Jonathan Russell

Who was Jonathan Russell?

Jonathan Russell was a United States Representative from Massachusetts and diplomat.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island on February 27, 1771, Russell graduated from Brown University in 1791. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, but did not practice. He engaged in mercantile pursuits for a number of years. In 1808 he was appointed Collector of the Port of Bristol.

He was appointed by President James Madison to the Diplomatic Service in France in 1811. He transferred to England, where he was Chargé d'Affaires when war was declared by the United States in 1812. He was Minister to Sweden and Norway from January 18, 1814 to October 16, 1818.

"Jonathan Russell and the Capture of the Guerriere," by Lawrence S. Kaplan in The William and Mary Quarterly,Third Series, Vol. 24, No. 2, published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, discusses the circumstances of Russell's authorship of a patriotic poem about the famous sea battle found in Russell's private papers. The article quotes the entirety of the poem, dates it to approximately 1812, and speculates that Russell was motivated to write this anti-British work by the humiliation he had suffered while at the Court of St. James.