424- 



BARLOW. 



inscribed, in na elegnnt nntl courtly dedication, to 

 Ixwis XVI. Having been employed by the eU r^y 

 ot Connecticut to adapt NVutts's version of Ihe l'-;ilui> 

 to the state of the New England churches, Barlow 

 gave up his weekly paper, ainl became a hook^-ller 

 at Hartford. Tliis he did chiefly with a view of aid- 

 ing the sale of his poem, nnd of the new edition of 

 the Psalms ; and, as soon as these objects were 

 effected, he quilted the business, and engaged in the 

 practice of the law. During his residence at Hart- 

 ford, he was concerned in several occasional puhlica- 

 tions, which issued from a club of wits anil young 

 politicians in that city and its vicinity. His various 

 publication continued to increase and extend his 

 reputation ; hut, in the meanwhile. Ins success at the 

 Uir was by no means flattering. He was unfortunate 

 in an emlwrrassed chxMition ; his habits of life were 

 grave and retired, and his manners and address were 

 not of that familiar and conciliating cast, which so 

 often supplies the want of professional merit. I'nder 

 these circumstances, he accepted an offer to engage 

 in another employment. Some members of a Jand 

 company, called the Ohio company, in connexion with 

 a tew other persons, then supposed to be men of pro- 

 perty, by a manoeuvre not then understood, but which 

 has since been detected, appropriated to their own 

 use a very considerable part of the funds of that 

 company, and, under the title of the Scioto company, 

 offered vast tracts of land for sale in Europe, to few 

 of which they had any legal claim. As the agent of 

 this company, but with perfect ignorance or their 

 real plan, Barlow embarked for England, in 1788, 

 and, soon after, crossed the channel to France, where 

 he disposed of some ol' these lands under the title of 

 the Scioto company. While in France, he took a 

 warm interest in the revolution then in progress, and 

 became intimately acquainted with many leaders of the 

 republican party particularly with that section after- 

 wards denominated the Girondists, or moderates, en- 

 tered into all their plans, and was soon conspicuous 

 as one of their most zealous partisans. He returned 

 to England in 1791, with the intention of embarking 

 for America, after having resided for a year or two 

 longer in London. About the end of the year 1791, 

 he published, in London, the first part of his Advice 

 to the Privileged Orders. This he afterwards com- 

 pleted by the addition of a second part ; and the 

 whole has been several times reprinted in the United 

 States. This publication was followed, in February, 

 1792, by the Conspiracy of Kings, a poem of about 

 four hundred lines. The subject was the first coalition 

 of the continental sovereigns against France. It has 

 little of poetical ornament, and the poet often 

 descends into the common-place topics of the day, 

 but many of his lines are vigorous. In the autumn 

 of the same year, he published a Letter to the Na- 

 tional Convention, in which he urges them to abolish 

 the royal power, render elections more frequent and 

 popular, and dissolve the connexion between the 

 government and the national church. All these 

 publications procured him some profit and much 

 notoriety. Though France was the theme, they 

 were doubtless intended to have their chief effect on 

 England. Barlow consequently became acquainted 

 with all the English politicians, who were, like him, 

 engaged in the cause of reform or revolution, and 

 with most of the republican men of letters and 

 science, who, about that period, were so numerous in 

 London as almost to form a distinct class. Towards 

 the end of 1792, the London constitutional society, 

 of which he was a member, voted an address to the 

 French convention, and Mr Barlow and another 

 member were deputed to present it. They imme- 

 diately undertook and executed their commission. 

 Barlow wa"s received in France with great respect, 



and the convention soon after conferred upon him Ihe 

 rights of a French citizen. As the revolutionary 

 symptoms in England had attracted the attention 

 of government, and an official inquiry had been set 

 on foot respecting Barlow's mission, he deemed it 

 unsife to return to England, and fixed his residence, 

 for a time, in France. In the latter pan ol this year, 

 he accompanied his friend (Jregoire, and a deputation 

 of Ihe national convention, who were sent to organize 

 the newly acquired territory ol Savoy, as a depart- 

 ment of the republic, lie passed the winter at 

 ( haml>erry, the capital of Savoy, where, at the re- 

 quest of his legislative friends, he wrote an address 

 to the people of Piedmont, inciting them to throw oil' 

 their allegiance " to the man ol Turin who called 

 himself their king." This was immediately fans 

 lated into French and Italian, and circulated widely 

 through the whole of Piedmont, but without pro- 

 ducing much popular effect. The rest of the winter 

 was passed in the more peaceable employment of 

 composing a mock-heroic poem in three cantos, en- 

 litled Hatty I'tntili/ig, one of the happiest and most 

 popular of his productions. From Savoy he returned 

 to Paris, when- he continued to reside for about three 

 years. During this, as well as his subsequent resi- 

 dence in Paris, with the exception of a translation of 

 Volney's Ruins, his literary labours appear to have 

 been nearly suspended, and he engaged in several 

 plans of commercial speculation. His connexion 

 with public men, and knowledge of political affairs, 

 together with the great advantages of credit and of 

 personal safety, which he derived from his character 

 of a friendly neutral, enabled him to profit by those 

 great and sudden fluctuations in the value of every 

 species of property, which arose from the disjointed 

 state of public affairs, the rapid depreciation of the. 

 assignats, and the frequent sales of confiscated 

 estates. About the year 1795, Barlow was sent as 

 an agent on private legal and commercial business 

 to the north of Europe, and, soon after his return, 

 was appointed American consul at Algiers, with 

 powers to negotiate a treaty of peace with the dey, 

 and to redeem all American citizens held in slavery 

 on the coast of Barbary. He immediately proceeded 

 on this mission, through Spain to Algiers. Here he 

 soon concluded a treaty with the dey, in spite of nu- 

 merous obstacles thrown in his way by the agents of 

 several of the European powers. In the beginning 

 of the next year, he negotiated a similar treaty 

 with Tripoli, and redeemed and sent home all the 

 American prisoners whom he could discover among 

 the captives of the Barbary powers. These humane 

 exertions were made with great hazard and danger, 

 sometimes, it is said, even at the risk of his life. In 

 1797, he resigned his consulship, and returned to 

 Paris, where he engaged in some very successful 

 commercial speculations, and acquired a considerable 

 fortune. As long as France retained the forms of a 

 free constitution, he regarded it as his adopted coun- 

 try, and invested a large portion of his property in 

 landed estates. Among other purchases which he 

 made was that of the splendid hotel of the count 

 Clermont de Tonnere, in Paris, in which he lived 

 for some years, in an elegant and even sumptuous 

 manner. On the rupture between his native country 

 and France, occasioned by the maritime spoliations 

 of the latter, Barlow exerted all his influence and 

 abilities to bring alxmt an adjustment of differences. 

 To assist in attaining this end, he published a Letter 

 to the people of the United States, on the measures 

 of Mr Adams's administration. At the same period, 

 he drew up and presented a memoir to the French 

 government, in which he boldly denounces the whole 

 system of privateering as mere sea robbery. 



After an absence of nearly seventeen years, Barlow 



