Jonathan Russell (1771-1832) of Providence was a graduate of Rhode Island College and collector at the port of Bristol from 1801 until his resignation in early 1804. In 1810, Madison appointed him to the American legation in Paris, then chargé d’affaires in England. In 1814, Russell helped negotiate peace with Great Britain at Ghent, followed by four years as minister to Norway and Sweden. Upon his return home in 1818, he settled in Massachusetts and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the 1821-3 term. Russell’s congressional career was cut short after his public attack on John Quincy Adams’s supposed pro-British bias during the Ghent negotiations was found to be based on altered documents. The annihilation of his accusations was so complete that to be “Jonathan Russelled” became part of antebellum political jargon (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, New York and Oxford, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; Biog. Dir. Cong. description begins Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-1989, Washington, D.C., 1989 description ends ; Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun [New York, 1987], 120-1; Vol. 34:144-7).

condescention to distinguish me: most likely a reference to Russell’s March nomination as U.S. consul to Tunis, which he declined (JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States … to the Termination of the Nineteenth Congress, Washington, D.C., 1828, 3 vols. description ends , 1:466; Vol. 42:238n).