Edmund Roberts was a merchant and special diplomatic agent of the United States in the Far E.
Background
Edmund Roberts was born June 29, 1784 at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Captain Edmund and Sarah Griffiths Roberts. His father died when Edmund was a small child; his mother when he was sixteen, leaving him to the care of his bachelor uncle, Capt. Joshua Roberts, a merchant then at Buenos Aires.
Career
After eight years of commercial apprenticeship and travel, he succeeded upon his uncle's death to a substantial business. The Berlin and Milan decrees injured his mercantile business. French and Spanish privateers caused him heavy losses, and although he eventually recovered small amounts from the French government, he remained in straitened circumstances until his death.
In 1823 he was appointed American consul at Demerara, British Guiana, but apparently did not serve. Four years later he borrowed money, chartered the brig Mary Ann, and sailed to Zanzibar. There he encountered costly delays and a vexatious government monopoly of trade. He protested vigorously to the ruler of Zanzibar, the Sultan of Muscat, formed an intimate acquaintance with that potentate, visited Bombay, and returned home to urge upon his kinsman through marriage, Senator Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, a mission to the Far East to negotiate a number of commercial treaties.
Roberts also urged that American naval vessels be sent occasionally to the Indian Ocean. John Shellaber, American consul at Batavia, was advocating a similar mission and hoping to receive the appointment. But through the influence of Woodbury, who had become Jackson's secretary of the navy, Roberts was appointed on January 26, 1832, special agent of the United States to negotiate treaties with Muscat, Siam, and Cochin China.
On October 28, 1832, he was authorized to negotiate also with Japan if practicable, and was instructed to investigate the operations of the British East India Company. His mission, however, was to be secret, and he was given as "ostensible employment" the position of clerk to the commander of the United States sloop Peacock at $1500 a year.
Roberts went first to Cochin China, but disagreeing with the authorities upon questions of etiquette, sailed for Bankok where on March 20, 1833, he concluded a treaty of amity and commerce with Siam. The treaty freed American trade with Siam from governmental monopoly and from all export and import duties. The Peacock then sailed to Muscat where Roberts signed on September 21, 1833, a treaty of amity and commerce with the Sultan.
This treaty granted the American consul extraterritorial powers, fixed duties at five percent. , and contained a most-favored-nation clause. Although he had received further instructions to proceed to Japan, he thought it unwise and returned to Portsmouth, arriving in April 1834.
In March of the following year Secretary of State Forsyth instructed him to proceed to Muscat and Siam to exchange the ratifications of the treaties he had negotiated and to attempt to negotiate commercial treaties with Cochin China and Japan. After successful visits to Muscat and Siam, he contracted a disease which caused his death at Macao on June 12, 1836. His treaties with Muscat and Siam were proclaimed June 24, 1837.
Achievements
Connections
He was married in September 1808 to Catharine Langdon, daughter of a distinguished Portsmouth family.