the Scioto Land Company, his object being to sell lands and enlist
immigrants. He seems to have been ignorant of the fraudulent character of
the company, which failed disastrously in 1790. He had previously, however,
induced the company of Frenchmen, who ultimately founded Gallipolis, Ohio,
to emigrate to America. In Paris he became a liberal in religion and an
advanced republican in politics. He remained abroad for several years,
spending much of his time in London; was a member of the obnoxious "London
Society for Constitutional Information"; published various radical essays,
including a volume entitled _Advice to the Privileged Orders_ (1792), which
was proscribed by the British government; and was made a citizen of France
in 1792. He was American consul at Algiers in 1795-1797, securing the
release of American prisoners held for ransom, and negotiating a treaty
with Tripoli (1796). He returned to America in 1805, and lived near
Washington, D.C., until 1811, when he became American plenipotentiary to
France, charged with negotiating a commercial treaty with Napoleon, and
with securing the restitution of confiscated American property or indemnity
therefor. He was summoned for an interview with Napoleon at Wilna, but
failed to see the emperor there; became involved in the retreat of the
French army; and, overcome by exposure, died at the Polish village of
Zarnowiec on the 24th of December 1812. In 1807 he had published in a
sumptuous volume the _Columbiad_, an enlarged edition of his _Vision of
Columbus_, more pompous even than the original; but, though it added to his
reputation in some quarters, on the whole it was not well received, and it
has subsequently been much ridiculed. The poem for which he is now best
known is his mock heroic _Hasty Pudding_ (1793). Besides the writings
mentioned above, he published _Conspiracy of Kings, a Poem addressed to
[v.03 p.0407] the Inhabitants of Europe from another Quarter of the Globe_
(1792); _View of the Public Debt, Receipts and Expenditure of the United
States_ (1800); and the _Political Writings of Joel Barlow_ (2nd ed.,
1796). He also published an edition, "corrected and enlarged," of Isaac
Watt's _Imitation of the Psalms of David_ (1786).

See C. B. Todd's _Life and Letters of Joel Barlow_ (New York and London,
1886); and a chapter, "The Literary Strivings of Joel Barlow," in M. C.
Tyler's _Three Men of Letters_ (New York and London, 1895).

BARLOW, PETER (1776-1862), Engl