One of the most significant poets in U.S. history, Philip Freneau was born into a prosperous family in New York. He was educated by tutors as a young man and at age 15 entered the sophomore class at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he became good friends with James Madison. With the collaboration of another of his classmates, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Freneau wrote his first published poem in college. Brackenridge read "The Rising Glory of America" during their 1771 graduation ceremonies, and the poem was issued as a pamphlet the next year in Philadelphia.

Freneau was tied to family duties after graduating from college, which kept him from immediate further publication. Unable to make a living as a clergyman, he taught school for a short while and continued to write poetry on his own time. The coming of the Revolutionary War (1775-83) inspired Freneau to publish "American Liberty" in July 1775. Within a few months he published more than eight pamphlet satires aimed at Great Britain. Though his poetry did not earn him much money, his pamphlets were widely reprinted and were most popular among moderate Whigs.

Freneau soon acquired a job as a secretary for a planter who lived on the island of Santa Cruz in the West Indies. He lived there for three years and wrote some of his most significant poems, including "Santa Cruz," "The Jamaica Funeral," and "The House of Night." He returned home in 1778 after being captured and released by the British. In New Jersey, he joined the militia and continued to publish his poetry.

Freneau loved the sea and took many voyages during his life. When he set out in spring 1780 to return to the West Indies, he was captured by a British man-of-war and sent to the prison ship Scorpion in New York Harbor. There he suffered brutal treatment and starvation as a prisoner and was soon sent to the hospital ship Hunter before he was able to return home to New Jersey. Based on this experience, he wrote a poem entitled "The British Prison Ship." After his imprisonment, Freneau worked in the Philadelphia post office for three years and continued to write poetry, most of which was published in Francis Bailey's Freeman's Journal. His extensive publications earned him the title "Poet of the Revolution."

For the next several years, Freneau took to the sea again as an officer on merchant ships. He settled down in 1789 when he married Eleanor Forman and immediately became involved in newspaper work as editor of the New York Daily Advertiser. Despite his later denials, it is likely that in 1791 Thomas Jefferson and Madison asked Freneau to move to Philadelphia to establish a partisan newspaper to counter the pro-Washington administration organ of John Fenno, the Gazette of the United States. Jefferson, then secretary of state, offered Freneau a position as a translator in the State Department for $250, provided him with government printing contracts, assured him that he would not personally lose money, and solicited subscribers from his followers. For the first few months after starting the National Gazette in October 1791, Freneau was relatively measured in his tone, but starting in March 1792, he began a barrage of attacks on Alexander Hamilton, claiming that the treasury secretary's financial schemes had "given rise to scenes of speculation calculated to aggrandize the few and the wealthy." He also attacked Hamilton as wanting to establish an aristocracy in the United States. Hamilton struck back in July in Fenno's paper, claiming that Freneau held a sinecure in the State Department and accusing him of partisanship. This exchange initiated a bitter debate filled with invective over Hamilton's financial program that continued up to the election of 1792. After the election, the National Gazette struggled, especially with Jefferson's retirement and the loss of Freneau's state department job.

By autumn 1793, as yellow fever raged, Freneau had a difficult time obtaining subscriptions, and he abandoned the newspaper in October. He then retired to his farm in New Jersey, though he tried his hand in a few other newspapers, including the New York Time Piece and Literary Companion in 1797 and 1798. Ultimately, Freneau left journalism entirely, spending the rest of his life alternating between the sea and his farm in New Jersey. He died on December 18, 1832 when he lost his way home during a raging blizzard.

Philip Freneau left an important mark on the development of political parties in the 1790s, but "that rascal Freneau," as Washington called him, is best remembered for his literary legacy. In "The British Prison-Ship" he immortalized the experience of seamen on such ships:

"The various horrors of these hulks to tell,

These Prison Ships where pain and penance dwell,

Where death in tenfold vengeance holds his reign,

And injur'd ghosts, yet unaveng'd, complain.

Freneau also praised Washington when he stepped down as commander in chief at the end of the Revolutionary War:

"O WASHINGTON!--thrice glorious name,

What due rewards can man decree;

Empires are far below thy aim,

And sceptres have no charms for thee;

Virtue alone has your regard,

And she must be your great reward.

Bibliography:

1) Mary Weatherspoon Bowden, Philip Freneau (Boston: Twayne, 1976)

2) Harry Hayden Clark, Poems of Freneau (New York: Hafner, 1960)

3) Lewis G. Leary, That Rascal Freneau: A Study in Literary Failure (New York: Octagon Books, 1964)

4) Jeffrey L. Pasley, "The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early Republic (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001)

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on American Revolution at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to American Revolution and other relevant topics.