Democratic national conventions of 1872, 1876, 1880 and 1884 he received votes for nomination as the party candidate for the presidency. He was secretary of state, 1885-1889, during the first administration of President Cleveland, and pursued a conservative policy in foreign affairs, the most important matter with which he was called upon to deal being the Bering Sea controversy. As ambassador to Great Britain, 1893-1897, his tall dignified person, unfailing courtesy, and polished, if somewhat deliberate, eloquence made him a man of mark in all the best circles. He was considered indeed by many Americans to have become too partial to English ways; and, for the expression of some criticisms regarded as unfavourable to his own countrymen, the House of Representatives went so far as to pass, on the 7th of November 1895, a vote of censure on him. The value of Mr Bayard's diplomacy was, however, fully recognized in the United Kingdom, where he worthily upheld the traditions of a famous line of American ministers. He was the first representative of the United States in Great Britain to hold the diplomatic rank of an ambassador. He died in Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 28th of September 1898.
See Edward Spencer, Public Life and Services of T. F. Bayard (New York, 1880).
1880).