Carlos Martínez de Irujo y Tacón

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Marqués de Casa Irujo

Don Carlos Martínez de Irujo y Tacón (born Cartagena 1763, died Madrid 1824), from 1803 known as Marqués de Casa Irujo, was a Spanish diplomat and public official.

Casa Irujo (often spelled Yrujo) was the Spanish minister to the United States from 1796 to 1807. He later served as minister to Brazil and France.

He was secretary of state of Spain (ministro de estado) three times, first in 1812, then in an interim capacity from 1818 to 1819, and finally for a few weeks from December 1823 until his death in January 1824.

In 1794 while an attaché at the Spanish embassy in London he had an illegitimate daughter named Lavinia de Irujo. There are several drawings of her by the artist Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).

In 1798 Don Carlos married Sarah McKean, the daughter of Pennsylvania governor Thomas McKean. Their son Carlos Martínez de Irujo y McKean (1802-1855), Duque of Sotomayor, became prime minister of Spain for a short period in 1847.

[edit] Character

"He was an obstinate,impetuous and rather vain little person with reddish hair; enormously wealthy, endlessly touchy, extremely intelligent and vastly attractive … he liked America, he understood it and enjoyed it; he was tremendously popular at Philadelphia, and at Washington when he condescended to appear there; he was on intimate terms at the President's House. If he lost his temper from time to time, and thought nothing of haranguing the country through the newspapers, he served his King with energetic loyalty; he went about his business with dignity and shrewdness; he never forgot the respect due to his official person, however much he might indulge his democratic tendencies in private intercourse; he was the only Minister of the first rank in America, and consequently the leading figure in the diplomatic corps; he contributed to American society the brilliant qualities of his elegant and felicitous personality; he was a very great gentleman."

— from Aaron Burr, Samuel H. Wandell, Meade Minnigerode, 1925.