FS HERITAGE
THE DIPLOMAT AND
THE DUCHESS
ONE OF AMERICA’S FIRST (MORE OR LESS) PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMATS, A JEFFERSON
PROTÉGÉ, QUICKLY BECAME AN EFFECTIVE PRACTITIONER OF HIS CRAFT.
BY JAMES R. BULLINGTON
n November 1784, a slight,
sandy-haired young man arrived
in Paris to take up his duties as
secretary to the new U.S. minis-
ter to France, Thomas Jeffer-
son. At 25, William Short had
no international experience and
had never even set foot outside his native
Virginia. But he had the strong support of
his new boss: Jefferson had come to con-
sider him his “adoptive son.” A frequent
visitor to Monticello, Short had accompa-
nied Jefferson on his narrow escape from
General Banastre Tarleton’s loyalist troops
in 1781. And, as a newly minted lawyer, he helped settle
the estate of Jefferson’s deceased wife, Martha, to whom
Short was related.
I
James R. Bullington was a Foreign Service officer from 1962
to 1989, serving as ambassador to Burundi and dean of the
Senior Seminar among many other postings. After a stint in
academia, he was Peace Corps director in Niger from 2000 to
2006 and served as editor of the online professional journal
American Diplomacy ( www.americandiplomacy.org) from
2007 to 2009. Currently retired in Williamsburg, he is a senior fellow at the Joint Forces Staff College.
The portrait of William Short (above) by Rembrandt Peale
is used by permission of the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the
College of William & Mary. It was a gift to the college in 1938
by Mary Churchill Short, Fanny Short Butler and William
Short.
Thus began the career of one of America’s first (more or less) professional diplomats. Although he had few qualifications
and his appointment was based wholly on
his personal relationship with Jefferson,
Short learned quickly, became an effective
practitioner of his craft and, over the next
11 years, rendered important service to
the new American nation. Jefferson was a
good judge of talent.
Ultimately, however, Short was disappointed both in his professional and personal life. This disappointment seems
reflected in his portrait by noted American painter Rembrandt Peale, which was included in an exhibit in the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of
William & Mary in Williamsburg in 2008. The museum
identified him as “America’s first career diplomat” — a designation that on investigation seems both questionable
(there are other potential claimants to that appellation) and
not very meaningful (in those days there really were no career diplomats, at least not in any sense resembling our understanding of that term today).
Nevertheless, the portrait piqued my curiosity, and I
looked for further information on Short. Thankfully a professional historian, George Green Shackelford, has done
the necessary research and published a biography:
Jefferson’s Adoptive Son: The Life of William Short, 1759-1848
(University Press of Kentucky, 1993). This profile is based
primarily on information in that book, plus an article on
“Thomas Jefferson and William Short” published by the
