In 1775 John and Francis Baring & Co was just one of many merchant houses in London, riding the wave of expanding world trade. By 1803 Baring Brothers Bank (as it was by then known) and its Dutch associate Hope & Co had financed the Louisiana Purchase. This remarkable achievement was the result of a complex sequence of events and connections with a number of very influential people. Not the least of these contacts was with a merchant from Philadelphia with a remarkable service record for the Continental Congress in the French West Indies during the American War of Independence. That man was William, later Senator William Bingham. This book describes the events that took place over two hundred years ago that created the world's first merchant bank, enabled the United States to become, in time, a super power, and effectively forced Britain into creating the largest Empire the world has ever seen.

The book is well illustrated with contempory portraits, landscapes and engravings that attempt to provide a visual insight into the key characters, the locations and life-style of Georgian England and post-colonial America. The genealogy of the Baring, Bingham and Willing families has been explored in depth, and is covered within the relevant chapters and in summary as an Appendix. Further appendices cover the impact that these banking pioneers have had on English aristocracy, more detail on the life and times of Bingham's charismatic wife Anne Willing Bingham, and information on the heritage locations in America and Europe that feature in the book and can still be visited and explored today.

The book has comprehensive historical and source notes, biographical sketches of the key characters, bibliography and index.