er to France, and urging his acceptance of it in the strongest
terms.

Our relations with France were then (1811) in a very critical state,
owing to the latter's repeated attacks on American commerce, and it was
of vital moment to the government that a man so universally respected by
the French people, and so familiar with the French court and its circle
of wily diplomats, as was Barlow, should have charge of American
interests in that quarter. A man less unselfish, less patriotic, would
have refused the burden of such a position, especially one so foreign to
his tastes and desires; but the poet in this case, as in 1795, seems not
to have hesitated an instant at the call of his country. Kalorama was
closed--not sold, for its owner hoped that his absence would not be of
long duration--preparations for the journey were speedily made, and
early in August, 1811, Barlow, accompanied by his faithful wife, was set
down at the port of Annapolis, where the famous frigate Constitution,
Captain Hull, had been lying for some time in readiness to receive him.
In Annapolis the poet was received with distinguished honor: at his
embarkation crowds thronged the quay, and a number of distinguished
citizens were gathered at the gang-plank to bid him God-speed on his
journey. Captain Hull received his guest with the honor due his
station: then the Constitution spread her sails, and, gay with bunting
and responding heartily to the salutes from the forts on shore, swept
gallantly down the bay and out to sea. The beautiful city, gleaming amid
the foliage of its stately forest trees, and the low level shores, green
with orchards and growing corn, were the last objects that the poet
beheld ere the outlines of his native land sank beneath the waters.
Happily, he could not foresee the untimely death in waiting for him not
eighteen months distant, nor the lonely sepulchre in the Polish waste,
nor the still more bitter fact that ere two generations should pass an
ungrateful country would entirely forget his services and martyrdom.

Barlow's correspondence with Mr. Monroe and the duke de Bassano while
abroad on this mission forms an interesting and hitherto unpublished
chapter in our history. It has rested undisturbed in the pigeonholes of
the State Department for nearly a century, and if published in
connection with a brief memoir of the poet would prove a valuable
addition to our annals. The first of the series is Mr. Monroe's letter
of instructi