{"record":{"aliases":[],"appointmentIds":["united-kingdom-f8c67f6f592b15"],"appointmentsDataset":"https://chanceries.org/diplomats.json","archivalSources":[],"canonicalUrl":"https://chanceries.org/diplopedia/people/george-hammond-a5f49e5a07/","countrySlug":"united-kingdom","entityId":"https://chanceries.org/diplopedia/people/george-hammond-a5f49e5a07/#person","eventIds":[],"expandedParagraphs":["George Hammond (1763–1853) first encountered American diplomacy as David Hartley’s secretary during the Paris peace negotiations of 1783. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, he subsequently worked at European courts before becoming Britain’s first accredited minister to the United States in 1791. His American mission was based in Philadelphia.","Hammond pressed the United States to satisfy the peace treaty’s provisions concerning British creditors and Loyalists. Thomas Jefferson countered with complaints about Britain’s retention of frontier posts and its removal of enslaved people from American territory. The disputes exposed the limits of Hammond’s negotiating authority and helped lead to John Jay’s separate London mission. Popular hostility to the resulting Jay Treaty reached Hammond’s own residence in 1795, when demonstrators protested there.","Before leaving America, Hammond forwarded an intercepted dispatch by French minister Jean Antoine Joseph Fauchet to the Washington administration. Cabinet opponents used it to accuse Secretary of State Edmund Randolph of betraying information and seeking French money. Randolph resigned in August 1795. The State Department’s historical account rejects the corruption allegation.","Back in London, Hammond became a Foreign Office under-secretary, worked closely with Grenville and George Canning, and contributed to the Anti-Jacobin literary and political circle. His government service included further European missions and two periods as under-secretary before his final resignation in 1809. From 1815 to 1828 he helped arbitrate compensation for British property losses during the French Revolution. He then retired and died in London in 1853."],"id":"united-kingdom:george hammond","identifiers":{},"legacyPersonIds":[],"legacyUrl":"https://chanceries.org/diplomat-a5f49e5a074a75687192.html","name":"George Hammond","notes":[],"paragraphSources":[["early-hammond-dnb","early-hammond-mountvernon"],["early-hammond-mountvernon","early-hammond-dnb"],["early-hammond-mountvernon","early-hammond-randolph"],["early-hammond-dnb"]],"profileUrl":"diplomat-a5f49e5a074a75687192.html","relatedEvents":[{"basis":"named-in-story","country":"United Kingdom","date":"1785-06-01","description":"John Adams presents his credentials to George III as the first American minister to Great Britain. Diplomatic representation follows the war that separated the two countries.","id":"uk-adams","note":"Named people and the recorded mission tenure provide the connection; overlap does not establish personal participation.","sourceUrls":["https://www.loc.gov/item/mcc.025/"],"title":"An envoy meets George III","url":"United-Kingdom.html#history-uk-adams"}],"relatedPeople":[],"relationships":[],"researchStatus":"reviewed","reviewedOn":"2026-10-28","revision":"df8ef117e01b388e","sources":[{"accessedOn":"2026-10-28","date":null,"id":"early-hammond-dnb","locator":"Early career, Foreign Office, indemnity commission","publisher":"Dictionary of National Biography / Wikisource","title":"Sidney Lee, Hammond, George","type":"reference","url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Hammond,_George"},{"accessedOn":"2026-10-28","date":null,"id":"early-hammond-mountvernon","locator":"First American mission, treaty disputes, Fauchet dispatch","publisher":"George Washington’s Mount Vernon","title":"Julia Brown, George Hammond","type":"institutional-history","url":"https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/george-hammond"},{"accessedOn":"2026-10-28","date":null,"id":"early-hammond-randolph","locator":"Influence on U.S. Diplomacy, intercepted French dispatches","publisher":"United States Department of State, Office of the Historian","title":"Biographies of the Secretaries of State: Edmund Jennings Randolph","type":"institutional-history","url":"https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/randolph-edmund-jennings"},{"accessedOn":"","date":"","id":"mission-f47cac9cf10ab4f3c5ad","locator":"","publisher":"","title":"George Hammond — mission record (1791–1795)","type":"Mission record","url":"https://history.state.gov/countries/united-kingdom"}],"topics":["Treaty of Paris implementation","Jay Treaty","Edmund Randolph","Anti-Jacobin","French Revolutionary indemnities"]},"schemaVersion":1}