Charles William Frédéric Dumas (1721–1796) orCharles Guillaume Frédéric Dumas was aman of letters living in theDutch Republic who served as an American diplomat during theAmerican Revolution.
He was born in GermanAnsbach toFrench parents, apparently lived inSwitzerland for a time, and moved to the Netherlands around 1750.[1] He befriendedBenjamin Franklin when the latter was in Holland at the beginning of the American Revolution, and when Franklin chaired theCommittee of correspondence, they employed Dumas as a secret agent to aid American interests in Europe. WhenJohn Adams became minister plenipotentiary to Holland, Dumas acted as his secretary and translator. When Adams went toParis, Dumas acted as chargé d'affaires ad interim from the United States. Dumas died soon after 1794.[2]
In 1775, Dumas devised the first diplomaticcipher 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.[3]
Dumas planted stories favorable to the United States in theGazette de Leyde (Leiden,Netherlands) with the goal of gaining a good credit rating for the United States in financial markets.[4]
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.[5] He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1789.[6]
Dumas was influenced by the works of international lawyerEmer de Vattel.[7]
