Addressee: Monsieur Monsieur Grand Banquier Rue Montmartre
Chaillot 23 March 1778
Sir
I shall do myself the Honour of awaiting on you tomorrow to take leave, + must farther trouble you to give me Letters of Credit on Frankfort sur la Maine and on Berlin. As my route is uncertain, if you can get me a List of the Best Hotels on the road hence from Frankfort I shall be much obliged to you. Also would wish to know which is the Best route to Frankfort from hence.
I am with Respect and consideration Sir Yr most obliged and Obed.t Hble Servt.
W. Lee
--- Notes:
Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand
was a Swiss banker with offices on Rue Montmartre in Paris who served as the primary financier and mail drop for American diplomats during the Revolutionary War. He was the official banker for the American commissioners in Paris and managed the French loans and funds used to buy arms and supplies for the Continental Army.
Grand was a crucial contact for Arthur Lee because British spies intercepted mail addressed directly to the American envoys. Arthur Lee often instructed his correspondents (such as Baron de Schulenburg in Berlin) to send letters "under cover" to Monsieur Grand to protect their secrecy.
William Lee was traveling to Frankfurt in March 1778 as the first leg of his mission to assume his new post as the American Commissioner to the Courts of Vienna and Berlin. Following the signing of the alliance with France in February 1778, the Continental Congress hoped to expand the war effort diplomatically. Lee's assignment was a) to secure diplomatic recognition of an independent United States from Frederick the Great of Prussia and Emperor Joseph II of Austria, and b) to open markets fo American tobacco and secure a supply line of arms and other materiel from central Europe. Frankfurt served as a strategic crossroads and a commercial hub where he could gather intelligence and meet with merchants before proceeding to the often-hostile royal courts in Vienna and Berlin.