In April, 1878, he accompanied Secretary Sherman and Attorney-General Devens to New York, and arranged a meeting between these two members of the Cabinet and the officers of ten of the principal banks of the city at the National Bank of Commerce, with the view of negotiating the sale of $50,000,000 of 4½ per cent. bonds, the avails of which were to be used for resumption purposes. The Presidents of the banks, who were present, gave Secretary Sherman no encouragement as to the purchase of the bonds at the rates proposed by him. Upon the return of the Secretary and Comptroller to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in the evening, they were met by August Belmont, who had a cable dispatch from the Rothschilds, authorizing a purchase of the whole amount at a premium of one and one-half per cent. for the account of the syndicate. Upon the following day the Secretary and the Comptroller returned to Washington, after an absence of three days, and the success of the negotiation was announced, much to the chagrin of some members of the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives, who were then bitterly opposing the scheme proposed by the Secretary for the resumption of specie payments. This negotiation was the first of a series of brilliant financial transactions preceding and following resumption on January 1, 1879. Subsequently he arranged a conference, which was held in the Treasury at Washington, in the evening, between leading bank officials of New York and Secretaries Sherman and Evarts, which resulted in the admission of the Assistant Treasurer as a member of the clearing house, and the receipt by the banks of legal tender notes on a par with gold; and in 1881, by request of President Garfield, he attended a conference in New York between the leading financial men of the city and Secretary Windom and Attorney-General McVeagh, which resulted in the issue and successful negotiation of three and one-half per cent. bonds. At the time of his resignation, Mr. Knox was the oldest officer in term of service in the department. One of the leading financial writers in the country, in noticing his retirement, in the _Nation_ said: “The retirement of Mr. John Jay Knox from the office of Comptroller of the Currency is a loss to the public service of no common kind. The intelligence which he has brought to the complicated duties of his office has never been surpassed in any similar station, and has not been equalled in the particular station which he has so long filled. The National banking system owes much of its present carefulness in detail management to his mastery of all the facts and principles of sound finance. His annual reports embrace perhaps the most complete and satisfactory arrangement of information needful to the business-man, the student, and the legislator that has ever been furnished in this country on any economical subject. Mr. Knox resigns the Comptrollership to take the Presidency of the National Bank of the Republic of New York City.”