Thomas Barclay (diplomat)
Encyclopedia
Thomas Barclay was a Philadelphia merchant, America’s first consul in France
(1781-1787) and the American diplomat who negotiated America’s first treaty with the sultan of Morocco
in 1786. He was the first American diplomat to die in a foreign country in the service of the United States.
Barclay was born in Strabane
, County Tyrone
, Ireland
, son of Robert Barclay (d. 1779), prosperous linen merchant and ship owner. His mother’s name is unknown, but may have been Carsan. After learning the merchant trade in his father’s business in Strabane, he arrived in Philadelphia around 1764 in his mid-thirties. There he was active in the large Irish community, where he was a founding member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick
(1771), and he became a successful merchant and ship-owner. His firm played a big role in the Irish trade – especially in the export of flax seed and the import of linen and other dry goods. As time passed, the firm’s ships were increasingly seen in the ports of England, southern Europe
, the Caribbean
, and occasionally the Mediterranean.
In 1770 Thomas Barclay married Mary Hoops in Philadelphia. Born in 1750 in western Pennsylvania, Mary had moved to Philadelphia with her family at the age of eleven. She was one of eight children of Adam Hoops (1708-1771) and Elizabeth Finney Hoops (1720-1782).
Thomas Barclay’s first decade in Philadelphia was a time of growing friction with England that began with the Stamp Act
in 1765 and he was an early member of the resistance. A signer of non-importation agreements in 1765 and 1769, he was on the committee that organized the Philadelphia Tea Party
in 1773, which used persuasion rather than violence to refuse the British East India Company's
tea. He was one of only four men elected a member of the five successive Philadelphia correspondence committees during the resistance years of 1774-1776. He was also elected to the Philadelphia Corporation in 1774, named a deputy delegate to the Provincial conventions in 1774 and 1775, and appointed to the Pennsylvania Navy Board in 1777. Following the outbreak of war with England and the Declaration of Independence
he remained politically active. In 1781, when it became clear that William Palfrey
, who had been named consul to France, was lost at sea, the Continental Congress
named Barclay to the post.
, and began a battle- and storm-filled voyage to France. There, working with minister Benjamin Franklin
during the last years of the war, most of Barclay’s time was spent in Dutch and French ports arranging the shipment of blankets, clothing and other supplies for General George Washington
’s troops. A year after his arrival, the Continental Congress also appointed him commissioner to settle America’s public accounts in Europe since 1776. At about the same time he agreed to be the agent in Europe for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In August 1784 Thomas Barclay welcomed to Paris John Adams
, with whom he had worked in Holland, and Thomas Jefferson
. They had been sent to negotiate treaties of friendship and commerce with the maritime states of Europe and the Barbary powers of Morocco
, Algiers
, Tunis
and Libya
in North Africa
. Jefferson succeeded Franklin as minister to France in late spring of 1785, and from that time on Barclay worked closely with him on trade and other matters.
In the fall of 1785 Jefferson proposed sending Thomas Barclay to negotiate a treaty of friendship and commerce with the sultan of Morocco, Sidi Muhammad ibn Abdullah, also known as Muhammad III (reigned 1757-1790). John Adams, who was by then serving as minister in London, agreed: "If Mr. Barclay will undertake the voyage, I am for looking no farther. We cannot find a steadier, or more prudent man." Jefferson and Adams were faced with difficult decisions by threats to American shipping from the Barbary corsairs
. In October 1784 an American merchantman had been seized in the south Atlantic by a Moroccan corsair; this, the Moroccan sultan had quickly explained, was to get America to send an envoy to negotiate a treaty with him. He had sought this through diplomatic channels for a number of years with no success.
in June 1786, after five months of overland travel and a sea voyage from Cadiz
to the Moroccan port of Mogador. After two audiences with the sultan, the draft treaty he had brought from Paris was accepted with only minor changes. When the question of future presents or tribute was informally raised he made it clear that there could be no question of either, or he would have to leave without a treaty. The matter was dropped and Barclay obtained for America a rare treaty with a Barbary power without promise of tribute
— large annual payments and/or delivery of military or other goods of value. The treaty was ratified by Congress in July 1787. A United States Department of State
official observed in 1967 that, “the basic provisions of the 1787 treaty
[have] never been broken, making this the longest unbroken treaty relationship in United States history.”
The treaty meant that American ship captains no longer needed to fear Moroccan corsairs and that the Atlantic shipping lanes to and from Southern Europe were safe for American ships as long as a Portuguese naval squadron at the strait of Gibraltar kept corsairs from Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli in the Mediterranean, which it did until long after the United States made peace with Algiers (the principal threat) in 1795 — except for a few disastrous weeks of a truce in 1793 when eleven American ships were seized by Algerine
corsairs — at least seven of them in the Atlantic.
In 1791 President George Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson sent Thomas Barclay back to Morocco to reconfirm the US-Morocco treaty with the successor to the late sultan with whom Barclay had negotiated. By the time he reached Gibraltar
an internecine battle for the sultanate was underway among the late sultan’s sons. He was told to wait, which he did, reporting to Secretary of State Jefferson often and in detail with news from Morocco and other parts of Barbary.
In December 1792 he received a letter from President Washington asking him to go to Algiers to ransom Americans being held there and to negotiate a treaty with the ruling dey
. (Barclay was the backup to John Paul Jones
who had died before receiving the instructions.) He immediately went to Lisbon
to obtain funds critical to the mission, but on his third day there he took sick. The following day, January 19, 1793, suffering from what the doctors called an inflammation of the lungs, Thomas Barclay died.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(1781-1787) and the American diplomat who negotiated America’s first treaty with the sultan of Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
in 1786. He was the first American diplomat to die in a foreign country in the service of the United States.
Barclay was born in Strabane
Strabane
Strabane , historically spelt Straban,is a town in west County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It contains the headquarters of Strabane District Council....
, County Tyrone
County Tyrone
Historically Tyrone stretched as far north as Lough Foyle, and comprised part of modern day County Londonderry east of the River Foyle. The majority of County Londonderry was carved out of Tyrone between 1610-1620 when that land went to the Guilds of London to set up profit making schemes based on...
, Ireland
Kingdom of Ireland
The Kingdom of Ireland refers to the country of Ireland in the period between the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland by the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 and the Act of Union in 1800. It replaced the Lordship of Ireland, which had been created in 1171...
, son of Robert Barclay (d. 1779), prosperous linen merchant and ship owner. His mother’s name is unknown, but may have been Carsan. After learning the merchant trade in his father’s business in Strabane, he arrived in Philadelphia around 1764 in his mid-thirties. There he was active in the large Irish community, where he was a founding member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick
Friendly Sons of St. Patrick
The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, or The Society of The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick for the Relief of Emigrants from Ireland, is an American social organization for Irish-Americans founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 17 , 1771.General Stephen Moylan was one of society's organizers and...
(1771), and he became a successful merchant and ship-owner. His firm played a big role in the Irish trade – especially in the export of flax seed and the import of linen and other dry goods. As time passed, the firm’s ships were increasingly seen in the ports of England, southern Europe
Southern Europe
The term Southern Europe, at its most general definition, is used to mean "all countries in the south of Europe". However, the concept, at different times, has had different meanings, providing additional political, linguistic and cultural context to the definition in addition to the typical...
, the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
, and occasionally the Mediterranean.
In 1770 Thomas Barclay married Mary Hoops in Philadelphia. Born in 1750 in western Pennsylvania, Mary had moved to Philadelphia with her family at the age of eleven. She was one of eight children of Adam Hoops (1708-1771) and Elizabeth Finney Hoops (1720-1782).
Thomas Barclay’s first decade in Philadelphia was a time of growing friction with England that began with the Stamp Act
Stamp Act 1765
The Stamp Act 1765 was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp...
in 1765 and he was an early member of the resistance. A signer of non-importation agreements in 1765 and 1769, he was on the committee that organized the Philadelphia Tea Party
Philadelphia Tea Party
The Philadelphia Tea Party was an incident in October 16, 1773, two months before the more famous Boston Tea Party, in which a British tea ship was intercepted by American colonists and forced to return its cargo to Great Britain.- Background :...
in 1773, which used persuasion rather than violence to refuse the British East India Company's
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
tea. He was one of only four men elected a member of the five successive Philadelphia correspondence committees during the resistance years of 1774-1776. He was also elected to the Philadelphia Corporation in 1774, named a deputy delegate to the Provincial conventions in 1774 and 1775, and appointed to the Pennsylvania Navy Board in 1777. Following the outbreak of war with England and the Declaration of Independence
Declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...
he remained politically active. In 1781, when it became clear that William Palfrey
William Palfrey
William Palfrey was an American Patriot born in Boston, Massachusetts. Working as John Hancock's chief clerk, he was active in the movements that preceded the American Revolution, and visited England in 1771...
, who had been named consul to France, was lost at sea, the Continental Congress
Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....
named Barclay to the post.
Consul in France
October 5, 1781, Thomas and Mary Barclay and their three young children embarked on the ship St. James, Captain Thomas TruxtunThomas Truxtun
Thomas Truxtun was an American naval officer who rose to the rank of commodore.Born near Hempstead, New York on Long Island, Truxtun had little formal education before joining the crew of the British merchant ship Pitt at the age of twelve...
, and began a battle- and storm-filled voyage to France. There, working with minister Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
during the last years of the war, most of Barclay’s time was spent in Dutch and French ports arranging the shipment of blankets, clothing and other supplies for General George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
’s troops. A year after his arrival, the Continental Congress also appointed him commissioner to settle America’s public accounts in Europe since 1776. At about the same time he agreed to be the agent in Europe for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In August 1784 Thomas Barclay welcomed to Paris John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
, with whom he had worked in Holland, and Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
. They had been sent to negotiate treaties of friendship and commerce with the maritime states of Europe and the Barbary powers of Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
and Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
. Jefferson succeeded Franklin as minister to France in late spring of 1785, and from that time on Barclay worked closely with him on trade and other matters.
In the fall of 1785 Jefferson proposed sending Thomas Barclay to negotiate a treaty of friendship and commerce with the sultan of Morocco, Sidi Muhammad ibn Abdullah, also known as Muhammad III (reigned 1757-1790). John Adams, who was by then serving as minister in London, agreed: "If Mr. Barclay will undertake the voyage, I am for looking no farther. We cannot find a steadier, or more prudent man." Jefferson and Adams were faced with difficult decisions by threats to American shipping from the Barbary corsairs
Barbary corsairs
The Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber...
. In October 1784 an American merchantman had been seized in the south Atlantic by a Moroccan corsair; this, the Moroccan sultan had quickly explained, was to get America to send an envoy to negotiate a treaty with him. He had sought this through diplomatic channels for a number of years with no success.
Diplomat in Barbary
Thomas Barclay arrived in the Moroccan capital of MarrakechMarrakech
Marrakech or Marrakesh , known as the "Ochre city", is the most important former imperial city in Morocco's history...
in June 1786, after five months of overland travel and a sea voyage from Cadiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
to the Moroccan port of Mogador. After two audiences with the sultan, the draft treaty he had brought from Paris was accepted with only minor changes. When the question of future presents or tribute was informally raised he made it clear that there could be no question of either, or he would have to leave without a treaty. The matter was dropped and Barclay obtained for America a rare treaty with a Barbary power without promise of tribute
Tribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
— large annual payments and/or delivery of military or other goods of value. The treaty was ratified by Congress in July 1787. A United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
official observed in 1967 that, “the basic provisions of the 1787 treaty
Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship
In December 1777, Moroccan sultan Muhammad III included America in a list of countries to which Morocco’s ports were open. With that message to foreign consuls for communication to European capitals, Morocco became the first country whose head of state publicly recognized the new United States...
[have] never been broken, making this the longest unbroken treaty relationship in United States history.”
The treaty meant that American ship captains no longer needed to fear Moroccan corsairs and that the Atlantic shipping lanes to and from Southern Europe were safe for American ships as long as a Portuguese naval squadron at the strait of Gibraltar kept corsairs from Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli in the Mediterranean, which it did until long after the United States made peace with Algiers (the principal threat) in 1795 — except for a few disastrous weeks of a truce in 1793 when eleven American ships were seized by Algerine
Algerine
Algerine can refer to:*Algerian , various ships of the Royal Navythree ship classes:Algerino refers to:*A nickname given to inhabitants of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, by residents of Whitby...
corsairs — at least seven of them in the Atlantic.
In 1791 President George Washington and Secretary of State Jefferson sent Thomas Barclay back to Morocco to reconfirm the US-Morocco treaty with the successor to the late sultan with whom Barclay had negotiated. By the time he reached Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
an internecine battle for the sultanate was underway among the late sultan’s sons. He was told to wait, which he did, reporting to Secretary of State Jefferson often and in detail with news from Morocco and other parts of Barbary.
In December 1792 he received a letter from President Washington asking him to go to Algiers to ransom Americans being held there and to negotiate a treaty with the ruling dey
Dey
Dey was the title given to the rulers of the Regency of Algiers and Tripoli under the Ottoman Empire from 1671 onwards...
. (Barclay was the backup to John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones was a Scottish sailor and the United States' first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among America's political elites, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to...
who had died before receiving the instructions.) He immediately went to Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
to obtain funds critical to the mission, but on his third day there he took sick. The following day, January 19, 1793, suffering from what the doctors called an inflammation of the lungs, Thomas Barclay died.