BARLOW, JOEL American poet and politi cian, was born in Redding, Conn., on March He gradu ated at Yale in 1778, did post-graduate work there, and was for three years a chaplain in the Revolutionary army. In July 1784 he established at Hartford, Conn., a weekly paper, the American Mercury, with which he was connected for a year. In 1786 he was admitted to the bar. At Hartford he was a member of the group of young writers known as the "Hartford Wits." He contributed to the Anarchiad, a series of satirico-political papers, and in 1787 published a long and ambitious poem, The Vision of Columbus, which gave him a considerable literary reputation. In 1788 he went to France as the agent of the Scioto Land Company, which later failed, and in 1789 he induced the company of Frenchmen who ultimately founded Gallipolis, O., to emigrate to America. In Paris he became a liberal in religion and an advanced republican in politics. He was a member of the London "Society for Consti tutional 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 citi zen of France in 1792. On a mission to Algiers in 1795-97 he secured the release of American prisoners held for ransom and negotiated a treaty with Tripoli. He returned to America in 1805, with a fortune which he had made abroad, and lived near Wash ington, D.C., until 181 i, when he became American plenipoten tiary to France, charged with negotiating a commercial treaty with Napoleon and with securing the restitution of confiscated Ameri can property or indemnity therefor. In this capacity he became involved in the retreat of the French army from Russia ; and, overcome by exposure, died at the Polish village of Zarnowiec on Dec. 24, 1812.