Born to a family of French aristocrats settled in London, Merlin joined the British consular service in Piraeus, the port of Athens, in 1836.

These included the Aineta aryballos, whose export in 1864 launched a minor scandal in Greece, and casts of some of the Parthenon marbles still remaining in situ.

[1] Britain maintained an envoy extraordinary at Athens for diplomatic functions, making the role of the Piraeus consulate, in Merlin's own words, "strictly a commercial one".

[5] Merlin spent most of his life in Athens:[6] the historians Lucia Patrizio Gunning and Despina Vlami describe him as a "Levantine", a term which referred to British consuls felt to have taken on local culture through long service in the Eastern Mediterranean.

[1] In 1865, he became the manager of the Ionian Bank's branch in Athens, and in 1868 was promoted to be Britain's consul in Piraeus,[9] having previously filled the role in an acting capacity during 1859 and 1864.

The consul's duties included commercial and bureaucratic responsibilities, as well as hearing complaints from and resolving disputes among British subjects and merchant sailors.

[1] In 1887, Merlin retired from his consular duties and moved his family to Campden Hill in West London, where he was employed as the Ionian Bank's general manager.

He died on 23 August 1896, leaving what Galanakis terms "a good but relatively modest estate" of £3,695 9s; the bank voted to continue paying his pension to his wife until the end of 1896.

[1] He had little interest in antiquities, but saw partaking in their trade as a means of supplementing his income, as well as participating in an activity popular among British high society and exercising what the archaeologist Louise Willocx terms his "patriotic duty".

[6] His sales included, in 1872, the first examples of Aegean seal-stones to enter the museum's collection, sourced from Rhousopoulos and his rival Jean Lambros.

[18] In 1872, Merlin procured for Newton casts of the West Frieze of the Parthenon, made by the Italian sculptor Napoleone Martinelli for a cost of £33.

[21] Merlin took a sceptical view of the work of Heinrich Schliemann, the German businessman and amateur archaeologist who claimed to have found the remains of Homeric Troy.