funding for the 1781 Yorktown campaign of General George Washington. Additional funds were needed for the campaign, for which a large loan was obtained from France. The Bank of North America was chartered in December 1781 by the Congress of the Confederation and opened on January 7, 1782, at the prodding of Robert Morris. Morris funded the bank with the French loan and his own fortune. The bank was used as a financier of the war. This was thus the union's first de facto central bank, being the United States' first government-incorporated bank, following in the footsteps of the Bank of England until 1785, when the Bank’s charter within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was revoked. In 1782, Gouverneur Morris initiated the decimal coinage idea while coining the word "cent" that later became standard for the country's currency. After Morris left the superintendency on November 1, 1784, the post was superseded by a board. Powers Its powers were analogous to that of Secretary of the Treasury or the prime minister of many British Commonwealth countries. Unlike the office of prime minister, the office of superintendent was not held by an individual who was at the time a member of the government. In this way, it was more like the prototype for the soon to be devised office of the presidency. See also United States Secretary of the Navy United States Secretary of the Treasury Further reading Ferguson, E. James. The power of the purse: A history of American public finance, 1776-1790 (1961) Ver Steeg, Clarence L. Robert Morris, Revolutionary Financier. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954 (). References Continental Congress