Background
John Murray Forbes was born at St. Augustine, Florida, the son of Rev. John Forbes, the rector at that place, and Dorothy (Murray) Forbes of Milton, Massachusetts.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
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John Murray Forbes was born at St. Augustine, Florida, the son of Rev. John Forbes, the rector at that place, and Dorothy (Murray) Forbes of Milton, Massachusetts.
In 1773 his mother took hint to Massachusetts for his education. After studying under Dr. Samuel Kendall of Weston, he entered Harvard College, where he was a classmate and friend of John Quincy Adams and the youngest member of the class of 1787. In the same year, together with Adams, he took up the study of law at Newburyport.
He began the practise of law at Boston in 1794, but abandoned it in 1796 and went to Europe. In Paris, he was one of the signers of a testimonial to James Monroe upon the latter’s recall.
In 1801 he was appointed consul, residing at Hamburg and Copenhagen until about 1819, when he returned to the United States. Unable to discipline him, since he was President Monroe’s protégé, Adams procured the appointment of Forbes to whichever of the two posts Prévost should choose to relinquish. Forbes thus went to South America at a critical period in an important capacity, for he was the secretary of state’s most trusted agent in southern South America.
In his instructions dated July 5, 1820, he was described as agent for commerce and seamen. Finding upon his arrival at Buenos Aires (October 1820) that Prévost had just been ordered out of the city by the revolutionary government, Forbes immediately took up his duties at that place.
Throughout his residence he justified Adams’s confidence in him, for, while he exhibited a brief enthusiasm for the Argentine statesman, Rivadavia, he showed no excessive partiality for the rest of the Argentinians.
Upon the appointment of Caesar Rodney as minister, Forbes was commissioned as secretary of legation (Jan. 27, 1823); and when Rodney died in June 1824, he acted as chargé d’affaires from that time until he received his commission as chargé (dated Mar. 9, 1825).
He continued in this capacity until his death.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
In January 1788 he attended some of the debates of the Massachusetts convention called to ratify the new Federal Constitution, and declared himself a stanch Federalist.
The agent for the United States in both Chile and Buenos Aires, J. B. Prévost, seemed to Adams excessively sympathetic toward the revolutionists.
He retained until the end that “uncommon share of wit” and gaiety of temper, which his sober friend Adams deplored. Afflicted with the gout in his declining years, he is said to have chosen for his crest “a gouty foot couchant, crossed by two crutches rampant, ” with the motto: “Toujours souffrant, jamais triste. ”