CABOT, GEORGE (1751-1823), American political leader, was born in Salem, Mass., on Dec. 16, 1751. He studied at Har vard from 1766 to 1768, when he went to sea as a cabin boy. He gradually rose to become a shipowner and a successful merchant, retiring from business in 1794. Throughout his life he was much interested in politics, and exercised, as a contributor to the press and through his friendships, a powerful political influence, espe cially in New England. He was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779-80, of the State senate in 1782-83, of the convention which in 1788 ratified for Massachu setts the Federal Constitution, and from 1791 to 1796 of the U.S. Senate. Among the bills introduced by him in the Senate was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. Upon the establishment of the navy department in 1798, he was appointed and confirmed as its secre tary, but he never performed the duties of the office. In 1814-15 Cabot was the president of the Hartford Convention, and as such was then and afterwards acrimoniously attacked by the Republi cans throughout the country. He died in Boston on April 18, 18 23.
See Henry Cabot Lodge, Life and Letters of George Cabot (Boston, 1877).