Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: John Singleton Copeley
Taken: 1782
Caption: Henry Laurens
Additional Description: detail of a 1782 portrait of John Laurens by John Singleton Copley in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

“South Carolina merchant and planter Henry Laurens, sent by the Continental Congress to secure a much ­needed loan from Holland, was captured by the British on the high seas and imprisoned for fifteen months in the Tower of London. Finally exchanged after the Battle of Yorktown for General Charles Cornwallis, Laurens posed for this portrait in his capacity as president of the Continental Congress (1777-78). Shortly thereafter he was instructed to join Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams as a member of the peace commission. Laurens arrived at Paris just two days before the preliminary treaty bringing the Revolution to a close was signed on November 30, 1782. He inserted a line in the treaty to prevent the British army from ‘carrying away any Negroes or other property.’” -- National Portrait Gallery
Submitted: July 20, 2018, by Allen C. Browne of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Database Locator Identification Number: p436265
File Size: 3.138 Megabytes

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