Baron van Tuyll van Serooskerken

Diederik Jacob van Tuyll van Serooskerken came from a Dutch noble family and served Russia first as a soldier. He transferred from the Dutch army in 1803, fought in the Corfu expedition and the Prussian campaign, and was wounded during the war against Sweden. Posted as a military agent to Vienna in 1810, he gathered information on Napoleon’s forces and advocated a defensive strategy. ¹

He served with the Third Observation Army in 1812, became a major general in 1813, and took part in the campaigns that followed. Diplomatic assignments in Naples, at the papal court, and in Rio de Janeiro preceded his Washington mission. In Russian records his name appears as Fyodor Vasilyevich Teil van Seraskerken. ¹

In Washington he dealt with the dispute over Russia’s claims on the northwest coast of North America and restrictions on foreign shipping. During their discussion on 17 July 1823, John Quincy Adams told Tuyll that the United States would oppose new European colonial establishments in the Americas. The exchange preceded President Monroe’s broader public declaration that December. ²

Tuyll died in 1826 and was buried that April at St. Peter’s in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Dutch National Archives preserves a description of his epitaph among the Van Bylandt family papers and identifies his wife as Agnes Margaretha Fagel. That archive dates his birth to 1772, while Russian military reference works also give 1771. ^{3, 4, 1}