In 1894, Carter accepted his first diplomatic appointment as secretary to
Thomas F. Bayard, the
U.S. Ambassador in London. He was made second secretary in 1896 and ''
Chargé d'affaires'' in 1897. He served under Ambassadors
John Hay,
Joseph Hodges Choate until 1905, when he was appointed Secretary of the
American Embassy in London under Ambassador
Whitelaw Reid, remaining in that role until 1909. On September 25, 1909, he was appointed as
U.S. Minister at
Bucharest,
Romania. He presented his credentials on November 14, 1909, and served until October 24, 1911. While Minister to Romania, he concurrently served as the
U.S. Minister to Serbia and
Bulgaria (appointed as diplomatic agent on September 25, 1909, followed by U.S. Minister on June 24, 1910, although he never presented his credentials). In 1911, he was offered the post of
U.S. Minister to Argentina, but refused it because it came without a house to live in. Carter felt that without such accommodation, the post would be too expensive for him on his annual salary of $12,000. It was estimated that
Charles H. Sherrill, the minister he was intended to replace (and under whom
Robert Woods Bliss served as secretary of the legation in
Buenos Aires), spent $100,000 yearly to maintain his position.
Later career After Carter left the diplomatic service, he joined
Morgan, Harjes & Co. in Paris in 1912, where he lived for twenty-five years, becoming a partner in 1914. With the firm, he traveled to
Santiago, Chile to represent American stockholders of the
Chilean-Argentine railway.4 Following the death of
Henry Herman Harjes in 1926, he was the senior partner of the firm, which was renamed
Morgan & Cie. Due to his efforts during
World War I, France made him a
Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur. After the
German invasion of France in 1940, Carter returned to New York in October 1940, where they lived until his death in 1944. ==Personal life==