An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sovereign or appointed for a special and often temporary diplomatic assignment. The word is also used informally for people who are known, without national appointment, to represent certain professions, activities, and fields of endeavor, such as sales.
The XYZ Affair was a political and diplomatic episode in 1797 and 1798, early in the presidency of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to the Quasi-War. The name derives from the substitution of the letters X, Y, and Z for the names of French diplomats Jean-Conrad Hottinguer (X), Pierre Bellamy (Y), and Lucien Hauteval (Z) in documents released by the Adams administration.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was a Founding Father of the United States, military officer during the Revolutionary War, attorney, planter, and slave owner. A delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Pinckney was a signer of the U.S. Constitution and later served as U.S. Minister to France. He was twice nominated as the presidential candidate of the Federalist Party, in 1804 and 1808, but lost both elections, the first to Thomas Jefferson and the second to James Madison.
Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seatings at state dinners, the person to whom diplomatic credentials should be presented, and the title by which the diplomat should be addressed.
An envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, usually known as a minister, was a diplomatic head of mission who was ranked below ambassador. A diplomatic mission headed by an envoy was known as a legation rather than an embassy. Under the system of diplomatic ranks established by the Congress of Vienna (1815), an envoy was a diplomat of the second class who had plenipotentiary powers, i.e., full authority to represent the government. However, envoys did not serve as the personal representative of their country's head of state. Until the first decades of the 20th century, most diplomatic missions were legations headed by diplomats of the envoy rank. Ambassadors were only exchanged between great powers, close allies, and related monarchies.
James Cole Mountflorence was an American businessman and Federalist diplomat in Paris during the French Revolution. He went to France in 1792 as an agent for the mercantile firm of William Blount, Thomas Blount, and John Gray Blount. In 1794, he became Chancellor to the American Consulate at Paris. Following Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's expulsion from France in 1796, Mountflorence was the primary contact in Paris between the French and American governments. The next year, he served as an intermediary during the XYZ Affair.
