Англо-ирландиялық дипломат: Лорд Стрэнгфордтың өмірі мен қызметі

Anglo Irish diplomat

Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford (31 August 178029 May 1855) was an Anglo Irish diplomat.

He was the son of Lionel Smythe, 5th Viscount Strangford (1753–1801) and Maria Eliza Philipse. In 1769, his sixteen year old future father left Ireland, joined the army and served during the American War of Independence. While quartered in New York in the winter of 1776 to 1777, he met and courted Maria. the New York Legislature confiscated his estate, one of the largest in the province, and Philipse changed his mind. They married in September 1779 at Trinity Church in Manhattan and they returned to the United Kingdom.

In 1806, he served as chargé d'affaires under the Earl of Rosslyn and the Earl of St Vincent, the Extraordinary Envoys of the United Kingdom to Portugal. In 1807, he was appointed British Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal under the reign of King George III. In 1807, as Britain's envoy to Portugal, Lord Strangford coordinated the Portuguese royal family's flight from Portugal to Brazil. Lord Clinton, as he was known in Brazil, he arrived with the Royal Family in Salvador in January 1808 and soon they moved to Rio de Janeiro where they arrived on 8 March 1808. Lord Clinton and the Brazilian accountant Dom Fernando José de Portugal had hard work to do in the Brazilian Imperial Palace. They had to raise the money moved from Portugal to Brazil under English escort. Their work was for thirty days. The tax service of 2% was according to the Prize Money (the law had been cancelled in 1803 and was re edited in 1807). They counted one hundred million Pounds and two million pounds in taxes. (In that year, with that money would be possible to buy two hundred million bags of coffee, nowadays it is U$20 billion). After that, the payment delayed fourteen years to be paid after the English recognizance of Brazilian Independence. That was the money Napoleon wanted to finance his war against England. Napoleon said in his memoirs that Don John was the only one to trick him.

The Levant Company nominated Lord Strangford and his appointment was confirmed in 1820 as the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He was successful in his efforts to secure the consolidation of the new constitutional settlement between the Ottoman Empire and the Danubian Principalities which followed the revolution in Wallachia in 1821, to persuade the Ottomans to withdraw their troops from the Principalities, and to dissuade the Russian Empire from military intervention. As ambassador to the Sublime Porte, he had opportunities to assemble fragments of Greek sculpture. Among his collection of antiquities was the "Strangford Shield", a 3rd century CE Roman marble that reproduces the shield of Athena Parthenos, Phidias' sculpture formerly in the Parthenon. The "Strangford Shield" is conserved in the British Museum. He left Turkey in 1824.

He was appointed Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in 1815 and Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order (GCH) in 1825. In February 1825, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He translated the Rimas of Luís de Camões in 1825. A window in his family chapel in St. Mary's Church, Ashford, Kent, commemorates him, mentioning the monarchs whom he served and the countries to which he was dispatched.

Through his eldest son with Benham, he was the grandfather of Minnie Smythe (1872–1955), also a painter.