be free to give up his unpleasant post and return
to France. But in the adjacent states of Tunis and Tripoli there were
other prisons in which American citizens were confined, and until they
were liberated he does not seem to have considered his mission as fully
performed. Six months or more were spent in effecting this object, and
when it was accomplished he very gladly delivered up his credentials to
the government and returned to his home and friends in France.

The succeeding eight years were spent in congenial pursuits, chiefly of
a literary and philanthropic character. He purchased the large hotel of
the count Clermont Tonnere, near Paris, which he transformed into an
elegant villa: here he lived during his residence in France, dispensing
a broad hospitality and enjoying the friendship of the leading minds of
the Empire, as well as the companionship of all Americans of note who
visited the capital. But at length, in 1805, after seventeen years of
absence, the home-longing which sooner or later comes to every exile
seized upon him, and, yielding to its influence, he disposed of his
estates in France and with his faithful wife embarked for America.

Great changes had occurred in his native land during these seventeen
years. Washington was gone, and with him the power and prestige of
Federalism; Jefferson and Burr had led the Republican hosts to victory;
Presbyterianism as a political force was dead; and everywhere in society
the old order was giving place to the new. This was more markedly the
case in New England, where the Puritan crust was being broken and
pulverized by the gradual upheaval of the Republican strata. Withal, it
was an era of intense political feeling and of partisan bitterness
without a parallel.

This will explain, perhaps, the varying manner in which Barlow was
received by the different parties among his countrymen. The Republicans
greeted him with acclamation as the honored citizen of two republics,
the man who had perilled life and health in rescuing his countrymen from
slavery. The Federalists, on the other hand, united in traducing him--an
assertion which may be gainsaid, but which can be abundantly proved by
reference to the Federal newspapers and magazines of the day. In
evidence, and as a curious instance of the political bitterness of the
times, I will adduce the following article from the _Boston Repertory_,
printed in the August after the poet's return:

"JEFFERSON, BARLOW AND