James Greenleaf is in Amsterdam from January 31, 1789, through August 1793, where he conducts business with Daniel Crommelin & Sons (a major Dutch investment banking house marketing American bonds).

He sells nearly two million bonds during this time, as well as $160,000 worth of stock in the Bank of the United States (a central bank established by the United States federal government).

He amasses a fortune worth one million dollars, a very large sum at this time.

On March 2, 1793, Greenleaf is named consul at the United States embassy in Amsterdam.

He serves only about six weeks, returning to the United States on April 29, 1793.

Greenleaf, the twelfth of fifteen children, was born on June 9, 1765, in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States to William and Mary (Brown) Greenleaf.

His father was a merchant who was later appointed sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, during the American Revolutionary War, and was a member of the committee of correspondence which secretly communicated with other cities regarding British policy and military actions in the years prior to the American Revolution.

William Greenleaf had announced American independence in July 1776 from the balcony of the Old State House.

In the crowd were John Quincy Adams and William Cranch.

Adams will later be President of the United States; Cranch will be chief judge of the District of Columbia circuit court and the second reporter of decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Greenleafs were Huguenots who had fled France, anglicizing their family name (Feuillevert) to Greenleaf.

Greenleaf's great-great-grandfather, Edmund, was born in 1574 in Ipswich, Suffolk, England.

His great-grandfather, Stephen, was born there in 1628, and the entire family had emigrated to Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1635.

The Greenleaf family has become one of the best connected in early American history.

His sister, Rebecca, had married Noah Webster (who creates the first American dictionary).

Another had married the late Nathaniel Appleton, the noted minister and a trustee of Harvard University.

His sister Margaret has married Thomas Dawes, a member of the powerful Massachusetts Governor's Council, while his sister Abigail will marries William Cranch.

The family's descendants will also play a large role in American literature.

The celebrated poet John Greenleaf Whittier is descended from James' great-grandfather, Stephen.

The twentieth century poet T. S. Eliot is a descendant of Abigail Greenleaf Cranch.

Little is known about Greenleaf's early life or education.

In 1781, when James was sixteen, his father had retired from business and the Greenleaf family had moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Seven years later, Greenleaf had left Massachusetts and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Noah Webster had introduced him to businessman James Watson, and the two men had established an import business, Watson & Greenleaf.

The firm has offices in Philadelphia and New York City.

After his business was incorporated, Greenleaf had traveled to the Netherlands, where he tried to sell American bonds.

According to John Quincy Adams, who was in Amsterdam at the same time, Greenleaf rented a magnificent mansion and immediately began circulating in high society.