Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jackson, Francis James
JACKSON, FRANCIS JAMES (1770–1814), diplomatist, born in December 1770, was son of Thomas Jackson, D.D. (1745–1797). The father, a Westminster scholar, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1763, and graduated B.A. 1767, M.A. 1770, B.D. and D.D. 1783 (Welch, Alumni Westmon.) He was tutor to the Marquis of Carmarthen, afterwards fifth Duke of Leeds; minister of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, until 1796; chaplain to the king, 1782; prebendary of Westminster, 1782–92; canon residentiary of St. Paul's, 1792; and rector of Yarlington, Somerset. He died at Tunbridge Wells 1 Dec. 1797.
Francis James, his eldest son, entered the diplomatic service at the early age of sixteen, and was secretary of legation from 1789 to 1797, first at Berlin, and afterwards at Madrid. His letters to the fifth Duke of Leeds during this time are among British Museum Addit. MSS. 28064–7. He was appointed ambassador at Constantinople 23 July 1796, and minister plenipotentiary to France on 2 Dec. 1801, after Cornwallis had returned from the peace congress at Amiens [see Cornwallis, Charles, first Marquis]. In October 1802 Jackson was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Berlin, where he married. Except for a brief period, when his younger brother George [see Jackson, Sir George, 1785–1861] was in temporary charge, Jackson stayed at Berlin until the breaking-off of diplomatic relations consequent upon the occupation of Hanover in 1806. He was employed in 1807 on a special mission to Denmark previous to the bombardment, which he witnessed. Afterwards, in 1809, he was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Washington on the recall of David Montagu Erskine [q. v.], second lord Erskine, whose arrangement of the difficulty arising out of the conflict between H.M.S. Leopard and the U.S. frigate Chesapeake in 1807 the British government refused to ratify [cf. Berkeley, George Cranfield]. Jackson remained at Washington until the rupture between Great Britain and the United States in 1811, which ended in the war of 1812–15.
Jackson died at Brighton, after a lingering illness, on 5 Aug. 1814, in the forty-fourth year of his age. A number of his diaries and letters during the period 1801–10 are included in Lady Jackson's ‘Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson.’
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. 1852; Gent. Mag. lxvii. 1075, lxxxiv. pt. ii. 198; Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. under name; Nelson Desp. vol. iii.; Lady Jackson's Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson (London, 1872, 2 vols.). Also Foreign Office Papers in Public Record Office, London; correspondence under countries and dates; Haydn's Book of Dignities; Military Auxiliary Expeditions.]