biography
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, and brother of the
American statesman Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas
Pinckney was educated at the University of Oxford, admitted in
1774 into both the British bar and the American bar in South
Carolina.
Pinckney was educated in England, studying at Oxford
University and the Middle Temple, and military science at the
royal military academy at Caen, France. He organized and
trained new detachments of men during the Rebolutionary War
and participated in the Florida campaign. He also served on
Horatio Gates’ staff and was founded and captured at the
battle of Camden.
From 1787 to 1789, Pinckney served as the governor of South
Carolina, and within his powers, he did much to restore order
in the state after the war. He particularly tried to improve
the unhappy condition of the Loyalists. In 1788 he was
president of the state convention which ratified the
Consitution.
From 1792 to 1794, he served as an active United States
minister to Great Britain. Just as well, he acted as a special
commissioner to Spain in 1795 to 1795 and he negotiated a
treaty with Spain that settled Mississippi River navigation
rights and the southern United States boundary line with
Spanish territories in North America.
He was an unsuccessful candidate of the Federalist party
for vice-president in 1796, and served as a congressman from
1797 to 1801. During the War of 1812 he was commissioned major
general of a Southern district. For the rest of his life, he
remained deeply interested in agriculture, publishing articles
and importing improved breeds of cattle.
