FRENEAU, PHILIP

(1752-1832), poet mariner and editor; 6. New York; « descent. Graduating from Prince to in 1771, he joined the merchant marine and during the Revolutionary perio made voyages to and frum the Wes Indies. In 1780 he was captured by | British cruiser and made a war prisone in New York. The fruit of his imprisor ment was a poem in four cantos, Th British Prison Ship. He wrote muc patriotic verse for the pre during th revolution. When the war ended h returned to the sea as a shipmaste in the West Indies trade until 179( when he became editor of the New Yor Daily Advertiser. The next year Jeffer son appointed him editor of the Natzonc Gazette of Philadelphia. After som years spent in journalism, the remove of restraints on navigation made hir a master mariner again. Editions of hi poems were published in 1786, 1788 1809, 1815, 1861, 1865 and 1902-2 He was regarded as the first distinctiv American poet.