American author and statesman, born in Baltimore, MD, on the 25th of October 1795. He was graduated at Baltimore College in 1812, and in 1814 took part in the defense of Bladensburg; studied law and was admitted to practice in 1814. In 1820–23 he was a member of the state legislature; in 1838 he was elected to Congress as a Whig; and in 1840 was a Presidential elector on the Harrison ticket. In 1852 he was appointed Secretary of the Navy, and as such zealously pushed forward Commodore Perry’s Japan expedition and Dr. Kane’s second polar voyage. During the Civil War he supported the cause of the Union. He is best known as the author of Swallow Barn (1832); Horseshoe Robinson, a Tale of Tory Ascendency (1835); Rob of the Bowl (1838); Annals of Quodlibet (1840); and A Defense of the Whigs (1844). He died at Newport, RI, on the 18th of August 1870. See also “In the Freebooter’s Camp,” “The Remarkable Adventure of Horse-Shoe and Andy,” “A Sketch of William Wirt”; Literary Criticism.
