Francis James Jackson

Francis James Jackson (December 1770 – 5 August 1814) was a British diplomat, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Prussia, France and the United States

Career

Francis Jackson entered the diplomatic service aged only 16 and served as a Foreign Office clerk until 1789 when he was appointed Secretary to the Berlin legation. He later held a similar post in Madrid till he was appointed ambassador to Constantinople in 1796. On 2 December 1801, during the final negotiations for the Treaty of Amiens, Jackson was appointed minister-plenipotentiary to France, but in October 1802 moved on to the same post in Berlin, where he stayed until 1806 when Prussia was defeated in the War of the Fourth Coalition. In 1807 he was sent on a special mission to Denmark where he witnessed the bombardment of Copenhagen.

In 1809 Jackson was sent to Washington, D.C. as minister-plenipotentiary after the recall of David Erskine when the British government refused to ratify Erskine's attempt to resolve the difficulties following the conflict between HMS Leopard and the US frigate Chesapeake (the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair). Jackson remained at Washington until 1811. He died at Brighton, after a long illness, in 1814.

References

• Jackson, Francis James (1770–1814) by H.M. Chichester, rev. H.C.G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 20 March 2012
• Jackson Papers, The National Archives