Jean-Guillaume Hyde–January 24, 1776

Detail of an 1830 lithograph by Ducarme after a portrait by Legrand. While the United States has had its share of international mishaps, not all of them have been created by Americans. Jean-Guillaume Hyde, more properly known as “Jean-Guillaume, baron Hyde de Neuville”, would be an early example of this. Hyde was probably a textbook case of failing upward, as he appears to have suffered multiple setbacks and still managed to come out ahead later on. As early as 1793, when he was 17, Hyde liked to work behind the scenes, trying to nudge people into saying and doing things that would benefit France, and oftentimes failing. This eventually led to his being made to move to the United States in 1800. In 1814 when the Bourbons returned to power in France, he was allowed to return. That’s where his diplomatic career began, and he spent six years as the ambassador to the US, where he was rather universally despised. From there he went to Portugal, where he was again a disaster as a diplomat. This time it only took about three years to kick him out. In 1828 Hyde became Minister of the Navy and the Colonies where he did appear to have some luck improving the way the French Colonial Empire was organized and run, but he eventually resigned from the position as a symbol of protest. Hyde was involved with the internal discussions to decide whether a new commercial treaty with the US was a worthy idea, though we don’t think he did any of the actual negotiating with America. Hyde died in Paris in 1857 and the book of his “memoirs” is actually a collection of letters and notes compiled by his nieces. The post Jean-Guillaume Hyde–January 24, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.