(Excerpt from The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry...)
Excerpt from The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry: Secretary of War Under Washington and Adams Mong the Scotch Irish Presbyterian settlers who came to America in the eighteenth century were a father and two sons from Ballymena, near Belfast, county Antrim. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Philip Barton Key was born on April 12, 1757 near Charlestown, Maryland, United States, the son of Francis and Anne Arnold (Ross) Key, both of prominent Maryland families. His grandfather, Philip Key, coming from England about 1720, had been sheriff, delegate, and councilor, and his uncle, Edmund Key, had been provincial attorney-general. Francis Scott Key, the author of "The Star Spangled Banner, " was his nephew.
Key's early education was apparently private, and in 1775 he began to study law in Annapolis.
Philip Key participated in the early Revolutionary movement, but he refused to follow his brother, Lieutenant John Ross Key, with Price's Maryland Rifle Company, to the siege of Boston. In December 1777 he joined the British forces in Philadelphia and was commissioned captain in Chalmers' regiment of Maryland Loyalists (April 1778). During 1778 he was with the regiment near New York and is said to have been in the battle of Monmouth. In 1779 the regiment went to Florida.
Key participated in the attempt to recapture Mobile from the Spanish and led the defeated troops back to Pensacola, where they were besieged and finally forced to surrender (1781). Paroled in Havana, Key went to England, where he was admitted to the Middle Temple, February 2, 1784. Returning to Maryland the following year he was admitted to the bar and practiced in Leonardtown (1787) and Annapolis (1790).
In 1794 Key was elected from Annapolis to the House of Delegates, where he became a leader, serving on important committees and commissions. In November 1796, as chairman of the committee on the reply to the governor's address, he drafted resolutions that showed the Federalists' support of President Washington and their abhorrence of "the intrigues of foreign emissaries" and of Republican agitation. Narrowly defeated in 1800 (and unfairly, he thought), Key was appointed chief justice of the fourth United States circuit court and established his residence near Georgetown, D. C.
In 1802, when his office was abolished, he resumed practice in Montgomery County, Maryland, and was in 1805 of counsel for Justice Samuel Chase in his trial before the Senate. His speech was a vindication of Chase's impartiality in the Callender trial. In 1806 he resigned his British half-pay, built a summer home in Montgomery County, and stood as the Federalist candidate for the third congressional district of Maryland. He was elected, and, after a contest over his British service and residence in the District, was seated. He was also interested in District of Columbia affairs and brought about the establishment of a standing District committee.
(Excerpt from The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry...)
Key was a member of the Federalist Party. He opposed the Embargo, non-intercourse, war with Great Britain, the seizure of West Florida, and other Republican measures. He supported the Navigation Bill (1810) and the recharter of the United States Bank (1811).
On July 4, 1790, Key married Ann, daughter of Governor George Plater: they had two sons and six daughters.
