Phineas Bond

Phineas Bond (1749–1815) was a Philadelphia lawyer from a family closely connected to the city’s institutions. His father, also Phineas, was a physician and a founder of the College of Philadelphia. The younger Bond remained a Loyalist during the American Revolution and went into exile in England. There he represented British merchants seeking repayment of American debts. ^{1, 3}

Bond returned to Philadelphia as British consul and merchants’ representative in the 1780s. He also served as chargé d’affaires. In May 1796, he and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering signed an explanatory article to the Jay Treaty addressing cross border commerce. The Treaty of Greenville had required traders in Indigenous towns and camps to hold American licenses, raising doubts about the earlier Anglo-American guarantee of passage and trade. Their agreement declared that subsequent treaties, including agreements with Indigenous nations, could not diminish those rights. It expressly protected British subjects, American citizens, and Indigenous people on either side of the boundary, subject to the Jay Treaty’s terms. ^{1, 2}

He remained an intermediary for Britain and its trading interests until the approach of the War of 1812. He died in 1815. ^{1, 3}