Laurens, Henry, 1724-1792

Henry Laurens (March 6, 1724 [O.S. February 24, 1723] – December 8, 1792) was an American Founding Father, merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as president of the Continental Congress. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation.

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, he recieved his early education there before being sent to London, England to augment his business training in 1744. After his father's death three years later, Laurens inherited his estate. Laurens served in the militia, as did most able-bodied men in his time. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the campaigns against the Cherokee Indians from 1757 to 1761, during the French and Indian War. In 1757, he was elected to the colonial assembly. Laurens was elected again every year but one until the Revolution replaced the assembly with a state convention as an interim government.

As the American Revolution neared, Laurens was at first inclined to support reconciliation with the British Crown. But as conditions deteriorated, he came to fully support the American position. When Carolina began to create a revolutionary government, Laurens was elected to the Provincial Congress, which first met on January 9, 1775. He was president of the Committee of Safety and presiding officer of that congress from June until March 1776. When South Carolina installed a fully independent government, he served as the vice president of South Carolina from March 1776 to June 27, 1777. Laurens was first named a delegate to the Continental Congress on January 10, 1777. He served in the Congress until 1780. He was the president of the Continental Congress from November 1, 1777, to December 9, 1778.

In the fall of 1779, the Congress named Laurens their minister to the Netherlands. In early 1780, he took up that post and successfully negotiated Dutch support for the war. But on his return voyage to Amsterdam that fall, the British frigate Vestal intercepted his ship, the continental packet Mercury, off the banks of Newfoundland. The British charged Laurens with treason, transported him to England, and imprisoned him in the Tower of London (he is the only American to have been held prisoner in the tower). At the end of 1781, he was released in exchange for General Lord Cornwallis and completed his voyage to Amsterdam. In 1783, Laurens was sent to Paris as one of the peace commissioners for the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Paris. While he was not a signatory of the primary treaty, he was instrumental in reaching the secondary accords that resolved issues related to the Netherlands and Spain.

Laurens generally retired from public life in 1784. He was sought for a return to the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the state assembly, but he declined all of these positions. He did serve in the state convention of 1788, where he voted to ratify the United States Constitution. Laurens died on December 8, 1792, at his estate, Mepkin, in South Carolina. In his will he stated he wished to be cremated and his ashes be interred at his estate.