Charles William Frédéric Dumas (1721–1796) was a

man of letters An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...

living in the Dutch Republic who served as an American diplomat during the American Revolution. He was born in German Ansbach to

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

parents, apparently lived in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

for a time, and moved to the Netherlands around 1750. He befriended Benjamin Franklin when the latter was in Holland at the beginning of the American Revolution, and when Franklin chaired the Committee of correspondence, they employed Dumas as a secret agent to aid American interests in Europe. When

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

became minister plenipotentiary to Holland, Dumas acted as his secretary and translator. When Adams went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, Dumas acted as chargé d'affaires ad interim from the United States. Dumas died soon after 1794. In 1775, Dumas devised the first diplomatic

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

used by the Continental Congress and Benjamin Franklin for secret correspondence with agents in Europe. It was a substitution code based on a prose passage of 682 characters, so that a given character could be replaced by more than one number. Dumas planted stories favorable to the United States in the

Gazette de Leyde ''Nouvelles Extraordinaires de Divers Endroits'' (English: "Extraordinary News from Various Places") or ''Gazette de Leyde'' (Gazette of Leiden) was the most important newspaper of record of the international European newspapers of the late 17th ...

(

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

) with the goal of gaining a good credit rating for the United States in financial markets. In 1776, Dumas contacted officials in Holland, Spain and France seeking trade in badly needed materials for the United States. This led to beneficial trade during the revolution. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1789.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dumas, Charles William Frederick 1721 births 1796 deaths People of the American Revolution Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Ambassadors of the United States to the Netherlands