Isaac Barré

The Right Honourable Isaac Barré
Colonel Barré, c. 1765, by Douglas Hamilton
In office 1782
Treasurer of the Navy
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	Lord Rockingham
Preceded by	Welbore Ellis
Succeeded by	Henry Dundas
Paymaster of the Forces
In office 1782–1783
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	The Earl of Shelburne
Preceded by	Edmund Burke
Succeeded by	Edmund Burke
Personal details
Born	1726 (1726) Dublin, Ireland
Died	20 July 1802 (1802-07-21) London, England
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Whig
Alma mater	Trinity College, Dublin

Isaac Barré (1726 – 20 July 1802) was an Irish soldier and politician.^[1] He earned distinction serving with the British army during the Seven Years' War, and later became a prominent Member of Parliament where he became a vocal supporter of William Pitt. He is known for coining the term "Sons of Liberty" in reference to American Whigs opposed to the British government's policies.

Military career

Born in Dublin, Ireland the son of a French Huguenot refugee, he was educated at Trinity College. While his parents had hoped he would study law, and although he had potential as an actor, Barré instead entered the British Army in 1746. In 1759, he was with General James Wolfe during the defeat of the French at the Battle of Quebec, where he was severely wounded in the right cheek, changing his appearance and leaving him blind in his right eye. Despite many years of commendable service, Barré was denied a promotion by William Pitt the Elder.^[2]

Political career

Colonel Isaac Barré, 1785, by Gilbert Stuart

His entry into parliament for the seat of Wycombe in 1761 under the auspices of Lord Shelburne, who had selected him "as a bravo to run down Mr. Pitt", was characterised by a vigorous attack on William Pitt the Elder, of whom, however, he ultimately became a devoted adherent.

A vigorous opponent of the taxation of America, Barré displayed his mastery of invective in his championship of the American cause, and the name "Sons of Liberty", which he had applied to the colonists in one of his speeches, became a common designation of American organisations directed against the Stamp Act, as well as later patriotic clubs. His appointment in 1782 to the treasurership of the navy, which carried a pension of £3200 a year at a time when the government was ostensibly advocating stringency, caused great discontent; subsequently, however, he received from the younger Pitt the clerkship of the pells, a sinecure for life in place of the pension, which thus was saved to the public. Becoming blind, he retired office in 1790.

He was the son of Peter Barré, a Huguenot refugee living in Dublin as a linen dealer, who became high sheriff of Dublin (1756).^[3] Isaac Barré was an army officer and later entered politics under the wing of Lord Shelburne, distinguishing himself as a formidable orator and champion of the American colonists. After studying at Trinity College, he joined the 32nd regiment of foot as an ensign in 1746, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1755, and captain in 1756. He served under Wolfe on the Rochefort expedition of 1757, when he first met Shelburne, and afterwards in Canada where he was appointed adjutant-general, fighting at both Louisbourg (1758) and Quebec (1759). In the Quebec expedition, in which his patron Wolfe was killed, Barré was wounded by a bullet in the cheek and lost the use of his left eye, and was among the group gathered around the dying Wolfe, immortalised in Benjamin West's celebrated picture.

Returning to England in September 1760, he failed to gain promotion in the army despite his achievements, and turned to Shelburne for help. After undertaking a tour of Shelburne's Irish estates, he was advanced to lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of 106th Foot at Shelburne's instigation, and in 1763 was appointed to the lucrative posts of adjutant-general to the British army and Governor of Stirling Castle. Shelburne introduced him to Lord Bute and brought him into parliament for his borough of Chipping Wycombe (1761–1774), and then for Calne (1774–1790). One of the few self-made soldiers in parliament, Barré became one of Shelburne's principal supporters in the House of Commons. In his first political speech, he vehemently attacked the absent war minister William Pitt, renewing this assault the next day to Pitt's face. This caused a sensation, and set the tone of a long and colourful parliamentary career in which he acquired a fearsome reputation as an orator.

Barré's knowledge of North America (he was one of the few politicians with friendships among the American mercantile classes) made him a champion of the colonists, whom he famously dubbed "Sons of Liberty" while opposing the intended Stamp Act, which nevertheless passed on 6 February 1765. An example of his fiery oratory was his response to Charles Townshend's observation when introducing the Stamp Act resolutions that the colonies should "contribute to the mother country which had planted, nurtured and indulged them", to which he replied:

They planted by your care! No, your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated, inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe and actuated by principles of true English liberties, they met all hardships with pleasure compared with those they suffered in their own country from the hands of those who should be their friends.

In the Stamp Act crisis, Barré not only championed repeal but also followed Pitt in opposing the complete right of taxation as stated in the Declaratory Act. His efforts against the Stamp Act were commemorated in America with the founding in 1769 of the Pennsylvania town of Wilkes-Barré, named for John Wilkes and Isaac Barré. The towns of Barre, Massachusetts and Barre, Vermont were also named in his honour.^[1]

Horace Walpole described Barré as "a black [meaning his hair was black], robust man, of a military figure, rather hard-favoured than not, young, with a peculiar distortion on one side of his face, which it seems was a bullet lodged loosely in his cheek, and which gave a savage glare to one eye".^[4]

References

1. 1 2 "Barré, Isaac". The Columbia University (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. December 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2008. 
2. ↑ Petrillo, F. Charles (1988). "Wilkes Naming Wilkes-Barre". John Wilkes and Isaac Barre: Politics and Controversy in Eighteenth Century Graphics. Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University. Retrieved 2 June 2008. 
3. ↑ Distinguished Huguenot Refugees and Their Descendants
4. ↑ George Thomas, Earl of Albemarle, Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham and His Contemporaries, London: Bentley, 1852

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Barré, Isaac.

• Webb, Alfred (1878). " Barré, Isaac". A Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & son. Wikisource 
• National Portrait Gallery (UK): Isaac Barré