he was a chaplain for three years in the Revolutionary Army.From 1780 to 1783, Barlow served as chaplain for the Third Massachusetts Brigade. In July 1784 he established
at Hartford, Conn., a weekly paper, the American Mercury. In 1786 he was admitted to the bar. Along with
John Trumbull and Timothy Dwight, he was a member of the group of young writers, known as the Connecticut,
or Hartford, Wits, whose patriotism led them to attempt to create a national literature. At Hartford he was a member of a group of young writers including Lemuel Hopkins, David Humphreys, and John Trumbull, known in American literary history as the "Hartford Wits"

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 at his home, Kalorama in what is now the city of 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.

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. T