JACKSON, FRANCIS JAMES (1770–1814), diplomatist, born in December 1770, was son of Thomas Jackson, D.D. (1745–1797). The father, a Westminster scholar, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1763, and graduated B.A. 1767, M.A. 1770, B.D. and D.D. 1783 (Welch, Alumni Westmon.) He was tutor to the Marquis of Carmarthen, afterwards fifth Duke of Leeds; minister of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, until 1796; chaplain to the king, 1782; prebendary of Westminster, 1782–92; canon residentiary of St. Paul's, 1792; and rector of Yarlington, Somerset. He died at Tunbridge Wells 1 Dec. 1797.
Francis James, his eldest son, entered the diplomatic service at the early age of sixteen, and was secretary of legation from 1789 to 1797, first at Berlin, and afterwards at Madrid. His letters to the fifth Duke of Leeds during this time are among British Museum Addit. MSS. 28064–7. He was appointed ambassador at Constantinople 23 July 1796, and minister plenipotentiary to France on 2 Dec. 1801, after Cornwallis had returned from the peace congress at Amiens [see Cornwallis, Charles, first Marquis]. In October 1802 Jackson was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Berlin, where he married. Except for a brief period, when his younger brother George [see Jackson, Sir George, 1785–1861] was in temporary charge, Jackson stayed at Berlin until the breaking-off of diplomatic relations consequent upon the occupation of Hanover in 1806. He was employed in 1807 on a special mission to Denmark previous to the bombardment, which he witnessed. Afterwards, in 1809, he was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Washington on the recall of David Montagu Erskine [q. v.], second lord Erskine, whose arrangement of the difficulty arising out of the conflict between H.M.S. Leopard and the U.S. frigate Chesapeake in 1807 the British government refused to ratify [cf. Berkeley, George Cranfield]. Jackson remained at Washington until the rupture between Great Britain and the United States in 1811, which ended in the war of 1812–15.
Jackson died at Brighton, after a lingering illness, on 5 Aug. 1814, in the forty-fourth year of his age. A number of his diaries and letters during the period 1801–10 are included in Lady Jackson's ‘Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson.’
[Welch's Alumni Westmon. 1852; Gent. Mag. lxvii. 1075, lxxxiv. pt. ii. 198; Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. under name; Nelson Desp. vol. iii.; Lady Jackson's Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson (London, 1872, 2 vols.). Also Foreign Office Papers in Public Record Office, London; correspondence under countries and dates; Haydn's Book of Dignities; Military Auxiliary Expeditions.]
JACKSON, afterwards DUCKETT, Sir GEORGE (1725–1822), judge-advocate of the fleet, born 24 Oct. 1725, was eldest surviving son of George Jackson of Richmond, Yorkshire, by Hannah, seventh daughter of William Ward of Guisborough. He entered the navy office about 1743, became secretary to the navy board in 1758, and second secretary to the admiralty and judge-advocate on 11 Nov. 1766. In the last capacity he was present at the court-martial on Keppel in 1778. Subsequently Palliser was summoned by the same tribunal to answer the evidence incidentally given against him at the court-martial on Keppel. No specific charge was brought against Palliser. The Duke of Richmond in the House of Lords (31 March 1779) attacked this method of procedure, for which Jackson was held responsible. He was called before the house and ably defended himself; but the lords passed a resolution which appeared to censure the admiralty officials, and when Lord Sandwich, under whom he had worked since 1771, retired from the board, Jackson resigned his office of second secretary 12 June 1782. He retained the judge-advocateship, but subsequently declined Pitt's offer of the secretaryship of the admiralty. From 1762 to 1768 Jackson was M.P. for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis; in 1788 he was elected for Colchester, defeating George Tierney at a cost of 20,000l., but although on that occasion unseated, represented the borough from 1790 to 1796. Captain Cook the navigator had been, when a boy, in the service of Jackson's sister at Ayton, and hence Jackson was favourable to his schemes, and probably influenced Sandwich in his behalf. In gratitude Cook, in his first voyage, named after him Port Jackson in New South Wales, and Point Jackson in New Zealand. Jackson obtained in 1766 an act of parliament for making the Stort navigable up to Bishop Stortford, and saw the work completed in 1769 (Gent. Mag. 1769, p. 608). On 21 June 1791 he was created a baronet, and died at his house in Upper Grosvenor Street, London, on 15 Dec. 1822. He was buried at Bishop Stortford. A portrait by Dance and a miniature by Copley were in the possession of Sir George Duckett, bart. Jackson married, first, his cousin Mary, daughter of Wil-
