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Joel Barlow (March 24, 1754 – December 26, 1812) was an American poet, diplomat, and politician. In politics, he supported the French Revolution and was an ardent Jeffersonian republican.

He worked as an agent for American speculator William Duer to set up the Scioto Company in Paris in 1788, and to sell worthless deeds to land in the Northwest Territory which it did not own. Scholars believe that he did not know the transactions were fraudulent. He stayed in Paris, becoming involved in the French Revolution. He was elected to the Assembly and given French citizenship in 1792.

In his own time, Barlow was known especially for the epic poem The Columbiad, a later version of the Vision of Columbus (1807), though modern readers rank The Hasty-Pudding (1793) more highly.

As American consul at Algiers, he helped draft the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, to end the attacks of Barbary pirates of North Africa city states. He also served as U.S. minister to France from 1811 to his death on December 26, 1812, in Żarnowiec, Poland.

Early life and education

Barlow was born in Redding, Fairfield County, Connecticut. He briefly attended Dartmouth College before he graduated from Yale College in 1778, where he was a member of Brothers in Unity, along with Noah Webster, who was a good friend at the time. In 1778, he published an anti-slavery poem entitled "The Prospect of Peace".

Career

175px|thumb|left|Coat of Arms of Joel Barlow

Barlow was an ardent patriot in the American Revolution. He was engaged in the Battle of Long Island and served as a chaplain for the 4th Massachusetts Brigade from September 1780 until the close of the Revolutionary War. He was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Massachusetts (and Connecticut). He was a Mason and he became a good friend to Thomas Paine. In 1809, Barlow was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

In 1783, Barlow moved to Hartford, Connecticut. In July 1784, he established a weekly paper called American Mercury, with which he was connected for a year. After "reading the law" in an established office, in 1786 he was admitted to the bar. In Hartford, Barlow became a member of a group of young writers including Lemuel Hopkins, David Humphreys, and John Trumbull, known in American literary history as the "Hartford Wits". He contributed to The Anarchiad, a series of satirico-political papers. In 1787, he published a long and ambitious poem, The Vision of Columbus,

Land speculator

In 1788, he went to France as the agent of Colonel William Duer and the Scioto Land Company, which had been registered in Paris the year before. He was to sell lands in part of the newly organized Northwest Territory (this section is now in Ohio), and recruit immigrants for new settlements. He seems to have been ignorant of the fraudulent character of the company, which did not hold title to the lands it sold and failed disastrously in 1790.

French politics and citizenship

In Paris, Barlow became a liberal in religion and an advanced republican in politics. He believed that "American civilization was world civilization", and was enthusiastic about the cause of world republicanism. He became involved with the French Revolution, going so far as to be elected to the French Assembly, and being granted French citizenship in 1792. Barlow helped Thomas Paine publish the first part of The Age of Reason while Paine was imprisoned during The Reign of Terror in France.

Barlow remained abroad for several years, spending much of his time in London. There he was a member of the London Society for Constitutional Information. He also published various radical essays, including a volume entitled Advice to the Privileged Orders (1792). This was proscribed by the British government. He returned to the United States in 1805, where he lived in the national capital at his mansion, known as Kalorama, now the name of a neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C.

Poetry and writing

In 1807, he published the epic Columbiad, an extended edition of his Vision of Columbus. It added to his reputation in some quarters, but on the whole it was not well received. In addition, Barlow published Conspiracy of Kings, a Poem addressed to the Inhabitants of Europe from another Quarter of the Globe (1792). He continued writing political essays, publishing Political Writings of Joel Barlow (2nd ed., 1796) and View of the Public Debt, Receipts and Expenditure of the United States (1800).

Historian William H. Goetzmann describes Barlow as a cosmopolitan, along with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, engineer Robert Fulton, and Thomas Paine, the last two of whom Barlow befriended in France. Barlow believed that the new country of America was a model civilization that prefigured the "uniting of all mankind in one religion, one language and one Newtonian harmonious whole" and thought of "the American Revolution as the opening skirmish of a world revolution on behalf of the rights of all humanity." In October 1812, Barlow set off for Vilnius to negotiate a treaty with the French foreign minister, who was based in Lithuania to prepare for the French invasion of Russia. By the time he arrived, the French army was already in full retreat from Moscow.

thumb|Monument to Barlow in [[Żarnowiec, Silesian Voivodeship|Żarnowiec, Poland]]

Barlow chose to take the southerly route to return to Paris, by way of Krakow and Vienna. He became ill and died of pneumonia on December 26, 1812, in the Polish village of Żarnowiec. A monument was later erected to him there.

Legacy

Barlow was painted by Robert Fulton and John Vanderlyn (1798).
Barlow, Ohio, is named in his honor.
He was one of the contributing editors of the first agricultural magazine in America, the Agricultural Museum.
Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Connecticut, is named for him.
A monument to him was installed in the village of Żarnowiec, now in Poland, where he died.

References

Bibliography

1787 - The vision of Columbus: a poem, in nine books. London
1792 - The conspiracy of kings; a poem: addressed to the inhabitants of Europe, from another quarter of the world. London: J. Johnson
1792 - A letter to the National Convention of France, on the defects in the constitution of 1791, and the extent of the amendments which ought to be applied. London: J. Johnson
1794 - Avis aux ordres privilégiés, dans les divers etats de l'Europe, tiré de la nécessité, dans le sens proprement dit, d'une révolution génèrale dans le principe de gouvernement. Londres: J. Jonhson
1795 - A letter, addressed to the people of Piedmont, on the advantages of the French Revolution, and the necessity of adopting its principles in Italy. London: Daniel Isaac Aeton
1800 - Letters from Paris, to the citizens of the United States of America, on the system of policy hitherto pursued by their government relative to their commercial intercourse with England and France, &c.. London: James Ridgway
1970 - Works of Joel Barlow. Volume I: Prose; Volume II: Poetry. Gainesville, Fla.,: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints

External links

The Conspiracy of Kings; A Poem: Addressed to the Inhabitants of Europe, from Another Quarter of the World (London, 1792) online PDF edition.
Guide to Joel Barlow's works at Houghton Library, Harvard University
Joel Barlow Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Society of the Cincinnati
The American Revolution Institute