the enemy, Barney's first care was to manœuvre, in crossing her bows, when acteristic humanity, not always, as we the two vessels got foul, and after a have seen, experienced by himself from raking fire in that entangled position, the Hyder Ally discharging, it is said, more than twenty broadsides in twentysix minutes, the action ended in the capture of the English vessel, which proved to be his majesty's ship, the General Monk, Captain Rodgers, carrying twenty nine-pounders, and one hundred and thirty-six men, against one hundred and ten, who composed the crew of the Hyder Ally. The loss on board the British vessel was, in the estimate of Captain Barney, twenty killed, and thirty-six wounded; that of the American, four killed, and eleven at Havana to receive a consignment of wounded. The British frigate, badly specie. On his return to the Delaware, handled, took no part in the action. he again cleared the bay of the English The General Monk had formerly borne cruisers, and reported himself to Robert the name of George Washington, when Morris, who was delighted and surshe was captured as a privateer in the prised with his success, and the rapidity American service. "This action," says of his movements, the whole voyage to Mr. Cooper in his Naval History, "has Hispaniola and back having occupied been justly deemed one of the most bril- but thirty-five days. liant that ever occurred under the American flag. It was fought in the presence of a vastly superior force that was not engaged; and the ship taken was, in every essential respect, superior to her conqueror. The disproportion in metal between a six-pounder and a ninepounder is one-half; and the Monk, besides being a heavier and a larger ship, had the most men. Both vessels appeared before Philadelphia, a few proceeded to Paris and reported himhours after the action, bringing with them even their dead; and most of the leading facts were known to the entire community of that place." With char In November, 1782, Captain Barney was sent on a similar mission, but on a much larger theatre of action, in his good ship George Washington, to France, as the bearer of dispatches to Franklin, who was then engaged with his colleagues in arranging the terms of peace with England. His vessel was a good sailer, for in seventeen days he was at Lorient, whence he self to Franklin, at Passy. He was just the man of adventure and experience and force of character, in whom the sage would delight; moreover, he brought letters from Morris, and the latest news from Philadelphia. A short-hand report of that conversa- On his next voyage, Barney landed tion would doubtless be interesting Captain Paul Jones in England. When enough if we could obtain it. The he returned to America, his ship was gallant captain appears to have made a sold, and the service of its commander good impression, for he was taken up under the old Confederacy at an end. by Franklin, introduced to the embassy, and presented at Versailles to the king and queen. He did not linger, how ever, at Paris, but proceeded at once to his ship, to receive a large sum of money ready to be transported to America, and bore it in safety in a long wintry voyage of nearly two months, to Philadelphia, where he arrived in March, 1783, bringing with him not only the welcome loan, but gratifying intelligence of the peace negotiations evidenced in the royal passport for his vessel, which he bore from the king of England. He now turned his attention to mercantile pursuits at Baltimore, and made some purchases of lands in Kentucky, which he visited. In the discussion in Maryland on the adoption of the Constitution, he showed himself a zealous Federalist, taking an active part in the procession at Baltimore, as captain of a small emblematic ship of state, which he had constructed, and in which he was borne through the streets, a device often since that time adopted in popu lar processions. He actually sailed in this craft up the Potomac, and presented the little vessel to General Washington, whom he visited at Mount Vernon. He was not long after chosen by Mrs. Washington as one of her escort to join her husband at New York at the opening of the new government. The war was now over, but Captain Barney continued to be employed in his ship in carrying various government dispatches to Europe. In the first of these, he sailed to Plymouth, the scene of his escape, and gave an entertainment, on shipboard, to the friends in It must not be supposed, however, that city who had aided him in his that Barney's adventures were at an adventures. Thence he sailed to Havre, end with this inauguration of peace. renewed his intercourse with Franklin, His commercial pursuits in the West and carried Henry Laurens with him Indies which he conducted himself, on his return to England. On Barney led him into perilous adventures at reminding his guest of former days in St. Domingo, and with English cruis London, Laurens said, "Times are ers. He was twice taken prisonerchanged with us both; we are no once by a quasi privateer, the crew of longer proscribed rebels and traitors, which he succeeded, with his companbut the honored of our country; and ions, in overmastering; the second time let us never forget that we are indebted by a British frigate in the Gulf, when he to the persevering bravery and untam- was carried into Jamaica, and tried for able spirit of that country, and not his life, for his struggle on board the to the forbearance of our enemy, that privateer. He was acquitted by the we live to look back at our sufferings." jury, and, an evidence of the attach 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. In 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. 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 |