I recently saw Hamilton, which is a great musical, but it made me think more about the financial connections that were behind his successful push to create the First Bank of the United States. A large focus is put on his humble beginnings and no one doubts is brilliance as an expert at the time of Venetian, Dutch, and British banking systems. But ideas alone do not create a successful financial institution, investors do. It's well known Jefferson opposed it because it would put commercial interests over agrarian ones. And while some sources point to American individuals such as William Duer and Alexander Macomb as influential investors the only thing I keep reading about foreign investors was that there were so many that it worried some Americans but it's sort of dismissed because they weren't allowed to vote. I'm not easily finding a list of who these individuals were, their nation of origin, nor their influence on the global market at the time. So who were these individuals? What country were most of them from? If from Britain (or even France) was there a concern about the bank being used for backdoor control of the newly established United States? With Europe having much greater financial power at the time even if these investors weren't allowed to vote did any have the ear of those who were allowed to vote such as Duer and Macomb, or even that of Hamilton or Willing (first president) themselves? How were investments in the United States bank viewed back in the elite circles of Europe?