Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Barca, Francisco

BARCA, Francisco, Spanish statesman, b. in Puerto Real, near Cádiz, in 1831; d. by his own hand in New York, 29 July, 1883. He had filled several public offices when elected deputy to the cortés, in 1858. He took high rank as a parliamentary orator, and in 1868 was appointed director-general of administration under Posada Herrera's government. When Alfonso XII. was proclaimed king, Barca took the office of sub-secretary of the interior, which he resigned a year and a half later on account of his sympathies with the liberal opposition. He accepted, in 1881, the office of Spanish minister at Washington. His published works include a “Diccionario de Política y Administración.”