King George III document signed "George R". One page (docketing on the verso), partially printed on parchment, n.p., June 11, 1778. The document gives royal assent to an appropriation by the British Parliament of 27,457 12s 1/2d to be paid to Arnold Nesbitt, Adam Drummond, and Moses Frank, "contractors for virtualizing the forces in North America." British Forces in North America numbered 12,000 men at the time of the appropriation. Countersigned by Lord Westcote and Viscount Beauchamp, Commissioners for the Office of Lord High Treasurer of England and the Lord of the Treasury, Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston. Sold with the comptroller's accounting of the appropriation, one page (docketing on the verso), n.p., June 11, 1778, signed by Comptroller of Army Accounts Thomas Bowlby. Royal document: 15"H x 9.75"W; Comptroller document: 13.5"H x 9.75"W; Frame: 25"H x 35.5"W. PROVENANCE: From the Collection of Sam Wyly, Dallas, Texas (acquired in 2002). NOTE: By 1778 the cost to Great Britain of the revolution in British North America was growing and the conflict was spreading. In February 1778 a Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed in Paris bringing the Kingdom of France closer to openly supplying the American revolutionaries. On March 13, the French minister in London informed King George III's government that France officially recognized the United States. Three days later, on March 16, 1778, a peace commission was created by the British Parliament to negotiate with the Americans. The commissioners traveled to Philadelphia where they offered to grant all of the American demands, except independence. The British concessions were rejected by Congress. By June 1778, France entered the war as a military ally of the United States and was at war with Great Britain. No longer a confined revolution, the North American conflict became an international war.