Robert Hewson Pruyn was an American lawyer, legislator, and diplomat.
Background
He was born on February 14, 1815 at Albany, New York, United States. He was the son of Casparus F. and Anne (Hewson) Pruyn. His father traced descent from a Flemish immigrant, Frans Jansen Pruyn (or Pruen), who was in Albany as early as 1665.
Education
Robert attended Albany Academy and Rutgers College (A. B. 1833, A. M. 1836), and studied law in the office of Abraham van Vechten of Albany.
Career
Upon admission to the bar in 1836, he was appointed attorney and counsel to Albany corporation. He became a member of the municipal council in 1839 and, two years later, judge advocate-general of the state forces, which office he held for five years. He was a member of the state assembly, 1848-50, failing narrowly of election in the last year as Whig candidate for the speakership.
In 1851 he was reappointed judge advocate-general; in 1854 he was returned to the assembly and elected speaker. For the next two years (1855 - 57) he was adjutant general. Having followed Seward into the Republican party, he ran, as candidate for the assembly in 1860, well ahead of Lincoln in his district, but was defeated by a small margin.
He was commissioned, October 12, 1861, minister resident in Japan as successor to Townsend Harris. On his arrival at Yedo (Tokio), April 25, 1862, he stepped into a delicate situation. The international position of his government and its power to afford him armed support were diminished by the Civil War, the antiforeign element in Japan was prevailing over the efforts of the Shogunate to carry out the terms of the treaties, and murders of foreigners were of frequent occurrence. Pruyn's good offices at a critical moment in the spring of 1862 were instrumental in restraining the European ministers from hasty action in enforcing indemnity claims, which would have weakened the Shogun's position, and in persuading the Japanese to assume payment.
When the indemnity settlement, on June 24, 1863, was accompanied by communication of the Mikado's orders for expulsion of foreigners, Pruyn advised a joint naval demonstration; and when an American ship was fired on near the Straits of Shimonoseki, he authorized the destruction, by the warship Wyoming, of the offending vessels belonging to the local prince. His firm stand, together with that of the European representatives, for maintenance of the treaties strengthened the Shogunate and brought about the recall of the expulsion orders on November 11, 1863.
Following his return home on leave, in the spring of 1865, Pruyn resigned his post. Illness forced him to withdraw his candidacy for the lieutenant-governorship of New York in the next year. He presided, in 1872, over the commission to draft amendments to the state constitution for submission to popular vote. In his last years he was president of the Albany National Commercial Bank and served on the boards of several financial and educational institutions.
Achievements
Politics
Initially he was a Whig, later supported the Republican party.
Connections
On November 9, 1841, he married Jane Anne daughter of Gerrit Y. and Helen (Ten Eyck) Lansing of Albany, by whom he had two sons.