Pinkney, William (1764–1822)

US lawyer, diplomat, representative, and senator. Forced to leave school because of his poverty, he read law on his own. Admitted to the bar in 1786, he gained a reputation as one of the most talented trial lawyers of his day, noted for his oratory and vanity as well as for hiding his extensive preparations behind a facade of casualness. He spent 16 years abroad – as a commissioner negotiating maritime disputes with Britain (1796–1804) and then as ambassador, first to Great Britain (1806–11) and later to Russia (1816–18). As US attorney general (1811–14), he strongly supported the War of 1812 and was wounded serving with the Maryland militia at the battle of Bladensburg (1814). He served Maryland as a Federalist in the US House of Representatives (1791, 1815–16) and the US Senate (1819–22), where he championed the slave-holding states during the debate that led to the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Almost to the end of his life he argued cases before the US Supreme Court. He was born in Annapolis, Maryland.