Biography
Born in Annapolis, Maryland, Pinkney studied medicine (which he did not practise) and law, becoming a lawyer after his admission to the bar in 1786. After some time practising law in Harford County, Maryland, he participated in Maryland's state constitutional convention.
Pinkney served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1788 to 1792 and then again in 1795, and served as a U.S. Congressman from the third district of Maryland in 1791 and from the fifth district from 1815 until 1816. He was mayor of Annapolis from 1795 to 1800, Attorney General of Maryland from 1805 to 1806, co-U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James (i.e. Great Britain) (with James Monroe) from 1806 to 1807; they negotiated the Monroe–Pinkney Treaty, which was rejected by President Thomas Jefferson and never went into effect. Pinkney was Minister Plenipotentiary from 1808 until 1811. He then returned to Maryland, serving in the Maryland State Senate in 1811. In 1811 he joined President James Madison's cabinet as Attorney General. He was a major in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812 and was wounded at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland in August 1814. After the War, he served as Congressman from the fifth district of Maryland from 1815 to 1816. After serving in Congress he became the U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia from 1816 until 1818, along with a special mission to the Kingdom of Naples. He served as a U.S. Senator from Maryland from 1819 until his death in 1822. He is buried at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC.
His son, Edward Coote Pinkney, became an accomplished poet.
Read more about this topic: William Pinkney
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