PINKNEY, WILLIAM (1764-1822), American lawyer and statesman, was born in Annapolis, Md., on March 17, 1764. He was admitted to the bar in 1786, and from 1788 to 1792 prac tised in Harford county. In 1788 he was a member of the State convention which ratified the Federal Constitution for Maryland (1788-92), and in 1795 of the house of delegates (where in 1788 and 1789 he defended the right of slave-owners to free their slaves), and from 1792 to 1795 of the State executive council. From 1796 to 1804 he was commissioner to England to determine the claims of American merchants under the Jay Treaty of 1794 and adjusted a claim of $800,000 for Maryland on the Bank of England. In May 1806, with James Monroe, then minister at London, he was commissioned to treat with the British Govern ment concerning the capture of neutral ships in time of war: from 1807 to 1811, after Monroe's return to America, he was resident minister in London. He was elected to the Maryland
senate in Sept. 1811 and later was attorney-general of the United States, until 1814. In Aug. 1814 he was wounded at Bladens burg. He served in the National house of representatives Jan.— April 1816, and from 1816-18 was minister plenipotentiary to Russia and special minister to Naples, where he attempted to secure indemnity for the losses to American merchants by seizure and confiscation during the rule of Murat in 1809. He was a member of the committee which drew up the Missouri Compro mise (q.v.). He was a member of the United States Senate from 1820 until his death, at Washington, on Feb. 25, 1822.
See William Pinkney, The Life of William Pinkney (1853) (1810 83) ; Henry Wheaton, Some Account of the Life, Writings and Speeches of William Pinkney (1828).