BARLOW, Joel, an American literary and political character of considerable note, was born in the year 1756, in the village of Reading, state of Connecticut, and appears to have been the youngest of ten children. His father died when he was yet a boy; but his friends, attentive to his instruction, employed his portion of the paternal inheritance for his education, at the College of Newhaven, in his native state. Here he commenced his studies in 1774. In the course of the prescribed exercises of composition he discovered a taste for poetry, and two productions crept into public view, one entitled The Prospect of Peace; the other An Elegy on the Death of Mr Hosmer, member of the American congress. It appears that Mr Barlow was destined for the clerical profession; and that his friends solicited and obtained for him the appointment of chaplain to a militia company of Massachusetts, the functions of which he performed till the event of peace. One of his panegyrists has observed, in reference to his subsequent change of profession, that, "amongst the Presbyterians of New England, the priesthood is nothing else than a species of civil ordination. He who receives it may pass to another employment; and it is common enough to see young men preach the gospel in order to have time to prepare themselves for another profession." This explanation, however, is hardly reconcilable with the spirit of the New England theologians, who even now require from the candidate for holy orders a solemn declaration, that he is moved to this calling by a certain species of inspiration or divine impulse, and not by any carnal or interested motive.
In 1781, while he followed the army in quality of chaplain, he contracted a marriage with Miss Baldwin of Newhaven; and it was during this period of his life that he planned the edifice of his future fame in his poem destined to celebrate the discovery and prospects of America. It was also during this period that the patriarchs of Connecticut proposed to adopt a new metrical translation of the psalms, which excited to emulation all the poetical genius of the state. The version of Barlow carried the prize, and is to this day sung in the churches of New England.
At the conclusion of peace between the United States and Great Britain, he abandoned the ecclesiastical life, and settled at the village of Hartford, where, two years afterwards, he published the poem alluded to, entitled The Vision of Columbus, which he afterwards gave to the world in a more expanded and imposing form.
After quitting the service of the church, he appears for some time to have practised law; but in 1788 he likewise abandoned that profession to become the agent of a mercantile company, who had purchased some millions of acres of land situated on or near the river Ohio, which they proposed to sell to foreigners at an enhanced price. For this purpose Mr Barlow was sent to Europe; and it is said that he was fortunate in the execution of this commission.
Having during this period become deeply interested by the events of the French revolution, he published, in the years 1791 and 1792, the following political pieces:—
Barlow. 1. Advice to the Privileged Orders. 2. The Conspiracy of Kings. 3. Letter to the National Convention of France. 4. The Royal Recollections. Towards the end of the year 1792, he, being then in London, was appointed by the Constitutional Society of London one of a deputation to present an address to the National Convention of France; a circumstance which attracted the notice of the British Parliament, it having been stated by a member that the Convention had received an address by means of two fellows calling themselves the representatives of Great Britain, viz. Frost and Barlow.
In 1793 Barlow, from motives of curiosity, accompanied the four commissioners of the National Convention who were sent to Mont Blanc to organize that department; and this excursion gave rise to another production, entitled A Letter to the People of Piedmont. About this time, also, he translated Volney's well-known work, entitled Ruins of Empires.
Objects of a commercial nature at length drew him to Hamburg, and afterwards to the coast of Africa, where he received the commission of consul-general of the United States, with instructions to enter into and conclude treaties with the Barbary powers for the purpose of procuring the ransom of the American citizens who were detained as slaves in those countries. The execution of this commission was prompt and fortunate; and, after residing for some time in Paris, to which he returned from Barbary, he, in 1805, proceeded to America, and purchased a neat habitation in the territory of Columbia, the seat of the general government, to which he gave the name of Kahrama. Here he formed an acquaintance with certain considerable members of Congress, to whom he greatly recommended himself by the publication of a short sketch of a plan of national education, and an address to the citizens of Washington upon occasion of one of the anniversaries of American independence. He now also published the superb quarto edition of his national poem, to which he finally gave the name of The Columbiad.
Soon after his return from Europe, he was admitted to the confidence of the first magistrate of the United States; and, in 1811, he received the valued appointment of minister-plenipotentiary to the court of France. This nomination met with powerful opposition in the senate, and passed only by a small majority.
He sailed for his destination on board of the Constitution frigate, disembarked at Cherbourg in September 1812, and proceeded to the French capital, where he was received, in the emperor's absence, by the minister of foreign affairs, who "was instructed to say the most flattering things relative to his appointment." The great object of his mission was to obtain compensation for the American property confiscated in virtue of the Berlin and Milan decrees. This arrangement was to be regulated in a manner the least onerous to the French treasury. American ships and cargoes were, at the same time, to be freed from unjust detention, and a new commercial treaty to be formed on principles of national justice and reciprocity.
In pursuit of this object he followed the Emperor Napoleon to Wilna in the memorable winter of 1812; but this diplomatic journey was without advantage, and the failure was the more mortifying, as it was undertaken without the advice or instructions of the American government. Mr Barlow was returning to Paris, when he was seized with a violent inflammatory disease, of which he died on the 26th of December, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. His nephew, a midshipman on board of the Constitution frigate, whom he took from his studies to accompany him in this journey, and a secretary of the French Legation in the United States, were witnesses of
his last moments, and saw him interred at the place where he closed his eyes, an obscure village of Poland.