Senator from Delaware who was one of two statesmen who signed the original Petition to the King of the Congress of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States.

In April 1860, he was chairman of the committee of three to draft a bill on behalf of New York, appropriating $300,000 to purchase of arms and equipment for the Civil War.

[6] One of his first acts was to secure the release of the American ship Armenia and to obtain from the Greek government revocation of the order that prohibited the sale of the Bible in Greece.

While Chargé d'Affaires, he received the thanks of the U.S. Government for his effectual protection of persons and interests of the United States in the dangerous crisis of 1878.

Soon afterward the United States Congress, from motives of economy, refused the appropriation for the legation at Athens, and Read, believing that the time was too critical to withdraw the mission, carried it on at his individual expense until his resignation on September 23, 1879.

Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne, and Savoy; from Roman Times to Voltaire, Rousseau and Gibbon was published in 1897.

[10] Together, they were the parents of four children:[11] In 1892, the Reads gave a dinner in honor of the departing U.S. Minister Whitelaw Reid, at their home in Paris.