Valentin de Foronda

Valentin de Foronda y González de Echávarri, (Vitoria, 14 February 1751 – 24 December 1821), Spanish General Consul in Philadelphia from 1801 to 1807 and some sort of Spanish PlenopotentiaryMinister in the U. S. A. from 1807 to 1809, tense times because of American ships lack of discipline trading with Cuba and the support by the U. S. A. to Francisco de Miranda, Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez, (Caracas, March 28, 1750 – in prison, El Arsenal de la Carraca, Cadiz, July 14, 1816) trying to invade the actual Venezuela for declaring independence.

He returned back to the Spain on the arrival of Luis Onís, who substituted him, nominated by the "Junta Patriótica" opposed to the invaion of Spain by Napoleon Bonaparte.

He taught at the Basque Institutional School known as Seminario de Vergara, was promoted to Knight of the Military Order of Santiago in 1793, a Knight of the Order of Carlos III in 1801 and being later a member of the American Philosophical Society.

His pathetic letter of November 1799 to the then Spanish Secretary of State Mariano Luis de Urquijo, because of the financial crushing of the "Banco de San Carlos", an ancestor of the actual Bank of Spain, where he had invested the proceedings of sale of his land and farms, is probable related to this diplomatic nomination to the Spanish Consulate in Philadelphia.

His "Observaciones sobre algunos puntos de la Obra de Don Quijote", Philadelphia (1807), has motivated his inclusion on the short list of people phobic against world wife famous XVII Century Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, (September 29, 1547 – April 23, 1616).

References

Article by R. SIDNEY SMITH from Duke University, (USA), 40 pages in pdf format, " Valentin de Foronda, Diplomático y Economista":

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:rMDAS0npvvEJ:www.cepc.es/rap/Publicaciones/Revistas/11/RECP_023_005.pdf+%22Correo+de+Europa%22+Foronda&hl=es&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=es