (Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:488–89).

Committee members also had pondered the financial complications. Ellsworth wrote Samuel Lyman from Philadelphia on 1 March: “What the State of our finances will be three months hense? is indeed to me a hard question. I will as soon as it shall be in my power forward you the result of the deliberations of Congress on this Subject. In the mean time I am not disposed to advise you to any speculations in money, but rather to confine them to the Girls till more certain times open” (Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:454–55; see also Toth, Ellsworth description begins Michael C. Toth. Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth. Wilmington, Del., 2011. description ends , 43–48). When Holten wrote the Massachusetts Council from Philadelphia on 6 March, he observed: “The enhanced prices of all the necesaries of life, the great demands for money, and the exhausted state of the public treasury, greatly embarrasses our affairs; how far it is in the power of the Honble. Court to assist Congress, or what sums of money the good people can pay in, is best known to their immediate Representatives; But surely these are matters that require the greatest care & attention, as well as exertions” (Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:466–67). Livingston wrote James Duane from Philadelphia on 13 March that finance “at present engages our whole attention & in which by a bold & vigorous exertion I hope we shall be able to Do something effectual. Tho’ not without incurring the censure & raising the clamours of many who are more attentive to their own interest than that of the community” (Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:493; see also Dangerfield, Robert R. Livingston description begins George Dangerfield. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, 1746–1813. New York, 1960. description ends , 120–22). Houston wrote Robert Morris on the same date: “I have been totally immersed in attending to a subject of the first Magnitude to the Union, the State of the Paper Currency. I have, I take the Liberty to say, faithfully attended a Committee appointed to that Duty from which my Mind has not been detached even while I have slept” (Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:491–92).

4. Considerable debate in Congress followed the presentation of the fiscal committee’s report. Finally, Congress adopted a financial plan on 18 March that generally followed the ideas sketched by Schuyler (See JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C., 1904–37. description ends , 16:256, 259, and 261–67, and Samuel Huntington to the States, 20 March, in Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:521–23. See also Holten to John Hancock, 17 March; Connecticut Delegates to Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., 20 March; and New York Delegates to George Clinton, 21 March, in Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:513–14, 519–21, and 529–31). Holten succinctly summarized the measure in his diary entry for 18 March: “Congress agreed to call in all the paper currency by taxes” (Smith, Letters of Delegates description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. Washington, D.C., 1976–2000. description ends , 14:516).

5. Schuyler inadvertently wrote “foreseee” for this word.

6. Schuyler is referring to his decision to decline an appointment to a commission that Congress created to examine the expenses of the Continental army’s staff departments (see Schuyler to GW, 7 March, and n.2 to that document; see also Samuel Huntington to GW, 25 Jan., and notes 1 and 2 to that document).

7. Schuyler next wrote GW on 19 March.

The British had landed a large force near Charleston, S.C., on 11 Feb. and had been threatening that place ever since (see Benjamin Lincoln to GW, 11–12, 14, and 22 Feb., and 4 March; see also John Laurens to GW, 14 Feb. and 14 March, and Lincoln to GW, 24 March). For operational details between 11 Feb. and 12 March from the vantage points of two British officers, see Gruber, Peebles’ American War description begins Ira D. Gruber, ed. John Peebles’ American War: The Diary of a Scottish Grenadier, 1776–1782. Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1998. description ends , 338–48, and Lydenberg, Robertson Diaries description begins Harry Miller Lydenberg, ed. Archibald Robertson, Lieutenant-General Royal Engineers: His Diaries and Sketches in America, 1762–1780. New York, 1930. description ends , 211–16; see also Ewald, Diary description begins Johann Ewald. Diary of the American War: A Hessian Journal. Translated and edited by Joseph P. Tustin. New Haven and London, 1979. description ends , 195–208.