Pinkney Pinkaey "set all the idle world to going to France." Of cal supplies. After the war he took quite an ac­ relatives who achieved distinction perhaps the tive interest in politics. He had very definite best known were his uncle, William Pinkney ambitions about becoming the head of his corps, lq.v.Jt the lawyer, diplomatist, and statesman, but the fates were to deny him this honor. He and the poet, Edward Coote Pinkney [q.v.~], a retired on June 7,1873, with the rank of commo­ cousin. His brother William became Protestant dore, and settled with his wife and daughter in Episcopal Bishop of Maryland. Ninian Pinkney Easton, Md., in the house, "Londonderry," which was graduated from St John's College in An­ he himself had planned and built Here he died napolis in 1830, and from Jefferson Medical Col­ after a short illness, leaving his widow, Mary lege, Philadelphia, with the degree of M.D., in Sherwood Hambleton, and his only child, Amelia. 1833. The brilliant teacher of anatomy at Jeffer­ [Sources include: J. M. Toner, memoir in Trans. son, Granville Sharp Pattison, is said to have Am. Medic. Asso., vol. XXIX (1878) ; F. L. Pleadwell, looked upon Pinkney as his successor, but prob­ "Ninian Pinkney, M.D. (1811-1877)," Annals of Medic. Hist., Nov. 1929, Jan. 1930; War of the Rebel­ ably the glamour of travel and the certain income lion: Official Records (Navy), 1 ser. XXIV, XXV, and led him to the navy in which he was commis­ XXVI; D. D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885) ; Orlando Hutton, Life of the Right sioned as assistant surgeon in 1834. After cruises Reverend Wm. Pinkney, D.D., LL.D. (1890) ; the Co- in South American waters and in the Mediter­ sette (Baltimore), Dec. 17, 1877; family papers; and ranean, he served at the naval hospital in Phila­ the S. A. Harrison Collection, Md. Hist Soc] delphia, 1838-39. In 1840 he was court-martialed F.L.P. on charges of "disrespectful and provoking lan­ PINKNEY, WILLIAM (Mar. 17,1764-Feb. guage to a superior" and "conduct unbecoming 25,1822), lawyer, statesman, diplomat, was born to an officer and gentleman." He was found at Annapolis, Md., one of four children of Jona­ guilty of part of the charge and was suspended than Pinkney, an English immigrant, and Ann for eight months, but he returned to the service Rind, his second wife. The latter, a native of andJtpr three years, 1841-44, was on the west Annapolis, was a sister of Margaret Rind, Jona­ coast of South America. This duty was followed than's first wife, by whom he had one child. by two years, 1844-46, on the receiving ship in When the father's property was confiscated by Baltimore, blockade duty during the war with reason of Loyalist sentiment in the Revolution, Mexico in 1846, and in 1852, by a coveted ap­ poverty necessitated the son's withdrawal from pointment at the Naval Academy. It was during the King William School of Annapolis, at the the duty at Callao, Peru, 1841-44, that he built age of thirteen. In overcoming the handicap of up a reputation for skill in surgery. This port deficient education, Pinkney devoted a lifetime was the rendezvous for the whaling fleet in the to intense study. According to tradition, he fa­ South Pacific, and to Pinkney fell the practice vored Maryland's cause in the war and would from this source. From Apr. 20, 1841, to Nov. often elude the paternal vigilance to mount guard 29 of the same year he reported forty-one opera­ with the Continental soldiers. Sometime later, tions of a major character, with but one death. while he was receiving instruction in medicine After 1832, when he went to Annapolis, he took from a Baltimore physician, a fortuitous occur­ an active interest in the affairs of the American rence changed the course of his life. Samuel Medical Association and in improving conditions Chase [q.v.] heard him debate in a society of in his own corps. He rarely missed an annual medical students and, perceiving his aptitude for meeting of the Association and in 1876 was the law, offered the use of his library if he would elected a vice-president undertake its study. Pinkney accepted; and in ^ After another cruise in the Mediterranean, and February 1783 entered Chase's office to master duty at Washington, Pinkney was assigned as the obscurities of pleading and tenures from the surgeon of the fleet to Admiral David D. Por­ black-letter learning of the day. He was called ter's squadron operating in the upper Mississippi. to the bar in 1786 and removed to Harford Coun­ He joined the flagship Black Hawk in December ty to practise. 1862, but spent his time largely on the hospital His first efforts attracted public attention and ship Red Rover. His accomplishments under resulted in his election to the state convention Admiral Porter, who became his lifelong friend, that ratified the Federal Constitution, in April attest his ability. He had medical supervision 1788, although Pinkney, under the influence of over eighty ships, organized in 1863 the hospital Chase, voted against its ratification; a circum­ at Memphis, named Pinkney Hospital in his stance worthy of note in view of his later pre­ honor, and in one letter to his wife he mentions eminence as a constitutional lawyer. (See B. C. having traveled 8,000 miles in visiting some Steiner, "Maryland's Adoption of the Federal ninety-five ships and stations, distributing medi- Constitution," American Historical Review, Oc- Pinkney Pinkney tober 1899 and January 1900; but Rev. William him, in the following April, as joint commis­ Pinkney, post, p. 17, insinuates that he voted for sioner with James Monroe [#.».], then minister it.) He was a member of the legislature con­ resident in London, to treat with the British cabi­ tinuously from October 1788 until his retirement net on the subjects of reparations and impress­ in 1792. At the session in 1789 he delivered a ments. Wholly abandoning the three conditions florid speech advocating the abolition of slavery that by their instructions were to form the which, twenty years later, was published and foundation of the agreement, they signed a treaty distributed in Congress by the Quakers to chal­ remarkable for its failure even to bind the Brit­ lenge the consistency of his position on the Mis­ ish government. Jefferson angrily repudiated it souri question. On Mar. 16,1789, he was married without consulting the Senate, yet when Monroe at Havre de Grace to Ann Maria Rodgers, sister left England in October 1807, Pinkney was re­ of Commodore John Rodgers [q.v.] of the United tained as minister. Immediately affairs became States Navy; ten children—one of them being further complicated by the attack of the Leopard Edward Coote Pinkney [q.v.]—were born of on the Chesapeake and the issuance of the Brit­ this union, all of whom survived him. A capri­ ish Orders in Council. Throughout the next four cious element in his character was exhibited in years Pinkney sought fruitlessly to obtain repa­ connection with his election to the Second Con­ ration for the former and repeal of the latter. gress in 1^90, ,which was disputed because he No more difficult, futile task has been assigned did not reside in the district from which he was to an American diplomat The presence of a chosen. He stubbornly contested the point and strong Anglophile party at home embarrassed then, when successful, refused to serve. He was his negotiations, while the conciliatory manner .appointed a member of the state executive coun­ he was forced to adopt diminished his effective­ cil in 1792 and was chairman of the council board ness. His correspondence with Canning, the when he resigned in 1795. foreign secretary, was distinguished alike for Meanwhile his rise at the bar had been sen­ restraint under irritation and strength of argu­ sational and, in 1796, Washington selected him ment. In finesse, however, he was wanting. On as joint commissioner with Christopher Gore one occasion he was cajoled into making a writ­ [q.v.], under the seventh article of the Jay Treaty, ten offer to repeal the Embargo in return for re­ to adjust American claims for maritime losses. peal of the Orders and, because the offer vio­ Eight strenuous years in London followed, sig­ lated instructions, was deeply mortified by its nificant years in his development. Speeches prompt rejection. At length his notes to Welles- heard in Parliament and in the courts were the ley, Canning's successor, elicited only vague re­ models of his later efforts. Contact with men of plies after long delays, and Pinkney broke rela­ culture revealed, to his discomfort, the dearth of tions, rather inamicably, Feb. 28,1811, convinced his own. Accordingly, he was tutored in Latin that matters would lead, as they did, to war. To and Greek, read widely in law and literature, admirers of Pinkney the lawyer, Pinkney the declaimed in private, and began a diligent study diplomat was disappointing. Moreover, there of dictionaries and lexicons that was never there­ were numerous strictures in the press upon vari­ after relaxed. From the work of the commission ous phases of his work. Henry Adams declares, he also found time successfully to terminate a however, that "America never sent an abler rep­ chancery suit instituted more than a decade be­ resentative to the Court of London" (Adams, fore by Samuel Chase, recovering for the State post, VI, 21). of Maryland a large quantity of stock in the Bank On his return he was appointed attorney-gen­ of England.