ment of his countrymen at home, a picked crew of volunteers came for him in a pilot-boat from Baltimore. When, in consequence of such violations of the rights of neutrals on the high seas, Congress, in 1794, resolved to resuscitate the navy by placing six ships in commission, Barney was appointed the fourth captain on the list, Colonel Silas Talbot being third. This latter appointment was resented by him as a violation of his just claim to precedence, and he declined the prof fered employment. We then find him in command of the Cincinnatus, sailing from Baltimore to France, with commercial business on hand, taking out with him James Monroe, on his first mission under Washington. Captain Barney was the bearer of the flag in that memorable scene in the Convention, when he received, according to vote, the fraternal embrace of the President a kiss upon each cheek, an honor which had been previously accorded to the minister himself. He also participated, with Mr. Monroe, in the cere monies attending the removal of the ashes of Rousseau to the Pantheon. The American flag, which they had presented, was carried in the procession, "borne by young Barney and a nephew of Mr. Monroe, an honor to which the National Convention itself appointed them. Arrived at the Pantheon, Mr. Monroe and his suite were the only persons permitted to enter with the National Convention to witness the conclusion of the ceremony." In addition to the fraternal embrace, Captain Memoir of Commodore Barney, p. 188. Barney was complimented by the Convention with an invitation to enter the French naval service. He declined it at the time, but was induced the following year to accept the offer, when we find him engaged in fitting out privateers against English commerce. In March, 1796, he received a rank equal to that of Commodore in the American service, and was variously employed in the West Indies and at St. Domingo, visiting his home at Baltimore, meanwhile, and busy in many negotiations while holding the commission from which he had some difficulty afterwards in France in getting a release. He was not free of this connexion till 1802. We are reminded of this French alliance, which plays an important part in his biography, by his reception in the following year, at Baltimore, of Jerome Bonaparte, who visited the city, in the course of his rovings, with the commission of naval captain. One important result of this lionizing was the marriage of Captain Jerome to Miss Paterson. Among other incidents of Captain Barney's diversified career, before his return to the naval service, was his twice running for Congress, in 1806 and 1810, on both which occasions he was defeated. His foreign French connexion furnished a ready party handle of attack. As war became imminent, he offered himself to the Government, first to President Jefferson, and then to President Madison, for employment, and when hostilities commenced, the old warrior left the farm upon which he had just settled, in Anne Arundel County, to take command of a priva teer out of Baltimore. As might have been the purchaser. He made a journey to the State, and was well received, establishing his claim to a large territory. He was preparing to make his home in the region, when his purpose was stayed for a time by an appointment from President Monroe as naval officer at Baltimore, the duties of which another visit to the West, in the autumn of 1818, that he was taken ill by a fever, while making his way, with a portion of his family, through Pennsyl vania, and died at Pittsburg on the first of December, in the sixtieth year of his age. been expected from his energy and experience, he inflicted much damage upon the enemy. The next year, in the summer of 1813, he was employed under orders from the Navy Department, in fitting out the flotilla for the defence of Chesapeake Bay. While in this command, in 1814, he had some important skirmishing with the block-were discharged by his son. It was on ading enemy, particularly at St. Leonard's Creek, emptying into the Patuxent. When the British landed, he was in concert with the army for the defence of the capital, but not with the retreat, for he fought at Bladensburg, with his flotilla-men at his battery, while others fled, till defeat was inevitable. He was severely wounded by a bullet in the thigh; his wound was dressed by a British surgeon, and the British commander, General Ross, at once put him upon his parole. He was taken to Bladensburg, where he remained a few days before being carried to his farm at Elkridge. His wound was healed, but he carried the ball to his dying day. He gained his health sufficiently to resume his command in October, and was making preparation for further defence in the Chesapeake, when peace interposed. In 1815, though much broken in health, he sailed to Europe as bearer of dispatches to the American Commissioners, as he had been employed in the previous war, in 1782. Returning much shattered in health, his fortune wasted by his profuse expenditure, he turned his attention to the Kentucky lands, of which, some thirty years before, he had Thus closed the remarkable career of an extraordinary man, gifted with no ordinary courage and abilities. He raised himself to fortune and honor, to eminent rank at home and abroad, by his own exertions, with few adventi tious aids. He would have been a noticeable man as a successful merchant, had he not been distinguished as an officer. Fortune seems to have crowded into his active life the utmost of inci dent. He appears always, from boy hood, the hero of some stirring adven ture. His story is that of a large part of the times in which he lived in America, in Europe, in the West Indies; the days of Washington and of Monroe, of Louis XVI. and Napoleon; and there is something affecting in this restless hero of a hundred conflicts, carrying his wounded body to a new habita tion in the forest land of the West, which he was not destined to make his home. BENJAMIN LINCOLN. occupation of Boston, he stood forward as the counsellor and representative of his townspeople in their acts of resistance. He was elected, in 1772, to the Provincial Legislature, and then and subsequently conducted the patriotic committee correspondence of Hingham. When Gage, in 1774, ordered the General Court to be indefinitely postponed, and the members, who had no idea of being thus balked of their rights, constituted themselves a Provincial Congress at Concord and at Cambridge, Lincoln acted as secretary under the Presidency of Hancock. His sound, sober, administrative talent, caused him to be selected as a member of the Committee of Supplies, sitting perma nently for the public safety. He was again elected to the Provincial Con BENJAMIN LINCOLN was born at | In the preliminary occurrences of the Hingham, Massachusetts, January 24, Revolution, consequent on the military 1733. He belonged to a race of cultivators of the land, who had been settled in the town from its foundation. His father is described as "a maltster and farmer." He was a man of some property and considerable influence in the district, representing the town in the General Court, and attaining the dig. nity of a member of the Council. Benjamin, who was his eldest son, received a plain, district school education, sufficient for his wants as a farmer, in which occupation he continued to be sedulously engaged till the breaking out of the Revolution, in his forty-second year. He married early, and being of pious habits and simple tastes, reflected the virtues of his countrymen so that he always had their respect, was trusted by them, and enabled to become their leader. "Hegress and was charged with the means. was a good specimen," says his biographer," of the sober and substantial farmers of New England, a race of men generally remarkable for prudence, industry, and firmness, and capable of displaying much higher qualities when called out by sudden emergencies in public affairs." Lincoln then became town-clerk, and justice for the county and the Province. of defence at the important period of Lexington and Bunker's Hill. The Provincial Congress was now resolved into the General Court, and Lincoln was appointed a member of the Council. In May, 1776, we find him in the instructions drawn up by him in the name of his town for its representatives in the Massachusetts Legislature, urging the spirit, and even anticipating |