Researching James Bowdoin

From 1775 to 1777 he served as president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress' executive council, the de facto head of the Massachusetts government. He was elected president of the constitutional convention that drafted the state's constitution in 1779, and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1780, losing to John Hancock. In 1785, following Hancock's resignation, he was elected governor. Due to the large debts of Massachusetts, incurred from the Revolutionary War, Bowdoin ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. During his two years in office the combination of poor economic conditions and his harsh fiscal policy laid down by his government led to the uprising known as Shays' Rebellion. Bowdoin personally funded militia forces that were instrumental in putting down the uprising. His high-handed treatment of the rebels may have contributed to his loss of the 1787 election, in which the populist Hancock was returned to office.

In addition to his political activities, Bowdoin was active in scientific pursuits, collaborating with Benjamin Franklin in his pioneering research on electricity. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1787. He was a founder and first president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to whom he bequeathed his library. Bowdoin College in Maine was named in his honor after a bequest by his son James III.

James devoted several years to scholarly pursuits, until he was appointed the United States Ambassador to Spain in 1804. He arrived in Madrid in May, 1805 but never actually assumed the post of ambassador. In March 1806 he and John Armstrong of New York were named commissioners to negotiate boundaries and other issues with Spain. He returned home in 1808 when the talks in Paris ended without success. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1786.

When Bowdoin College was founded in Maine, he gave the new school 6,000 acres (24 km²) and $5,500. When he died, he also bequeathed his considerable library, papers, mineral collection, scientific apparatus and art collection to the school. He died in 1811 on Naushon Island in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.