American lawyer and public man, born in Boston, MA, on the 21st of September 1758; graduated at Harvard in 1776; studied law and practiced in Boston, and was United States district attorney for Massachusetts from 1789 to 1796, being the first to hold that office. He was appointed in 1796, with William Pinckney, commissioner to England to settle the French spoliation claims, and succeeded in securing the restitution of much property. He remained in England for seven years and was then appointed chargé d’affaires in London; after holding this position one year, he returned to the United States in 1804, and was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1809, and United States Senator in 1814. In 1817 he was a Presidential elector, and then retired from active political life. Among his chief bequests was one to Harvard College of $100,000, and Gore Hall, the library building, was named in his honor. He died at Waltham, MA, on the 1st of March 1827.
