(fcs_Jl2J3 Book J a i a THE AMERICAS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF 6°/' HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL, COMPRISING ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY: THE BIOGRAPHY OF EMINENT MEN OF EUROPE AND AMERICA, LIVES OF DISTINGUISHED TRAVELERS. Illustrated with over 100 Engravings. BY THOMAS H. PRESCOTT, A. M. Wi'fCiam O. Jz COLUMBUS: PUBLISHED AND SOLD EXCLUSIVELY BY S UB S OR I PT ION , BY J & H. MILLER. 1857. 31 v& .B5 int. r.-.l According I I -■ ;, i tbc v ' ;ir I856,l>y the OHIO STATE JOURNAL COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of Ihfl District Court «>f the I'nii for the Southern Dittriet of Ohio. I'kiMLn m OSQOOD AXB lVu.i> n..i si) n H. Bxhicsi COI.' '10. P Tt K F A C E. 0ns of the most useful directions fur facilitating the study of history, is to begin with authors who present a compendium, or genera] view of the whole Bubjed of history, and, afterward apply i" the study of any particular history with w hi. h a more thorough acquaintance Lb desired. The Historical Department of this work has been compiled with a view to furnishing Buch a compendium. It covers the whole ground of Ancient History, including China, India. Egypt, Arabia, Syria, the Phoenicians, Jew-. Assyrians, Babylonians, Lydiai a, M dee and Persians, together with G ind Rome, down through the dark to the dawn of modern civilization. It also eml the his- tory of the leading nations of modern BSurope, and of the United States of America. Wisdom is the great end of history. It is designed to supply the w;int of experience; and though it does not enforce it.- in- structions with the same authority, yet it furnishes g iter variety of lessons than it is possible for experience to afford in the longest life. Its object is to enlarge our views of the human character, and to enable us to form a more correct judgment of human afl'airs. It must not) therefore, be a tale, calculated merely to please and addressed to the fancy. Gravity and dig- nity are essential characteristics of history. Robertson and Bancroft may be named as model historians in these particulars. No light ornaments should be employed — no flippancy of style, and no quaintness of wit; but the writer should sustain the PREFACE. character of a wise man, writing for the instruction of posterity; one who has studied to inform himself well, who has pondered his subject with care, and addresses himself to our judgment rather than to our imagination. At the same time, historical writing is by no means inconsistent with ornamented and spir- ited narration, as witness Macaulay's popular History of Eng- land. On the contrary, it admits of much high ornament and elegance ; but the ornaments must be consistent with dignity. Industry is, also, a very essential quality in an accurate his torian. As history is conversant with great and memorable actions, a historian should always keep posterity in view, and relate nothing but what may be of some account to future ages. Those who descend to trivial matters, beneath the dignity of his- tory, should be deemed journalists rather than historians. As it is the province of a historian to acquaint us with facts, he should give a narration or description not only of the facts, or actions themselves, but likewise of such things as are necessarily con- nected with them ; such as the characters of persons, the cir- cumstances of time and place, the views and designs of the principal actors, and the issue and event of the actions which he describes. The drawing of characters is one of the most splen- did, as it is one of the most difficult, ornaments of historical com- position ; for characters are generally considered as professed exhibitions of fine writing ; and a historian who seeks to shine in them, is often in danger of carrying refinement to excess, from a desire of appearing very profound and penetrating. Among the improvements that have of late years been intro- duced into historical composition, is the attention that is now given to laws, customs, commerce, religion, literature, and every thing else that tends to exhibit the genius and spirit of nations. Historians are now expected to exhibit manners, as well as facts and events. Voltaire was the first to introduce this improvement, and Allison, Macaulay, and others, have adopted it. The first and lowest use of history is, that it agreeably amuses PREFACE. the imagination, and interests the passions ; and in this view of it, it far surpasses all works of fiction, which require a variety of embellishments to excite and interest the passions, while the mere thought that we are listening to the voice of truth, serves to keep the attention awake through many dry and ill-digested narrations of facts. The next and higher use of history is, to improve the understanding and strengthen the judgment, and thus to fit us for entering upon the duties of life with advan- tage. It presents us with the same objects which occur to us in the business of life, and affords similar exercise to our thoughts ; so that it may be called anticipated experience. It is, therefore, of great importance, not only to the advance- ment of political knowledge, but to that of knowledge in gen- eral ; because the most exalted understanding is merely a power of drawing conclusions and forming maxims of conduct from known facts and experiments, of which necessary materials of knowledge the mind itself is wholly barren, and with which it must be furnished by experience. By improving the understand- ing history frees the mind from many foolish prejudices that tend to mislead it. Such are those prejudices of a national kind, that have induced an unreasonable partiality for our own country, merely as our own country, and as unreasonable a repugnance to foreign nations and foreign religions, which nothing but en- larged views resulting from history can cure. It likewise tends to remove those prejudices that may have been entertained in favor of ancient or modern times, by giving a just view of the advantages and disadvantages of mankind in all ages. To a citizen of the United States, one of the great advantages result- ing from the study of history is, that so far from producing an indifference to his own country, it disposes him to be satis- fied with his own situation, and renders him, from rational convic- tion, and not from blind prejudice, a more zealous friend to the interests of his country, and to its free institutions. It is from history, chiefly, that improvements are made in the science of government ; and this science is one of primary importance. Vi PREFACE. Another advantage is, that it tends to strengthen sentiments of virtue, by displaying the motives and actions of truly great men, and those of a contrary character, — thus inspiring a taste for real greatness and solid glory. The second department of our work has been devoted to Biography, — a species of history more entertaining, and in many respects equally useful, with general history. It represents great men more distinctly, unincumbered with a crowd of other actors, and, descending into the detail of their actions and char- acter, their virtues and failings, gives more insight into human nature, and leads to a more intimate acquaintance with particu- lar persons, than general history allows. A writer of biography may descend with propriety to minute circumstances and familiar incidents. He is expected to give the private as well as the public life of those whose actions he records ; and it is from pri- vate life, from familiar, domestic and seemingly trivial occur- rences, that we often derive the most accurate knowledge of the real character. To those who have exposed their lives, or em- ployed their time and labor, for the service of their fellow men, it seems but a just debt, that their memories should be perpetu- ated after them, and that posterity should be made acquainted with their benefactors. To a volume of biography may be applied the language of a pagan poet : — "Here patriots live, who for their country's good, In fighting fields were prodigal of blood ; Priests of unblemished lives here make abode, And poets worthy their inspiring god ; And searching wits of more mechanic parts, Who graced their age with new invented arts ; Those who to worth their bounty did extend, And those who knew that bounty to commend : The heads of these with holy fillets bound, And all their temples are with garlands crowned." In the lives of public persons, their public characters are prin- cipally, but not solely, to be regarded. The world is inquisitive to know the conduct of its great men as well in private as in public ; and both may be of service, considering the influence of PREFACE. TU their examples. In preparing this department of our work we have aimed to introduce variety, — selecting representative men from all the various pursuits of life. The third department of our work has been designated as the Department of Travel. It embraces the principal voyages of discovery and the lives of great navigators and travelers, since the days of Columbus and Vasco de Gama. In the history of scientific expeditions, the five following divisions may be made : 1. The earliest age of the Phoenicians down to Herodotus, 500 years before Christ. The Phoenicians undertook the first voy- ages of discovery for commercial purposes, or to found colonies. 2. The travels of the Greeks and the military expeditions of the Romans, from 500 B. C. to 400 A. D. The Greeks made journeys to enlarge the territories of science. The armies of Rome, during this period, supplied an extensive knowledge of a part of Asia, Egypt, the northern part of Africa, and Europe to South Britain. 3. The expeditions of the Germans and Nor- mans until 900 A. D. The Normans discovered the Faroes, Ice- land and Greenland. 4. Besides the commercial and military voy- ages of the Arabs and Mongols, the travels of the Christian Mis- sionaries, and other Europeans, down to 1400, furnished much valuable information. 5. The fifth period, from the year 1400 to the present time, is the period particularly embraced in this work. During this time, North and South America, a portion of Asia, and the interior of Africa, have been explored, and the adventurous voyagers in the Arctic and Antarctic seas, have pushed their researches to within twelve degrees of the poles. Sir J. Ross reached the south latitude of 78 deg. 4 min. in the year 1841. Such are the results of the labors of four centuries. The knowledge has been slowly gathered, but it will remain a lasting testimony to the triumphs of intellect. It is but re- cently that human enterprise has penetrated many of the secrets of the Antarctic regions, — that realm of mighty contrasts, — and it will doubtless pursue the investigation. ' Meantime the wintry solitudes of the far south will be undisturbed by the vili PREFACE. presence of man ; the penguin and the seal will still haunt the desolate shores ; the shriek of the petrel and the scream of the albatross will mingle with the dash and roar of continual storms, and the crash of wave-beaten ice ; the towering volcano will shoot aloft its columns of fire high into the gelid air ; the hills of snow and ice will grow and spread ; frost and flame will do their work ; till, in the wondrous cycle of terrestrial change, the polar lands shall again share in the abundance and beauty which now overspread the sun-gladdened zones.' TABLE OF CONTENTS. DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. ANCIENT HISTORY. Ethiopian History 18—20 Mongolian History.— The Chinese 20—26 Caucasian History. — Ancient India— Eastern Nations — The Egyptians— Arabians— Syria— The Phoeni- cians— Palestine — The Jews— The Assyrians and Babylonians— The Medes and Persians— States of Asia Minor — The Lydians— The Persian Empire 26—53 Grecian History.— Early History and Mythology— Religious Rites— Authentic History— Sparta— Lycur- gus — Athens — Persian Invasion — Pericles — Alcibiades — Decline of Athenian Independence — Alexander the Great— Concluding Period 53 78 Roman History. — The Latins— The Kings— The Commonwealth— Struggle between the Patricians and Plebeians — Invasion of the Gauls— The Samnite Wars — The Punic Wars — The Revolutions of the Gracchi- Social Wars — Marius and Sulla — Pompey, Cicero, Cataline, Caesar — Gallic Wars — Extinction of the Common- wealth — Civil Wars — Augustus — Dissemination of Christianity — Division of the Empire — Downfall of the Western Empire 78 — 112 MIDDLE AGES. — The Eastern Empire — Constantine — Julian the Apostate — Theodosius the Great — Justinian ; his Code — Arabia— Mohammed — Empire of the Saracens — The Feudal System — Charlemagne — The New Western Empire — France — The German Empire — Italy — Spain — General state of Europe — The Crusades — Chivalry — Rise of new Powers — Wm. Tell — The Italian Republics — Commerce — The Turks — Fall of Constan- tinople — Rise of Civil Freedom 112 — 145 MODERN HISTORY. Great Britain and Ireland.— Conquest by the Romans ; by the Saxons ; by the Normans— Early Norman Kings — William the Conqueror — nenry — Richard Cceur de Lion — John — Magna Charta — Origin of Parlia- ment — Edwards — Conquest of Scotland — Richard II — House of Lancaster — House of York — House of Tudor — Henry VIII — The Reformation — Edward VI — Queen Mary ; Elizabeth — Mary, Queen of Scots— The Stuarts — Gunpowder Plot — Revolution — Irish Rebellion — Oliver Cromwell — Trial and Execution of Charles I — The Commonwealth — Subjugation of Ireland and Scotland — The Protectorate — The Restoration — Charles II — Dutch War — Plague and Fire in London — The Rye House Plot — Death of Charles II — James IT — Expedition of Monmouth— Arbitrary Measures of the King — The Revolution — William and Mary — Establishment of the Bank of England — Queen Anne — Union of England and Scotland — Marlborough's Campaigns — House of Hanover — George I — Rebellion of 1715-16 — George II — Rebellion of 1745-46 — George III — American Stamp Act — American War of Independence — French Revolution — Rebellion in Ireland— Union with Great Britain — War with U. States — George IV — William IV — Queen Victoria — War with Russia — Alliance with France — Attack on Odessa — Operations in the Baltic — The Crimea — Battle of the Alma — Sebastopol described— Allies opening Trenches — Bombardment — Explosion of French Batteries and Russian Powder Magazine — The Allied Fleet — Cannonade — Battle of Balaklava — The Turks — The Highlanders — The Russian Cavalry — Capt. Nolan — Battle of Inkermann— Morning of the Battle — The Attack — The Zouaves— Chasseurs— Night after the Bat- tle — Council of War — Determination to Winter — Reinforcements demanded 145—256 History op France.— Clovis, A. D. 486 ; division of his Empire— The Merovingian Kings— The Carlovin- gians — Pepin — Charles Martel — Charlemagne ; his Empire — Louis — Division of the Empire — Charles — Arnulf — Charles the Simple — Invasion of the Normans — Hugh Capet and his Successors — Philip VI of Valois— Wars with England, 1328— 1415— Charles VI— Maid of Orleans— Louis XI— Francis II— France during the War of Religion — Persecution of the Huguenots — Coligni — The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1572— Henry III — Henry IV — Edict of Nantes — The Age of Louis XIV — Richelieu and Mazarin — Persecution of the Calvinists — Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 1685 — The Last Days of Absolute Monarchy — Louis XV — Louis XVI — The French Revolution National Assembly- Mirabeau, Dante, Marat, Robespierre — The 10th of August — De- thronement of the King — National Convention— Trial and Execution of the King — Jacobins and Girondists — I CONTENTS. history of france — Continued. Exclusion of the Girondists from the Convention — Execution of the Queen, Madame Elizabeth, and the Dukt of Orleans— La Vendee— Fall of Danton and Camille Desmoulins— Overthrow of Robespierre and the Jaco- bins — Reconstruction of the Government— Napoleon Bonaparte — Italian Campaign — Expedition to Egypt and Syria— Return to France— The First Consulate— Consul for Life— Duke d' Enghein— Napoleon Emperor- Austrian Campaign — Russians — Battle of Austerlitz — Confederation of the Rhine — War with Prussia — Al liance of Prussia and Russia — Victory at Friedland— Peace of Tilsit— Occupation of Portugal— Spain— An- nexation of the Roman States and imprisonment of the Pope— New war with Austria — Peace of Vienna — Marriage with Maria Louisa — Russian Campaign — Conflagration of Moscow — Retreat of the French — Alliance of Russia, Prussia, etc.— Congress of Prague— Austria— Battle of Leipsic— Retreat of the French— Invasion of France by the Allies— Abdication of Napoleon— Louis XVIII— Escape of Napoleon from Elba— Defeat at Waterloo— Death at St. Helena— Louis XVLTI— Charles X— Abdication— Louis Philippe— Revolution— Louis Napoleon— War with Russia and alliance with England and Turkey 256—302 History op Spain.— Gothic Monarchy— The Moors— Castile — Henry IV— Ferdinand and Isabella— Con- quest of Grenada— Christopher Columbus— Discovery of America— Charles V— Hernando Cortez— Conquest of Mexico— Francis Pizarro — Conquest of Peru — Ignatius Loyola — Philip II — War with England — Defeat of the Invincible Armada — Philip III — Banishment of the descendants of the Moors — Philip IV — Accession of the House of Bourbon— Charles III— The Seven Years' War— Charles IV— Ferdinand— Joseph Bonaparte- Alliance of the Spaniards and English— Return of Ferdinand— Isabella II 302 — 312 Germany and Austria. — Division of the Empire of Charlemagne, and formation of the German Empire- Succession of Henry the Fowler to the throne of Conrad of Franconia — The Germans build cities— Accession of Hildebrand— Pope Gregory III— His Excommunication of Henry IV — Strife of Guelphs and Ghibelines— Pope Adrian IV— Tancred — Richard III of England — The House of Hapsburg succeeds that of Swabia — Death of Albert — Charles IV issues the Golden Bull — Council of Constance — Martyrdom of John Huss and Jerome of Prague — Invention of Printing — Luther ; the Reformation — Thirty Years' War— Peace of West- phalia — Insurrection of Hungarians aided by Turks — The War of Succession — Prince Eugene — Maria The- resa — Pragmatic Sanction — Revolt of the Netherlands — Confederation of the Rhine — Congress of Vienna — Hungarian Revolution of 1848 312—326 History op Russia. — Russia rescued from the Tartars by John Basilowitz — Michael Theodorowitz, First of the House of Romanoff, Czar of Muscovy — Reorganization of Russia by Alexis — Reign of Peter the Great — Foundation and embellishment of St. Petersburg — Succession of the Czarina Catherine— Catherine II — An- nexation of the Crimea— Dismemberment of Poland — Kosciusko— Suwarrow — Resignation of Stanislaus — Paul — War against the French Republic — Assassination of Paul — Alexander — Coalition against Napoleon, by Austria and England— Peace of Tilsit— Napoleon declares war against Russia— Smolensko— Burning of Mos cow— Constantine— Nicholas— Extirpation of Poland— Siege of Sevastopol by France, England, and Turkey- Death of Nicholas — Succession of Alexander II 326 — 334 HD3TORY OF THE UNITED STATES. I. Colonial History.— Discoveries of Cabot— The Huguenots— Sir Walter Raleigh— Champlain— Henry Hudson— Virginia— Jamestown— John Smith — Pocahontas— Indian War— Gov. Berkeley — Nathaniel Bacon —New England Colonies— Puritans— Principles of their early Government— Quaker Persecution— Pequod Indian War— King Philip — Royal Governors — Salem Witchcraft— Connecticut— Rhode Island— Dutch Settle- ment of New Amsterdam — Indian War— Annexation of New Amsterdam to the English Colonies, and change of name to N. York— Lord Baltimore— Civil War— Carolina— Wm.Penn— Indian Treaty— Frame of Government— Oglethorpe — Wesley — Whitfield— Principles and characteristics of tho Colonists 334—363 LT. Contest op France and England for America.— King William's War— The French War— The Ohio Company— George Washington— Braddock— Gen. Wolfe— Rising Colonial prosperity 363—368 EEL The Revolution. — Stamp Act — N. Y. Congress— War of publications against Britain— Boston Mas- sacre — Tea Party— Lexington— Declaration of Independence — Franklin, Lafayette, Kosciusko— Trenton— Brandywine— Burgoyne's Defeat— Alliance of France and America— Baron Steuben— D'Estaing— Stony Point —Arnold— Col. Hayne— Capitulation of Cornwallis— Treaty at Paris— Washington— Paralyzed condition of the Government— Massachusetts Rebellion 178(5 — Formation of Government by the Constitutional Conven- tion 368-KU EV. Constitutional History.— Federalists and anti-Federalists— Defeat of Harmar and St. Clair— Prohi bition of the Slave Trade— Death of Washington— Purchase of Louisiana— War with Tripoli— Embargo Aot* — War with England— Campaign of 1812 — American Naval Victories— Perry's viotory on Lako Erio — Gen. Harrison— Treaty at Ghent— Battle of New Orleans— Seminole War— Lafayette— Tariff— TJ. S. Bank— NulU- CONTENTS. fication— Compromise of 1820— Commercial Bankruptcy— Annexation of Texas— Mexican War— Discovery of Gold in California— Gadsden Treaty 394 4^3 BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT. Hernando Cortez .. William Penn Benjamin Franklin. Peter the Great . . . Count Kumfoed 415 441 467 476 498 Nicholas Copernicus #< 523 Tycho Brahk Galileo Kepler Sir Isaac Newton. Hoyoens Halley Feruusox 526 528 531 533 536 537 539 Sir William Herschbl , _ 544 Simon Bolivar 54- Fraincia, the Dictator 554 Alexander Wilson 5g2 James Watt ggg John Howard 572 Lord Byron 593 Percy Bysshe Shelley 612 Oliver Goldsmith 615 Edward Gibbon , 619 David Hume .. 623 Alexander Pope 627 John Adams 634 Thomas Jefferson 644 Samuel Adams 649 James Oiis , _ # 651 Fisher Ames 653 Aaron Burr 655 Alexander Hamilton 657 Patrick Henry 660 John Hancock 664 Ethan Allen 665 Benedict Arnold 667 Horatio Gates , 680 Thaddeus Kosciusko 681 Nathaniel Green 685 Frederick William Augustus Steuben 688 Baron de Kalb 689 Richard Montgomery , 690 Gilbert Motier Lafayette 691 fsRAEL Putnam , , 696 Stephen Decatue 698 Isaac Hull , , 700 Oliver Hazard Perry , 702 John Marshall 704 John Paul Jones 706 Andrew Jackson 710 Win field Scott 713 Zachary Taylor 714 Xii CONTENTS. John E. Wool 724 Daniel Webster 726 Henry Clay 732 Levi TYoodbury 735 Robert Rantoul 737 Franklin Pierce . . .. ™ Samuel Finley Breese Morse 741 M. Daguerre 747 Victor Hugo '* Omar Pasha 751 Edward Everett 763 Washington Irving 754 William Cullen Bryant 756 George Bancroft •• 756 Wlllum Hickling Prescott 758 Hiram Powers 769 DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL. Historical Sketch of Naval Architecture 761 Early Maritime Discoveries 774 Christopher Columbus 775 Ferdinand Magellan 800 Sir Francis Drake 802 Henry Hudson 804 Le Maire and Schouten 805 Captain James 806 William Dampier 811 Captain Woodes Rogers • 814 John Clipperton 816 Commodore Anson 817 Captain Byron 823 Captain Wallis 829 De Bougainville 832 Captain James Cook 837 Captains Portlock and Dixon 864 Monsieur De La Perouse 870 George Vancouver 891 Perry's Voyages 896 Sir John Franklin 920 Travels in Africa — Parke, Denham, Clapperton, Lander and others 927 Samuel Hearne 953 John Lewis Burkhardt 955 James Bruce 968 John Ledyard 966 John Baptist Belzoni 967 George Forster 974 Edward Daniel Clarke 976 Richard Pococke 979 Overland Journey to India 981 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. Opium Smuggling 22 Japanese Funeral Procession 23 Aga 30 Japanese Agriculture • 31 Terrace of St. Peter's 126 Gibraltar !27 Marine Arsenal, Constantinople 232 Place of Kossuth's Imprisonment 233 Castle of Eisenstadt 322 King of Denmark 323 Captain Smith and Pocahontas 336 Providence, R. I 338 Newport, R. 1 339 New Haven, Conn 342 Philadelphia, Pa 343 Halifax, N. S 348 Lake George 349 Castle William 354 Castle Garden 355 Wilmington, N. C. 358 Prison, Phila 359 Fort Putnam 364 Pillar Rock 365 Place des Armes, New Orleans 370 Blackwell Penitentiary 371 Columbus, 402 Depot, Cleveland, 403 Cincinnati, 406 Sandusky City, O 407 Battle Monument, Baltimore 410 Bombardment of Vera Cruz 411 State House. Wisconsin 414 View on Grand River, Ohio 570 Bridge, Conneaut River, 571 Kosciusko's Monument 683 Paul Jones 707 Gen. Scott 712 Fort Ancient 716 Milford, near Cincinnati, 717 Gen. Wool 725 PAGE Daniel Webster 728 Residence of Daniel Webster 729 Henry Clay 733 Hon. Levi Woodbury 734 Birth Place of John Q. Adams 736 Franklin Pierce 738 William R. King 739 Euclid Creek, 742 Red Bank 743 Prof Morse 744 Daguerre 746 Victor Hugo 748 Omar Pasha 752 Disappointed Gold Seekers . . 760 Gold Seeker's Grave 760 Naval Architecture, from the tenth to the sev- enteenth century (17 Engravings) 762-770 City of Panama 812 Panama Gate 813 City of Havana 818 Scene in Havana 819 Adelaide 824 Bathurst, N. S. W 825 Valparaiso 834 Iron Bridge, Jamaica 835 Sidney, N. S. W 856 Humboldt 857 California 874 Ranche 875 Post Office 876 River-bed Claim on the Turon 877 Removing Goods 878 Dry Diggings 879 Portraits of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, (9 Engravings) 922-926 Calcutta • - ■ 973 Rail Road Bridge 964 Elk Creek 965 East Branch Rocky River 982 West Branch Rocky River 983 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. g - THE AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. ANCIENT HISTORY. The general consent of mankind points to the region of Central Asia as having been the original seat from which the human race dispersed itself over the globe ; and accordingly, it is this region, and especially the west- ern portion of it, which we find to have been the theatre of the earliest recorded transactions. In short, it was in Central Asia that the first large mass of ripened humanity was accumulated — a great central nucleus of human life, so to speak, constantly enlarging, and from which emissaries incessantly streamed out over the globe in all directions. In process of time this great central mass having swollen out till it filled Asia and Africa, broke up into three fragments — thus giving parentage to the three leading vari- eties into which ethnographers divide the human species — the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian or Negro — the Caucasians overspread- ing southern and western Asia ; the Mongolians overspreading northern and eastern Asia ; and the Ethiopians overspreading Africa. From these three sources streamed forth branches which, intermingling in various pro- portions, have constituted the various nations of the earth. Differing from each other in physiological characteristics, the three great varieties of the human species have also differed widely in their histor- ical career. The germs of a grand progressive development seem .to have been implanted specially in the Caucasian variety, the parent stock of all the great civilized nations of ancient and modern times. History, there- fore, concerns itself chiefly with this variety : in the evolution of whose destinies the true thread of human progress is to be found. Ere proceeding, however, to sketch the early development of this highly-endowed variety of our species in the nations of antiquity, a few observations may be offered regarding the other two the Ethiopian and Mongolian — which began the race of life along with the Caucasian, and whose destinies, doubtless, what- 2 18 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. ever may have been their historical functions hitherto, are involved in seme profound and beautiful manner with the bearing of the race as a whole. ETHIOPIAN HISTORY. A German Historian thus sums up all that is known of Ethiopian history — that is, of the part which the great Negro race, inhabiting all Africa with the exception of the north-eastern coasts, performed in the general af- fairs of mankind in the early ages of the world : — ' On the history of this division of the species two remarks may be made : the one, that a now en- tirely extinct knowledge of the extension and power of this branch of the human family must have been forced upon even the Greeks by their early poets and historians ; the other, that the Ethiopian history is interwoven throughout with that of Egypt. As regards the first remark, it is clear that in the earliest ages this branch of the race must have played an im- portant part, since Meroe (in the present Nubia) is mentioned both by Herodotus (b. c. 408) and Strabo (a. d. 20) ; by the one as a still-exist- ing, by the other as a formerly-existing seat of royalty, and centre of the Ethiopian religion and civilization.* To this Strabo adds, that the race spread from the boundaries of Egypt over the mountains of Atlas, as far as the Gaditanian Straits. Ephorus, too (b. c. 405), seems to have had a very great impression of the Ethiopians, since he names in the east the Indians, in the south the Ethiopians, in the west the Celts, in the north the Scythians, as the most mighty and numerous peoples of the known earth. Already in Strabo's time, however, their ancient power had been gone for an indefinite period, and the Negro states found themselves, after Meroe had ceased to be a religious capital, almost in the same situation as that in which they still continue. The second remark on the Negro branch of the human race and its history, can only be fully elucidated when the interpretation of the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments shall have been farther advanced. The latest travels into Abyssinia show this much — that at one time the Egyptian religion and civilization extended over the prin- cipal seat of the northern Negroes. Single mummies and monumental figures corroborate what Herodotus expressly says, that a great portion of * Some years ago, a traveler, Mr. G. A. Hoskins, visited the site of this capital state of ancient Ethiopia, a.n island, if it may be so called, about 300 miles long, enclosed within two forking branches of the Nile. He found in it several distinct groups of magnificent pyra- midal structures. Of one ruin he says — 'Never were my feelings more ardently excited than in approaching, after so tedious a journey, to this magnificent necropolis. The ap- pearance of the pyramids in the distance announced their importance ; but I was gratified beyond my most sanguine expectations when I found myself in the midst of them. The pyramids of Gizeh are magnificent, wonderful from their stupendous magnitude; but for picturesque effect and elegance of architectural design, I infinitely prefer those of Meroe. I expected to find few such remains here, and certainly nothing so imposing, so interesting, as these sepulchres, doubtless of the kings and queens of Ethiopia. I stood for some time lo?i in admiration. This, then, was the necropolis, or city of the dead ! But where was the city itself, Meroe, its temples and palaces ? A large space, about 2000 feet in length, and the same distance from the river, strewed with burnt brick and with some fragments of walls, and stones, similar to those\ised in the erection of the pyramids, formed, doubtless, part of that celebrated site. The idea that this is the exact situation of the city is strengthened by the remark of Strabo, that the walls of the habitations were built of bricks. These indicate, without doubt, the site of that cradle of the arts which distinguish a civilized from a bar- barous society. Of the birthplace of the arts and sciences, the wild natives of the adjacent villages have made a miserable burying-place; of the city of the learned — "its cloud-cap* towers," its "gorgeous palaces," its "solemn temples" — there is "left not a rack behind." The sepulchres alone of her departed kings have fulfilled their destination of surviving the habitations which their philosophy taught them to consider but as inns, and are now last mouldering into dust. Scarcely a trace of a palace or a temple is to be seen.' DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 19 the Egyptians of his time had black skins and woolly hair; hence we infer that the Negro race had combined itself intimately with the Caucasian part of the population. Not these notices only, but the express testimo- nies also of the Hebrew annals, show Egypt to have contained an abun- dance of Negroes, and mention a conquering king invading it at the head of a Negro host, and governing it for a considerable time. The nature of the accounts on which we must found does not permit us to give an accur- ate statement ; we remark, however, that the Indians, the Egyptians, and the Babylonians, are not the only peoples which aimed at becoming world- conquerors before the historic age, but that also to the Ethiopian stock warlike kings were not wanting in the early times. The Mongols alone seem to have enjoyed a happy repose within their own seats in the primi- tive historic times, and those antecedent to them ; they appear first very late as conquerors and destroyers in the history of the west. If, indeed, the hero-king of the Ethiopians, Tearcho, were one and the same with the Tirhakah of the book of Kings (2 Kings, xix. 9), then the wonder of those stories would disappear which were handed down by tradition to the Greeks ; but even Bochart has combatted this belief, and we cannot recon- cile it with the circumstances which are related of both. It remains for us on\y to observe, by way of summary, that in an age antecedent to the his- toric, the Ethiopian peoples may have been associated together in a more regular manner than in our own or Grecian and Roman times ; and that their distant expeditions may have been so formidable, both to the Europeans as far as the iEgean Sea in the east, and to the dwellers on the Gaditanian Straits (Gibraltar) on the west, that the dim knowledge of the fact was not lost even in late times. In more recent ages we observe here and there an Ethiopian influence, and especially in the Egyptian history ; but as concerns the general progress of the human species, the Negro race never acquired any vital importance. The foregoing observations may be summed up in this proposition : — That in the most remote antiquity, Africa was overspread by the Negro variety of the human species ; that in those parts of the continent to which the knowledge of the ancient geographers did not extend — namely, all south of Egypt and the Great Desert — the Negro race degenerated, or at least dispersed into tribes, kingdoms, etc., constituting a great savage system within its own torrid abode, similar to that which even now, in the adult age of the world, we are vainly attempting to penetrate ; but that on the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the race either pre- served its original faculty and intelligence longer, or was so improved by contact and intermixture with its Caucasian neighbors, as to constitute, under the name of the Ethiopians, one of the great ante-historic dynasties of the world ; and that this dynasty ebbed and flowed against the Caucas- ian populations of western Asia and eastern Europe, thus giving rise to mixture of races along the African coasts of the north and east, until at length, leaving these mixed races to act their part awhile, the pure Ethio- pian himself retired from historic view into Central Africa, where he lay concealed, till again in modern times he was dragged forth to become the slave of the Caucasian. Thus Negro history hitherto has exhibited a ret- rogression from a point once occupied, rather than a progress in civiliza- tion. Even this fact, however, must somehow be subordinate to a great law of general progress ; and it is gratifying to know that, on the coast 20 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, of Africa, a settlement has recently been formed called Liberia, peopled by liberated negro slaves from North America ; and who, bringing with them the Anglo-American civilization, give promise of founding a cultured and prosperous community. MONGOLIAN HISTORY — THE CHINESE. As from the great central mass of mankind, the first accumulation of life on our planet, there was parted off into Africa a fragment called the Negro variety, so into eastern Asia there was detached, by those causes which we seek in vain to discover, a second huge fragment, to which has been given the name of the Mongolian variety. Overspreading the great plains of Asia, from the Himalehs to the Sea of Okhotsk, this detachment of the human species may be supposed to have crossed into Japan; to have reached the other islands of the Pacific, and either through these, or by the access at Behring's Straits, to have poured themselves through the great American continent ; their peculiarities shading off in their long journey, till the Mongolian was converted into the American Indian. Blumenbach, however, erects the American Indian into a type by himself. Had historians been able to pursue the Negro race into their central African jungles and deserts, they would no doubt have found the general Ethiopic mass breaking up there under the operation of causes connected with climate, soil, food, etc., into vast sections or subdivisions, presenting marked differences from each other ; and precisely so was it with the Mon- golians. In Central Asia, we find them as Thibetians, Tungusians, Mon- gols proper ; on the eastern coasts, as Mantchous and Chinese ; in the adjacent islands, as Japanese, etc. ; and nearer the North Pole, as Laplan- ders, Esquimaux, etc. ; all presenting peculiarities of their own. Of these great Mongolian branches circumstances have given a higher degree of development to the Chinese and the Japanese than to the others, which are chiefly nomadic hordes, some under Chinese rule, others independent, roaming over the great pasture lands of Asia, and employed in rearing cattle. There is every reason to believe that the vast population inhabiting that portion of eastern Asia called China, can boast of a longer antiquity of civilization than almost any other nation of the world, a civilization, how- ever, diffeiing essentially in its character from those which have appeared and disappeared among the Caucasians. This, in fact, is to be observed as the grand difference between the history of the Mongolian and that of the Caucasian variety of the human species, that whereas the former pre- sents us with the best product of Mongolian humanity, in the form of one great permanent civilization — the Chinese — extending from century to century, one, the same, and solitary, through a period of 3000 or 4000 years; the latter exhibits a succession of civilization — the Chaldean, the Persian, the Grecian, the Roman, the modern European (subdivided into French, English, German, Italian, etc.,) and the Anglo-American; these civilizations, from the remotest Oriental — that is, Chaldean — to the most recent Occidental — that is, the Anglo-American — being a series of waves falling into each other, and driven onward by the same general force. A brief sketch of Chinese history, with a glance at Japan, will therefore discharge all that we owe to the Mongolian race. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 21 Authentic Chinese history does not extend father back than about 800 or 1000 years b. c. ; but, as has been the case more or less with all nations, the Chinese imagination has provided itself with a mytho- logical history extending many ages back into the unknown past. Un- like the mythology of the Greeks, but like that of the Indians, the Chinese legends deal in large chronological intervals. First of all, in the beginning of time, was the great Puan-Koo, founder of the Chinese nation, and whose dress was green leaves. After him came Ty-en-Hoang, Ti-Hoang, Gin- Hoang and several other euphonious potentates, each of whom did something towards the building up of the Chinese nation, and each of whom reigned, as was the custom in those grand old times, thousands of years. At length, at a time corresponding to that assigned in Scripture to the life of Noah, came the divine-born Fohi, a man of transcendent faculties, who reigned 115 years, teaching music and the system of symbols, instituting marriage, building walls round cities, creating mandarins, and, in short, establishing the Chinese nation on a basis that could never be shaken. After him came Shin-ning, Whang- ti, etc., until in due time came the good emperors Yao and Shun, in the reign of the latter of whom happened a great flood. By means of canals and drains the assiduous Yu saved the country, and became the successor of Shun. Yu was the first emperor of the Hia dynasty, which began about 2100 B. c. After this dynasty came that of Shang, the last of whose emperors, a great tyrant, was deposed (b. c. 1122) by Woo-wong, the founder of the Tchow dynasty. In this Tchow dynasty, which lasted upwards of 800 years, authentic Chi- nese history commences. It was during it, and most probably about the year B. o. 484, that the great Con-fu-tse, or Confucius, the founder of the Chinese religion, philosophy, and literature, flourished. In the year B. c. 248, the Tchow dynasty was superseded by that of Tsin, the first of whose kings built the Great Wall of China, to defend the country against the Tartar Nomads. The Tsin dynasty was a short one : it was succeeded in b. c. 206 by the Han dynasty, which lasted till a. d. 238. Then followed a rapid se- ries of dynastic revolutions, by which the nation was frequently broken into parts ; and during which the population was considerably changed in character by the irruptions of the nomad hoards of Asia who intermingled with it. Early in the seventh century, a dynasty called that of Tang acce- ded to power, which ended in 897. After half a century of anarchy, order was restored under the Song dynasty, at the commencement of which, or about the year 950, the art of printing was discovered, five centuries before it was known in Europe. ' The Song dynasty,' says Schlosser, ' maintain- ed an intimate connection with Japan, as contrary to all Chinese maxims ; the emperors of this dynasty imposed no limits to knowledge, the arts, life, luxury, and commerce with other nations. Their unhappy fate, therefore (on being extinguished with circumstances of special horror by the Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan, A. d. 1281), is held forth as a warning against departing a hairsbreadth from the old customs of the empire. From the time of the destruction of the Song dynasty by the Mongol monarchy, the intercourse between China and Japan was broken, until again the Ming, a native Chinese dynasty (a. d. 1366) restored it. The Mongol rulers made an expedition against Japan, but were unsuccessful. The unfortu- nate gift which the Japanese received from China was the doctrine of Foe. This doctrine, however, was not the first foreign doctrine or foreign worship 24 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. that came into China. A religion, whose nature we cannot fix — probably Buddhism, ere it had assumed the form of Lamaism — was preached in it at an earlier date. About the time of the Tsin dynasty (b. c. 248 - 206), a warlike king had incorporated all China into one and subdued the princes of the various provinces. While he was at war with his subjects, many of the roving hordes to the north of China pressed into the land, and with them appeared missionaries of the religion above mentioned. When peace was restored, the kings of the fore-named dynasty, as also later those of Han and the two following dynasties, extended the kingdom prodigiously, and the western provinces became known to the Greeks and Romans as the land of the Seres. As on the one side Tartary was at that time Chinese, so on the other side the Chinese were connected with India ; whence came the Indian religion. It procured many adherents, but yield- ed at length to the primitive habits of the nations. In consequence of the introduction of the religion of Foe, the immense country fell asunder into two kingdoms. The south and the north had each its sovereign ; and the wars of the northern kingdom occasioned the wanderings of the Huns, by whose agency the Roman Empire was destroyed. These kingdoms of the north and south were often afterwards united and again dissevered ; great savage hordes roamed around them as at present ; but all that had settled, and that dwelt within the Great Wall, submitted to the ancient Chinese civilization. Ghenghis Khan, indeed, whose power was founded on the Turkish and Mongol races, annihilated both kingdoms, and the bar- baric element seemed to triumph ; but this was changed as soon as his kingdom was divided. Even Kublai, and yet more his immediate follow- ers, much as the Chinese calumniate the Mongol dynasty of Yeven, main- tained everything in its ancient condition, with the single exception that they did homage to Lamaism, the altered form of Buddhism. This religion yet prevails, accommodated skillfully, however, to the Chinese mode of exist- ence — a mode which all subsequent conquerors have respected, as the ex- ample of the present dynasty proves.' The dynasty alluded to is that of Tatsin Mantchou, a mixed Mongol and Tartar stock, which superseded the native Chinese dynasty of Ming in the year 1644. The present emperor of China is the sixth of the Tatsin dynasty. From the series of dry facts just given, we arrive at the fol- lowing definition of China and its civilization : As the Roman Em- pire was a great temporary aggregation of matured Caucasian human- ity, surrounded by and shading off into Caucasian barbarism, so China, a country more extensive than all Europe, and inhabited by a population of more than 300,000,000, is an aggregation of matured Mongolian humanity surrounded by Mongolian barbarism. The difference is this, that while the Roman Empire was only one of several successive aggregations of the Cau- casian race, each on an entirely different basis, the Chinese empire has been one permanent exhibition of the only form of civilization possible among the Mongolians. The Jew, the Greek, the Roman, the French- man, the German, the Englishman — these are all types of the matured Cau- casian character ; but a fully-developed Mongolian has but one type — the Chinese. Chinese history does not exhibit a progress of the Mongolian man through a series of stages ; it exhibits only a uniform duration of one great civilized Mongolian empire, sometimes expanding so as to extend itself into the surrounding Mongolian barbarism, sometimes contracted by the press- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 25 ure of that barbarism, sometimes disturbed by infusions of the barbaric ele- ment, sometimes shattered within itself by the operation of individual Chi- nese ambition, but always retaining its essential character. True, in such a vast empire, difference of climate, etc., must give rise to specific differences, so that a Chinese of the north-east is not the same as a Chinese of the south- west ; true, also, the Japanese civilization seems to exist as an alternative between which and the Chinese, Providence might share the Mongolian part of our species, were it to remain unmixed : still the general remark remains undeniable, that from the extremest antiquity to the present day, Mongolian humanity has been able to cast itself but into one essential civ- ilized type. It is an object of peculiar interest, therefore, to us who be- long to the multiform and progressive Caucasian race, to obtain a distinct idea of the nature of that permanent form of civilization out of which our Mongolian brothers have never issued, and apparently never wish to issue. Each of our readers being a civilized Caucasian, may be supposed to ask, ' What sort of a human being is a civilized Mongolian ? ' A study of the Chinese civilization would answer this question. Not so easy would it be for a Chinese to return the compliment, confused as he would be by the multiplicity of the types which the Caucasian man has assumed — from the ancient Arab to the modern Anglo-American. Hitherto little progress has been made in the investigation of the Chinese civilization. Several conclusions of a general character have, however, been established. ' We recognise,' says Schlosser, ' in the institutions of the Chinese, so much praised by the Jesuits, the character of the institu- tions of all early states ; with this difference, that the Chinese mode of life is not a product of hierarchical or theocratic maxims, but a work of the cold understanding. In China, all that subserves the wants of the senses was arranged and developed in the earliest ages ; all that concerns the soul or the imagination is yet raw and ill-adjusted ; and we behold in the high opinion which the Chinese entertain of themselves and their affairs, a terrible example of what must be the consequence when all behavior pro- ceeds according to prescribed etiquette, when all knowledge and learning is a matter of rote directed to external applications, and the men of learn- ing are so intimately connected with the government, and have their inter- est so much one with it, that a number of privileged doctors can regulate literature as a state magistrate does weights and measures.' Of the Chinese government the same authority remarks — ' the patriarchal sys- tem still lies at the foundation of it. Round the " Son of Heaven," as they name the highest ruler, the wise of the land assemble as round their counselor and organ. So in the provinces (of which there are eighteen or nineteen, each as large as a considerable kingdom), the men of greatest sagacity gather round the presidents ; each takes the fashion from his supe- rior, and the lowest give it to the people. Thus one man exercises the sov- ereignty ; a number of learned men gave the law, and invented in very early times a symbolical system of syllabic writing, suitable for their mono syllabic speech, in lieu of their primitive system of hieroglyphics. All business is transacted in writing, with minuteness and pedantry. Their written language is very difficult ; and as it is possible in Chinese writing for one to know all the characters of a certain period of time, or of a cer- tain department, and yet be totally unacquainted with those of another department, there is no end to their mechanical acquisition.' It has already 2*3 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. been mentioned that Chinese thought has at various times received certain foreign tinctures, chiefly from India ; essentially, however, the Chinese mind has remained as it was fixed by Confucius. 'In China,' says Schlosser, ' a so-named philosophy has accomplished that which in other countries has been accomplished by priests and religions. In the genuine Chinese books of religion, in all their learning and wisdom, God is not thought of; religion, according to the Chinese and their oracle and lawgiver Con-fu-tse has nothing to do with the imagination, but consists alone in the perfor- mance of outward moral duties, and in zeal to further the ends of state. Whatever lies beyond the plain rule of life is either a sort of obscure natural philosophy, or a mere culture for the people, and for any who may feel the want of such a culture. The various forms of worship which have made their way into China are obliged to restrict themselves, to bow to the law, and to make their practices conform ; they can arrogate no literature of their own ; and, good or bad, must learn to agree with the prevailing athe- istic Chinese manner of thought.' Such are the Chinese, and such have they been for 2000 or 3000 years — a vast people undoubtedly civilized to the highest pitch of which Mon- golian humanity is susceptible ; of mild disposition ; industrious to an extra- ordinary degree ; well-skilled in all the mechanical arts, and possessing a mechanical ingenuity peculiar to themselves ; boasting of a language quite singular in its character, and of a vast literature ; respectful of usage to such a degree as to do everything by pattern ; attentive to the duties and civilities of life, but totally devoid of fervor, originality, or spirituality ; and living under a form of government which has been very happily designated a pedantocracy — that is, a hierarchy of erudite persons selected from the population, and appointed by the emperor, according to the proof they give of their capacity, to the various places of public trust. How far these characteristics, or any of them, are inseparable from a Mongolian civiliza- tion, would appear more clearly if we knew more of the Japanese. At present, however, there seems little prospect of any reorganization of the Chinese mind, except by means of a Caucasian stimulus applied to it. And what Caucasian stimulus will be sufficient to break up that vast Mongolian mass, and lay it open to the general world-influences ? Will the stimulus come from Europe ; or from America after its western shores are peopled, and the Anglo-Americans begin to think of crossing the Pacific ? CAUCASIAN HISTORY. While the Negro race seems to have retrograded from its original posi- tion on the earth, while the Mongolian has afforded the spectacle of a single permanent and pedantic civilization retaining millions within its grasp for ages in the extreme east of Asia, the Caucasian, as if the seeds of the world's progress had been implanted in it, has worked out for itself a splendid career on an ever-shifting theatre. First attaining its maturity in Asia, the Caucasian civilization has shot itself westward, if we may so speak, in several successive throes ; long confined to Asia ; then entering northern Africa, where, commingling with the Ethiopian, it originated a new culture ; again, about the year b. c. 1000, adding Europe to the stage of history ; and lastly, 2500 years later, crossing the Atlantic, and meeting in America with a diffused and degenerate Mongolism. To understand DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 27 this beautiful career thoroughly, it is necessary to observe the manner in which the Caucasians disseminated themselves from their central home — to count, as it were, and note separately, the various flights by which they emigrated from the central hive. So far as appears, then, from investiga- tions into language, etc., the Caucasian stock sent forth at different times in the remote past five great branches from its original seat, somewhere to the south of that long chain of mountains which commences at the Black Sea, and, bordering the southern coast of the Caspian, terminates in the Himalehs. In what precise way, or at what precise time, these branches separated themselves from the parent stock and from each other, must remain a mystery ; a sufficiently clear general notion of the fact is all that we can pretend to. 1st. The Armenian branch, remaining appar- ently nearest the original seat, filled the countries between the Caspian and Black Seas, extending also round the Caspian into the territories afterwards known as those of the Parthians. 2d, The Indo-Pcrsian branch, which extended itself in a southern and eastern direction from the Caspian Sea, through Persia and Cabool, into Hindoostan, also penetrating Bokhara. From this great branch philologists and ethnographers derive those two races, the distinction between which, although subordinate to the grand fivefold division of the Caucasian stock, is of immense consequence in modern history — the Celtic and the Germanic. Pouring through Asia Minor, it is supposed that the Indo-Persian family entered Europe through Thrace, and ultimately, through the operation of those innumerable causes which react upon the human constitution from the circumstances in which it is placed, assumed the character of Celts and Germans — the Celts being the earlier product, and eventually occupying the western portion of Europe — namely, northern Italy, France, Spain and Great Britain — still undergoing subdivision, however, during their dispersion, into Iberians, Gaels, Cymri, &c. ; the Germans being a later off-shoot, and settling rather in the centre and north of Europe in two great moieties — the Scan- dinavians and the Germans Proper. This seems the most plausible ped- igree of the Celtic and Germanic races, although some object to it. 2>d, The Semitic or Aramaic branch, which, diffusing itself southward and westward from the original Caucasian seat, filled Syria, Mesopotamia, Ara- bia, etc., and founded the early kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia, Palestine, etc. It was this branch of the Caucasian variety which, enter- ing Africa by the Isthmus of Suez and the Straits of Babelmandel, consti- tuted itself an element at least in the ancient population of Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia ; and there are ethnographers who believe that the early civilization which lined the northern coasts of Africa arose from somo extremely early blending of the Ethiopic with the Semitic, the latter acting as a dominant caste. Diffusing itself westward along the African coast as far as Mauritania, the Semitic race seems eventually, though at a compar- atively late period, to have met the Celtic, which had crossed into Africa from Spain ; and thus, by the infusion of Arameans and Celts, that white or tawny population which we find in northern Africa in ancient times, distinct from the Ethiopians of the interior, seems to have been formed. 4th, The Pelasgic branch, that noble family which, carrying the Greeks and Romans in its bosom, poured itself from western Asia into the south- east of Europe, mingling doubtless with Celts and Germans. 5th, The Scythian, or Slavonic branch, which diffused itself over Russia, Siberia, 28 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. and the central plains of Asia, shading off in these last into the Mongolian. Such is a convenient division of the Caucasian stock ; a more profound investigation, however, might reduce the five races to these two — the Sem- itic and the Indo-Germanic ; all civilized languages being capable, it is said, of being classified under these three families — the Chinese, which has monosyllabic roots ; the Indo-Germanic (Sanscrit, Hindoostanee, Greek, Latin, German, and all modern European languages), which has dissyllabic roots; and the Semitic (Hebrew, Arabic, &c), whose roots are trisyllabic. Retaining, however, the fivefold distribution which we have adopted, we shall find that the history of the world, from the earliest to the remotest times, has been nothing else than the common Caucasian vitality presenting itself in a succession of phases or civilizations, each differing from the last in the proportions in which it contains the various separate elements. It is advisable to sketch first the most eastern Caucasian civilization — that is, that of India ; and then to proceed to a consideration of the state of that medley of nations, some of them Semitic, some of them Indo-Persian, and some of them Armenian, out of which the great Persian empire arose, destined to continue the historic pedigree of the world into Europe, by transmitting its vitality to the Pelasgians. Ancient India. One of the great branches, we have said, of the Cau- casian family of mankind was the Indo-Persian, which, spreading out in the primeval times from the original seat of the Caucasian part of the hu- man species, extended itself from the Caspian to the Bay of Bengal, where, coming into contact with the southern Mongolians, it gave rise, according to the most probable accounts, to those new mixed Caucasian-Mongolian races, the Malays of the Eastern Peninsula; and, by a still farther degen- eracy, to the Papuas, or natives of the South Sea Islands. While thus sha- ding off into the Mongolism of the Pacific, the Indo-Persian mass of our species was at the same time attaining maturity within itself; and as the first ripened fragment of the Mongolians had been the Chinese nation, so one of the first ripened fragments of the Indo-Persian branch of the Cau- casians seems to have been the Indians. At what time the vast peninsula of Hindoostan could first boast a civilized population, it is impossible to say ; all testimony, however, agrees in assigning to Indian civilization a most remote antiquity. Another fact seems also to be tolerably well authen- ticated regarding ancient India ; namely, that the northern portions of it, and especially the north-western portions, which would be nearest the orig- inal Caucasian seat, were the first civilized ; and that the civilizing influ- ence spread thence southwards to Cape Comorin. Notwithstanding this general conviction, that India was one of the first portions of the earth's surface that contained a civilized population, few facts in the ancient history of India are certainly known. We are told, indeed (to omit the myths of the Indian Bacchus and Hercules), of two great kingdom — those of Ayodha (Oude) and Prathistbana (Vitera) — as hav- ing existed in northern India upwards of a thousand years before Christ ; of conquests in southern India, effected by the monarchs of these king- doms ; and of wars carried on between these monarchs and their western neighbors the Persians, after the latter had begun to be powerful. All these accounts, however, merely resolve themselves into the general infor mation, that India, many centuries before Christ, was an important member in the family of Asiatic nations ; supplying articles to their commerce, and DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 29 involved in their agitations. Accordingly, if we wish to form an idea of the condition of India prior to that great epoch in its history — its invasion by Alexander the Great, b. c. 326 — we can only do so by reasoning back from that we know of its present condition, allowing for the modifying effects of the two thousand years which have intervened ; and especially for the effects produced by the Mohammedan invasion, a. d. 1000. This, how- ever, is the less difficult in the case of such a country as India, where the per- manence of native institutions is so remarkable , and though we cannot hope to acquire a distinct notion of the territorial divisions, etc., of India in very ancient times, yet, by a study of the Hindoos as they are at present, we may furnish ourselves with a tolerably accurate idea of the nature of that ancient civilization which overspread Hindoostan many centuries before the birth of Christ, and this all the more probably that the notices which remain of the state of India at the time of the invasion of Alexander, correspond in many points with what is to be seen in India at the present day. The population of Hindoostan, the area of which is estimated at about a million square miles, amounts to about 120,000,000 ; of whom about 100,- 000,000 are Hindoos or aborigines, the remainder being foreigners, either Asiatic or European. The most remarkable feature in Hindoo society is its division into castes. The Hindoos are divided into four great castes — the Brahmins, whose proper business is religion and philosophy ; the Ksha- triyas, who attend to war and government ; the Vaisyas, whose duties are connected with commerce and agriculture ; and the Sudras, or artisans and laborers. Of these four castes the Brahmins are the highest ; but a broad line of distinction is drawn between the Sudras and the other three castes. The Brahmins may intermarry with the three inferior castes — the ksha- triyas with the vaisyas and the Sudras ; and the vaisyas with the Sudras ; but no Sudra can choose a wife from either of the three superior castes. As a general rule, every person is required to follow the profession of the caste to which he belongs : thus the Brahmin is to lead a life of contemplation and study, subsisting on the contributions of the rich ; the Kshatriya is to occupy himself in civil matters, or to pursue the profession of a soldier ; and the Vaisya is to be a merchant or a farmer. In fact, however, the barriers of caste have in innumerable instances been broken down. The ramifications, too, of the caste system are infinite. Besides the four pure, there are numerous mixed castes, all with their prescribed ranks and occupations. A class far below even the pure Sudras is the Pariahs or outcasts ; consisting of the refuse of all the other castes, and which, in process of time, has grown so large as to include, it is said, one-fifth of the population of Hindoostan. The Pariahs perform the meanest kinds of manual labor. This system of castes — of which the Brahmins themselves, whom some suppose to have been originally a conquering race, are the architects, if not the founders — is bound up with the religion of the Hindoos. Indeed of the Hindoos, more truly than of any other people, it may be said that a knowl- edge of their religious system is a knowledge of the people themselves. The Vedas, or ancient sacred books of the Hindoos, distinctly set forth the doctrine of the infinite and Eternal Supreme Being. According to the Vedas, there is ' one unknown, true Being, all present, all powerful, the cre- ator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe.' This Supreme Being ' is not comprehensible by vision, or by any other of the organs of sense, nor can he be conceived by means of devotion or virtuous practices.' He is not space, AG A. > > OQ w > a w i— t o a f a w 32 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. nor air, nor light, nor atoms, nor soul, nor nature : he is above all these and the cause of them all. He ' has no feet, but extends everywhere ; has no hands, but holds everything ; has no eyes, yet sees all that is ; has no ears, yet hears all that passes. His existence had no cause. He is the smallest of the small and the greatest of the great; and yet is, in fact neither small nor great.' Such is the doctrine of the Vedas in its purest and most abstract form ; but the prevailing theology which runs through them is what is called Pantheism, or that system which speaks of God as the soul of the universe, or as the universe itself. Accordingly, the whole tone and language of the highest Hindoo philosophy is Pantheistic. As a rope, lying on the ground, and mistaken at first view for a snake, is the cause of the idea or conception of the snake which exists in the mind of the person looking at it, so, say the Vedas, is the Deity the cause of what we call th6 universe. ' In him the whole world is absorbed ; from him it issues ; he is entwined and interwoven with all creation.' ' All that exists is God : whatever we smell, or taste, or see, or hear, or feel, is the Supreme Being.' This one incomprehensible Being, whom the Hindoos designate by the mystical names Om, Tut, and Jut, and sometimes also by the word Brahm, is declared by the Vedas to be the only proper object of worship. Only a very few persons of extraordinary gifts and virtues, however, are able, it is said, to adore the Supreme Being — the great Om — directly. The great majority of mankind are neither so wise nor so holy as to be able to approach the Divine Being himself, and worship him. It being alleged that persons thus unfortunately disqualified for adoring the invisible Deity should employ their minds upon some visible thing, rather than to suffer them to remain idle, the Vedas direct them to worship a number of inferior deities, representing particular acts or qualities of the Supreme Being ; as, for instances, Crishnu or Vishnu, the god of preservation ; Muhadev, the god of destruction ; or the sun, or the air, or the sea, or the human under- standing ; or, in fact any object or thing which they may choose to repre- sent as God. Seeing, say the Hindoos, that God pervades and animates the whole universe, everything, living or dead, may be considered a por- tion of God, and as such, it may be selected as an object of worship, pro- vided always it be worshiped only as constituting a portion of the Divine Substance. In this way, whatever the eye looks on, or the mind can con- ceive, whether it be the sun in the heavens or the great river Ganges, or the crocodile on its banks, or the cow, or the fire kindled to cook food, or the Vedas, or a Brahmin, or a tree, or a serpent — all may be legiti- mately worshiped as a fragment, so to speak, of the Divine Spirit. Thus there may be many millions of gods to which Hindoos think themselves entitled to pay divine honours. The number of Hindoo gods is calculated at 330,000,000, or about three times the number of their worshipers. Of these, the three principal deities of the Hindoos are Brahma the cre- ator,Vishnu the preserver, and Seeb or Siva the destroyer. These three of course, were originally intended to represent the three great attributes of the Om or Invisible Supreme Being — namely, his creating, his preserv- ing, and his destroying attributes. Indeed the name Om itself is a com- pound word, expressing the three ideas of creation, preservation, and des- truction, all combined. The three together are called Trimurti, and there are certain occasions when the three are worshiped conjointly. There are also sculptured representations of the Trimurti, in which the busts of Brah- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 33 ma, Vishnu, and Siva are cut out of the same mass of stone. One of these images of the Trimurti is found in the celebrated cavern temple of Ele- phanta, in the neighborhood of Bombay, perhaps the most wonderful rem- nant of ancient Indian architecture. Vishnu and Siva are more worship- ped separately than Brahma — each having his body of devotees specially attached to him in particular. Hindooism, like other Pantheistic systems, teaches the doctrine of the transmigration of souls : all creation, animate and inanimate, being, accor- ding to the Hindoo system, nothing else but the deity Brahm himself par- celed out, as it were, into innumerable portions and forms (when these are reunited, the world will be at an end), just as a quantity of qtiicksil- ver may be broken up into innumerable little balls or globules, which all have a tendency to go together again. At long intervals of time, each exten- ding over some thousand millions of years, Brahm does bring the world to an end, by reabsorbing it into his spirit. When, therefore, a man dies, his soul, according to the Hindoos, must either be absorbed immediately into the soul of Brahm, or it must pass through a series of transmigrations, waiting for the final absorption, which happens at the end of every uni- verse, or at least until such time as it shall be prepared for being reunited with the Infinite Spirit. The former of the two is, according to the Hin- doos, the highest possible reward : to be absorbed into Brahm immediately upon death, and without having to undergo any farther purification, is the lot only of the greatest devotees. To attain this end, or at least to avoid degradation after death, the Hindoos, and especially the Brahmins, who are naturally the most intent upon their spiritual interests, practice a ritual of the most intricate and ascetic description, carrying religious ceremonies and antipathies with them into all the duties of life. So overburdened is the daily life of the Hindoos with superstitious observances with regard to food, sleep, etc., that, but for the speculative doctrines which the more ele- vated minds among the Brahmins may see recognised in their religion, the whole system of Hindooism might seem a wretched and grotesque poly- theism. A hundred millions of people professing this system, divided into castes as now, and carrying the Brahminical ritual into all the occupations of la- zy life under the hot sun, and amid the exuberant vegetation of Hindoos- tan — such was the people into which Alexander the Great carried his conquering arms ; such, doubtless, they had been for ages before that pe- riod ; and such did they remain, shut out from the view of the rest of the civilized world, and only communicating with it by means of spices, ivory, etc., which found their way through Arabia or the Red Sea to the Mediter- ranean, till Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and brought Europe and India into closer connection. Meanwhile a Mohammedan invasion had taken place (a.d. 1000) ; Mohammedans from Persia had mingled themselves with the Hindoos ; and it was with this mixed popu- lation that British enterprise eventually came into collision. Ere quitting the Indians, it is well to glance back at the Chinese, so as to see wherein these two primeval and contemporaneous consolidations of our species — the Mongolian consolidation of eastern Asia, and the Caucas- ian consolidation of the central peninsula of southern Asia — differ. ' Who- ever would perceive the full physical and moral difference,' says Klaproth, ' between the Chinese and Indian nations, must contrast the peculiar cul- 3# 34 AMERICAN" ENCYCLOPEDIA. ture of the Chinese with that of the Hindoo, fashioned almost like a Euro- pean, even to his complexion. He will study the boundless religious sys- tem of the Brahmins, and oppose it to the bald belief of the original Chi- nese, which can hardly be named religion. He will remark the rigorous division of the Hindoos into castes, sects, and denominations, for which the inhabitants of the central kingdom have even no expression. He will com- pare the dry prosaic spirit of the Chinese with the high poetic souls of the dwellers on the Ganges and the Dsumnah. He will hear the rich and blooming Sanscrit, and contrast it with the unharmonious speech of the Chinese. He will mark, finally, the literature of the latter, full of matters of fact and things worth knowing, as contrasted with the limitless philo- sophic-ascetic writing of the Indians, who have made even the highest poetry wearisome by perpetual length.' History of the Eastern Nations till their Incorporation in the Persian Empire. Leaving India — that great fragment of the orig- inal Caucasian civilization — and proceeding westward, we find two largo masses of the human species filling in the earliest times the countries lying between the Indus and the Mediterranean — namely, an Indo-Persian mass filling the whole tract of country between the Indus and the Tigris ; and a Semitic- Aramaic mass filling the greater part of lesser Asia and the whole peninsula of Arabia, and extending itself into the parts of Africa adjoining the Red Sea. That in the most remote ages these lands were the theatres of a civilized activity is certain, although no records have been transmitted from them to us, except a few fragments relative to the Semi- tic nations. The general facts, however, with regard to these ante-historic times, seem to be : 1st, That the former of the two masses mentioned — namely, the population between the Indus and the Caspian — was essen- tially a prolongation of the great Indian nucleus, possessing a culture similar to the Indian in its main aspects, although varied, as was inevitable, by the operation of those physical causes which distinguish the climate of Persia and Cabool from that of Hindoostan ; 2d, That the Semitic or Ara- maic mass divided itself at a very early period into a number of separate peoples or nations, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Arabians, etc., and that each of these acquired a separate devel- opment, and worked out for itself a separate career ; 3c?, That upwards of a thousand years before Christ the spirit of conquest appeared among the Semitic nations, dashing them violently against each other; and that at length one Semitic fragment — that is, the Assyrians — attained the supre- macy over the rest, and founded a great dominion, called the Assyrian empire, which stretched from Egypt to the borders of India (b. c. 800) ; and 4th, That the pressure of this Semitic power against the Indo-Persic mass was followed by a reaction — one great section of the Indo-Persians rising into strength, supplanting the Assyrian empire, and founding one of their own, called the Persian empire (b. c. 536) , which was destined in its turn to be supplanted by the confederacy of Grecian states in b. c. 326. Beginning with Egypt, let us trace separately the career of each of the Eastern nations till that point of time at which we find them all embodied in the great Persian empire : — The Egyptians. Egypt, whose position on the map of Africa is well DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 35 known, is about 500 miles long from its most northern to its most southern point. Through its whole length flows the Nile, a fine large stream rising in the inland kingdom of Abyssinia, and, from certain periodic floods to which it is subject, of great use in irrigating and fertilizing the country. A large portion of Egypt consists of an alluvial plain, similar to our mead- ow grounds, formed by the deposits of the river, and bounded by ranges of mountains on either side. The greatest breadth of the valley is 150 miles, but generally it is much less, the mountain ranges on either side often being not more than a few miles from the river. A country so favorably situated, and possessing so many advantages, could not but be among the earliest peopled ; and accordingly, as far back as the human memory can reach, we find a dense population of a very peculiar character inhabiting the whole valley of the Nile. These ancient Egyptians seem, as we have already said, to have been a mixture of the Semitic with the Ethiopic element, speaking a peculiar language, still sur- viving in a modified form in the Coptic of modern Egypt. In the ancient authors, however, the Egyptians are always distinguished from the Ethio- pians, with whom they kept up so close an intercourse, that it has been made a question whether the Egyptian institutions came from the Ethiopian Meroe, or whether, as is more probable, civilization was transmitted to Ethiopia from Egypt. The whole country is naturally divided into three parts — Upper Egypt, bordering on what was anciently Ethiopia ; Middle Egypt ; and Lower Egypt, including the Delta of the Nile. In each there were numerous cities in which the population was amassed : originally Thebes, a city of Upper Egypt, of the size of which surprising accounts are transmitted to us, and whose ruins still astonish the traveler, was the capital of the coun- try ; but latterly, as commerce increased, Memphis in Middle Egypt became the seat of power. After Thebes and Memphis, Ombi, Edfou, Esneh, Elephantina, and Philoe seem to have been the most important of the Egyptian cities. Our accounts of the Egyptian civilization are derived chiefly from the Greek historian Herodotus (b. c. 408), who visited Egypt and digested the information which he received from the priests as to its ancient history ; and Manetho, a native Egyptian of later times, who wrote in Greek. From their accounts it is inferred that the country was anciently divided into thirty-six sections or provinces called nomes — ten in Upper, sixteen in Middle, and ten in Lower Egypt. ' Many of the separate nomes were of considerable substantive importance, and had a marked local character each to itself, religious as well as political ; though the whole of Egypt, from Elephantine to Pelusium and Kanopus, is said to have always consti- tuted one kingdom.' Of this kingdom, the population, according to a rough estimate, may have been about seven millions. The government was a monarchy based on an all-powerful priesthood, similar to the Brahminical system of India ; and, as in India, the most striking feature in the Egyp- tian' society was the division of the people into hereditary castes. ' The population of Egypt,' says Mr Grote in his History of Greece, ' was clas- sified into certain castes or hereditary professions, of which the number is represented differently by different authors. The priests stand clearly marked out as the order richest, most powerful, and most venerated, distri- buted all over the country, and possessing exclusively the means of reading OD AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. and writing, besides a vast amount of narrative matter treasured up in the memory, the whole stock of medical and physical knowledge then attaina- ble, and those rudiments of geometry (or rather land-measuring) which were so often called into use in a country annually inundated. To each god and to each temple throughout Egypt, lands and other properties belonged, whereby the numerous band of priests attached to him were maintained. Their ascendancy, both direct and indirect, over the minds of the people was immense ; they prescribed that minute ritual under which the life of every Egyptian, not excepting the king himself, was passed, and which was for themselves more full of harassing particularities than for any one else. Every day in the year belonged to some particular god, and the priests alone knew to which. There were different gods in every nome, though Isis and Osiris were common to all ; and the priests of each god constituted a society apart, more or less important, according to the comparative celeb- rity of the temple. The property of each temple included troops of dependents and slaves, who were stamped with " holy marks," and who must have been numerous, in order to suffice for the service of the large buildings and their constant visitors. Next in importance to the sacerdotal caste were the military caste or order, whose native name indicated that they stood on the left hand of the king, while the priests occupied the right. They were classified in Kala- sires and Hermotybii, who occupied lands in eighteen particular nomes or provinces, principally in Lower Egypt. The Kalasiries had once amoun- ted to 160,000 men, the Hermotybii to 250,000, when at the maximum of their population ; but that highest point had long been past in the time of Herodotus. To each man of this soldier-caste was assigned a portion of land, equal to about 62 English acres, free from any tax. The lands of the priests and the soldiers were regarded as privileged property, and exempt from all burdens ; while the remaining soil was considered as the property of the king, who however, received from it a fixed proportion — one-fifth of the total produce — leaving the rest in the hands of the cultivators. The soldiers were interdicted from every description of art and trade.' The other castes are differently given in different authors ; the most probable account, however, is that which assigns them as three — the caste of the husbandmen, that of the artificers, and that of the herdsmen, which last caste included a variety of occupations held in contempt, the lowest and most degraded of all being that of swineherd. The separation be- tween the husbandmen and the herdsmen seems to have arisen from the circumstance that different parts of the country, not suitable for agricul- ture, were entirely laid out in pasture. The artificers, constituting the vast town population of Egypt, were subdivided into a great variety of occupa- tions, weavers, masons, sculptors, etc., who were compelled to these profes- sions by hereditary obligation. It was by the labor of this vast town pop- ulation, assisted by that of herds of slaves, that those huge works were accomplished, the remains of which attest the greatness of ancient Egypt. Part of the artisan population were exclusively occupied in skilled labor ; and in a country where there was such a taste for works of masonry, sculpture was necessarily one of the most largely-stocked of the skilled occupations. ' Perfect exactness of execution,' it is said, ' mastery of the hardest stone, and undeviating obedience to certain rules of proportion, are general characteristics of Egyptian sculpture. There are yet seen in DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 37 their quarries obelisks not severed from the rock, but having three of their sides already adorned with hieroglyphics, so certain were they of cutting off the fourth side with precision.' These skilled artificers may be sup- posed to have acted as foremen and overseers of the great numbers of laborers who were employed in public works such as the Pyramids. In the construction of these works no degree of labor for any length of time seems to have intimidated the Egyptians. The huge blocks of stone, sometimes weighing 1000 tons each, were dragged for hundreds of miles on sledges, and their transport, perhaps, did not occupy less time than a year ; in one case which is known, 2000 men were employed three years in bringing a single stone from a quarry to the building in which it was to be placed. Usually, the sledges were drawn by men yoked in rows to separate ropes, all pulling at a ring fixed to the block. Where it was pos- sible, the blocks were brought from the quarries on flat-bottomed boats on the Nile. But the transport of these masses was much more easily accom plished than the placing of them in elevated situations in the buildings They were raised by the power of levers and inclined planes at immense trouble and cost. The waste of human life in these gigantic works must have been enormous. About 120,000 men are said to have perished in the digging of a canal, which was left unfinished, between the Red Sea and an arm of the Nile ; and according to Herodotus, the Egyptian priests of his day described the building of the Pyramids as a time of extreme exhaustion and hardship to the whole country. The religion of the Egyptians seems to have been, in its popular form at least, a mere gross Fetishism, whose principal characteristic was a worship of teeming animal life — the bull, the cat, the ibis, the crocodile, etc.; different animals in different nomes. Whatever profounder meaning lay hid under this gross ceremonial the priest-caste reserved to themselves, as one of the mysteries, the possession of which severed them from the rest of the population. Among these mysteries was the art of writing, which was practised both in the alphabetical and the hieroglyphic form ; the latter being used for special purposes. Some vague notion of the immortality of the soul, resembling the Hindoo tenet of transmigration, seems to have pervaded the Egyptian religion ; and this belief appears to have lain at the foundation of the Egyptian practice of embalming the dead. The business of embalming was a very dignified one, and was aided by a host of inferior functionaries, who made and painted coffins and other articles which were required. The bodies of the poorer classes were merely dried with salt or natron, and wrapt up in coarse cloths, and deposited in the catacombs. The bodies of the rich and great underwent the most compli- cated operations, wrapt in bandages dipped in balsam, and laboriously adorned with all kinds of ornaments. Thus prepared they were placed in highly-decorated cases or coffins, and then consigned to sarcophagi in the catacombs or pyramids. Bodies so prepared have been called mum- mies, either from the Arabian word momia, or the Coptic mum, signifying bitumen or gum-resin. Although the Egyptians carried on from early times a caravan-commerce with the adjacent countries of Phoenicia, Palestine, and Arabia, importing such articles as wine, oil, and spices for embalming, yet exclusiveness and self-sufficiency were characteristics of their civilization. There, on the oanks of the Nile, these millions lived, changeless in their methods through 38 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. centuries, each individual mechanically pursuing the occupation to which he was born — millions cultivating the soil, and producing wheat, etc., for the subsistence of the whole ; others tending the cattle necessary for food or sacrifice ; millions, again, crowded into the numerous towns, occupied in the various handicrafts necessary to provide articles of clothing, luxury, etc. — a large proportion of this class being available for stupendous archi- tectural works ; and lastly, diffused through these country and town popu- lations, two other proprietor-castes — the one a militia, occupied in gym- nastic exercises alone ; the other a sacerdotal or intellectual order, within whose body was accumulated all the speculative or scientific wisdom of the country. Relations existed between Egypt and the adjacent countries ; and rumours of the nature of its peculiar civilization may have spread through the nations of the Mediterranean ; but for a long while it was shut, like the present China, against foreign intrusion ; and it was not till about the year 650 B. c. that it was thrown open to general inspection. In the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., the philosophers of other countries, and espe- cially of Greece, used to visit Egypt in order to acquire, by intercourse with the Egyptian intellectual caste, some of that precious knowledge of which they were believed to be the depositaries. Although the Egyptian civilization is known to have existed pretty much as we have described it from immemorial antiquity, yet, with the exception of what we learn from Scripture, we know little of Egyptian history, pro- perly so called, anterior to the time when the country was thrown open to the Greeks. Herodotus and Manetho, indeed, have given us retrospective lists of the Egyptian kings, extending back into the primitive gloom of the world ; but portions of these lists are evidently constructed backwards on mythical principles.' Thus Manetho, preserving doubtless the traditions of the sacerdotal Egyptian caste, to which he is supposed to have belonged, carries back the imagination as far as 80,000 years before the birth of Christ. From this date till B. C. 5702, great divine personages ruled in Egypt ; then (b. c. 5702) it came into the possession of human kings, the first of which was Menes. From the accession of Menes down to the in- corporation of Egypt w T ith the Persian empire (b. c. 525), Herodotus assigns 330 kings, or, as they are called in Scripture, Pharaohs, whose names he informs us, were read to him out of a papyrus manuscript by the Egyp- tian priests, who pledged themselves to its accuracy ; ana" Manetho reckons up twenty-six dynasties, some of them native and others foreign, which divided the long period into portions of different lengths. Arabia. The great peninsula of Arabia was in the earliest times inhab- ited by a population of the Semitic stock, in all essential respects similar to that which inhabits it now, partly concentrated in cities, partly wander- ing in tribes through the extensive deserts which mark the surface of the country. The inhabitants of the towns subsist by agriculture and com- merce ; the wandering tribes by cattle rearing and pillage. In ancient times, as now, the Arabs were celebrated for their expert horsemanship, their hospitality, their eloquence, and their free indomitable spirit. In religion, however, the modern Arabs, who are Mohammedans, differ from the ancient Arabs, who were idolaters, chiefly worshippers of the celestial luminaries, nowhere so beautiful as in the sky of an Arabian desert. The Arabs themselves trace their history back, the older tribes to Kahtan (the Joktan of the 10th chapter of Genesis), the latter to Adnan, a descendant DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 39 of Ishmael, the offspring of Abraham. It is unnecessary, however, to enter into this history, as Arabia was not incorporated with the Persian empire, and only assumed historical importance in later times, when it sent forth the religion of Mohammed over the East. Syria. The Semitic or Aramaic population overspreading Syria — which name is generally applied to the country lying between the Euphrates and Arabian desert on the east, and the Mediterranean on the west — had early divided itself into various independent states or kingdoms, which ultimately resolved themselves, it would appear, into three. These were Phoenicia, a narrow strip of coast-land, extending from Mount Carmel to the river Eleutheros ; Palestine, or the Holy Land, including the country south of Phoenicia, between the Arabian desert and the Mediterranean, as well as the inland district lying between Mount Carmel and Mount Herman; and Syria Proper, whose capital was Damascus, and which, when the power of the Damascan kings was at its highest, included all the country except Palestine and Phoenicia. Syrian history possesses no independent importance ; we pass, therefore, to the history of the Phoenician and Jewish nations. The Phoenicians. Phoenicia was an exceedingly small country, its length being only about 120 miles, and its breadth nowhere greater than 20 miles. Indeed it may be described as a mere slip of coast-land, suffi- ciently large to accommodate a range of port towns, such as a merchant peo- ple required. The most northern of these Phoenician cities was Aradus, situated on a small island ; the most southern was the famous Tyre ; and between the two were situated many others, of which the chief were Sidon, Berytus, Tripolis, and Byblus. The greater part of the population was contained in these cities, the rural population being small in proportion. Originally, Phoenicia was divided into a number of little states or com- munities, each having a town for its metropolis, with a hereditary king of its own; and ere the country was restricted by the formation of the Jew- ish nation, the number of these Phoenician or Canaanitish principalities must have been considerable. The Phoenicians were a fragment of the Canaanites of Scripture; and doubtless in the annals of the separate Phoenician towns, such as Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus, were preserved rec- ord from the Phoenician point of view, of many of those ancient transac- tions which are related in the Scriptural account of the settlement of the Jews in Canaan. Without going back, however, into the remoter period of Phoenician history, one of the questions connected with which is, whether Tyre (founded, it was said, b.c. 2700) or Sidon was the more ancient town, let us give a summary view of the nature of the Phoenician civilization at the period of its highest celebrity — namely, from B. c. 1200 to B. c. 700, at which time we find Tyre exercising a presiding influence over the other Phoenician communities. The Phoenicians were the great trading nation of antiquity. Situated at so convenient a point on the Mediterranean, it devolved on them to trans- port to the sea-shore the commodities of the East, brought to them over- land by Arabian and Egyptian caravans, and from the sea-shore to distrib- ute them among the expecting nations of the west. Nor were they with- out valuable products of their own. The sand of their coasts was particu- 40 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. larly suitable for the manufacture of glass ; their bays abounded in species of fish which produced a fine purple dye — the celebrated Tyrian purple of antiquity ; and in various parts of the country there were excellent mines of iron and copper. It was, in fact, essential for the general inter- ests of the race that the people inhabiting that portion of the Mediterranean coasts should devote themselves to commerce. In anticipation of this, as it might seem, the mountains of Libanus, which separated the narrow Phoenician territory from Syria, were stocked with the best timber, which, transported over the short distance which intervened between these moun- tains and the sea, abundantly supplied the demands of the Phoenician dock- yards. There was something in the Phoenician character, also, which sui- ted the requirements of their geographical position. Skillful, enterprising, griping in their desire for wealth, and in other respects resembling much their neighbors the Jews, to whom they were allied in race, and whose lan- guage was radically identical with their own — theirs was essentially the merchant type of character. Standing as the Phoenicians did as the people by whom the exchange between the East and the West was managed, a complete view of their life and manner of activity should embrace first, their relations with the East — that is, their overland trade with Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Persia, and India ; secondly, their relations with the West — that is, their maritime trade with the various nations of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts ; and thirdly, the peculiar character of mind which either accompanied or resulted from the consciousness of such a position in the great family of mankind. With regard to the overland trade of the Phoenicians with the Eastern countries, little requires to be said except that it was one attended with great risks — the journey of a caravan across the deserts, and through the roaming tribes which separated Phoenicia from interior Asia, being a more serious enterprise than a long sea voyage. It is probable that the Phoe- nicians managed this commerce not in their own persons, but as wealthy speculative merchants, dealing in a skillful manner with the native Egyptian, Assyrian, or Arabian caravan-proprietors, with whom they maintained an understood connection. At the same time it is likely that they stimulated and regulated the Eastern commerce, by means of Phoenician agents or emissaries despatched into the interior with general instructions, just as in later times European agents were often despatched into the interior of Africa to direct the movements of native merchants. It was in their maritime trade with the West, however, that the Phoenicians chiefly exhibi- ted the resources of their own character. Shipping the Oriental commo- dities, as well as their native products, at Tyre or Sidon, they carried them to all the coasts of the Mediterranean as far as Spain, selling them there at immense profit, and returning with freights of Western goods. With some of the nations of the Mediterranean their intercourse would be that of one civilized nation with another ; with others, and especially with those of the West, it must have been an intercourse similar to that of a British ship with those rude islanders who exchange their valuable pro- ducts for nails, bits of looking-glass, and other trifles. Whether their customers were civilized or savage, however, the Phoenicians reaped profits from them. Their aim was to monopolise the commerce of the Mediterra- nean. * If at any time,' it is said, * tneir ships bound on a voyage observed DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 41 that a stranger kept them company, or followed them in their track, they were sure to get rid of him, or deceive him if they could ; and in this they went so far as to venture the loss of their ships, and even of their lives, so that they could but destroy or disappoint him ; so jealous were they of foreigners, and so bent on keeping all to themselves. And to add to the dangers of the sea, and discourage other nations from trading, they practiced piracy, or pretended to be at war with such as they met when they thought themselves strongest.' This policy succeeded so far, that hardly a merchant ship was to be seen in the Mediterranean not manned by Phoenicians. From this extension of the Phoenician commerce through- out the Mediterranean resulted, by necessity, an extensive system of coloni- zation. The distance, for instance, of Spain from Phoenicia, rendered all the greater by the ancient custom of always sailing close by the coast, made it necessary for the Phoenician traders to have intermediate ports, settlement, or factories, to which their vessels might resort, not to say that such settlements were required for the collection of the produce which was to be taken back to Phoenicia. Accordingly, in process of time, Phoenician colonies were established at all available points of the Mediterranean — on the coasts of Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, and in the Balearic Islands ; the rising maritime spirit of the Greeks excluding the Phoenicians from the iEgean and the coasts of Asia Minor. Among the most ancient of the colonies from Tyre were Carthage and Utica on the African coast, and Gades (Cadiz) in Spain ; all of which were founded before the first of the Greek Olympiads (b. c. 884). From these afterwards arose smaller settlements, which diffused the Phoenician agency still more extensively among the uncivilized nations of Africa and western Europe. Gades in Spain, situated, according to the ancient mode of navigation, at a distance of seventy-five days' sail from Tyre and Sidon — a distance larger than that which now divides Liverpool from Bombay — was a colony of special impor- tance ; first, as commanding the inland Spanish trade, particularly valuable at that time, inasmuch as the gold and silver mines of Spain caused it to be regarded as the Mexico or Peru of the ancient world ; and secondly, as forming a point from which the Phoenician commerce could be still farther extended along the extra-Mediterranean shores. From this point, we are told, the Phoenician ships extended their voyages southward for thirty days' sail along the coast of Africa, and northwards as far as Britain, where they took in tin from Cornwall, and even as far as the Baltic, where they collected amber. Upon what a scale of profit must these expeditions have been conducted, when, from Tyre to Cornwall, not a merchant ship besides those of the Phoenicians was to be seen ! And who can tell what influence these Phoenician visits may have had on the then rude nations bordering the Atlantic ? — or how far these ante-historic Phoenician impulses may have stimulated the subsequent career of these nations ? Like the visit of an English merchantman now to a South Sea Island, so must have been the visit of a Phoenician trading vessel 3000 years ago to the Britons of Cornwall. As might be expected, this great merchant people were among the most cultured of antiquity, and especially skilled in all the arts of luxurious living. The 27th chapter of the book of Ezekiel presents a most striking picture of the pride and magnificence of the Tyrians, and embodies many minute particulars relative to Phoenician customs and mode of life. Indeed it has 42 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. been pronounced the most early and most authentic record extant relative to the commerce of the ancients. Among the contributions made by the Phoenicians to the west, were alphabetical writing, the Greek alphabet being a derivative from the Phoenician ; the scale of weight ; and that of coined money. Having made these and other contributions to the west, Phoenicia began about (700 b. c.) to decline in importance ; the Ionian Greeks, and latterly the Egyptians, becoming its commercial rivals on the Mediterranean : and the invasions of the Assyrians from the east depriving it of independence. Subdued by the Assyrians and Babylonians, Phoenicia was transferred by them to the Persians. Among the last of the Phoenician achievements was the circumnavigation of Africa B. c. 600 — a feat undertaken by Phoenician sailors at the command of the Egyptian king Nekos, one of the immediate successors of Psammetik : and, as is now believed, really per formed — the course pursued being from the Red Sea round Africa to Spain — the reverse, therefore, of that followed by Vasco de Gama 2000 years later. About the time that Phoenicia began to wane, her colony, Carthage, assumed her place in the affairs of the world. Carthaginian civi- lization was essentially a mere repetition of the Phoenician, although under a different form of government ; Carthaginian history interweaves itself with that of the Romans. Palestine — the Jews. Palestine extends from north to south a length of about 200 miles, and 50 in breadth ; and is therefore, in point of size, of nearly the same extent as Scotland. The general character of the country is that of a hilly region, interspersed with moderately fertile vales ; and being thus irregular in surface, it possesses a number of brooks or streams, which for the most part are swollen considerably after rains, but are almost dry in the hot seasons of the year. The present condition of Palestine scarcely corresponds with its ancient fertility. This is chiefly attribu- table to the devastating effects of perpetual wars ; and some physical chan ges have also contributed to the destruction of agricultural industry. Yet, after all, so excellent would the soil appear to be, and so ample its resources, that Canaan may still be characterized as a land flowing with milk and honey. The history of the extraordinary nation which once inhabited this land, must be so much more familiar to our readers than that of any other ancient nation, that all that is necessary here is a brief sketch, such as will assist the imagination in tracing with due completeness the general career of the East till the establishment of the Persian empire. Accor- ding to the accounts given of the Jews in Scripture, and in their history by Josephus, they were descended from Abraham, who was born in the 292d year (according to other authorities, in the 352d year) after the Deluge, 'left the land of Chaldea when he was seventy-five years old, and, at the command of God, went int^ Canaan, and therein he dwelt himself, and left it to his posterity. He was a person of great sagacity, both for understanding of all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions ; for which reason he began to have higher notions of vir- tue than othera had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinion all men happened then to have concerning God ; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, that there was but one God, the Creator DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 43 of the universe ; and that as to other gods, if they contributed anything to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to His appointment, and not by their own power. For which doctrines, when the Chaldeans and other people of Mesopotamia raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country, and at the command of God he came and lived in the land of Canaan. And when he was there settled, he built an altar, and performed a sacrifice to God.' After the death of Abraham's son Isaac, his younger son Jacob remained for a number of years in Canaan, surrounded by a family of twelve sons, one of whom, Joseph, as related in Scripture, became the cause of the removal of his father and brethren, and all belonging to them, into Egypt. The Hebrew emigrants were seventy in number, and formed at the first a respectable colony among the Egyptians. Jacob died after having been seventeen years in Egypt, and his body was carried by Joseph to Hebron, and buried in the sepulchre of his father and grandfather. Joseph also died in Egypt at the age of 110, and at length his brethren died likewise. Ea.'h of the twelve sons of Jacob became the progenitor of a family or tribe, and the twelve tribes, personified by the term Israel, continued to reside in Egypt, where they increased both in number and in wealth. Their rapid increase and prosperity soon excited the jealousy of the masters of the country ; and from being in high favor, the different tribes gradually fell under the lash of power, and came to be treated as public slaves. The entire body of Israelites, guided by Moses, fled from Egypt in the year 1490 before Christ, at a time when Thebes, Memphis, and the other magnificent cities of that country, were in all their glory. Pro- ceeding in a north-easterly direction from Rameses (near the site of mod- ern Cairo), they went through the level region of the land of Goshen (now a barren sandy plain) to the head of the Gulf of Suez, the western branch of the Red Sea. Here they crossed in a miraculous manner to the opposite shore, to a spot now called the Wells of Moses, where, accord- ing to the Scripture narrative, they sang their song of thanksgiving for their deliverance. The country in which they had now arrived was a por- tion of Arabia Petrrea, consisting of a dismal barren wilderness, now called the Desert of Sinai, from the principal mountain which rises within it. From the point at which the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea from Egypt, they were conducted by a most circuitous and tedious route towards the Promised Land of Canaan. The country on the shore of the Mediterranean which was allotted as a settlement to this people, was at that time occupied by many warlike tribes, who had grown strong in its fertile plains and valleys ; and the generation of the Hebrews who were conducted into it were compelled to fight for its possession. The struggle was not of long continuance. The whole land was conquered in the year B. c. 1450. According to the account given in the 26th chapter of the book of Num- bers, the Hebrew nation thus brought out of the land of Egypt and settled in Canaan amounted to 601,730 souls, unto whom the land was divided for an inheritance, according to the number of individuals in the respective tribes. Moses dying before the inheritance was entered upon, was succeeded by Joshua as a leader, and by him the Israelites were conducted across the Jordan. The political government of the various tribes, after their con 44 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. quest and settlement of Canaan, appears to have been republican, with mil- itary leaders called Judges ; but these acted by the direction of the Priest- hood, who were immediately counseled by the Deity within the sanctuary. This period of separate government in tribes, called the Period of the Judges, lasted 300 years (b. c. 1427-1112), and was one of daring actions and great deliverances — the heroic age of the Jews. The epoch of kings succeeded that of judges. The reign of Saul, their first monarch, though the people were stronger by being united, was gloomy and troubled. David, who succeeded, was a soldier and a conqueror. He rendered the Hebrews formidable to the whole of their enemies, and gave them a regular and defensible position, expelling their old antagonists from every part of the country. He left an empire peaceful, respected, and strong ; and, what was of as much importance, he selected from among his sons a successor who was able to improve all these advantages, and to add to the progress which his countrymen had already made in prosperity. Under Solomon, the name of the Hebrew government being able to protect its subjects in other countries, the people and their king began to employ themselves in commerce. Their trade was at first engrafted on that of the Phoenicians of Tyre. A greater contrast cannot be imagined than between the troubles of the time of the Judges (only 100 years before), and the peace, security, and enjoyment of this reign. 'And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made he to be as sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance ; and Judah and Israel were many ; as the sand which is by the sea-shore for multitude, eating, and drinking, and making merry.' (1 Kings, x. 27.) After the death of Solomon, the country fell into the same divisions which had weakened it in the time of the Judges. Each of the districts of North and South Israel was under a separate king, and the people were exposed both to the attacks of their enemies and to quarrels with each other. Their history is a succession of agitating conflicts for independence, and of unex- pected and remarkable deliverances, of a similar nature to those of the earlier period, and they continued for about the same length of time (380 years) ; but they are marked by fewer of those traits of heroic devotion which distinguished the epoch of the Judges. The backslidings, errors, and misgovernment of their kings, is the chief and painful subject which is presented to us ; and though these are relieved at times by the appear- ance of such monarchs as Josiah, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, yet the whole history of this period is overcast with the gloominess of progressive decline. By far the most delightful parts of it are those which relate to the lives of the prophets, who were raised up at intervals to warn the nation and its rulers of the fate which they incurred by forsaking the religion of their fathers. These inspired men sometimes sprang up from among the humblest classes of the community: one from the 'herdsmen of Tekoa,' another from 'ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen ;' several were of the priestly order, and one (Isaiah) is said to have been of royal lineage ; but the works of all are marked with the same sacredness, force, and authority. They reprehend their countrymen, in the most eloquent strains, at one timo for idolatry, and at another for hypocrisy ; and their indignation is express ed with the same freedom and dignity against the vices of the highest and the lowest. Of the two kingdoms into which Palestine divided itself after the death DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 45 of Solomon (b. c. 975), the northern, called the Kingdom of Israel, was conquered by the Assyrians of Nineveh (b. c. 722),who carried off many thousand of the people into captivity. Little is known of their fate. By some they are supposed to have been carried to India, by others to Tartary : 'what became of all the Israelites of the ten tribes,' is still a question with historians. The southern kingdom, called the kingdom of Judah, retained its independence till B. c. 588, when it was invaded and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem, and carried away a great number of the principal Jews into captivity at Babylon. On the subversion of the Babylonian dominion by Cyrus, seventy years after- wards, the captives, to the number of 42,360, were permitted to return to their own land, and rebuild Jerusalem. At this period, the whole of Pales- tine merged in the growing Persian empire. The Assyrians and Babylonians. That large extent of level coun- try situated between and on the banks of the two great rivers, the Euphra- tes and the Tigris, was in the earliest antiquity, the seat of a Semitic popu- lation living under an organized government. Of the cities, the most im- portant ultimately were Babylon, built, by Nimrod, (b. c. 2217) ; and Nineveh (called Ninos by the Greeks), built either by Asshur or Nimrod about the same time, but afterwards rebuilt and enlarged, according to ancient tradition, by a great king, Ninus, (b. c. 1230). With these two cities as capitals, the country divided itself into two corresponding parts or kingdoms — the kingdom of Assyria proper, including, besides part of Mesopotamia, the country to the right of the Tigris as far as Mount Zagros; and the kingdom of Babylonia, including the western part of Mesopotamia, together with the country to the left of the Euphrates as far as Syria proper. The two kingdoms, however, are often included under the joint name of Assyria ; a word which, as well as the shorter form Syria, was often employed by the ancient Greek writers to designate the whole region lying along the courses of the two great rivers from the Black Sea to the northern angle of the Persian Gulf. Although Babylon was according to Scripture, the earlier of the two powers, yet the Assyrians of Nineveh attained such strength under their hero Ninus, as to reduce the Babylonians to a species of dependence. Under Ninus, and his wife and successor the great conqueress Semiramis, says ancient mythical history, the city of the Tigris extended its dominions far and wide, from Egypt to the border of India. This empire, known in the common chronologies by the name of 'The Assyrian Empire,' lasted, according to the usual accounts, five or six centuries, during which it was governed, in the absolute Oriental manner, by the successors of Ninus and Semiramis. Of these several are mentioned in Scripture — Phul, the con- temporary of Menahem, king of Israel (b. c. 761), Tiglath Pileser (b. c. 730), both of whom were mixed up with the affairs of Israel and Judah ; Salmanassar, cotemporary with Hezekiah, king of Judah, andHoseah, king of Israel, by whom it was that Samaria was taken (b. c. 722), and the Is- raelites led into captivity (b. c. 722); and Sennacherib, or Sanherib (b. c. 714), who attacked Egypt, and whose fruitless invasion of Judah forms the subject of the striking narrative in the 18th and 19th chapters of the second book of Kings , The last of the great line of the Assyrian kings of Nineveh 46 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. was the luxurious Sardanapalus, in whose reign the empire was dissolved, through the instrumentality of its revolted subjects the Medes (b. c. 626). After Nineveh, the greatest city in the Assyrian dominion was Babylon. Even while under the dominion of the kings of Nineveh, Babylon appears to have possessed a special organization under its own chiefs, several of whose names — such as Beldesis (b. c. 888), and Nabonassar (b. c. 747) — have been preserved ; and, together with the whole province of which it was the capital, to have pursued a special career. The peculiar element in the Babylonian society which distinguished it from that of Assyria proper, was its Chaldsean priesthood. 'The Chaldaean order of priests,' says Mr. Grote. 'appear to have been peculiar to Babylon and other towns in its territory, especially between that city and the Persian Gulf; the vast, rich, and lofty temple of Belus in that city served them at once as a place of worship and an astronomical observatory ; and it was the paramount ascendancy of this order which seems to have caused the Babylonian people generally to be spoken of as Chaldoeans, though some writers have sup- posed, without any good proof, a conquest of Assyrian Babylon by barba- rians called Chaldaeans from the mountains near the Euxine. There were^ exaggerated statements respecting the antiquity of their astronomical obser- ' vations,* which cannot be traced, as of definite and recorded date, higher than the era of Nabonassar (b. c. 747), as well as respecting the extent of their acquired knowledge, so largely blended with astrological fancies and occult influences of the heavenly bodies on human affairs. But how- ever incomplete their knowledge may appear when judged by the standard of after- times, there can be no doubt that, compared with any of their cotem- poraries of the sixth century B. c. — either Egyptians, Greeks, or Asiatics — they stood preeminent, and had much to teach, not only to Thales and Pythagoras, but even to later inquirers, such as Eudoxus and Aristotle. The conception of the revolving celestial sphere, the gnomon, and the di- vision of the day into twelve parts, are affirmed by Herodotus to have been first taught to the Greeks by the Babylonians.' This learned Chal- dsean class seems to have pervaded the general mass of Babylonian society, as the corresponding priest-caste in Egypt pervaded Egyptian society, with this difference, that Babylonian society does not appear to have been parceled out like the Egyptian into a rigorous system of castes. On the dissolution of the Assyrian empire of Nineveh by the Medes (b. C. 626), the Chaldsean fragment of it rose to eminence on its ruins, chiefly by the efforts of Nabopolassar, a viceroy of the last Assyrian king. Estab lishing Babylonia as an independent power in the east, Nabopolassar came into collision with Nekos, king of Egypt, who was at that time extending his empire into Asia. It was in opposing Nekos (Pharaoh-Necho) on his march to Babylon, that Josiah, king of Judah, was slain. At length (b. c 608 ) Nebuchadnezzar, or Nebuchodonosor, the son of Nabopolassar, defeated Nekos, and annexed all his conquests in Asia to his father's king- dom. Two years afterwards the same prince took Jerusalem, and carried away a number of captives to Babylon, among whom were Daniel and his companions. Succeeding his father, B. c 605, Nebuchadnezzar reigned over Babylon forty-three years (b. c. 605-561) ; and during his reign ex- *When Alexander the Great was in Babylon, the Chaldreans told him their order had be- ^un their astronomical observations 400,000 years before he was born. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 47 tended the empire to the Mediterranean and the borders of Egypt, adding to it Palestine, Phoenicia, etc. With his countenance the Medes and Lyd- ians destroyed Nineveh (b. c. 601). The great abduction of Jewish cap- tives by his orders took place b. c. 588. He was succeeded (b. c. 561) by his son, Evil-Merodach, who was dethroned (b. c. 559) by his brother- in-law Neriglissar, whose son and successor, Laboroso-archod, was dethron- ed, after a brief reign, by Nabonnedus, the Belshazzar of Scripture (b. c , 555) : in the eighteenth year of whose reign (b. c. 538) Babylon was taken by Cyrus, and passed into the hands of the Persians. It was during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar that the city of Babylon attained that glory which has rendered it a known word to all who are at all acquainted with history. Herodotus, who saw the city in its decline, gives a description of it which has seemed incredible to many, although now fully verified. ' The city, divided in the middle by the Euphrates, was surrounded with walls in thickness 75 feet, in height 300 feet and in com- pass 480 stadia, or about 60 of our miles.' Within this circuit there was included, besides the houses, a space of vacant ground, gardens, pasture, etc., sufficient to accommodate the country population in case of invasion: the height and strength of the walls rendered the city itself to all appear- ance impregnable. 'These walls formed an exact square, each side of which was 120 stadia, or 15 miles in length ; and were built of large bricks ce- mented together with bitumen, a glutinous slime which issues out of the earth in that country, and in a short time becomes harder than the very brick or stone which it cements. The city was encompassed without the walls of a vast ditch filled with water, and lined with bricks on both sides ; and as the earth that was dug out of it served to make the bricks, we may judge of the depth and largeness of the ditch from the height and thick- ness of the walls. In the whole compass of the walls there were a hun- dred gates — that is, twenty-five on each side, all made of solid brass. At intervals round the walls were 250 towers. From each of the twenty- five gates there was a straight street extending to the corresponding gate, in the opposite wall ; the whole number of streets was therefore fifty, cross- ing each other at right angles, and each fifteen miles long. The breadth of the streets was about 150 feet. By their intersection the city was di- vided into 676 squares, each about two miles and a quarter in compass, round which were the houses, three or four stories in height ; the vacant spaces within being laid out in gardens,' etc. Within the city the two greatest edifices were the royal palace with its hanging gardens, and the temple of Belus, composed of eight towers built one above another, to the enormous height, it is said, of a furlong. Without the city were numerous canals, embankments, etc., for the pur- pose of irrigating the country, which, as little or no rain fell, depended on the river for moisture. ' The execution of such colossal works as those of Babylon and Egypt,' it has been remarked, ' demonstrates habits of reg- ular industry, a concentrated population under one government, and above all, an implicit submission to the regal and kingly sway — contrasted forci bly with the small self-governing communities of Greece and western Eu rope, where the will of the individual citizen was so much more energetic.' In the latter countries only such public works were attempted as were with- in the limits of moderate taste. Nineveh is said to have been larger even 48 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. than Babylon, and is described as an oblong, three days' journey round — that is, upwards of 60 miles. The Medes and Persians. Extending, as we have said, from the Mediterranean to the Indus, the Assyrian empire had included not only the chief Semitic nations of western Asia, but also that portion of the Indo-Germanic family which was contained between Mount Zagros and the river Indus. Essentially a prolongation of the great race which in- habited Hindoostan, the nature of their country — a vast table-land, here and there rising into hills, or presenting spots of great fertility — had made them quite different in character and habits from the settled and stereotyped Hindoos. All parts of this plateau of Iran, as it was called, including the present countries of Persia, Cabool, and Belochistan, were not alike ; in some portions, where the soil was fertile, there existed a dense agricultural population; in others, the inhabitants were nomadic horse-breeders, cattle-rearers, and shepherds. All the tribes, however, were bound together by the ties of a common Indo-Persic language, quite distinct from that spoken by their Semitic neighbors and masters, and by a common religion. This religion, called the Religion of Zend, a modifi- cation probably of some more ancient form, from which Hindooism may also have sprung, was taught by Zerdusht or Zoroaster, a great native reformer and spiritual teacher, who lived six or seven centuries before Christ. The principal doctrine of his religion was that of the existence of two great emanations from the Supreme and perfect Deity — the one a good spirit (Orrnuzd), who created man, and fitted him for happiness; the other an evil spirit, named Ahriman, who has marred the beauty of creation by introducing evil into it. Between these two spirits and their adherents there is an incessant struggle for the mastery ; but ultimately Orrnuzd will conquer, and Ahriman and evil will be banished from the bosom of creation into eternal darkness. The worship annexed to this doctrine was very simple, dispensing with temples or images, and consist- ing merely of certain solemn rites performed on mountain tops, etc. Fire, and light, and the sun, were worshiped either as symbols or as inferior deities. A caste of priests, called the Magi, answering in some respects to the Brahmins of India or the Chaldaeans of Babylon, superintended these ceremonies, and commented on the religion of Zoroaster. Various of the tribes of Iran, associating themselves together, constitu- ted little nations. Thus adjacent to Assyria, and separated from it by Mount Zagros, was an agglomeration of seven tribes or villages, under the special name of the Medes, the country which they inhabited being thence called Media. South from Media, and nearer the sea, was another district of Iran, called Persis or Persia, inhabited also by an association of tribes calling themselves the Persians. Other nations of Iran were the Parthians, the Bactrians, etc. — all originally subject to the Assyrian empire. Median history begins with a hero king called Deiokes (b. c. 710-657), who effected some important changes in the constitution of the nation, and founded the Median capital Ekbatana in one of the most pleasant sites in the world. His son, Phraortes (b. c. 657-635), pursued a career of con- quest, subjugated Persia and other districts of Iran, and perished in an in- vasion of Assyria. He was succeeded by his son Cyaxares, who continued his designs of conquest, and extended the Median dominion as far west- ward into Asia Minor as the river Halys. He was engaged in a repeti DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 49 tion of his father's attempt against Nineveh, when he was called away to defend his kingdom against a great roving population, belonging, as is most likely, to the Scythian branch of the Caucasian race (although some reck- on them Mongols), who, bursting with their herds of horses and mares from their native seat in Central Asia, had driven the Cimmerians, a kindred race, before them into Asia Minor, and then had poured themselves over the plateau of Iran. Defeating Cyaxares, they kept him from his throne for a period of twenty-eight years, during which they ruled in savage fash- ion over Media, Persia, etc. At length, having assassinated their chiefs by a stratagem, Cyaxares regained his dominions, and drove the invadeis back into the north. He then renewed his attempt against Nineveh ; took it ; and reduced the Assyrian empire, with the exception of Babylonia, un- der his dominion. The Median empire, thus formed, he bequeathed (b. c. 595) to his son Astyages. Astyages having given his daughter Mandane in marriage to a Persian chieftain named Cambyses, the issue of this marriage was the famous Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy. The circumstances which led to the revolt of the Persians under Cyrus against the Medes, and the dethrone- ment by him of his grand-father Astyages (b. c. 560), had been woven into a romance resembling the story of Romulus, even so early as the age of Herodotus (b.c.408), so that that accurate historian could not ascer- tain the particulars. ' The native Persians,' says Mr. Grote, ' whom Cyrus conducted, were an aggregate of seven agricultural and four nomadic tribes, all of them rude, hardy, and brave, dwelling in a mountainous re- gion, clothed in skins, ignorant of wine or fruit, of any of the commonest luxuries of life, and despising the very idea of purchase or sale. Their tribes were very unequal in point of dignity ; first in estimation among them stood the Pasargadae ; and the first clan among the Pasargadse were the Achsemenidse, to whom Cyrus belonged. Whether his relationship to the Median king whom he dethroned was a fact or 'a politic fiction we can- not well determine, but Xenophon gives us to understand that the conquest of Media by the Persians was reported to him as having been an obstinate and protracted struggle.' Master of Media, the Persian chief in his turn became a great Oriental conqueror ; indeed all the Oriental conquests bear the same character. A nomadic race, led by a chief of great abilities, invades the more organized states, and conquers them ; the chief assumes the government, and founds a dynasty, which after a rule of several generations, becomes enervated, and gives way before some new nomadic incursion. The first power against which Cyrus turned his arms, after having subdued the Medes, was the famous Lydian kingdom, which then subsisted in Asia Minor under the great Croesus. And here, therefore, we must give some account of the ancient condition of Asia Minor and its principalities. States of Asia Minor — The Lydians. The river Halys divided Asia Minor into two parts. East of the Halys, or near its source, were various nations of the Semitic stock — Cappadocians, Cilicians, Pamphy- lians etc. — each organized apart, but all included under the Assyrian, and latterly, as we have seen, under the Median empire. West of the Halys, the inhabitants were apparently of the Indo-Germanic race, although sep- arated by many removes from the Indo-Germans of Persia. Overspread 4* 50 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. ing this part of Asia Minor, as well as Thrace and other parts of south- eastern Europe, this great race had been broken up into fragments distin- guished by characteristic differences. To enumerate these various nations, assigning to each its exact geographical limits, is impossible ; the chief, however, were the Bithynians, a sort of Asiatic Thracians on the southern coast of the Euxine ; the Lydians and Carians in the south-west ; and, intermediate between the two, geographically as well as in respect of race and language, the Mysians and Phrygians. These were the native states ; but along the whole iEgean shore was diffused a large Greek population, emigrants, it is believed, from European Greece, chiefly gathered into cities. These Greeks of Asia Minor were of three races — the iEolic Greeks in the north, and the Ionian and Dorian Greeks in the south ; and perhaps the earliest manifestations of Greek genius, political or literary, were among these Greeks of Asia. The intercourse of these Greeks with the native Lydians, Phrygians, etc., gave rise to mixture of population as well as to interchange of habits ; the native music especially of the Lydi- ans and Phrygians became incorporated with that of the Greeks. When Lydia, with its capital Sardis, first began to be a powerful state, is not known ; it is remarkable, however, that the Lydians are not men- tioned in Homer. According to Herodotus, the Lydians traced their his- tory back through three dynasties. 1st, The Atyadae, from the earliest times to b. c. 1221 ; 2c?, The Heracleidse, from b. c. 122 to b. c. 716 ; and 3c?, The Mermnaclse. Only the last dynasty is historic ; the manner in which it succeeded to that of the Heracleidae forms the subject of a curious Lyd- ian legend. The first king of the Mermoad dynasty was Gyges (b. c. 716-678), the second Ardys (b. c. 678-629), in whose reign the Cimmerians invaded Asia Minor, the third Sadyattes (b. c. 629-617), the fourth Alyattes (b. C. 617-560). Each of these Lydian kings was engaged in wars both with the Asiatic Greeks of the coast and the native states of the interior. The growth of the Lydian power was impeded by the Cimmerian invasion ; but those savage nomades were at length expelled by Alyattes ; and Croesus, the son of Alyattes by an Ionian wife, having succeeded his father b. c. 560, soon raised himself to the position of a great potentate, ruling over nearly the whole country westward of the Halys, comprehending iEolian, Ionian, and Dorian Greeks ; Phrygians ; Mysians, Paphlagonians, Bithynians, Carians, Pamphylians, etc. At Sardis, the capital of this extensive domin- ion, was accumulated an immense treasure, composed of the tribute which the Lydian monarch derived from the subject states ; hence the proverb, 'as rich as Croesus.' Separated from the Median kingdom only by the river Halys, the Lyd- ian dominion naturally became an object of desire to Cyrus after he had acquired the sovereignty of Media. Accordingly (b. c. 546), provoked by an invasion of Croesus, who had received from the Delphic oracle the equivocal assurance, that ' if he attacked the Persians he would subvert a mighty monarchy,' Cyrus crossed the Halys, advanced into Lydia, took Sardis, and made Croesus prisoner. It was intended by the conqueror that the Lydian king should be burnt alive — it is even said that the fire was kindled for the purpose ; Cyrus, however, spared his life, and Croesus became his friend and confidential adviser. On the subversion of the Lyd- ian monarchy, its subjects, the Greeks of Asia Minor, were obliged to DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 51 submit to the conqueror, after having in vain solicited the aid of their brethren the European Greeks. The Lacedaemonians indeed sent an em- bassy into Asia Minor ; and one of their ambassadors had a conference with Cyrus at Sardis, where he warned him ' not to lay hands on any of the Greek towns, for the Lacedaemonians would not permit it.' ' Who are the Lacedaemonians ? ' said the astonished warrior. Having been informed that the Lacedaemonians were a Greek people, who had a capital called Sparta, where there was a regular market, ' I have never yet,' said he, ' been afraid of this kind of men, who have a set place in the middle of their city where they meet to cheat one another and tell lies. If I live, they shall have troubles of their own to talk about.' To save themselves from the Persians, the Ionian portion of the Asiatic Greeks proposed a uni /ersal emigration to the island of Sardinia — a striking design, which, however, was not carried into execution. All Asia Minor ultimately yielded to Cyrus. The Persian Empire. Having subdued Asia Minor, Cyrus next turn- ed his arms against the Assyrians of Babylon. His siege and capture of Babylon (b.c. 538), when he effected Ins entrance by diverting the course of the Euphrates, form one of the most romantic incidents in history ; an incident connected with Scriptural narrative through its result — the eman- cipation of the Jews from their captivity. Along with Babylon, its depen- dencies, Phoenicia and Palestine, came under the Persians. Cyrus, one of the most remarkable men of the ancient world, having perished in an invasion of Scythia (b.c. 529), was succeeded by his son Cambyses, who annexed Egypt to the Persian empire (b.c. 525), having defeated Psammanitus, the son of the Pharaoh Amasis. Foiled in his in- tention of penetrating Libya and Ethiopia, Cambyses was dethroned by a Magiau impostor, who called himself Smerdis, pretending that he was the younger brother of Cambyses, although this brother had been put to death by the order of Cambyses during a fit of madness. A conspiracy of seven great nobles having been formed against the false Smerdis, he was put to death. He was succeeded by one of the conspiring chiefs called Darius Hystaspes, who reigned — over the immense Persian empire, extending from the Nile to the Indus, and beyond it — from B.C. 531 to B.C. 485. ' The reign of Darius,' says Mr. Grote, ' was one of organization, different from that of his predecessor — a difference which the Persians well under- stood and noted, calling Cyrus " the father," Cambyses " the master," and Darius " the retail trader or huckster." In the mouth of the Persians this last epithet must be construed as no insignificant compliment, since it intimates that he was the first to introduce some methodical order into the imperial administration and finances. Under the two former kings there was no definite amount of tribute levied upon the subject provinces. But Darius probably felt it expedient to relieve the provinces from the burden of undefined exactions. He distributed the whole empire into twenty de- partments (called Satrapies), imposing upon each a fixed annual tax. This, however, did not prevent each satrap. (the Persian governor appointed by the king) in his own province from indefinite requisitions. The satrap was a little king, who acted nearly as he pleased in the internal adminis- tration of his province, subject only to the necessity of sending up the imperial tribute to the king at Susa, the capital of the Persian empire ; 52 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. of keeping off foreign enemies ; and of furnishing an adequate military contingent for the foreign enterprises of the great king. To every satrap was attached a royal secretary or comptroller of the revenue, who probably managed the imperial finances in the province, and to whom the court of Susa might perhaps look as a watch upon the satrap himself. The satrap or the secretary apportioned the sum payable by the satrapy in the aggre- gate among the various component districts, towns, or provinces, leaving to the local authorities in each of these latter the task of assessing it upon individual inhabitants. From necessity, therefore, as we'll as from indo- lence of temper and political incompetence, the Persians were compelled to respect the authorities which they found standing both in town and coun- try, and to leave in their hands a large measure of genuine influence. Of- ten even the petty kings who had governed separate districts during their state of independence, prior to the Persian conquest, retained their title and dignity as tributaries to the court of Susa. The empire of the great king was thus an aggregate of heterogeneous elements, connected together by no tie except that of common fear and subjection — noway coherent nor self-supporting, nor pervaded by any common system or spirit of nation- ality.' Continuation through Greek and Roman History. How Darius, in consequence of the assistance rendered by the Athenians to the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, who had revolted against him (b.c. 502), sent a vast Persian army into European Greece ; how this army was defeated by the Athenian general, Miltiades, with only 11,000 men, in the glorious battle of Marathon (b.c. 490) ; how, ten years later, Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, undertook an expedition against Greece with a host of several millions, and was defeated by Themistocles in a naval battle at Salamis (b.c. 480), which was followed by two contemporaneous defeats of his lieutenants at Platsea and Mycale (b. c. 479) ; how the Persians were thus finally driven back into Asia ; how for a century and a-half relations, sometimes hostile and sometimes friendly, were maintained be- tween the Greek states and the Persian monarchs, the degenerate succes- sors of Darius and Xerxes, under whom the empire had begun to crumble ; how at length, in the reign of Darius Codomannus (b. c. 324), Alexan- der the Great retaliated on the Persians the wrongs they had done the Greeks by invading and destroying their decrepit empire, and organizing all the countries between the Adriatic and the Indus under, not a Semit- ic, as in the case of the Assyrian empire, nor an Indo-Germanic, as in the case of the Persic empire, but a Greek or Pelasgic system ; how, on Alex- ander's death (b. c. 323), this vast agglomeration of the human species fell asunder into three Greek monarchies — the Macedonian monarchy, in- cluding the states of European Greece ; the Egyptian monarchy of the Ptolemies, including, besides Egypt, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Arabia ; and the Syrian monarchy of the Seleucidse, comprehending, although with a weak grasp, Asia Minor (or at least parts of it which had belonged to the Lydian and Assyrian empires), Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia — with the loss, however, of the countries between the Tigris and the Indus, where a germ of independence arose (b. c. 236) in a native nomad dynasty, which ultimately united all the tribes of Iran in one empire, called the Parthian V DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 53 Empire ; and how these three fragments dragged on a separate existence, full of wars and revolts ; all this belongs to Grecian history. How, about two centuries and a half before Christ, another, but more mixed portion of this Pelasgic family, which had arisen in Italy, and in the course of several centuries rendered itself coextensive with that peninsula — began to assume consequence in the wider area of the Mediterranean world : how it first grappled with the power of the Carthaginians (b. c. 264-201), who for several centuries had been pursuing the career of world- merchants, formerly pursued by their fathers the Phoenicians ; how it then assailed and subdued the crumbling Macedonian monarchy, incorporating all Greece with itself (b. c. 134) ; how retrograding, so to speak, into Asia, it gradually absorbed the Syrian and Egyptian monarchies, till it came into collision with the Parthian empire at the Euphrates (b. c. 134 — b. c. 60) ; how, advancing into the new regions of northern and west- ern Europe, it compelled the yet uncultured races there — the Celts or Gauls, the Iberians, etc. — to enter the pale of civilization (b. c. 80-50) ; how thus, from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, was founded a new empire, called ' The Roman,' retaining, with vast additions, all that portion of hu- manity which the former empires had embraced, with the exception of what had lapsed back to the Parthians ; how this empire subsisted for several centuries, a great mass of matured humanity girt by comparative barbar- ism — that is, surrounded on the east by the Parthians, on the south by the Ethiopians, on the north by the Germans and Scythians, and on the west by the roar of the Atlantic ; and how at last (a. d. 400-475) this great mass, having lost its vitality, fell asunder before the irruption of the bar- baric element — that is, the Germans, the Scythians, and the Arabs — giv- ing rise to the infant condition of the modern world ; all this belongs to Roman history, which forms the subject of a separate treatise. With one general remark we shall conclude ; namely : that the progress of history — that is, of Caucasian development — has evidently been, upon the whole, from the east westward. First, as we have seen, the Assyrian or Semitic fermentation affected western Asia as far as the Mediterranean ; then the Persian movement extended the historic stage to the iEgean ; af- ter that the Macedonian conquest extended it to the Adriatic ; and finally, the Romans extended it to the Atlantic. For fifteen centuries humanity kept dashing itself against this barrier ; till, at length, like a great mis- sionary sent in search, the spirit of Columbus shot across the Atlantic. And now, in the form of a dominant Anglic race, though with large inter- mixture, Caucasian vitality is working in its newest method, with Ethiopian help, on the broad and fertile field of America. HISTORY OP GREECE — EARLY MYTHOLOGY. The history of the Grecian states commences about 1800 years before Christ, when the Egyptians on the opposite side of the Mediterranean were in a high state of civilization ; but the portion of history which pre- cedes 884 B. c. is understood to be fabulous, and entitled to little credit. According to the Greek poets, the original inhabitants of the country, 54 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. denominated Pelasgians, were a race of savages, who lived in caves, and clothed themselves with the skins of the wild beasts. Uranus, an Egyptian prince, landed in the country, and became the father of a family of giants, named Titans, who rebelled against, and dethroned him. His son Saturn, who reigned in his stead, in order to prevent the like misfortune from befall- ing himself, ordered all his own children to be put to death as soon as they were born. But one named Jupiter was concealed by the mother, and reared in the island of Crete, from which in time he returned, and deposed his father. The Titans, jealous of this new prince, rebelled against him, but were vanished and expelled forever from the country. Jupiter divided his dominions with his brothers Neptune and Pluto. The countries which he reserved to himself he governed with great wis- dom, holding his court on Mount Olympus, a hill in Thessaly, 9000 feet in height, and the loftiest in Greece. Any truth which there might be in the story of the Titans and their princes was completely disguised by the poets, and by the popular imagination. Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were looked back to, not as mortals, but as deities ; and the top of Mount Olympus was supposed to be the heavenly residence of gods, by whom the affairs of mortals were governed. And for ages after the dawn of phi- losophy, these deified sons of Saturn, and numberless others connected with them, were the objects of the national worship, not only among the Greeks, but also among the Romans. At an uncertain but very early date an Asiatic people named the Helle- nes immigrated into Greece, in some cases expelling the Pelasgi, and in others intermingling with them, so that in process of time all the inhabitants of Greece came to be called Hellenes. They were, however, divided into several tribes the principal of which were the Dorians, iEolians, and Ion- ians, each of whom spoke a dialect differing in some respect from those made use of by the others. These dialects were named the Doric, iEolic, and Ionic, in reference to the tribes which used them ; and a fourth, which was afterwards formed from the Ionic, was named the Attic, from its being spoken by the inhabitants of Attica. In the year 1856 b. c, Inachus a Phoenician adventurer, is said to have arrived in Greece at the head of a small band of his countrymen. Phoe- nicia, a petty state on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Asia Minor, was at this time one of a few countries, including Egypt and Assyria, in which some degree of civilization prevailed, while all the rest of the peo- ple of the earth remained in their original barbarism like the Pelasgians before the supposed arrival of Uranus. Navigation for the purposes of commerce, and the art of writing, are said to have originated with the Phoenicans. On their arrival in Greece, Inachus and his friends founded the city of Argos, at the head of what is now called the Gulf of Napoli, in the Peloponnesus. Three hundred years after this event (1556 b. c), a colony, led by an Egyptian named Cecrops, arrived in Attica, and founded the celebrated city of Athens, fortifying a high rock which rose precipitously above the site afterwards occupied by the town. Egypt is situated in the north-eastern part of Africa. It is bounded on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, and is watered by the great river Nile, the periodical overflowings of w 7 hich by supplying the moisture nec- essary for vegetation, render the soil very fertile. From this country, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 55 which had at a very early period made considerable advances in some of the arts and sciences (see Ancient History), Cecrops imparted much valuable knowledge to the rude inhabitants of Attica, whom he had per- suaded or obliged to acknowledge him as their chief or king. He placed his rocky fastness under the protection of an Egyptian goddess, from whose Greek name, Athena (afterwards changed by the Latins into Minerva), the city which subsequently rose around the eminence was called Athens. About the year 1493 b. c, Cadmus, a Phoenician, founded the city of Thebes in Boeotia ; and among other useful things which he communicated to the Greeks, he is said to have taught them alphabetical writing, although it is certain that that art did not come into common use in Greece until seve- ral centuries after this period. The city of Corinth, situated on the narrow isthmus which connects the Pe- loponnesus with the mainland of Greece, was founded in the year 1520 B.C., and from its very advantageous position on the arm of the sea to which it anciently gave its name, but which is now known as the Gulf of Lepanto, it very soon became a place of considerable commercial importance. Spar- ta or Lacedsemon, the celebrated capital of Laconia in the Peloponnesus, is said to have been founded about 1520 b. c. by Lelex, an Egyptian. In the year 1185 B. c, an Egyptian named Danaus, accompanied by a party of his countrymen, arrived at Argos, the inhabitants of which must have been at that period in an exceedingly rude state, since it is said that he excited their gratitude so much by teaching them to dig wells, when the streams from which they were supplied with water were dried up with the heat, that they elected him as their king. Fully more than a century after this period (about 1350 b. c), Pelops, the son of a king of Phrygia, a country in Asia Minor, settled in that part of Greece which was afterwards called from him Peloponnesus, or the island of Pelops, where he married the daughter of one of the native princes, whom he afterwards succeeded on the throne. In the course of his long reign, he found means to strengthen and greatly extend his influence in Greece, by forming matrimonial alliances between various branches of his own house and the other royal families of the Peloponnesus. Agam- emnon, king of Mycenae, in Argolis, who was, according to the poet Homer, the commander-in-chief of the Greeks at the siege of Troy, and Menelaus, king of Sparta, on account of whose wrongs that war was undertaken, were descended from this Phrygian adventurer. Hercules, a Theban prince, was another of the descendants of Pelops. The numerous and extraordinary feats of strength and valor of Hercules excited the admiration of his cotemporaries, and being afterwards exagge- rated and embellished by the poets, caused him at length to be regarded as a person endowed with supernatural powers, and even to be worshiped as a god. Theseus succeeded his father on the Athenian throne (1234 b. a), and by his wise regulations greatly consolidated the strength and increased the prosperity of his kingdom. Cecrops, the founder of Athens, had divided Attica into twelve districts, each of which possessed its own magistracy and judicial tribunals. As the country advanced in wealth and population, these districts became less closely connected with each other, and at the period of the accession of Theseus, they could hardly be regarded in any other light than as so many little independent communities, whose perpet- 56 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. ual disputes kept the whole district in broils and confusion. But Theseus had influence enough with all parties to obtain their consent to the abolition of the separate jurisdictions, and to the fixing of all civil and judicial au- thority in the capital. He at the same time voluntarily resigned into their hands a portion of his own power. Having divided the people into three classes — the nobles, the artisans, and the cultivators of the soil — he in- trusted the first of these with the administration of public affairs, and the dispensation of justice, while he conferred upon every freeman or citizen, without distinction of class, a vote in the legislative assemblies. The com- mand of the army, and the presidency of the state, he retained in his own person. To strengthen the political union of the various districts of his kingdom by the tie of a common religion, he instituted a solemn festival, to be cele- brated annually at Athens by all the inhabitants of Attica, in honor of Minerva, the tutelary deity of the city. This festival he denominated Pan- athense, or the Feast of all the Athenians, the name by which the whole of the people of Attica were thenceforth called. The wise and liberal policy of Theseus caused Attica to advance consid- erably beyond the other states of Greece in prosperity and civilization ; and the ancient historian, Thucydides, informs us that the Athenians were the first of the Greeks who laid aside the military dress and arms, which till now had been constantly worn. The example of Athens was not lost on the other Grecian communities, all of which gradually adopted, to a greater or less extent, those political institutions which had conferred so many advantages upon Attica. Notwithstanding the judicious and exemplary conduct of Theseus in the early part of the reign, he appears to have afterwards allowed his restless and adventurous disposition to hurry him into many extravagances, and even crimes, by which he forfeited the respect of his people, and brought disgrace and suffering on his latter years. If we may believe the tradi- tionary accounts, he accompanied Hercules in some of his celebrated ex- peditions, and assisted by Pirithous, a king of Thessaly, engaged in many martial and predatory adventures, conformably rather with the very imper- fect morality and rude manners of the age, than with his own previous char- acter. There reigned in Lacedsemon at this period a king named Tynda- rus, who had a beautiful daughter called Helen, and according to the an- cient historians, Theseus and his friend Pirithous formed the design of stealing away this young lady, and a princess of Epirus named Proser- pine. They succeeded in carrying off Helen ; but in their attempt to ob- tain Proserpine, they fell into the hands of her father, by whom Pirithous was put to death, and Theseus thrown into prison. Meanwhile, Castor and Pollux, the twin-brothers of Helen, who were afterwards deified, and whose names have been bestowed upon one of the signs of the Zodiac (Gemini), rescued their sister from the men to whom Theseus bad given her in charge, and ravaged Attica in revenge for the injury they had re- ceived from its king. Theseus was afterwards released from imprisonment by the assistance of Hercules, and returned home ; but the Athenians had become so offended with his conduct, and were so angry at his having exposed them to ill treat- ment from the Lacedaemonians by his wicked attempt upon Helen, that they refused to receive him again as their sovereign. He therefore with DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 57 drew into exile, and soon after died in the island of Scyros. The Athe- nian people, however, never forgot the benefits he had in his wiser days conferred upon the state ; and many centuries after his death, his bones, or some which were supposed to be his, were conveyed to Athens with great pomp, and a splendid temple was erected above them to his memory. The Lacedaemonian princess who was stolen away by Theseus after- wards became the occasion of a celebrated war. The fame of her great beauty having spread far and wide, many of the princes of Greece asked her from her father Tyndarus in marriage ; but he, being fearful of incur- ring the enmity of the rejected suitors, declined showing a preference for any of them. Assembling them all, he bound them by an oath to acquiesce in the selection which Helen herself should make, and to protect her against any attempts which might afterwards be made to carry her off from the husband of her choice. Helen gave the preference to Menelaus, a grand- son of Pelops, and this successful suitor, on the death of Tyndarus, was raised to the Spartan throne. At this period, in the north-western part of Asia Minor, on the shores of the Hellespont and the iEgean Seas, there existed a kingdom, the capi- tal of which was a large and well-fortified city named Troy, or Ilium. Pri- am the king of Troy, had a son whose name was Paris ; and this young chief, in the course of a visit to Greece, resided for a time in Sparta at the court of Menelaus, who gave the Asiatic stranger a very friendly recep- tion. Charmed with Helen's beauty, Paris employed the opportunity affor- ded by a temporary absence of her husband to gain her affections, and per- suade her to elope with him to Troy. It was not, according to the old poets, to his personal attractions, great as they were, that Paris owed his success on this occasion, but to the aid of the goddess of Love, whose favor he had won by assigning to her the palm of beauty, on an occasion when it was contested between her and two other female deities. When Menelaus returned home, he was naturally wroth at finding his hospitality so ill requited ; and after having in vain endeavored, both by re- monstrances and threats, to induce the Trojans to send him back his queen, he applied to the princes who had formerly been Helen's lovers, and called upon them to aid him according to their oaths, in recovering her from her seducer. They obeyed the summons ; and all Greece being indignant at the insult offered to Menelaus, a general muster of the forces of the various states took place at Aulis, a seaport town of Boeotia preparatory to their crossing the iEgean to the Trojan shore. This is supposed to have happened in the year 1194 b. c. Of the chiefs assembled on this occasion, the most celebrated were Agam- emnon, king of Mycene ; Menelaus, king of Sparta ; Ulysses, king of Ith- aca ; Nestor, king of Pylos ; Achilles, son of the king of Thessaly ; Ajax, of Salamis ; Diomedes, of iEtolia ; and Idomeneus, of Crete. Agamemnon, the brother of the injured Menelaus, was elected comman- der-in-chief of the confederated Greeks. According to some ancient au- thors, this general was barbarous enough to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, to induce the gods to send a favoring gale to the Grecian fleet when it was detained by contrary winds in the port of Aulis ; but as the earliest writers respecting the Trojan war make no mention of this unnatural act, it is to be hoped that it never was performed. 58 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. The Grecian armament consisted of about 1200 vessels, with from 50 to 120 men in each, and the army which warred against Troy is supposed to have amounted altogether to about 100,000 men. The Trojans, although reinforced by auxiliary bands from Assyria, Thrace, and Asia Minor, were unable to withstand the Greeks in the open country, and they therefore soon retired within the walls of their city. In those early times men were unskilled in the art of reducing fortified places, and the Greeks knew of no speedier way of taking Troy than block ading it till the inhabitants should be compelled by famine to surrender. But here a new difficulty arose. No arrangements had been made for supplying the invaders with provisions during a lengthened seige ; and af- ter they had plundered and laid waste the surrounding country, they began to be in as great danger of starvation as the besieged. The supplies which arrived from Greece were scanty and irregular, and it became necessary to detach a part of the beleaguering forces to cultivate the plains of the Chersonesus of Thrace, in order to raise crops for the support of themselves and their brethren in arms. The Grecian army being thus weakened, the Trojans wei-e encouraged to make frequent sallies, in which they were led generally by the valiant Hector, Priam's eldest and noblest son. Many skirmishes took place, and innumerable deeds of individual heroism were performed, all of which led to no important result, for the opposing armies were so equally matched, that neither could obtain any decisive advantage over the other. At length, after a siege of no less than ten years, in the course of which some of the most distinguished leaders on both sides were slain, Troy was taken, its inhabitants slaughtered, and its edifices burnt and razed to the ground. According to the poets, it was by a stratagem that this famous city was at last overcome. They tell us that the Greeks constructed a wooden horse of prodigious size, in the body of which they concealed a number of armed men, and then retired towards the sea-shore, to induce the enemy to believe that the besiegers had given up the enterprise, and were about to return home. Deceived by this manoeuvre, the Trojans brought the gigantic horse into the city, and the men who had been concealed within it, stealing out in the night-time, unbarred the gates, and admitted the Grecian army within the walls. The siege of Troy forms the subject of Homer's sublime poem, the ' Iliad,' in which the real events of the war are intermingled with many fictitious and supernatural incidents. The Greek princes discovered that their triumph over Troy was dearly paid for by their subsequent sufferings, and the disorganization of their kingdoms at home. Ulysses, if we may believe the poets, spent ten years in wandering over seas and lands before arriving in his island of Ithaca. Others of the leaders died or were shipwrecked on their way home, and several of those who succeeded in reaching their own dominions, found their thrones occupied by usurpers, and were compelled to return to their vessels, and seek in distant lands a place of rest and security for their declining years. But the fate of Agamemnon, the renowned general of the Greeks, was the most deplorable of all. On his return to Argos, he wa3 assassinated by his wife Clytemnestra, who had formed an attachment during his absence to another person. Agamemnon's son, Orestes, was driven into exile, but afterwards returned to Argos, and putting his mother DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 59 and her accomplices to death, established himself upon the throne. About eighty years after the termination of the Trojan war, an extensive revolution took place in the affairs of Greece, in consequence of the subjugation of nearly the whole Peloponnesus by the descendants of Hercules. That hero, who was a member of the royal family of Mycenae or Argos, had been driven into exile by some more successful candidate for the throne of that state. After the hero's death, his children sought refuge in Doris, the king of which became subsequently so much attached to Hyllus, the eldest son of Hercules, that he constituted him the heir of his throne. Twice the Heraclidsean princes unsuccessfully attempted to establish themselves in the sovereignty of the Peloponnesus, which they claimed as their right; but on the third trial, they accomplished their object. In the year 1101 b. c, three brothers named Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, said to have been the great-grandsons of Hyllus, invaded the Peloponnesus at the head of the Dorians, and conquered the greater part of it, with the exception of the province of Arcadia, the mountainous character of which enabled its inhabitants to defend it with success against the invaders. Temenus obtained the kingdom of Argos, Cresphontes established him- self in Messenia, and as Aristodemus had died during the war, his twin sons Eurysthenes and Procles shared between them the throne of Sparta. The thrones of Corinth and Elis were occupied by other branches of the Heraclidaean family. The Dorian troops were rewarded with the lands of the conquered inhabitants, who were driven out of the Peloponnesus, or reduced to slavery. Great numbers of the Peloponnesians, who were expatriated by the Dorian invaders, passed over into Asia Minor, where they founded several colonies in a district afterwards called JEolia, from the name of the people by whom these colonies were established. Others took refuge in Attica, where the Athenians received them in a friendly manner. This, it would appear, gave offence to the new rulers of the Peloponnesian states, and war was commenced between the Dorians and the Athenians. In the year 1070 b. c, Attica was invaded by a numerous army of the Peloponnesians, and Athens itself seemed menaced with destruction. This emergency produced a display of patriotic devotion on the part of Codrus, the Athenian king, which has rarely been paralleled in the annals of mankind, and deserves to be held in everlasting remem- brance : — At Delphi in Phocis there was a temple of Apollo, to the priests of which the Greeks were wont to apply for information regarding future events, in the same manner as the people of comparatively recent times were accustomed to consult astrologers, soothsayers, and other artful impostors on similar questions. Now Codrus had learned that the Peloponnesians had received at Delphi a prophetical response, to the effect that they should not be victorious in the war, if they did not kill the Athenian king. Determined to save his country at the expense of his own life, Codrus disguised himself in a peasant's dress, and entering the Peloponnesian camp, provoked a quarrel with a soldier, by whom he was killed. It was not long until the dead body was recognized to be that of the Athenian king, and the Peloponnesians, remembering the condition on which the oracle had promised them success, were afraid to continue the contest any longer, and hastily retreated into their own territories. The 60 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Athenians were filled with admiration when they heard of the noble conduct of their monarch, and in the height of their gratitude, they declared that none but Jupiter was worthy of being their king after such a prince as Codrus. It is supposed that they were partly induced to make this declaration by finding the sons of Codrus evince an inclination to involve the country in a civil war regarding the succession to the throne. The Athenians therefore abolished royalty altogether, and appointed Medon, Codrus's eldest son, under the title of Archon, as chief magistrate of the republic for life ; the office to be hereditary in his family as long as its duties should be performed to the satisfaction of the people. And as Attica was over- crowded with the Peloponnesian refugees, these, together with a large body of Athenians, were sent into Asia Minor, under the charge of Andro- clus and Neleus, the younger sons of Codrus, to plant colonies to the south of those already formed in iEolia. The settlers founded twelve cities, some of which afterwards rose to great wealth and splendor. Ionia was the name bestowed upon the district, in reference to the Ionic stock from which the Athenians drew their descent. Several Dorian colonies in Caria, a province still farther south than Ionia, completed the range of Grecian settlements along the western coast of Asia Minor. Cyprus, Rhodes, the coast of Thrace, and the islands of the iEgean Sea, together with a considerable portion of Italy and Sicily, and even of France and Spain, were also colonized by bands of adventurers, who at various periods emigrated from Greece; so that, in process of time, the Grecian race, language, religion, institutions, and manners, instead of being confined to the comparatively small country constituting Greece proper, were diffused over a very extensive region, comprising the fairest portions of Europe and of western Asia. While this work of colonization was going forward, the parent states of Greece were torn with internal dissensions, and were perpetually harassing each other in wars, of which the objects and incidents are now equally uncertain. Almost all that is known of the history of the two centuries immediately following the death of Codrus is, that they were characterized by great turbulence and confusion, and that, during their lapse, many of the Grecian states and colonies followed the example of Athens by abolish- ing monarchy. Others did not, till a later period, become republican, and Sparta long retained the singular form of regal government established there at the accession of the twin brothers Eurysthenes and Procles, the descendants of whom continued for several centuries to reign jointly in Lacedsemon, though, practically speaking, no state of Greece was more thoroughly republican in many important respects. Greece had been all along divided into a number of independent states, and after the abolition of kingly government, several of these were split up into as many distinct republics as the state contained of towns. These divisions of the country, and the obstacles which the almost incessant wars interposed to a free communication between the inhabitants of the different districts, necessarily prevented the advancement of the Greeks in knowledge and civilization ; but fortunately, a king of Elis, named Iphitus, at length devised an institution by which the people of all the Grecian states were enabled, notwithstanding their quarrels and wars with one another, to meet periodically on friendly terms, and communicate to each other such DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 61 information as might be useful for the improvement and welfare of the whole. This institution was the Olympic Festival. From a very remote period, the Greeks had been accustomed to engage in contests of strength and agility during their times of festivity, and also at the funerals of distinguished personages. Iphitus conceived the idea of establishing a periodical festival in his own dominions for the celebration of these ancient games, and of religious rites in honor of Jupiter and Hercules ; and having obtained the authority of the Delphian oracle for carrying his design into execution, he instituted the festival, and appointed that it should be repeated every fourth year at Olympia, a town of Elis. To this festival he invited all the people of Greece ; and that none might be prevented from attending it by the wars in which any of the states might be engaged, the Delphic oracle commanded that a general armistice should take place for some time before and after each celebration. The date of the establishment of the Olympic games (884 b. c. ) was afterwards assumed by the Greeks as the epoch from which they reckoned the progress of time ; the four years intervening between each recurrence of the festival being styled an Olympiad. Three other institutions of a similar nature were afterwards establish- ed : namely, the Isthmian Games, celebrated near Corinth ; the Pythian, at Delphi ; and the Nemean, in Argolis. These took place on the various years which intervened between the successive festivals at Olympia ; but although they acquired considerable celebrity, none of them rose to the importance and splendor of that of Iphitus. The games which were cele- brated at the festivals consisted of foot and chariot races, wrestling and boxing matches, and other contests requiring strength and agility, together with competitions in poetry and music. The victors were crowned with an olive wreath ; an honor which it was esteemed by the Greeks one of the highest objects of ambition to attain. SECOND OR AUTHENTIC PERIOD OF HISTORY. The second and authentic period of Greek history commences in tho year 884 B. c, at the institution of the Olympic Festival, when the peo- ple had begun to emerge from their primitive barbarism. This festival, as already stated, was instituted by direction of the Delphic oracle, by Iphitus, Prince of Elis, for the patriotic purpose of assembling together, in a peace- ful manner, persons from all parts of Greece. The festival was ordained to take place once every four years, in the month corresponding to our July, and to last five clays, during which there was to be complete truce, or cessation from war, throughout the Grecian states. Agreeably to the ancient practice at public solemnities, the festival was celebrated by games and various feats of personal skill, and the whole order of procedure was regulated with extraordinary care. ' All freemen of Grecian extraction were invited to contend, provided they had been born in lawful wedlock, and had lived untainted by any infamous moral stain. No women (the priestesses of Ceres excepted) were permitted to be present. Females who violated this law were thrown from a rock. The competitors prepared themselves during ten months previous at the gymnasium at Elis. During the last thirty days, the exercises were performed with as much regularity 62 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. as at the games themselves. The festival began in the evening with sol- emn sacrifices, and the games were commenced the next day at daybreak. These consisted in races on horseback and on foot, in leaping, throwing the discus or quoit, wrestling, and boxing ; musical and poetical contests concluded the whole. The honor of having gained a victory in the Olym pic Games was very great ; it extended from the victor to his country, which was proud of owning him. However rude and boisterous were some of the sports of the Olympic Festival, it is acknowledged by the best au- thorities that they were attended with manifold advantages to society. It is sufficient barely to mention the suspension of hostilities, which took p]ace not only during the festival, but a considerable time both before and after it. Considered as a kind of religious ceremony, at which the whole Gre- cian citizens were invited, and even enjoined, to assist, it was well adapted to facilitate intercourse, to promote knowledge, to soften prejudice, and to hasten the progress of civilization and humanity. At the first institution of the Olympic Festival, and for one or two cen turies afterwards, the condition of Grecian society was primitive, and almost patriarchal, but marked by strong features of heroic dignity, and a certain depth and refinement of thought. The attire of the men was very simple, consisting only of a shirt or close jacket to the body, with a loose robe hanging down over the naked limbs, while performers in the public games were almost naked. The arts, including agriculture, were also little ad- vanced ; few persons seemed to have thought of toiling to accumulate wealth ; and each community presented, in time of peace, the picture of a large family. That portion of the people constituting the freemen lived much in public, or in the society of their equals, enjoyed common pleas- ures and amusements, and had daily opportunities of displaying their use- ful talents in the sight of their fellow-citizens. The frequent disputes between individuals occasioned litigations and trials, which furnished em- ployment for the eloquence and ability of men in the necessary defence of their friends. The numerous games and public solemnities opened a con- tinual source of entertainment, and habituated every man to active physical exercise, and the performance of his duties as a soldier. These were agreeable features in the condition of Grecian society ; but there were also some of an opposite character. The people were of an unsettled dis- position, never satisfied long with any kind of government which existed amongst them, and very much disposed to wage war against neighboring states on the most trifling pretenses. The population of the various states was divided into three classes — namely, the citizens, the enfranchised populace, and the slaves. All polit- ical power, even in the most democratical of the Grecian communities, was possessed by the first of these classes, while in the oligarchical states, only that small portion of the citizens which constituted the nobility or aristoc- racy possessed any influence in the management of public affairs. The mechanical and agricultural labors necessary for the support and comfort of the whole, were chiefly performed by the inferior class of free inhabi- tants, who did not enjoy the privilege of citizenship, and by the slaves, who formed a considerable portion of the population of every state. These slaves were sprung from the same general or parent stock, spoke the same language, and professed the same religion, as their masters. They were in most cases the descendants of persons who had been conquered in wax, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 63 but were in some instances acquired by purchase. Society being thus based on vicious principles, it is not wonderful that the Grecian states were the scene of constant civil broils. Sparta — Lycurgus. At the beginning of this period of Grecian his- tory, our attention is powerfully attracted by a very remarkable series of proceedings which took place in LacediTemon, or Laconia, a country of south- ern Greece, of which the chief city was Sparta. This city being in a state of intestine disorder, it was agreed by many of the inhabitants to invite Lycurgus, the son of one of their late kings, to undertake the important task of preparing a new constitution for his country. Fortified with the sanction of the Delphic oracle, he commenced this difficult duty, not only settling the form of government, but reforming the social institutions and manners of the people. The government he established consisted of two joint kings, with a limited prerogative, and who acted as presidents of a senate of twenty-eight aged men. The functions of the senate were de- liberative as well as executive, but no law could be passed without receiv- ing the consent of the assembled citizens. The most remarkable of the arrangements of Lycurgus was his attempt to abolish difference of rank, and even difference of circumstances, among the people. He resolved on the bold measure of an equal division of lands, and actually parceled out the Laconian territory into 89,000 lots, one of which was given to each citizen of Sparta, or free inhabitant of Laconia. Each of these lots was of such a size as barely sufficed to supply the wants of a single family — for Lycurgus was determined that no person should be placed in such cir- cumstances as would permit of luxurious living. Lycurgus carried into effect a number of other visionary projects : he abolished the use of money, with the hope of preventing undue accumu- lation of wealth ; prohibited foreigners from entering the country, and the natives from going abroad, in order to preserve simplicity of manners among the people ; directed that all men, without distinction of rank or age, should eat daily together at public tables, which were furnished with the plainest food ; and finally, ordained that all the children who were born, and seemed likely to be strong, should be reared by public nurses, under a rigid system of privation and personal activity, while the weak infants should be thrown out to the fields to perish. The citizens, when they had attained the age of manhood, were engaged in martial exercises, all labor being left to the slaves, or helots, as they were termed ; and in short, the whole nation was but a camp of soldiers, and war was reckoned the only legitimate profession. These laws were in some measure suited to the rude condition of the Spartans, but, as being opposed to some of the best and strongest principles in human nature, they could not possibly endure, and there is reason to believe that some of them were not strictly enforced. It is not unusual to see historians use the term Spartan virtue with a cer- tain degree of admiration of its quality ; but the Spartans had, in reality, no moral dignity, certainly no benevolence, in their virtue, either public or private. They were a small confederacy of well-trained soldiers; and merely as such, deserve no mark of our respect or esteem. The manner in which they used their helots was at once barbarous and cruel. The murder of a serf by a free citizen was not punishable by law ; nay, it was even allowable for the young Spartans to lie in wait, as a kind of sport, 64 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. for any good-looking or saucy-looking slave, and stab him to the heart on the highway. It is certain that at one time, when the helots had stood their masters in good stead in battle, they were desired, by way of reward, to choose out 2000 of their best men, that they might receive their free- dom, and be enrolled as Spartans, and that these 2000 men were all silent- ly murdered soon after. At another time, when danger was apprehended from the growing numbers and petty wealth of the boors, the senate enac- ted the farce of declaring war against them, and coolly murdered many thousands, in order to thin their numbers and break their spirit. Had there been any redeeming trait in the Spartan character to compensate for such barbarity, one would have wondered less at the respect which is some- times paid them ; but their military fame only adds another instance to the many already on record, that the most ignorant and savage tribes make the most dogged soldiers. Athens. We now turn to Athens, long the principal seat of Grecian learning. Athens is said to have been founded by Cecrops, 1550 b. c, and in the most ancient times was called Cecropia. It probably received the name of Athens from the goddess Minerva, who was called also Athena, by the Greeks, and to whom an elegant temple had been erected in the city. The old city spread from the mount of the Acropolis over a wide and pleasant vale or low peninsula, formed by the junction of the Cephesus and Ilissus. Its distance from the sea-coast was about five miles. In the course of time Athens became populous and surpassingly elegant in its architecture, while its citizens contrived to take a lead in the affairs of the communities around. At first they were governed by kings, but, as in the case of the Spartan citizens, they became dissatisfied with their existing constitution, and about the year 600 b. c. invited Solon, one of the wisest men in Greece, to reor- ganize their political constitution. Solon obeyed the summons, and consti- tuted the government on a broad republican basis, with a council of state, forming a judicial court, consisting of 400 members, and called the Areo- pagus. This court of Areopagus besides its other duties, exercised a cen- sorship over public morals, and was empowered to punish impiety, profligacy, and even idleness. To this court every citizen was bound to make an an- nual statement of his income, and the sources from which it was derived. The court was long regarded with very great respect, and the right was accorded to it of not only revising the sentences pronounced by the other criminal tribunals, but even of annulling the judicial decrees of the general assembly of the people. The regulations of Solon were not maintained for any great length of time, although the republican form of government, in one shape or other, continued as long as the country maintained its in- dependence. Clesthenes, the leader of a party, enlarged the democratic principle in the state ; he introduced the practice of ostracism, by which any person might be banished for ten years, without being accused of any crime, if the Athenians apprehended that he had acquired too much influ- ence, or harbored designs against the public liberty. Ostracism was so called, because the citizens, in voting for its infliction, wrote the name of the obnoxious individual upon a shell (ostreori). It is said that Clesthenes was the first victim of his own law, as has happened in several other remark- able cases, ancient and modern. For a period of about two centuries after the settlement of a republican DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 65 constitution, there is little of importance to relate in Athenian history. Athens was gradually enlarged, the taste for refinement increased, and various men of sagacious understanding, entitled Philosophers, began to devote themselves to inquiries into the nature of the human mind and the character of the Deity. The principal Grecian philosopher who flourished in this era (550 B. c.) was Pythagoras, a man of pure and exalted ideas, and an able expounder of the science of mind. THIRD PERIOD OF HISTORY The year 490 b. c. closes the gradually-improving period in Grecian history, or second period, as it has been termed ; and now commenced an era marked by the important event of an invasion from a powerful Asiatic sovereign. Persian Invasion. Darius, king of Persia, having imagined the pos- sibility of conquering Greece, sent an immense army against it in the year just mentioned. Greatly alarmed at the approach of such an enemy, the Athenians applied to the Spartans for aid ; but that people had a supersti- tion which prohibited their taking the field before the moon was at the full, and as at the time of the application it still wanted five days of that peri- od, they therefore delayed the march of their troops. Being thus refused all assistance from their neighbors, the Athenians were left to depend en- tirely on their own courage and resources. A more remarkable instance of a small state endeavoring to oppose the wicked aggression of an over- grown power, has seldom occurred in ancient or modern times ; but the constant exercises and training of the Athenian population enabled them to present a bold and by no means contemptible front to the invader. War had been their principal employment, and in the field they displayed their noblest qualities. They were unacquainted with those highly-discip- lined evolutions which give harmony and concert to numerous bodies of men ; but what was wanting in skill they supplied by courage. The Athe- nian, and also other Greek soldiers, marched to the field in a deep phalanx, rushed impetuously to the attack, and bravely closed with their enemies. Each warrior was firmly opposed to his antagonist, and compelled by neces- sity to the same exertions of valor as if the fortune of the day depended on his single arm. The principal weapon was a spear, which, thrown by the nervous and well-directed vigor of a steady hand, often penetrated the firmest shields and bucklers. When they missed their aim, or when the stroke proved ineffectual through want of force, they drew their swords, and summoning their utmost resolution, darted impetuously on the foe. This mode of war was common to the soldiers and generals, the latter be- ing as much distinguished in battle by their strength and courage as their skill and conduct. The Greeks had bows, slings, and darts, intended for the practice of distant hostility ; but their chief dependence was on the spear and sword. Their defensive armor consisted of a bright helmet, adorned with plumes, and covering the head, a strong corslet defending the breast, greaves of brass decending the leg to the feet, and an ample shield, loosely attached to the left shoulder and arm, which turned in all direc- tions, and opposed its firm resistance to every hostile assault. With men thus organized and accoutred, a battle consisted of so many duels, and the 5* 66 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. combatants fought with all the keenness of personal resentment. Th6 slaughter in such engagements was correspondingly great, the fight seldom terminating till one of the parties was nearly destroyed, or at least greatly reduced in numbers. It was a people so animated and prepared that the hosts of Persia were about to encounter. Compelled to meet the invaders unassisted, the Athenians were able to march an army of only 9000 men, exclusive of about as many light-armed slaves, into the field. With Miltiades as their leader and commander-in-chief, they met the Persians in battle on the plain of Marathon, thirty miles from Athens, and by great skill and cour- age, and the force of their close phalanx of spearmen, completely conquered them. Upwards of 6000 Persians were slain on the field, while the num- ber killed of the Athenians was but 192. This is reckoned by historians one of the most important victories in ancient times, for it saved the inde- pendence of the whole of Greece. To the disgrace of the fickle Athenians, they afterwards showed the greatest ingratitude to Miltiades, and put him in prison on a charge of favoring the Persians. He died there the year after his great victory. Soon after, the citizens of Athens, on a plea equal- ly unfounded, banished Aristides, an able leader of the aristocratic party in the state, and who, from his strict integrity and wisdom, was usually en- titled ' Aristides the Just.' On the banishment of this eminent individual, Themistocles, a person who was more democratic in his sentiments, became the leader of the councils of the Athenians. Meanwhile the Grecian liber- ties were again menaced by the Persians. Xerxes, son of Darius, marched an army across the Hellespont by a bridge of boats from the Asiatic shore, and led it towards the southern part of Greece. The utmost force that the confederate Greeks could oppose to the countless host of Persians, did not exceed 60,000 men. Of these, a band of Spartans, numbering 8,000 soldiers, under Leonidas their king, was posted at the pass of Thermopy- lae, to intercept the enemy, and here they discomfited every successive col- umn of the Persians as it entered the defile. Ultimately, foreseeing cer- tain destruction, Leonidas commanded all to retire but 300, with whom he proposed to give the Persians some idea of what the Greeks could submit to for the sake of their country. He and his 300 were cut off to a man. Xerxes took possession of Attica and Athens, but in the naval battle with the Athenian fleet at Salamis, which occurred soon after [October 20, 480 b. a], his army was utterly routed, and its scattered remains retreated into Asia. By this splendid victory the naval power of Persia was almost annihila- ted, and the spirit of its monarch so completely humbled, that he durst no longer undertake offensive operations against Greece. Here, therefore, the war ought to have terminated ; but so great and valuable had been the spoils obtained by the confederate forces, that they were unwilling to re- linquish such a profitable contest. The war, therefore, was continued for twenty years longer, less, apparently, for the chastisement of Persia, than for the plunder of her conquered provinces. But now that all danger was over, many of the smaller states, whose population was scanty, began to grow weary of the contest, and to furnish with reluctance their annual contingent of men to reinforce the allied fleet. It was, in consequence, arranged that those states whose citizens were un- willing t» perform personal service, should send merely their proportion of DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 67 vessels, and pay into the common treasury an annual subsidy, for the main tenance of the sailors with whom the Athenians undertook to man the fleet. The unforeseen but natural consequence of this was the establishment of the complete supremacy of Athens. The annual subsidies gradually as- sumed the character of a regular tribute, and were compulsorily levied as such ; while the recusant communities, deprived of their fleets, which had been given up to the Athenians, were unable to offer effectual resistance to the oppressive exactions of the dominant state. The Athenians were thus raised to an unprecedented pitch of power and opulence, and enabled to adorn their city, to live in dignified idleness, and to enjoy a constant succession of the most costly public amusements, at the expense of the van- quished Persians, and of the scarcely more leniently-treated communities of the dependent confederacy. Pericles. We have arrived at the most flourishing period of Athenian history, during which Pericles rose to distinction, and greatly contributed to the beautifying of the capital. The talents of Pericles were of the very first order, and they had been carefully cultivated by the ablest tutor- age which Greece could afford. After serving for several years in the Athenian army, he ventured to take a part in the business of the popular assembly, and his powerful eloquence soon gained him an ascendancy in the national councils ; and his power, in fact, became as great as that of an absolute monarch (445 b. a). Some of the most interesting events of Grecian history now occurred. After a number of years of general peace, a dispute between the state of Corinth and its dependency the island of Corey ra (now Corfu), gave rise to a wa-r which again disturbed the repose of all the Grecian states. Corcyra was a colony of Corinth, but having, by its maritime skill and enterprise, raised itself to a higher pitch of opu- lence than its parent city, it not only refused to acknowledge Corinthian supremacy, but went to war with that state on a question respecting the government of Epidammus, a colony which the Corcyreans had planted on the coast of Illyria. Corinth applied for and obtained aid from several of the Peloponnesian states to reduce the Corcyreans to subjection ; while Corcyra, on the other hand, concluded a defensive alliance with Athens, which sent a fleet to assist the island in vindicating its independence. By way of punishing the Athenians for intermeddling in the quarrel, the Co- rinthians stirred up a revolt in Potidgea, a town of Chalcidice, near the confines of Macedonia, which had originally been a colony of Corinth, but was at this time a tributary of Athens. The Athenians immediately des- patched a fleet and army for the reduction of Potidgea, and the Peloponne- sians were equally prompt in sending succors to the city. The Corinthians, meanwhile, were actively engaged in endeavoring to enlist in their cause those states which had not yet taken a decided part in the dispute. To Lacedcemon, in particular, they sent ambassadors to complain of the con- duct of the Athenians, which they characterized as a violation of a univer- sally-recognised law of Grecian policy — that no state should interfere between another and its dependencies. The efforts of the Corinthians were successful, and almost all the Peloponnesian states, headed by Sparta, together with many of those beyond the isthmus, formed themselves into a confederacy for the purpose of going to war with Athens. Argos and Achaia at first remained neuter. Corcyra, Acarnania, some of the cities 68 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. of Thessaly, and those of Platsea and Naupactus, were all that took part with the Athenians. Pericles beheld without dismay the gathering of the storm, but his coun- trymen were not equally undaunted. They perceived that they were about to be called upon to exchange the idle and luxurious life they were at present leading for one of hardship and danger, and they began to mur- mur against their political leader for involving them in so alarming a quar- rel. They had not at first the courage to impeach Pericles himself, but vented their displeasure against his friends and favorites. Phidias, a very eminent sculptor, whom the great statesman had appointed superintendent of public buildings, was condemned to imprisonment on a frivolous charge ; and the philosopher Anaxagoras, the preceptor and friend of Pericles, was charged with disseminating opinions subversive of the national religion, and banished from Athens. Respecting another celebrated individual who at this time fell under persecution, it becomes necessary to say a few words. Aspasia of Miletus was a woman of remarkable beauty and brilliant tal- ents, but she wanted that chastity which is the greatest of feminine graces, and by her dissolute life was rendered a reproach, as she would otherwise have been an ornament, to her sex. This remarkable woman having come to reside in Athens, attracted the notice of Pericles, who was so much fas- cinated by her beauty, wit and eloquence, that, after separating from his wife, with whom he had lived unhappily, he married Aspasia. It was gen- erally believed that for the gratification of a private grudge, she had insti- gated Pericles to quarrel with the Peloponnesian states, and her unpopu- larity on this score was the true cause of her being now accused, before the assembly of the people, of impiety and grossly-immoral practices. Pericles conducted her defense in person, and plead for her with so much earnestness, that he was moved even to tears. The people, either finding the accusations to be really unfounded, or unable to resist the eloquence of Pericles, acquitted Aspasia. His enemies next directed their attack against himself. They accused him of embezzling the public money ; but he com- pletely rebutted the charge, and proved that he had drawn his income from no other source than his private estate. His frugal and unostenta- tious style of living must have of itself gone far to convince the Athenians of the honesty with which he had administered the public affairs ; for while he was filling the city with temples, porticoes, and other magnificent works of art, and providing many costly entertainments for the people, his own domestic establishment was regulated with such strict attention to econo- my, that the members of his family complained of a parsimony which formed a marked contrast to the splendor in which many of the wealthy Athenians then lived. Confirmed in his authority by his triumphant refutation of the slanders of his enemies, Pericles adopted the wisest measures for the public defense against the invasion which was threatened by the Peloponnesians. Un- willing to risk a battle with the Spartans, who were esteemed not less invincible by land than the Athenians were by sea, he caused the inhabi- tants of Attica to transport their cattle to Eubcea and the neighboring is- lands, and to retire with as much of their other property as they could take with them, within the walls of Athens. By this provident care, the city was stored with provision sufficient for the support of the multi- tudes which now crowded it ; but greater difficulty was found in furnish- DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 69 ing proper accommodation for so vast a population. Many found lodgings in the temples and other public edifices, or in the turrets on the city walls, while great numbers were obliged to construct for themselves temporary abodes in the vacant space within the long walls extending between the city and the port of Piraeus. The memorable contest of twenty-seven years' duration, called, the Pelo- ponnesian War,' now commenced (431 b. a). The Spartan king, Archi damus, entered Attica at the head of a large army of the confederates, and meeting with no opposition, proceeded along its eastern coast, burning the towns, and laying waste the country in his course. When the Athenians saw the enemy ravaging the country almost up to their gates, it required all the authority of Pericles to keep them within their fortifications. While the confederates were wasting Attica with fire and sword, the Athenian and Corcyrean fleets were, by the direction of Pericles, avenging the inju- ry by ravaging the almost defenseless coasts of the Peloponnesus. This, together with a scarcity of provisions, soon induced Archidamus to lead his army homewards. He retired by the western coast, continuing the work of devastation as he went along. Early in the summer of the following year, the confederates returned to Attica, which they were again permitted to ravage at their pleasure, as Pericles still adhered to his cautious policy of confining his efforts to the defense of the capital. But an enemy far more terrible than the Pelopon- nesians attacked the unfortunate Athenians. A pestilence, supposed to have originated in Ethiopia, and which had gradually spread over Egypt and the western parts of Asia, broke out in the town of Piraeus, the inhab- itants of which at first supposed their wells to have been poisoned. The disease rapidly advanced into Athens, where it carried off a great number of persons. It is described as having been a species of infectious fever, accompanied with many painful symptoms, and followed, in those who survived the first stages of the disease, by ulcerations of the bowels and limbs. Historians mention, as a proof of the singular virulence of this pesti- lence, that the birds of prey refused to touch the unburied bodies of its victims, and that the dogs which fed upon the poisonous relics perished. The mortality was dreadful, and was of course greatly increased by the overcrowded state of the city. The prayers of the devout, and the skill of the physicians, were found equally unavailing to stop the progress of the dis- ease ; and the miserable Athenians, reduced to despair, believed themselves to be forgotten or hated by their gods. The sick were in many cases left unattended, and the bodies of the dead allowed to lie unburied, while those whom the plague had not yet reached, openly sat at defiance all laws, hu- man and divine, and rushed into every excess of criminal indulgence. Pericles was in the meantime engaged, with a fleet of 150 ships, in wasting with fire and sword the shores of Peloponnesus. At his return to Athens, finding that the enemy had hastily retired from Attica, through fear of the contagion of the plague, he despatched the fleet to the coast of Chalcidice, to assist the Athenian land forces who were still engaged in the siege of Potidaea — an unfortunate measure, productive of no other result than the communication of the pestilence to the besieging army, by which the major- ity of the troops were speedily swept away. Maddened by their suffer- ings, the Athenians now became loud in their murmurs against Pericles, whom they accused of having brought upon them at least a portion of their 70 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. calamities, by involving them in the Peloponnesian war. An assembly of the people was held, in which Pericles entered upon a justification of his conduct and exhorted them to courage and perseverance in defense of their independence. The hardships to which they had been exposed by the war, were, he observed, only such as he had in former addresses prepared them to expect ; and as for the pestilence, it was a calamity which no human prudence could either have foreseen or averted. He reminded them that they still possessed a fleet which that of no potentate on earth could equal or cope with, and that, after the present evil should have passed away, their navy might yet enable them to acquire universal empire. ' What we suffer from the gods,' continued he, 'we should bear with patience ; what from our enemies, with manly firmness ; and such were the maxims of our forefathers. From unshaken fortitude in misfortune has arisen the present power of this commonwealth, together with that glory which, if our empire, according to the lot of all earthly things, decay, shall still survive to all posterity.' The eloquent harangue of Pericles diminished, but did not remove, the alarm and irritation of the Athenians, and they not only dismissed him from all his offices, but imposed upon him a heavy fine. Meanwhile do- mestic afflictions were combining with political anxieties and mortifications to oppress the mind of this eminent man, for the members of his family were one by one perishing by the plague. Still, however, he bore himself up with a fortitude which was witnessed with admiration by all around him ; but at the funeral of the last of his children, his firmness at length gave way ; and while he was, according to the custom of the country, placing a garland of flowers on the head of the corpse, he burst into loud lamenta- tions, and shed a torrent of tears. It was not long till his mutable coun- trymen repented of their harshness towards him, and reinvested him with his civil and military authority. He soon after followed his children to the grave, falling, like them, a victim to the prevailing pestilence (429 b. a). The concurrent testimony of the ancient writers assigns to Pericles the first place among Grecian statesmen for wisdom and eloquence. Though ambitious of power, he was temperate in its exercise ; and it is creditable to his memory, that, in an age and country so little scrupulous in the shed- ding of blood, his long administration was as merciful and mild as it was vigorous and effective. When constrained to make war, the constant study of this eminent statesman was, how to overcome his enemies with the least possible destruction of life, as well on their side as on his own. It is relat- ed that, when he was lying at the point of death, and while those who sur- rounded him were recounting his great actions, he suddenly interrupted them by expressing his surprise that they should bestow so much praise on achievements in which he had been rivaled by many others, while they omitted to mention what he considered his highest and peculiar honor — namely, that no act of his had ever caused any Athenian to put on mourning. After the death of Pericles, the war was continued, without interruption, for seven years longer, but with no very decisive advantage to either side. During this period the Athenian councils were chiefly directed by a coarse- minded and unprincipled demagogue named Cleon, who was at last killed in battle under the walls of Amphipolis, a Macedonian city, of which the possession was disputed by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians. Cleon was succeeded in the direction of public affairs by Nicias, the leader of the aris DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 71 tocratic party, a man of virtuous but unenterprising character, and a mili- tary officer of moderate abilities. Under his auspices a peace for fifty years, commonly known by the name of the ' Peace of Nicias,' was conclu- ded in the tenth year of the war (421 b. a). It was not long, however, till the contest was resumed. Offended that its allies had given up a con- test undertaken for the assertion of its alleged rights, Corinth refused to be a party to the treaty of peace, and entered into a new quadruple alli- ance with Argos, Elis, and Mantinsea, a city of Arcadia ; the ostensible ob- ject of which confederation was the defense of the Peloponnesian states against the aggressions of Athens and Sparta. This end seemed not diffi- cult of attainment, as fresh distrust had arisen between the two last-men- tioned republics, on account of the reluctance felt and manifested by both to give up certain places which they had bound themselves by treaty mutu- ally to surrender. The jealousies thus excited were fanned into a violent flame by the artful measures of Alcibiades, a young Athenian, who now began to rise into political power, and whose genius and character subse- quently exercised a strong influence upon the affairs of Athens. Alcibiades. Alcibiades was the son of Clinias, an Athenian of high rank. Endowed with uncommon beauty of person, and talents of the very highest order, he was unfortunately deficient in that unbending integrity which is an essential element of every character truly great, and his violent passions sometimes impelled him to act in a manner which has brought disgrace on his memory. While still very young, Alcibiades served in the x\thenian army, and became the companion and pupil of Socrates, one of the wisest and most virtuous of the Grecian sages. Hav- ing rendered some service to his country in a protracted and useless war with Lacedsemon, and being possessed of a talent for addressing the passions of the multitude, Alcibiades, as others had done before him, became the undisputed head of public affairs in Athens. But this preemi- nence was not of long continuance. An opinion arose among the people that he designed to subvert the constitution, and his fall was as quick as his promotion. Many of his friends were put to death, and he, while ab- sent on an expedition, deprived of his authority. Being thus left without a public director of affairs, Athens, as usual, was torn by internal discords : the aristocratic faction succeeded in overthowing the democratic govern- ment (411 b. c), and establishing a council of 400 individuals to admin- ister the affairs of state, with the power of convoking an assembly of 5000 of the principal citizens for advice and assistance in any emergency. These 400 tyrants, as they were popularly called, were no sooner invested with authority, than they annihilated every remaining portion of the free institutions of Athens. They behaved with the greatest insolence and severity towards the people, and endeavored to confirm and perpetuate their usurped power, by raising a body of mercenary troops in the islands of the iEgean, for the purpose of overawing and enslaving their fellow- citizens. The Athenian army was at this period in the island of Samos, whither it had retired after an expedition against the revolted cities of Asia Minor. When intelligence arrived of the revolution in Athens, and the tyrannical proceedings of the oligarchical faction, the soldiers indignant- ly refused to obey the new government, and sent an invitation to Alcibiades to return among them, and assist in reestablishing the democratic con- 72 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. stitution. He obeyed the call ; and as soon as he arrived in Samos, the troops elected him their general. He then sent a message to Athens, commanding the 400 tyrants to divest themselves immediately of their unconstitutional authority, if they wished to avoid deposition and death at his hands. This message reached Athens at a time of the greatest confusion and alarm. The 400 tyrants had quarreled among themselves, and were about to appeal to the sword : the island of Eubcea, from which Athens had for some time been principally supplied with provisions, had revolted, and the fleet which had been sent to reduce it had been destroyed by the Lacedaemonians, so that the coasts of Attica, and the port of Athens itself, were now without defense. In these distressing circumstances, the people, roused to desperation, rose upon their oppressors, overturned the govern- ment of the 400, after an existence of only a few months, and reestablished their ancient institutions. Alcibiades was now recalled ; but before revisit- ing Athens, he was desirous of performing some brilliant military exploit, which might obliterate the recollection of his late connection with the Spartans, and give his return an air of triumph. He accordingly joined the Athenian fleet, then stationed at the entrance of the Hellespont, and soon obtained several important victories over the Lacedaemonians, both by sea and land. He then returned to Athens, where he was received with transports of joy. Chaplets of flowers were showered upon his head, and amidst the most enthusiastic acclamations he proceeded to the place of assembly, where he addressed the people in a speech of such eloquence and power, that at its conclusion a crown of gold was placed upon his brow, and he was invested with the supreme command of the Athenian forces, both naval and military. His forfeited property was restored, * and the priests were directed to revoke the curses which had formerly been pronounced upon him. This popularity of Alcibiades was not of long continuance. Many of the dependencies of Athens being in a state of insurrection, he assumed the command of an armament intended for their reduction. But circum- stances arose which obliged him to leave the fleet for a short time in charge of one of his officers, named Antiochus, who, in despite of express orders to the contrary, gave battle to the Lacedaemonians during the absence of the commander-in-chief, and was defeated. When intelligence of this action reached Athens, a violent clamor was raised against Alcibiades : he was accused of having neglected his duty, and received a second dismissal from all his offices. On hearing of this, he quitted the fleet, and retiring to a fortress he had built in the Chersonesus of Thrace, he collect- ed around him a band of military adventurers, with whose assistance he carried on a predatory warfare against the neighboring Thracian tribes. Alcibiades did not long survive his second disgrace with his countrymen. Finding his Thraeian residence insecure, on account of the increasing power of his Lacedaemonian enemies, he crossed the Hellespont, and settled in Bithynia, a country on the Asiatic side of the Propontis. Being there attacked and plundered by the Thracians, he proceeded into Phrygia, and placed himself under the protection of Pharnabasus, the Persian satrap of that province. But even thither the unfortunate chief was followed by the unrelenting hatred of the Lacedaemonians, by whose directions he was privately and foully assassinated. Thus perished, about the fortieth year DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 73 of his age (403 B.C.), one of the ablest men that Greece ever produced. Distinguished alike as a warrior, an orator, and a statesman, and in his nature noble and generous, Alcibiades would have been truly worthy of our admiration if he had possessed probity ; but his want of principle, and his unruly passions, led him to commit many grievous errors, which con- tributed not a little to produce or aggravate those calamities which latterly overtook him. DECLINE OF ATHENIAN INDEPENDENCE. With Alcibiades perished the last of the great men who possessed the power to sway the wild democracy, or, properly speaking, the mob of Athens. From the period of his death till the subjugation of the country, the Athenian people were at the mercy of contending factions, and with- out a single settled principle of government. During this brief period of their history, in which a kind of popular democracy had attained the command of affairs, happened the trial and condemnation of Socrates, an eminent teacher of morals, and a man guiltless of every offense but that of disgracing, by his illustrious merit, the vices and follies of his cotemporaries. On the false charge of corrupting the morals of the pupils who listened to his admirable expositions, and of denying the reli- gion of his country, he was, to the eternal disgrace of the Athenians, compelled to die by drinking poison, a fate which he submitted to with a magnanimity which has rendered his name for ever celebrated. This odious transaction occurred in the year 400 b. c. After the death of this great man, the political independence of Athens drew to its termination — a circumstance which cannot excite the least sur- prise, when we reflect on the turbulence of its citizens, their persecution of virtue and talent, and their unhappy distrust of any settled form of govern- ment. Their ruin was finally accomplished by their uncontrollable thirst for war, and can create no emotions of pity or regret in the reader of their distracted history. The Lacedaemonians, under the command of an able officer named Lysander, attacked and totally destroyed the Athenian fleet. By this means having obtained the undisputed command of the sea, Lysan- der easily reduced those cities on the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, and those islands of the .ZEgean, which still acknowledged the supremacy of Athens. Having thus stripped that once lordly state of all its dependen- cies, he proceeded to blockade the city of Athens itself. The Athenians made a heroic defense ; but after a lengthened siege, during which they suffered all the horrors of famine, they were obliged to surrender on such conditions as their enemies thought fit to impose (404 b. a). The Spar tans demanded that the fortifications of Piraeus, and the long walls which connected it with the city, should be demolished ; that the Athenians should relinquish all pretensions to authority over their former tributaries, recall the exiled partisans of the 400 tyrants, acknowledge the supremacy of Sparta, and follow its commanders in time of war ; and finally, that they should adopt such a political constitution as should meet the approbation of the Lacedaemonians. Thus sank the power of Athens, which had so long been the leading state of Greece, and thus terminated the Peloponnesian war, in which the Grecian communities had been so long engaged, to little other purpose than 74 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. to waste the strength, and exhaust the resources, of their common coun- try. Condition of Athens. During the age preceding its fall, Athens, as already mentioned, had been greatly beautified and enlarged by Pericles. At the same time, the comparative simplicity of manners which formerly prevailed was exchanged for luxurious habits. This alteration has been thus described by Gillies in his ' History of Ancient Greece :' — ' In the course of a few years, the success of Aristides, Cimon, and Pericles, had tripled the revenues, and increased in a far greater proportion the dominions of the republic. The Athenian galleys commanded the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean ; their merchantmen had engrossed the traffic of the ad- jacent countries ; the magazines of Athens abounded with wood, metal, ebony, ivory, and all the materials of the useful as well as of the agreeable arts ; they imported the luxuries of Italy, Sicily, Cyprus, Lydia, Pontus, and Peloponnesus ; experience had improved their skill in working the silver mines of Mount Laurium ; they had lately opened the valuable mar- ble veins in Mount Pentelicus ; the honey of Hymettus became important in domestic use and foreign traffic ; the culture of their olives (oil being long their staple commodity, and the only production of Attica which Solon allowed them to export) must have improved with the general improvement of the country in arts and agriculture, especially under the active adminis- tration of Pericles, who liberally let loose the public treasure to encourage every species of industry. ' But if that minister promoted the love of action, he found it necessary at least to comply with, if not to excite, the extreme passion for pleasure which then began to distinguish his countrymen. The people of Athens, successful in every enterprise against their foreign as well as domestic ene- mies, seemed entitled to reap the fruits of their dangers and victories. For the space of at least twelve years preceding the war of Peloponnesus, their city afforded a perpetual scene of triumph and festivity. Dramatic entertainments, to which they were passionately addicted, were no longer performed in slight, unadorned edifices, but in stone or marble theatres, erected at great expense, and embellished with the most precious produc- tions of nature and of art. The treasury was opened, not only to supply the decorations of this favorite amusement, but to enable the poorer citi- zens to enjoy it, without incurring any private expense ; and thus, at the cost of the state, or rather of its tributary allies and colonies, to feast and delight their ears and fancy with the combined charms of music and poe- try. The pleasure of the eye was peculiarly consulted and gratified in the architecture of theatres and other ornamental buildings ; for as Themisto- cles had strengthened, Pericles adorned, his native city ; and unless the concurring testimony of antiquity was illustrated in the Parthenon, or Tem- ple of Minerva, and other existing remains worthy to be immortal, it would be difficult to believe that in the space of a few years there could have been created those numerous, yet inestimable wonders of art, those temples, the- atres, statues, altars, baths, gymnasia, and porticoes, which, in the lan- guage of ancient panegyric, rendered Athens the eye and light of Greece. ' Pericles was blamed for thus decking one favorite city, like a vain vo- luptuous harlot, at the expense of plundered provinces ; but it would have been fortunate for the Athenians*if their extorted wealth had not been em- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 75 ployed in more perishing, as well as more criminal, luxury. The pomp of religious solemnities, which were twice as numerous and costly in Athens as in any other city of Greece — the extravagance of entertainments and ban- quets, which on such occasions always followed the sacrifices — exhausted the resources, without augmenting the glory, of the republic. Instead of the bread, herbs, and simple fare recommended by the laws of Solon, the Athenians, soon after the eightieth Olympiad, availed themselves of their extensive commerce to import the delicacies of distant countries, which were prepared with all the refinements of cookery. The wines of Cyprus were cooled with snow in summer ; in winter, the most delightful flowers adorned the tables and persons of the wealthy Athenians. Nor was it sufficient to be crowned with roses, unless they were likewise anointed with the most precious perfumes. Parasites, dancers, and buffoons, were a usual appendage of every entertainment. Among the weaker sex, the passion for delicate birds, distinguished by their voice or plumage, was carried to such excess, as merited the name of madness. The bodies of such youths as were not peculiarly addicted to hunting and horses, which began to be a prevailing taste, were corrupted by a lewd style of living ; while their minds were still more polluted by the licentious philosophy of the sophists. It is unnecessary to crowd the picture, since it may be ob- served, in one word, that the vices and extravagances which are supposed to characterize the declining ages of Greece and Rome, took root in Athens during the administration of Pericles, the most splendid and most prosper- ous in the Grecian annals.' During this period flourished iEschylus and Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, dramatists ; Pindar, a lyrical poet ; Herodotus and Thucyd- ides, historians ; Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, philosophers (reasoners upon the nature of the human mind, and upon man's immortal destiny). In this period also, under the admin- istration of Pericles (from 458 to 429 b. a), sculpture and architecture attained their perfection. It was then that Phidias executed those splen- did works, statues of the gods and goddesses, which excited the admiration of the world, and which succeeding artists have in vain endeavored to rival. While Athens had extended its power over a great part of the coasts of the iEgean Sea, and increased its trade and commerce by every available means, it had also become a city of palaces and temples, whose ruins continue to be the admiration of ages for their grandeur and beauty. It is understood that the Greeks had acquired their knowledge of archi- tecture from the Egyptians ; but they greatly excelled them in the ele- gance of their designs, and are in a great measure entitled to the char- acter of inventors in the art. The beauty of the Corinthian pillar, for ex- ample, has never been excelled either in ancient or modern times. After the surrender of Athens to the Spartans (404 b. c), the demo- cratic constitution was abolished, and the government was intrusted to thirty persons, whose rapacious, oppressive, and bloody administration ere long procured them the title of the Thirty Tyrants. The ascendancy of these intruders was not, however, of long duration. Conon, assisted pri vately by the Persians, who were desirous of humiliating the Spartans, expelled the enemy, and reestablished the independence of his country. About seventy years later a new source of agitation throughout Greece 76 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. was caused by the warlike projects of Alexander, king of Macedon, usual ly styled Alexander the Great. This intrepid and ambitious soldier was the son of Philip, king of Macedon, a small territory adjacent to the Grecian states, from which it had originally received a knowledge of arts and learn- ing. Alexander was born in the year 356 b. c, and by his father was committed to the charge of the philosopher Aristotle to be educated ; a duty which was faithfully fulfilled. By the assassination of Philip, Alex- ander was called to the throne of Macedon while yet only twenty years of age, and immediately had an opportunity of displaying his great warlike abilities in conducting an expedition into Greece, which was attended with signal success, and procured for him the honor of succeeding his father as commander-in-chief of the Grecian states. He now carried out a de- sign which had been formed by Philip, to subdue Persia and other countries in Asia. In the spring of 334 b. c, he crossed over to the Asiatic coast, with an army of 30,000 foot and 5000 horse, thus com- mencing the most important military enterprise which is narrated in the pages of ancient history. Alexander marched through Asia Minor, and in successive encounters completely conquered the armies of Persia ; but the whole history of his progress is but an account of splendid victories. During a space of about seven or eight years, he conquered Persia, As- syria, Egypt, Babylonia, and, in fact, became master of nearly all the half-civilized countries in Asia and Africa. It does not appear that Alex ander had any motive for this wide-spread overthrow of ancient and re- mot* sovereignties, excepting that of simple ambition, or desire of conquest, with perhaps the indefinite idea of improving the social condition of the countries which he overran. From various circumstances in his career, it is apparent that he never contemplated the acquisition of wealth or of praise, except such as could be shared with his soldiers, for whom he dis- played a most paternal affection. The extraordinary career of Alexander was suddenly cut short by death. At Babylon, while engaged in extensive plans for the future, he became sick, and died in a few days, 323 b. c. Such was the end of this con- queror, in his thirty-second year, after a reign of twelve years and eight months. He left behind him an immense empire, which, possessing no consolidated power, and only loosely united by conquest, became the scene of continual wars. The generals of the Macedonian army respectively seized upon different portions of the empire, each trusting in his sword for an independent establishment. The greedy struggle for power finally terminated in confirming Ptolemy in the possession of Egypt ; Seleucus in Upper Asia ; Cassander in Macedon and Greece ; while several of the provinces in Lower Asia fell to the share of Lysimachus. CONCLUDING PERIOD OF GREEK HISTORY. At the death of Alexander, the Athenians considered it a fit opportunity to emancipate themselves from the ascendancy of Macedon ; but without success. Demosthenes, one of the most eminent patriots and orators of Athens, on this occasion, to avoid being assassinated by order of Antipater, the Macedonian viceroy, killed himself by swallowing poison ; and his com- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 77 patriot Phocion was shortly afterwards put to death by his own country- men, the Athenians, in a mad outbreak of popular fury. Greece cannot be said to have produced one great man after Phocion ; and this deficiency of wise and able leaders was doubtless one chief cause of the insignificance into which the various states, great and small, sunk after this epoch. The ancient history of Greece, as an independent country, now draws to a close. Achaia, hitherto a small, unimportant state, having begun to make some pretensions to political consequence, excited the enmity of Sparta, and was compelled to seek the protection of Philip, the ruling prince of Macedon. Philip took the field against the Spartans, and their allies the iEtolians, and was in a fair way of subjecting all Greece, by arms and influence, when he ventured on the fatal step of commencing hostilities against the Romans. This measure consummated the ruin of Greece, as well as that of Macedon. The Romans warred with Philip till the end of his life (175 b. a), and continued the contest with his son Perseus, whom they utterly defeated, and with whom ended the line of the kings of Macedon. In a few years the once illustrious and free re- publics of Greece were converted into a Roman province, under the name of Achaia (146 b. c). Thus terminates the fourth and last period of Greek history, during which flourished several eminent writers and philosophers, among whom may be numbered Theocritus, a pastoral poet; Xenophon, Polybius, Dio- dorus Siculus, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Plutarch, and Herodian, histori- ans ; Demosthenes, an orator ; and Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, philosophers; also Zeuxis, Timanthes, Pamphilus, Nicias, Appelles, and Eupompus, painters; and Praxiteles, Polycletus, Camachus, Naucides, and Lysippus, sculptors. In the condition of a humble dependency of Rome, and therefore following the fate of that empire, Greece remained for upwards of four succeeding centuries ; but although of little political importance, it still retained its preeminence in learning. Enslaved as the land was, it continued to be the great school of the time. As Greece had formerly sent her knowledge and arts over the East by the arms of one of her own kings, she now dif- fused them over the western world under the protection of Rome. Ath- ens, which was the emporium of Grecian learning and elegance, became the resort of all who were ambitious of excelling either in knowledge or the arts ; statesmen went thither to improve themselves in eloquence ; philosophers to learn the tenets of the sages of Greece; and artists to study models of excellence in building, statuary, or painting ; natives of Greece were also found in all parts of the world, gaining an honorable subsistence by the superior knowledge of their country. That country in the meantime was less disturbed by intestine feuds than formerly, but was not exempt from the usual fate of conquests, being subject to the continu- al extortions of governors and lieutenants, who made the conquered prov- inces the means of repairing fortunes which had been broken by flattering the caprices of the populace at home. The period of the independence of Greece, during which all those great deeds were performed which have attracted the attention of the world, may be reckoned from the era of the first Persian war to the conquest of Macedon, the last independent Greek state, by the Romans. This period, as we have seen, embraced little more than 300 years. It is not, there- 78 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. fore, from the duration of the independent political power of the Grecian states that their celebrity arises. Even the patriotism of their soldiers, and the devoted heroism of Thermopylae and Marathon, have been emula- ted elsewhere without attracting much regard ; and we must therefore con- clude that it is chiefly from the superiority of its poets, philosophers, his- torians, and artists, that the importance of the country in the eyes of mod- ern men arises. The political squabbles of the Athenians are forgotten; but the moral and intellectual researches of their philosophers, and the elegant remains of their artists, possess an undying fame. HISTORY OF ROME. About the year 754 B.C., at that point of Central Italy, nearly fifteen miles from the Tuscan Sea, where the Anio joins the Tiber, there stood on a height, called the Palatine Mount, a little village named Roma, the centre of a small township, consisting probably of 5000 or 6000 inhabitants, all of them husbandmen and shepherds. This Rome was one of the border town- ships of Latium, a territory of fertile and undulating table-land extending from the Tiber to the Liris, and from the sea-coast to the hills of the interi- or. The whole surface of Latium was under diligent cultivation, and was covered with villages similar to Rome, which together constituted what was called the Latin nation. Rome, we have said, was a frontier township of Latium. It was situa- ted precisely at that point where the territories of Latium adjoined those of two other nations — of the Sabines, a hardy Oscan race of shepherds inhabiting the angular district between the Anio and the Tiber ; and of the Etruscans, a remarkable people, of unknown but probably Oriental origin, who had arrived in the north of Italy some centuries later than the Pelas- gians, and conquering all before them, whether Pelasgians or Oscans, by the force of superior civilization, had settled chiefly in the region between the Arnus and the Tiber, corresponding to modern Tuscany. Between these three races — Oscans, Pelasgians and Etruscans — either apart, or in va- rious combinations, all Italy, with the exception perhaps of some portions near the Alps, was divided : the Oscan predominating in the interior ; the Pelasgians or rather Pelasgo-Oscans, along the coasts, as in Latium ; and the Etruscans in the parts above-mentioned. While the Italian peninsula was thus occupied but by three great races or main stocks ; the political divisions or nations into which it was parceled out were so numerous, how- ever, that it would be scarcely possible to give a complete list of them. Situated so near to the Sabine and Etruscan frontiers, an intercourse, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, must naturally have been car- ried on between the Latins of Rome and the Sabines and Etruscans, with whom they were in contact. A chain of events, which history cannot now trace, but which is indicated in a poetic manner by a number of early Roman legends, led to the incorporation of Rome with two neighboring towns — one of them a small dependency of the Etruscans, situated on the Cselian Hill, and probably named Lucerum ; another a Sabine village on DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 79 the Quirinal Hill, called Quirium. The Etruscans, or Etrusco-Latins as they seem rather to have been, of Lucerum, were received on a subordinate footing ; the Sabines of Quirium on one of equality ; but the joint city continued to bear its old name of Roma. The population of this new Home consisted, therefore, of three tribes — the ancient Romans, who call- ed themselves Ramnes ; the Sabines of Quirium, who called themselves Tities ; and the Etrusco-Latins of Lucerum, who were named Luceres. ORIGINAL ROMAN CONSTITUTION— EARLY HISTORY UNDER THE KINGS — ORIGIN OF THE PLEBEIANS. With the enlargement of the population of Rome by the addition of these new masses of citizens, a change of the constitution became of course necessary. The following seems to have been the form ultimately assum- ed: — Governed by a common sovereign, eligible by the whole community from one of the superior tribes — the Ramnes and the Tities — the three tribes intrusted the conduct of their affairs to a senate composed of 200 members, 100 of whom represented the gentes of the Ramnes, and 100 the gentes of the Tities. The Luceres as an inferior tribe, were not rep resented in the senate ; and their political influence was limited to the right to vote with the other two tribes in the general assemblies of the whole people. In these general assemblies, or Comitia, as they were called, the people voted ; not individually, nor in families, nor in gentes, but in divisions called Ourix or Curies ; the Curia being the tenth part of a tribe, and inclu- ding, according to the ancient system of round numbers, ten gentes. Thus the entire Populus Romanus, or Roman people, of this primitive time, con- sisted of thirty curies — ten curies of Ramnes, ten of Tities, and ten of Luceres : the ten curies of each tribe corresponding to 100 gentes, and the thirty curies together making up 300 gentes. As the Luceres were an inferior tribe, their gentes were called (rentes Minores, or Lesser Houses ; while those of the Ramnes and Tities were called Crentes Majores or Grea ter Houses. The assembly of the whole people was called the Comitia Curiatia, or meeting of curies. After a measure had been matured by the king and senate, it was submitted to the whole people in their curies, who might accept or reject, but could not alter, what was thus proposed to them. An appeal was also open to the curies against any sentence of the king, or of the judges nominated by him in his capacity of supreme justi- ciary. The king, moreover, was the high priest of the nation in peace, as well as the commander-in-chief during war. The 300 gentes furnished each a horseman, so as to constitute a body of cavalry ; the mass of the people forming the infantry. The right of assembling the senate lay with the king, who usually convened it three times a month. Such was ancient Rome, as it appears to the historic eye endeavoring to penetrate the mists of the past, where at first all seems vague and waver- ing. The inquirer to whom we owe the power to conceive the condition of ancient Rome, so far as that depended on political institutions, was the celebrated German historian Niebuhr. Not so, however, did the Romans conceive their own early history. In all ancient communities, it was a habit of the popular imagination, nay, it was part of the popular religion, to trace the fortunes of the community to some divine or semi-divine foun- der ; whose exploits, as well as those of his heroic successors, formed the 80 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. subject of numerous sacred legends and ballads. Now, it was part of the Roman faith that their city had been founded at a point of time correspon- ding with b. c. 754, by twin brothers of miraculous birth, called Romulus and Remus, whose father was the war god Mars, and their mother a vestal virgin of the line of the Alban kings, the progeny of the great iEneas. Romulus, according to this legend, surviving his brother Remus, became the king of the village of shepherds which he had founded on the Palatine ; and it was in his reign that those events took place which terminated in the establishment of the triple community of the Ramnes, Tities, and Luce- res. Setting out with Romulus, the Romans traced the history of their state through a series of legends relating to six kings his successors, whose char- acters, and the lengths of their reigns, are all duly determined. Of thi3 traditionary succession of seven kings, extending over a period of 245 years (b. c. 754-509), history can recognize with certainty the existence of only the two or three latest. It is possible, however, to elicit out of the legends a glimmering of the actual history of the Roman state during these imaginary reigns. Possessed, as all our information respecting the Romans in later times justifies us in supposing, of an unusual degree of that warlike instinct which was so rampant among the early tenants of our globe, the shepherd farmers of Rome were incessantly engaged in raids on their Latin, Etruscan, and Sabine neighbors. Strong-bodied, valiant, and persevering, as we also know them to have been, they were, on the whole, successful in these raids; and the consequence was, a gradual extension of their territory, particularly on the Latin side, by the conquest of those who were weaker than themselves. After each conquest, their custom was to deprive the conquered community of a part of their lands, and also of their political independence, annexing them as subjects to the Populus Romanus. The consequence was a gradual accumulation round the original Populus, with its 300 Houses, of a subject-population, free-born, and possessing property, but without political influence. This subject-population, the origin of which is dated by the legends from the reign of Ancus Martius, the fourth king from Romulus, received the name of the Plebs, a word which we translate ' common people,' but which it would be more correct, in refer- ence to these very ancient times, to translate ' conquered people.' Besides the plebs, the Roman community received another ingredient in the per- sons called Clients ; strangers, that is, most of them professing mechanical occupations, who, arriving in Rome, and not belonging to a gens, were obliged, in order to secure themselves against molestation, to attach them- selves to some powerful citizen willing to protect them, and called by them Patronus, or Patron. About six centuries before Christ, therefore, the population of the growing township of Roma may be considered as having consisted of four classes : 1st, The populus, or patricians, a governing class, consisting of a limited number of powerful families, holding themselves aloof from the rest of the community, not intermarrying with them, and gradually diminishing in consequence ; 2c?, The plebs, or plebeians, a large and continually-increasing subject-population, of the same mixed Etrusco- Sabine-Latin blood as the populus, but domineered over by them by right of conquest ; 3d, The clients, a considerable class, chiefly occupied in handicraft professions in the town, while the populus and the plebs confined themselves to the more honorable occupation, as it was then esteemed, of DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 81 agriculture ; and 4th, The slaves or servi, whether belonging to patricians, plebeians, or clients — a class who were valued along with the cattle. The increasing numbers of the plebs, the result of fresh wars, and the value of their services to the community, entitled them to possess, and em- boldened them to claim, some political consideration. Accordingly, in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth of the legendary kings, and in whoso reputed Etruscan lineage historians fancy that they can discern a time when Etruscan influence, if not Etruscan arms, reigned paramount in Rome, a modification of the original constitution took place. A number of the richest plebeian families were drafted into the populus, to supply the blanks caused by the dying out of many of the ancient gentes of the Ramnes, Titles, and Luceres ; and at the same time the number of senators was increased to 300, by the admission of the Luceres to the same rights as the other two tribes. Even this modification was insufficient ; and in order to do justice to the claims of the plebs, Servius Tullius, the success- or of Tarquinius, and who is gratefully celebrated in Roman history as- ' the King of the Commons,' proposed and effected an entire renovation of the political system of the state. His first reform consisted in giving the plebs a regular internal organization for its own purposes, by dividing it into thirty tribes or parishes — four for the town, and twenty-six for the country — each provided with an officer or tribe convener called the Tribune, as well as with a detailed machinery of local government ; and all permitted to assemble in a general meeting called the Camilla Tributa, to discuss matters purely affecting the plebs. But this was not all. To admit the plebs to a share in the general legislative power of the community, he in- stituted a third legislative body, called the Comitia Centuriata, in addition to the two — the senate and the comitia curiata — already existing. The comitia centuriata was an assembly of the whole free population of the Roman territory — patricians, plebeians, and clients — arranged, according to the amount of their taxable property, in five classes, which again were subdivided into 195 bodies, called Centuries, each century possessing a vote, but the centuries of the rich being much smaller than those of the poor, so as to secure a preponderance to wealth. The powers of the comitia cen- turiata were similar to those of the comitia curiata under the former sys- tem. They had the right to elect supreme magistrates, and to accept or reject a measure referred to them by the king and senate. The comitia curiata, however, still continued to be held ; and a measure, even after it had passed the comitia centuriata, had still to be approved by the curies ere it could become a law. Notwithstanding this restriction, the consti- tution of Servius Tullius was a great concession to the popular spirit, as it virtually admitted every free individual within the Roman territory to a share in the government. An attempt on the part of Tarquinius Superbus, the successor of Servius Tullius, to undo the reforms of his predecessor, and to establish what the ancients called a tyranny, or a government of individual will, led to the expulsion of him and his family, and to the abolition of the kingly form of government at Rome, b. c. 509, or in the year of the city 245. Instead of a king, two annual magistrates called Consuls were appointed, in whom were vested all the kingly functions, with the exception of the pontifical, for which special functionaries were created. Otherwise, the Servian con- stitution remained in full operation. 6* 82 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE GAULISH INVASION — STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. After the expulsion of the kings, the little republic had to struggle through many difficulties arising from the attacks of the neighboring nations, incited thereto by the Tarquinii. Ten of the twenty-six rural parishes were torn away in the contest — a loss equivalent to a full third part of the Roman territory. It would have required a prophetic eye to foresee that, of all the states into which Italy was then divided, this little strug- gling republic was to obtain the preeminence. One would have been disposed to promise the supremacy of the peninsula rather to the cultured and large-brained Etruscans, already masters of the north of Italy ; to the hardy and valiant Samnites, who were fast overspreading the southern in- terior ; or, most probably of all, to the Greeks, who, after adding Sicily to the empire of their gifted race, were rapidly establishing colonies on the southern coasts of the peninsula. Nay, clustered round the Roman terri- tories there were various petty states, any one of which might have appeared a match for Rome — the Latins, the iEquians, the Volcians, the Hernicans, the Sabines, and the Etruscans of Veii on the right bank of the Tiber. Who could have predicted that, bursting this cincture of nations, the men of the Tiber would overspread the peninsula, and, by the leavening influ- ence of their character and institutions, throw first it and then all Europe, into fermentation ? It required a period of 119 years (b. c. 509-390) to enable the Romans to burst the chain of petty nations — Latins, Volscians, Vejentes, etc. — which girdled in their strength. This was a period of almost in- cessant warfare ; the last glorious act of which was the siege and capture of Veii by the hero Camillus, b. c. 395, or in the year of the city 359. By this capture part of Etruria was added to the Roman dominions, and the influence of the state considerably extended on all sides. This con- quest, as well as the career of victory against iEquians, Volscians, etc., which had preceded it, was greatly facilitated by a confederacy, offensive and defensive, which had subsisted between the Romans and the adjacent nations of the Latins and the Hernicans from the year of the city 268, the twenty-third year after the expulsion of the kings, when it had been estab- lished by the instrumentality of an able patrician named Spurius Cassius, who was three times, in cases of difficulty, elected to the consulship. This confederacy with two powerful nations had insured the stability of the infant republic against all assaults. The second consulship of Spurius Cassius (year of Rome 261, or B. c. 493) had also been remarkable as the epoch of a formidable civic tumult — the first of that long series of struggles between the patricians and the plebeians which constitutes the most interesting portion of the annals of the early Commonwealth. Not long after the expulsion of the kings, the patrician gentes had begun to show a disposition to tamper with the Servian constitution, or at least to prevent the plebs from obtaining more power than they already possessed. The principal instrument by which they were able to cripple the energies of the plebs was the operation of the law of debt. In primitive Rome, as in other ancient states, an insolvent debtor vas liable to be seized by his creditor, and kept in chains, or made DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 83 to work as his slave. Now, such had been the distress of the first years of the republic, that multitudes of the plebeians, deprived, by the casualties of war, of their little properties, had been obliged, in order to preserve the lives of their families, to become debtors to the patricians, the exclusive proprietors of the state lands. Hundreds had, in consequence, fallen into a condition of slavery ; and many more, fearing to offend their patrician creditors by opposing their designs, had become mere ciphers in the comitia centuriata. In short, the plebs, as a body, were disintegrated and dis- heartened. Some instances of oppression, more flagrant than ordinary, led to an outbreak, and a clamor for the abolition of all existing debts ; and to enforce their demands, the plebeians adopted a method of agitation wnich seems singular enough to our modern conceptions ; they, or at least such of them as were in arms for military service, retired in a mass from the city at a time when it was threatened with invasion, and encamped on a hill near, declaring they would starve sooner than live in such a place as Rome was. The government was thus reduced to a dead lock ; Spurius Cassius was chosen consul by the patricians ; and by his instrumentality an arrangement was come to, by which the demands of the commons were conceded, existing debts abolished, a treaty of mutual obligation for the future agreed to between the populus and the plebs as between two inde- pendent communities, and a new office instituted, under the title of the Tribuneship of the Common People, for the express purpose of protecting the interests of the plebs. The commons then returned to the city ; two tribunes of the people were appointed ; and their number was subsequently increased first to five, and afterwards to ten. No one could have foreseen how important this office would become. Not content with alleviating the temporary distresses of the plebeians, Spurius Cassius wished permanently to ameliorate their condition ; and accordingly, in his third consulship, in the year of the city 268, or B. c. 48fJ, he boldly proposed and carried what was called an Agrarian Law. It is absolutely necessary that the reader of Roman history should under- stand this term. According to the early Roman constitution, the lands acquired in war became the property of the whole populus, or body of patricians, in common. Portions of the conquered lands might be pur chased from the state by rich persons ; and in such cases the purchaser, whether patrician or plebeian, became absolute owner. Usually, however, the lands were not sold, but were annexed to the unallotted property al- ready belonging to the populus. With regard to this state land, a very curious system prevailed. Any patrician (but none else) was allowed to occupy and cultivate as much of it as he chose, on condition of paying to the state a tithe of the annual produce if it were arable land, and a fifth if it were laid out in oliveyards or vineyards. The land thus occupied did not, by right of possession, become the property of the individual : he was liable to be turned out of it at the pleasure of the state — his landlord ; and it was entirely at his own risk that he laid out capital in improving it. As. however, it rarely happened that an individual was ejected from land which he had thus occupied, large tracts of the state land were speedily occupied by enterprising patricians. Such being the plan of distribution, it is evident that in the state lands, occupied and unoccupied, the govern- ment possessed a constant fund upon which they could draw in cases of emergency. By selling portions of it, they could raise money ; and by 84 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. assigning portions of it to indigent families, they could permanently pro- vide for them. Several times, it appears, this had been done in the case of indigent plebeian families ; and the agrarian law of Spurius Cassius was simply a proposal that — a large accession to the state lands having just taken place — the government should seize the opportunity to provide for the distressed plebeians, by apportioning them small portions of these state lands. To the plebeians this proposal was exceedingly agreeable ; not so, however, to the patricians, who possessed the right of occupying and farming as much of the public territory as they chose, but who lost that right from the moment that the land was apportioned by the state. The patricians, accordingly, resisted the proposal with all their might ; and Spurius Cassius having carried it notwithstanding, they caused him to be impeached and put to death as soon as his consulship had expired. After this event, the patricians renewed their efforts to suppress the plebs, proceeding so far as to transfer the right of electing the consuls from the centuries to the purely patrician body of the curies. The plebe- ians, however, behaved resolutely, asserting their rights through their tri- bunes, and by clamors in the comitia tributa, where none but plebeians had a right to take a part. In the year of the city 271, or b. c. 483, they regained the power of choosing one of the consuls ; and in the year 283, or b. c. 471, they wrung from the patricians the right of electing their tribunes in their own comitia tributa, instead of the centuries, at the same time obtaining the right to discuss in the comitia tributa affairs affecting the whole Commonwealth. Other concessions followed ; and at length, in the year 292, or b. c. 462, a tribune named Caius Terentilius Harsa was so bold as to propose a complete revision of the constitution in all its parts. It was not desirable, he said, that the old distinction be- tween populus and plebs, which had originated in war, should be longer kept up ; let, therefore, a revision of the whole body of the laws be under- taken, with a view to put the plebeians on a legal equality with the patri- cians, and let some more limited form of supreme magistracy be substitu- ted for the consulship. After a protracted opposition, this proposal re- sulted, in the year 303, or b. c. 452, in the appointment of the famous First Decemvirate ; a board of ten patricians, who were to revise the en- tire body of the laws, as well as the political machinery of the state, su- perseding in the meantime all other authority. The digest of Roman law prepared by these decemvirs became the foundation of all subsequent ju- risprudence among the Romans ; the amendments which they effected on the old laws were favorable to the plebeians. The principal constitution al changes which they carried out were the incorporation of patricians and clients with the plebeian tribes ; the investment of the centuries with the powers of an ultimate court of appeal ; and the substitution of the decemviral office, of which they themselves were an example, for the con- sulship, five of the decemvirs to be plebeians. This last change, however, was of short duration ; for the second decemvirate was brought to an end by its own depravity. Compelled, by a new secession of the commons, to abdicate, the decemvirs of 305 were succeeded by two popular consuls, under whose auspices several important privileges were obtained for the plebeians, the most important of which was a law conferring on a plebis- citum, or resolution of the tribes, the right to become law on receiving the sanction of the patricians, thus enabling the whole people to originate DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 85 measures as well as the senate. In 310, the plebeians mustered courage to demand that one of the consuls should thenceforward be chosen from their order. To divert them from this, the patricians yielded to another demand — the repeal of the law prohibiting intermarriage between trie two orders. The plebeians, however, still persisting in their demand re- garding the consulship, the patricians, in 311, offered a compromise, which consisted in breaking down the supreme authority, hitherto concentrated in the consulship, into three offices — the Censorship, the Quaestorship, and the Military Tribunate — with consular powers. The censors were to be two in number, chosen for a period of five years, by the curies from among the patricians, subject to the approval of the centuries. The os- tensible duty of the censors was the administration of the public revenues ; but as they were intrusted with the task of determining the rank of every citizen, and of rating his taxable property, their power was, in reality, enormous. To watch over the moral conduct of the citizens, and to de- grade such senators or knights as disgraced their order, were parts of their understood duty. The qucpstors, two in number, were to keep the public accounts ; they were likewise to be patricians, but were to be chosen by the centuries. Regarding the third office, the military tribunate, the ple- beians were to have the option of this office, consisting of an indefinite number of persons of somewhat less dignity than the consuls, but to be chosen by the centuries from either order indiscriminately, or of consuls to be chosen, as before, from among the patricians only. This compromise having been accepted, the period from 311 to 350 was one of incessant agitation on the part of the plebeians, of incessant opposition on the part of the patricians, of incessant shifting between the consulship and the military tribunate, according as the patricians or the plebeians were the stronger. On the whole, however, the plebeians gain- ed ground. In 321, the active authority of the censors was limited to eighteen months out of the five years for which they were appointed. In 328, the tribes obtained the right of deliberating on questions of peace and war. In 334, the number of the quaestors was increased to four, to be chosen indiscriminately from either order. Lastly, in 350, or b. c. 404, the system of payment for military service became common. During these forty years the patricians had frequently had recourse to the expe- dient of appointing a Dictator, or supreme magistrate, with unlimited au- thority for six months. Such an appointment almost always proved a tem- porary check to the political advancement of the plebeians. In cases of difficulty also, arising from external danger, it was usual to appoint some able man dictator ; and it was at such a juncture, in the year 359, that, determined to bring the siege of Veii to a close, the Romans appointed Camillus to this high office. The siege of Veii having terminated so successfully, the Romans were prepared to resume their career of conquest without, and their political agitations within, when both the one and the other received a check from an unexpected quarter. Some cause, now unknown, had thrown the Gauls, or Celtic populations inhabiting the western portion of Central Europe, into commotion ; and bursting from their native haunts, a mass of these savages crossed the Alps in quest of plunder and settlements, established a permanent abode in the country adjacent to the Po, and pushed their de- structive way through almost the whole length of the peninsula. Rome 86 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. suffered more severely than any other city. For several months (364-5, or b. c. 390-89) it was in the possession of the savages — its rightful in- habitants, routed in the battle, having dispersed themselves for safety through the surrounding country. At length, however, the Gauls were bribed to return to their homes in the north, leaving Rome in ruins. GRADUAL CONQUEST OF THE PENINSULA — ITALY UNDER THE ROMAN RULE. The invasion of the Gauls is a great notch in the line of the Roman an- nals. From this epoch to the time of the complete subjugation of the pe- ninsula by the Romans (365-490, or — b. c. 389-264) is a period of 125 years. Of this period, the first fifty years were spent in repairing the shat- tered Commonwealth. Her strength having been fairly renewed, the repub- lic shook off all impediments, announced to Latins and Hernicans that she re- quired their cooperation no longer, and boldly declared her resolution to conquer central Italy. The series of wars against Etruscans, Latins, Her- nicans, Gauls, Volscians, and Samnites, sometimes singly, sometimes in combination, by which she carried her resolution into effect, is usually known in Roman history by the general designation of ' the Samnite Wars ' (412 —463), the Samnites being the leaders in this onset of the nations on Rome, the issue of which was to determine whether Rome or Samnium should govern Italy. Extricating herself by her valor from this confused conflict of nations, Rome, about the year 463, found herself mistress of Central It- aly — Samnites, Latins, etc., all her subjects. A consequence of the con- duct of the Latins and Hernicans during these Samnite wars was, that the famous triple confederacy between these two nations and the Romans was brought to an end precisely when it had fully served its purpose, and when its longer continuance would have impeded the growth in Italy of that Ro- man unity which it had fostered. ' The Samnite Wars ' were succeeded by a short but brisk war, designated in Roman history ' the War with Pyrr- hus and the Greeks in Italy.' Pyrrhus was an able and enterprising Greek prince, whom the Greek towns of southern Italy — fearful of being over- whelmed by the conquering barbarians, as they called them, of the Tiber, before whom even the Samnites had given way — had invited over from his native kingdom of Epirus, that he might place himself at the head of a con- federacy which they were forming against Rome. Full of enmity towards their conquerers, all the recently-subdued nations of Central and Northern Italy welcomed the arrival of Pyrrhus ; and all Southern Italy followed his standard. His enterprise, however, failed, notwithstanding several victo- ries ; and about the year B. c. 275, Pyrrhus having withdrawn from Italy, the confederacy against the Roman Commonwealth crumbled to pieces, and the whole peninsula lay at their mercy. Before describing the manner in which the peninsula, thus acquired, was laid out and governed by the Ro- mans, it will be necessary to continue our narrative of the gradual develop- ment of the constitution within, during the period which had elapsed since the Gaulish invasion. The situation of Rome after the Gaulish invasion was extremely similar to what it had been after the expulsion of the kings — the plebeians distressed, and many of them in slavery for debt, and the patricians disposed to tyran- nize. As on the former occasion there had risen up, as the best friend of DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 87 the plebs, the noble patrician Spurius Cassius, so on this occasion there ap- peared as their champion a prudent and brave plebeian, Caius Licinius Sto- lo, a tribune of the people. His measures were very similar to those of Spurius Cassius — namely, a compromise on the subject of debts (not, how ever, an abolition of them) ; and an agrarian law, prohibiting any citizen from occupying any more than five hundred jugera (about 330 acres) of the public land, and depriving all who exceeded that quantity of the sur plus for distribution among indigent commons. To these he added a pro- posal for constitutional reform — namely, that the military tribunate should be abolished, and that the consulship should be reverted to, one of the con- suls to be of necessity a plebeian. After a hard struggle, these important measures were carried in the year 384, nineteen years after the Gaulish in- vasion. Under these Licinian Laws, as they were called, the state enjoyed tolerable repose for a long period of years — the principal source of disturb- ance being the attempts of the wealthy citizens to evade the operation of the agrarian law. The next great movement was in the year of the city 416, when, under the auspices of a plebeian dictator (for the dictatorship had also been thrown open to the plebeians), a considerable simplification of the constitution was effected. It was now rendered essential that one of the censors should be a plebeian ; and the old patrician body of the curies was struck out of the machinery of the legislature, so as to leave the busi- ness of the state in the hands of the senate (itself become partly a plebeian body) and the people. Met in their centuries, the people could only accept or reject the measures proposed by the senate ; but met in their tribes, they could originate a measure, and oblige the senate to consider it. Thus sometimes in the shape of a matured scheme descending from the senate to the people, sometimes in the shape of a popular resolution sent up to the senate, a measure became law. From this simplification of the constitution commences, according to historians, the golden age of Roman politics. The extension of dominion in the Samnite wars, by providing a large subject- population inferior both to patricians and plebeians, disposed these bodies to forget their differences, and to fall back upon their common conscious- ness of Roman citizenship. During the Samnite wars, however, a third party appeared in the field claiming political rights. These were the ^Jra- rians, the name applied to all those residents in town pursuing mechanical occupations, who, as not belonging to any of the tribes (now thirty-three in number), did not rank as citizens. The claims of this class — the city rab- ble, as both patricians and plebeians called it — were supported by a daring and able patrician, Appius Claudius, who, during his censorship, admitted serarians into all the tribes indiscriminately. Eventually, however, a com promise was effected : the jerarians were enrolled in the four city tribes, thus obtaining some influence, but not so much as Appius seemed to destine for them. It appears to have been at some period also during the Samnite wars that a modification took place in the constitution of the comitia centu- riata, the leading feature of which seems to have been a blending of the tribes with the centuries, so as to accommodate the assembly to the altered state of society and the altered scale of wealth. Of the precise nature of this change, however, as of the precise time at which it occurred, we are ignorant. It may be considered, nevertheless, to have perfected the Ro- man constitution, and to have adapted it for the function of maintaining the government of the entire peninsula. 88 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Italy, once fairly subjugated and laid out by the Romans (b. c. 266), its population may be considered as having been distributed into three po- litical divisions — the Populus Bomanus, or citizens of Rome, properly so called ; the Socii, or inhabitants of the allied and dependent Italian states ; and the Nomen Latinum, or citizens of the ' Latin name.' The first of these, the Populus Romanus, included the whole body of the free inhabitants of the thirty-three tribes or parishes north and south of the Tiber, which constituted the Roman territory strictly so called, together with a considerable number of persons scattered over the other parts of Ita- ly, who were also accounted citizens, either because they were colonists of Roman descent, or because the title had been conferred on them as an honorary distinction. The total number of adult Roman citizens towards the close of the fifth century was under 300,000 — a small proportion, evi- dently, of the vast Italian mass, which consisted, including the slaves, of about 5,000,000. Nor were all these equal in point of civil rights, many of them having the franchise, as it was called, or legal rights of citizens, without the suffrage, or political rights. The citizens with suffrage, those who voted on public questions — the real governing power, therefore, by whose impulses all Italy, with its millions of inhabitants, was swayed, as the body is moved by the beats of the heart — were a mere handful of men, such as might be assembled with ease in any public park or square. The Italian subjects were the inhabitants of the allied or dependent states. The list of these was a long one, including, as it did, the various communities which made up the populations of Etruria, Umbria, the Sa- bine territory, Samnium, Campania, Apulia, Lucania, Messapia, and Brut- tium. All the allies, however, were not equally subject to Rome : the re- lations in which they stood to it were determined by the particular treaties which formed the separate alliances, and these, of course, varied according to the circumstances under which they had been concluded. Almost all the allied states, however, were permitted to retain their own laws, their own municipal arrangements, their own judges, etc. Throughout the pe- ninsula, however, care was taken to destroy every vestige of nationality or national legislature among the allies of the same race. Upon the whole, this change from independence to subjection to Rome was beneficial to the Italian nations. Not the least benefit attending it was the total abolition of those wars between neighboring states which, while the peninsula was subdivided into small independent territories, had raged incessantly and fiercely. The Nomen Latinum, or Latin name, was a fictitious designation ap- plied to a number of colonies scattered through the peninsula, and which, in respect of privileges, stood in an intermediate position between the Ro- man citizens and the Italians. The name probably originated in the cir- cumstance, that the original colonists of this description were Latins. It is a curious fact, that even after Rome had attained the supremacy of the peninsula, there did not exist such a thing as even a dawning Roman literature, although the state had now existed nearly five hundred years ; so much earlier than their literary faculty did the native talent of the Ro- mans for governing mankind develop itself. It was by their massive char- acter, more than by their powers of speculation or expression, that they were to impress the world. DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. THE PUNIC WARS— SUBJUGATION OF FOREIGN NATIONS— ADMINISTRA- TION OF THE PROVINCES. Masters of Italy, it -was not long before the Romans found themselves in collision with the nations surrounding the great basin of the Mediterra- nean ; and as the last 125 years of the existence of the Roman state had been spent in the gradual conquest of the Italic nations, so the next 130 years (y. r. 490-620, or b. c. 264-134) were spent in a series of con- quests, by which various foreign countries were reduced to the condition of mere provinces of Italy. This series of conquests may be designated gen- erally by the title of ' the Punic Wars, and the Wars with the Greek States.' A bare enumeration of them, with a statement of their results, is all that our limits will allow. The first foreign people with which the Romans came into collision were the Carthaginians — a people of Phoenician lineage, who, settling in that part of Africa now called Tunis, and building a city there, about a century before Rome was founded, had in the interval become a great commercial nation, with ships sailing to all parts of the Mediterranean, and with col- onies along the coasts of Algiers, in Sardinia and Corsica, and even in Spain. They had recently gained a footing in Sicily, and now shared it with the Greeks of Syracuse ; and it was on this rich island as a battle- field that the Romans first came into conflict with the merchant-people of Africa. Invited over by the Mamertines, a robber-people who inhabited the north-eastern corner of the island, the Roman soldiers fought the armies of mercenaries hired by the Carthaginians. The war thus begun, the ' First Punic War,' as it is called, lasted twenty-three years (y. r. 490-513, or B. c. 264-241). During it the Romans first learned to build ships of war, and to fight naval battles ; and they were soon able to defeat the Carthaginians on their own element. On land they were sure of victory against mere mercenaries, collected, as these were, from all nations, and commanded by Carthaginian generals of ordinary capacity. In 249 b. c, however, the Carthaginians sent over the great Hamilcar Barca to com- mand their forces in Sicily ; and his efforts checked the Romans, who, meanwhile, had invaded Africa, and been repulsed. A victory or two, however, gained by the Romans over other generals than Hamilcar, dis- posed the Carthaginians for peace, who accordingly agreed (b. c. 241) to evacuate Sicily, and to pay the victors a large sum of money. The Ro- mans then made themselves masters of Sicily ; and shortly afterwards they found a pretext for wresting Corsica and Sardinia from the Carthaginians. For twenty-two years after these conquests (b. c. 241-119) the Romans were engaged in wars with the Cisalpine Gauls and other nations in the north of Italy, the effect of which was to extend their dominion to the foot of the Alps. Beyond the Alps, also, Illyria, a country skirting the east coast of the Adriatic, was at this time annexed to the dominions of the Commonwealth. Meanwhile the Carthaginians had not been idle. During several years they had, in accordance with the advice of Hamilcar, been establishing their dominion in Spain, intending to repay themselves with that fine pe- ninsula for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia. Killed in battle by a native tribe, Hamilcar was succeeded in Spain by his son-in-law Hasdrubal ; and 90 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. on his death, which took place soon after, Hannibal Barca, the son of Ham ilcar, and then only twenty-six years of age, was appointed to the com- mand. The siege by him of Saguntum, an independent Spanish town, which had claimed the assistance of the Romans, led to the Second Punic War (b. c. 218-201). Little did the Romans know what a war it was to be ! Crossing the Pyrenees, the young Carthaginian general, the great- est military commander probably, and certainly one of the ablest men the world ever saw, pushed his way through the Gallic tribes, and effecting the passage of the Alps, descended into Italy with an army of 12,000 Africans, 8,000 Spaniards, and 6,000 Carthaginian horse. Rousing the Cisalpine Gauls, and defeating in several successive battles the Roman generals sent against him, he made his way into the south of Italy (b. c. 217) ; and having in the following year inflicted on the Romans at Cannae the great- est defeat they had ever received, he remained in Italy fifteen years (b. C. 217-202), moving hither and thither, keeping seven or eight Roman gen- erals, and among them the wary Fabius and the bold Marcellus, continual- ly employed, scattering the Romans like chaff wherever he appeared, ex- hausting the finances of the state, and detaching the Italian nations from their allegiance. Had he received reinforcements, as he expected, from Spain, where he had left his brother Hasdrubal in command, Rome might have fallen. Fortunately, however, for the Romans, while they were man- fully opposing Hannibal in Italy, one of their generals, the great Scipio, was busily engaged in Spain. To prevent Spain from falling into Scipio's hands, Hasdrubal was obliged to remain in it; and it was not till b. c. 207, when all hope of retaining his footing in that peninsula was lost, that he set out to join his brother. He crossed the Alps in safety, but was attacked, defeated and slain on his march through Italy ; and Hannibal was left to his own resources. These, however, were exhaustless ; and with the as- sistance of the Italian nations, who, especially the unprivileged classes, were friendly to the Carthaginians, and hated Rome, he might still have shattered the Commonwealth in pieces, had not Scipio passed over from Spain into Africa, and defeating the Carthaginians in several battles, with the help of a Numidian prince named Masinissa, compelled them to recall their greatest man for the defense of his native city. In B. c. 202, or the year of the city 552, Hannibal quitted Italy, where he had spent the best period of his life. Not long after his landing in Africa, he was defeated by Scipio at Zama, and his countrymen were obliged in consequence to agree to a peace on very severe terms. The Second Punic War concluded, and Italy once more pacified, the Romans made war on Philip III. king of Macedonia, and virtual ruler of all the Greek states, who had offended them by entering into a treaty with Hannibal. The war was protracted over seventeen years (b. c. 214 — 197,) but ended in the reduction of Macedonia, and the proclamation by the Romans of the independence of the other Greek states. Seized with a desire to assume the place which the Macedonian king had been unable to maintain, Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, and representative there- fore of the Greek empire in Asia, crossed into Greece, where he joined the iEtolians against the Romans. Defeated, however, in Greece, and for saken by the iEtolians, he was pursued into Asia, and after the loss of a great battle at Magnesia, obliged to submit to the Romans, who thus be- came virtual masters of the various kingdoms and states of Asia Minoi DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 91 (b.c. 188). Meanwhile they had been engaged in suppressing various movements among the Ligurians, Boians, Istrians, and other nations in the north of Italy, as well as among the Spanish tribes and the savages of Sardinia. A declaration of hostilities by Perseus, the successor of Philip in Macedonia, in conjunction with Genthius, king of Illyria, led to another war against these countries, which terminated in their complete subjuga- tion (b. c. 168). The next twenty years were spent in securing these con- quests, and in establishing relations, virtually those of sovereignty, with vari- ous states of Asia Minor, such as Bithynia and Rhodes ; and with various others of Africa, as Egypt and Numidia. The whole circuit of the Mediter- ranean in their power, and their ships respected in all its ports, as belong- ing to the ; sovereign people of Italy,' the Romans at length executed their long-cherished project, and pounced upon Carthage (b. c. 149), whose ex- istence, even in its fallen condition of a mere commercial capital, they could not tolerate. Hannibal had been dead more than thirty years ; but under such generals as they had, the wretched Carthaginians offered a desperate resistance to the Roman commanders. After a horrible siege, the city, con- taining a population of 700,000, was taken and sacked by Scipio iEmilianus, the adopted son of the son of the great Scipio (b. c. 146). The houses were razed to the ground, and the province of Africa was the prize of this third ' Punic war.' The fall of Greece was cotemporary with that of Car- thage. The Achaian League, a confederacy of cities in Greece proper and the Peloponnesus, showing a disposition to be independent of the Romans, provoked their vengeance ; and the destruction of Corinth in the same year as that of Carthage extinguished the last sparks of liberty in Greece. The whole of the Greek countries were parceled out into Roman provinces, and from that time Greeks became the slave teachers of the Romans, their secretaries, their sycophants, their household wits. Yet out of Greece thus ruined there afterwards arose many great spirits ; for no degradation, no series of misfortunes, could eradicate the wondrous intellect which lurked in the fine Greek organization. The last scene in this long series of wars was enacted in Spain, where, roused by a noble patriot called Vir- iathus — the Wallace of that day — the native tribes had revolted against the Romans. The fate of Spain, however, was sealed by the destruction of Numantia by Scipio iEmilianus (b. c. 133). By the wars of 130 years which we have thus enumerated, the follow- ing countries had become subject to Rome : — Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the smaller islands of the Mediterranean ; Macedonia ; Illyricum, with Thessaly and Epirus ; Greece, including Greece proper and the Pelopon- nesus ; Spain ; and the whole northern coast of Africa. The Romans had likewise established their influence in Asia. The conquered countries were divided into provinces, so that the designation for the Roman dominion be- came ' Italy and the Provinces.' The provinces received each an organi zation at the time of its formation, according to its circumstances. Retain- ing their national habits, religion, laws, etc., the inhabitants of every pro- vince were governed by a military president, sent from Rome, with a staff of officials. Unlike the Italic nations, who furnished only subsidies of men to the sovereign states, the provincials were required to pay taxes in money and kind ; and these taxes, were farmed out by the censors — Roman citi- zens, whc, under the name of Publicans, settled in the various districts of the provinces, and proved a great scourge by their avarice and rapacity. 92 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA To some towns and localities in the provinces, the Italic franchise was extended as a token of favor. Altogether, the government of the provin- ces was one which, although it led to beneficial results, in binding together a large mass of the human race, and carrying on various races and lan- guages simultaneously in a career of civilization, yet gave great scope for op- pression. Like a network proceeding from a centre, the political system of the Romans pervaded the mass of millions of human beings inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean, holding them together by its mechanical te- nacity, and slowly working them into union by its own powers of impreg- naUw.. as well as by means of those ideas and moral agencies whose dis- semination and operation over large areas at once it so marvellously facili- tated. What a career was thus opened up for those who occupied the cen- tre of this network — the population of Rome! What a grand thing in those days to be a Roman citizen ; so that, wherever one walked — in Spain, in Africa, or even in once great Athens — one was followed, feasted, flat- tered to one's face, and mocked behind one's back ! What means of money- making in the provinces for the avaricious Romans! What opportunities for well-doing for the philanthropic ! Alas ! a philanthropic Roman was al- most a contradiction in terms. To be patriotic was the highest virtue ; and if a Roman, along with his patriotism, possessed a just disposition, those who were under his government might consider themselves fortunate. Nor was the career of administration in the provinces open to ail Roman citi- zens. The following passage, which we translate from a French work — (' Etudes sur l'Histoire Romaine, par Prosper Merim^e, Paris, 1844,') — will give an idea of the manner in which a Roman citizen attained to pub- lic honors, and will illustrate the general spirit of the Roman administra- tion. ' The laws,' says this author, ' opened to all the citizens the career of magistracy ; but in reality it was shut against all but those whom fortune or family credit placed in an exceptional situation. As all public offices were obtained by the suffrages of the people, it was of the utmost impor- tance to make creatures in every class of society. In order to muster all these on the great day of election, there were no labors, fatigues, and even meannesses to which Romans of illustrious families did not submit from their earliest boyhood. Some offered the patronage of their families to embarrassed pleaders ; others opened their purses to poor artisans ; who- ever had a vote in the comitia was flattered and cajoled in every possible way. From the time that the candidate had attained the age at which the law permitted him to stand for the dignity of the qusestorship — that by which he must make his debut in public life — he appeared in the Forum clothed in a white robe, shook hands with all the country folks, and with the lowest plebeians, solicited their votes, and often purchased them for money. The quaestor, once appointed, found the doors of the senate open for him. Ordinarily he was attached to the person of a consul, or a magis- trate of superior rank, becoming his lieutenant ; sometimes he obtained a little government for himself. In these offices he could learn business hab- its and find occasions for distinguishing himself, and for causing his name to be mentioned often in the senate or the assemblies of the people. After the qusestorship came the Carole Edileship, a purely civil magis- tracy, whose duties consisted in watching the arrival of provisions, guard- ing public monuments, seeing to the embellishment of the city, and finally, in preparing the games and solemn shows. This charge entailed enormous DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 93 expense on those ediles who wished to make themselves popular. They built temples and porticoes at their own cost, opened roads, constructed aqueducts ; above all, they tried to surpass their predecessors by the mag- nificence of the games which they caused to be celebrated, and the truly colossal expense which they in part sustained. A happy man was that edile who had been able to exhibit in the arena the deaths of an unusual number of able gladiators, or who had presented to the people animals of a rare species or unknown before. His name was in every mouth, and all applauded his sprouting ambition. The edileship lasted a year. After it came the pnetorship. There were six praetors — two presided over the tribunals at Rome, the others governed provinces or commanded armies. Finally after having successively gone through the three previous stages, one presented himself as a candidate for the consulship. Intriguing, cor- ruption, manoeuvring of all kinds was now redoubled ; for this was the goal of a Roman's ambition. The consuls presided over the government of the republic, or directed important wars in person. At the expiration of their magistracy — that is, after a year — they were sent to a province with the title of Proconsuls ;. often to command military expeditions, almost always to administer an extensive government. In turn to amass and ex- pend great wealth, was thus the chief care of candidates for honors. The profits of the quaestorship enabled one to make a brilliant curule edileship. Ruined by his extravagance, the edile repaired his fortune in the praetor ship, and returned to Rome rich enough to buy votes at the consular elec tion. Frequently he staked his all on this last election, confident of more than making it up again in the province which would be assigned him after his consulship. In a word, the career of public employment was a species of gambling, in which one's profits were proportional to one's stakes.' Such a state of things as is here described, implies that an immense change had taken place in the character of the Roman society during the rapid career of foreign conquest which had elevated Rome from the posi- tion of metropolis of Italy to that of metropolis of the civilized world. The distinction between patrician and plebeian was now scarcely heard of (in b. c. 172 both consuls had been plebeians for the first time) ; it was superseded by that between illustrious and obscure ; rich and poor. Al- though, however, the system of corruption was so general, that scarcely any one could attain to office except by unworthy means, yet there were at that time, and in the midst of that system, many men of really noble char- acter. Among these must not be forgotten the honest old censor Cato, the enemy of Carthage, who kept up a constant protest all his life against what he called the growing luxury of his countrymen, and died declaring that they were a degenerate race. Of equal integrity with Cato, although of altogether a different form of character, were the two brothers of world- famous name, whose actions we shall now briefly notice. THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE GRACCHI i A fatal effect,' says M. Me'rime'e, ' of the Roman domination was the impoverishment and depopulation of Italy. At Rome, where commerce and industry were despised, only one way led to wealth — a career of public service. On his return from his government, a Roman official bought lands, built villas, and all at once became a great proprietor. If he chanced 94 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. to have in his neighborhood an estate to his taste, he caused it to be ceded to him ; sometimes he seized it while the lawful owner was fighting far away under the Roman eagles. By degrees all the small proprietors were despoiled, in order to form vast estates for the privileged class o£ public functionaries. Parks, gardens, and expensive fish-ponds took the place of cultivated fields. Laborers disappeared, and the country was peopled with slaves, dangerous by their numbers, and also by their robber habits, which they practised with impunity. Some masters, it is said, shared the profits of robbery with these wretches.' The great social evils of the day — the extinction of the old peasant proprietors of Italy ; and the vast increase of slaves, the danger of which had been already manifested by several servile revolts in Sicily ; and the congregation in the towns, and especially in Rome, of vast masses of pop- ulation, not living as the artisans and traders in modern towns do, by hon- est industry, but living in noisy idleness upon the alms of the provinces and the sums they received for their votes — these social evils must have struck many generous hearts among the Romans. The man, however, on whom they produced so decided an impression as to lead him to devote his life to their removal, was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the son of a plebeian of rank who had attained distinction in the Spanish wars, and of Cornelia, the daughter of the great Scipio. Abandoning, in its first stage, the more tempting career which led through the quaestorship, edileship, and proctorship to the consulship, Tiberius chose rather the office of tribune of the people, which was more suitable for the purposes of political agita- tion. Elected to this office b. c. 133, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, he propounded his schemes of reform. His grand project was a revival, with some modifications, of the famous agrarian law of Licinius, which had lone fallen into tacit desuetude. All citizens who were in possession of a larger extent of the state land than the 500 jugera allowed by the Licin- ian law (unless in the case of fathers of two sons, who were to be allowed 250 jugera in addition for each of them), were to be deprived of the sur- plus ; the buildings, vine-presses, etc., which were erected on these surplus lands to be purchased at a fair valuation ; and the whole land thus seized was to constitute a stock out of which the pauper plebeians of the city were to be furnished with little farms for the honest support of themselves and families, these farms to be incapable of alienation by the persons to whom they should be allotted. Utterly revolutionary as this measure Avould seem in modern legislation, and sufficiently sweeping as it was, even in a Roman point of view, considering that however unjustly the ancestors of many of the large proprietors had come by their lands, yet long possession and frequent transference had in many cases sanctified the ownership — still the measure was strictly in the spirit of Roman law, and one of the supporters of Gracchus in proposing it was the eminent jurist Mucius Scaevola. Tiberius and his associates probably thought that the ends pro- posed — the removal of the venal mob out of Rome, and the restoration in Italy of a population of hard-working peasant proprietors, instead of the gangs of bandit slaves — were difficult enough to require, and glorious enough to justify, somewhat revolutionary means. Accordingly, advoca- ting by his eloquence in the Forum the scheme which he had matured in private, he did not cease until, in spite of the most obstinate resistance on the part of the senators, who used as their instrument against him one of DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 95 his own colleagues in the tribuneship, he had gained his end. Three com- missioners were appointed to superintend the execution of the law — Tibe- rius himself, his father-in-law Appius Claudius, and his younger brother Caius. Loud and deep were the vows of vengeance on the part of the senators ; and Tiberius saw that his only chance of life lay in being re- elected to the tribuneship, the dignity of which was an inviolable protec- tion. To prevent this, the senatorial party mustered all their strength ; and a tumult ensuing on one of the days of election, Tiberius, along with about 300 of his followers, was killed. For about ten years the excitement caused by the law of Gracchus con- tinued, Fulvius Flaccus and Papirius Carbo acting as his successors in the popular interest, and carrying on the struggle against the nobles, who raised up obstacles to the execution of the law. But in the year b. c. 123, Caius Gracchus, who now felt himself old enough to assume the career which his brother had left him as an inheritance, claimed and obtained the tribuneship. Caius was a man of more vehement character and more comprehensive views than his brother, and the schemes which he proposed embraced a great variety of points, besides a reenactment of his brother's agrarian law. In fact, a reformer by reputation and education, he made it his business to find out abuses, and either declaim against them or pro- pose remedies for them. Perhaps the most objectionable of his measures was a law enacting a monthly distribution of corn among the city popula- tion at a nominal price — a poor-law, for such it may be called, which had the effect of attracting all the paupers of Italy to Rome. A more valuable measure was his transference of the judicial power from the senators, who had hitherto held it, and who had been guilty of great corruption in the exercise of it, to the equites, or wealthy capitalists, intermediate between the senators and the poorer classes of the community. He also proposed and carried the establishment or various colonies in different parts of the empire, which afforded room for enterprise, thus relieving Rome of part of its overgrown population. More fortunate so far than his brother, he held the tribuneship for two years, and thus had time for more extensive action. Deserted, however, by the people at the end of the second year, in conse- quence of the policy of his opponents, who adopted the plan of outbidding him for popular favor, he lost his office. The senators, having him at their mercy, spared no means of revenge ; and Gracchus, and his friend Fulvius Flaccus, having recourse to the armed assistance of their supporters to preserve their lives when they appeared in public, this was construed into a design of sedition. The consul was empowered to resort to force against them ; a terrible fray occurred in one of the quarters of the town, 3000, it is said, being slain ; and Gracchus was killed while trying to escape into the country (b. c. 121). He was then only in the thirty-third year of his age. The aristocracy thus triumphed for the time, and the recent measures of reform were suffered to fall into disuse ; but certain portions of the poli- cy of the two brothers had taken full effect, and the agitation which they had originated was not lulled for many years. The seeds of much that afterwards appeared in storm and bloodshed, were sown during these move- ments of b. c. 133-121 ; and as long as the world takes an interest in Ro- man history, or respects disinterested political courage, it will remember the Gracchi. AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. THE JUGURTHINE, CIMBRIC, AND SOCIAL WARS — MARIUS AND SULLA. In the year of the first tribuneship of Caius Gracchus, the Belearic islands were added to the Roman dominion ; and six years afterwards (b. c. 117), Dalmatia was reduced to a Roman province. About this time the famous Jugurtha, the illegitimate son of one of the sons of Masinissa, already men- tioned as a king of Nuraidia in the Roman interest, was left heir to that kingdom, in conjunction with his two cousins, by Micipsa, their father and his uncle. Aspiring to the undivided sovereignty, he killed one of his cousins, and drove the other to Rome. Interfering in behalf of the expell- ed prince, the Romans compelled Jugurtha to share Numidia with him. By bribing the commissioners, however, who were sent to effect the divis- ion, Jugurtha obtained the best part for himself; and not long after (b. c. 112), he showed his contempt for the Romans by invading his cousin's dominions, and putting him to death. Bribes and wily tactics protected him for a while from the vengeance of the Romans ; but at length, in the year b. c. 109, the brave consul Metellus, who was proof against bribes, went over to Numidia to conduct the war which his predecessors had misman- aged. After he had carried on the war successfully for two years, he- was supplanted by his second in command, Caius Marius, a man of hum- ble birth, and nearly fifty years of age, who, although almost without edu- cation, had raised himself to high rank by his military talents, and whose services under Metellus had been so favorably represented at Rome, that he was appointed consul (b. c. 107), with the express intention that he should end the Jugurthine war. This he speedily accomplished, greatly assisted by his quaestor, a young man of high patrician family and unusual literary accomplishments, named Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Jugurtha was sent to Rome, where he was starved in prison (b. c. 106); and the ser- vices of Marius were at the disposal of the Romans for a war of an infi- nitely more formidable character than that which had been waged against this ill-fated African. About the year b. c. 113, a numerous tribe of savages, called Cim- bri, but who were most probably Celts, had been set in motion in the south- east of Europe ; and emigrating westward, they had communicated their restlessness to the Tutones, and undoubtedly German race, through whose territories they must have passed. Roving about in quest of settlements, sometimes together, and sometimes separately, the two barbarian hosts, consisting of men, women, and children, had thrown all Gaul into conster- nation ; and as the Romans had already colonized the portion of Gaul contiguous to the Alps, the duty of checking the savages devolved on them, the more especially as there was some danger that Italy would be invaded. But such a moving mass of human beings, driven by that hard- est of forces, hunger, was not easily to be checked ; and army after army sent by the Romans to oppose them had been shivered to pieces. All Ita- ly began to tremble, and there was a universal cry among the Romans, ' Make Marius again consul.' Accordingly Marius was chosen consul a sec ond time in his absence (b. c. 104), that he might drive back the Cimbri. Meanwhile the poor homeless creatures had made a general rush towards Spain ; and the Romans, to secure the services of Marius when they should be required, reelected him to the consulship in b. c. 102. In the latter DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 97 year, when Marius was consul for the fourth time, the barbarians, repuls- ed from Spain, directed their march towards the Alps. Fortunately, they divided themselves into two masses — the Teutones taking one route, the Cimbri another. The former, amounting to about 800,000 men, were met by Marius, and slaughtered, all except 90,000, who were made pris- oners, and sold as slaves. Meanwhile the Cimbri had been making pro- gress in their route, and to oppose them, Marius was elected to a fifth con- sulship (b. c. 101). Another bloodv field, in which about 140,000 weiB slain, and 60,000 taken prisoners, delivered Italy from its fears. Strange and affecting thought, that half a million of human beings, women and chil- dren, should be wandering through Europe for years, poor outcasts, with their little carts and cooking-kettles, and that a civilized nation should have been compelled, by the necessity of self-preservation, to take means to sweep them out of existence ! Marius was rewarded for his exertions with a sixth consulship (b. C. 100), which, there being now no enemy to call forth his military activity, he employed in political schemes for the humiliation of the aristocratic or sen- atorial party, to which, both by the accident of birth and on principle, he was a determined enemy. The efforts of the nobles, however, assisted by the violent conduct of the partisans of Marius, especially a tribune named Saturninus, occasioned a reaction ; and on the expiry of his consulship, Marius withdrew from Rome, and undertook a journey to the East, where the Roman influence was extending itself. During the following ten years the political agitations were incessant, the liberal spirit of that party of which Marius was the head developing itself every year in fresh manifesta- tions, and the aristocratic party becoming every year more fierce and dog- ged in their opposition. On the aristocratic side, the ablest and most earnest man, although not yet the most distinguished, was Sulla — the former quaestor of Marius, and who had since been employed in various capacities both military and civil. At length, in the year B. c. 90, a storm which had been long gathering burst out in that war which is de- nominated in history ' the Social or Marsic War,' or ' the War of Italian Independence.' As early as the tribuneship of Caius Gracchus, a clamor had been raised for the emancipation of the various Italian states from the thraldom in which they were held by the Romans. The progress of time welding the various Italian nationalities into one common society, and giving to all parts of the peninsula a common interest, had made them sensible to the grievances arising from their subordinate condition. The system of a trip- le franchise — Roman, Latin, and Italian — inevitable perhaps at first, had now become a source of gross injustice. To put an end to this injus- tice, the Italians demanded the full Roman franchise. Caius Gracchus wished to bestow it on them; and from the time of his death, 'Italian emancipation' had been one of the watchwords of the liberal party. Des- pairing of effecting their end by agitation, and especially provoked by a recent persecution of the Italian tradesmen who had settled in Rome, the Italian nations had recourse to arms (b. c. 90). Ten of these — namely, the Piceni, the Vestinians, the Marrucenians, the Marsians, the Pelignians, the Samnites, the Frentanians, the Hirpinians, the Lucanians, and the Ap- ulians, constituted themselves into a confederacy for the destruction of Rome, and the foundation of a new Commonwealth, of which Corfinium, 7* 98 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. tinder the new name of Italica, was to be the capital, and which was to embrace the whole peninsula. Fortunately for Rome, the Latins (includ- ing the various colonies of the Latin name throughout Italy), the Etrus- cans, the Umbrians, and the Campanians, did not join the confederacy. The Latins were instantly rewarded with the Roman franchise, and the field was taken against the confederacy. During two years, the war was carried on vigorously on both sides, the most distinguished of the Roman generals being Marius, Sulla, and Cneius Pompeius Strabo. At length (b. c. 89), the Italians having been greatly reduced, and the whole pen- insula having suffered much, the Romans saw fit to yield to demands which many even of those whose patriotism led them to fight against the allies believed to be just. The Roman citizenship was extending to all the na- tions of the peninsula south of the Po, the new citizens being either dis- tributed, according to one account, among eight of the old tribes, or ar- ranged, according to another, in fifteen new ones. At the same time the Latin franchise was conferred on the Gauls between the Po and the Alps. Sulla had gained greater distinction in the Marsic War than Marius, who was now verging on old age. The public eye was consequently turn- ed to Sulla ; and as, on the appearance of the Cimbric hosts twenty years before, the Romans had placed their dependence on Marius, so now, on the breaking out of war in the East, they placed their dependence on his younger rival. Mithridates VI, the young king of Pontus, an Oriental by birth, but of Greek education, and a man of splendid abilities, had been for some years silently extending his dominions in western Asia; and the Romans, long jealous of his movements, had at length openly warned him to desist. Mithridates scouted the warning ; marched through Asia Minor, putting the Romans to the sword ; and was welcomed every where by the Asiatic Greeks as a deliverer from the Roman yoke : ulti- mately (b. c. 88), crossing over into Greece, he menaced the Empire near its centre. Sulla, then engaged with the Samnites, the last dregs of the Social War, was chosen consul, and invested with the command against the East- ern monarch. He was then in the forty-ninth year of his age. Vexed at the preference of his rival, the grim old Marius used all his efforts to have the appointment canceled, and himself nominated to the Mithridatic command. His political opinions recommending him to many, and a tri- bune named Sulpicius having procured the passing of a preliminary meas- ure distributing the new Italian citizens among all the old tribes, which had now attained the number of thirty-five, he at length carried his point, and Sulla was superseded. But the aristocratic general was not a man to be trifled with. Marching from the south of Italy, where he was when he heard the news, he appeared with his army before the city, forced his entrance through the rotten walls, dislodged his antagonists from the houses from which they were throwing stones and missiles at his men, and com- pelled Marius and his adherents to save their lives by a precipitate flight. Marius escaped to Africa; Sulla, after settling affairs at Rome, set out for Greece. Here he speedily retrieved the Roman losses ; sacked Athens, which had provoked him by its opposition ; and reduced Archelaus, the general of Mithridates, to such extremities, that having crossed into Asia, Mithridates was glad to conclude a peace with him (b. c. 84), by which he renounced all he had gained, and agreed to pay the expenses of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 99 war. Meanwhile a terrible reaction had occurred at Rome in Sulla's ab- sence. Scarcely had he left the city (b. c. 87), when Lucius Cornelius China, one of the consuls whose appointment he had sanctioned, proclaim- ed himself on the popular side, and commenced a series of measures di- rectly opposed to Sulla's views. His colleague Octavius drove him from Rome, and the senate deposed him from the consulship. The Italians, however, gathered round Cinna ; Marius and his fellow-exiles hearing of the movement, hastened back to Italy ; all the able military men of the Marian party, and among them a young and generous commander named Sertorius, exerted themselves to raise troops ; and at length the aristocrat- ic party found themselves besieged in Rome. Famine and pestilence began their ravages in the city ; and the senate, reinstating Cinna in the consulship, capitulated on the understanding that blood should not be shed. But there was little softness in the nature of Marius. Admitted into the city, the stern old man, who was already tottering on the brink of the grave, revenged his wrongs by a frightful massacre, in which many men of distinction fell. Marius then caused himself to be elected to a seventh consulship (b. c. 86), his colleague being Cinna. He enjoyed the unpre- cedented honor but a few days, dying on the 13th of January (b. c. 86), and Valerius Flaccus was named his successor. Flaccus, setting out with authority to supersede Sulla in the Mithridatic war, was murdered by his legate Flavius Fimbria, who assumed the command of the army, and gain- ed some successes ; but being afterwards hard pressed by Sulla, and de- serted by his army, committed suicide. This occurred about the time of the conclusion of the peace with Mithridates (b. c. 84) ; and Sulla, after settling the affairs of Asia Minor, and draining the country of money, so remorselessly as to affect its prosperity for a century, commenced his jour- ney homewards, with bloody purposes against Cinna and his adherents, and an army ready to execute them. Cinna did not live to face his dreadful enemy. Murdered by his soldiers in his fourth consulship, he left, as his successors in the leadership of the popular party, Caius Marius the Younger, Papirius Carbo, and the brave Sertorius — the two former of whom were chosen consuls for the year b. c. 82, to oppose Sulla in Italy, while Sertorius was despatched to Spain to secure that province. But Carbo and the younger Marius, even when backed by the brave Samnites and other Italian nations, were not equal to a contest with such a general as Sulla, assisted as he was by commanders like Metellus, Lucullus, and young Cneius Pompeius Strabo, more com monly called Pompey, the son of that Pompeius who had been one of the Roman generals in the Marsic War. The consular armies were defeated ; Marius killed himself ; Carbo fled to Africa ; and Sulla remained master of Italy. Fearful was his vengeance. The massacre which Marius had ordered five years before, was slight compared with the butcheries which took place by the command of Sulla. In Rome, and over all Italy, every man of distinction implicated in the popular movement was sought out and slain. Proscription lists, as they were called — that is, lists of doomed individuals — were published ; and soldiers were ready to track them out for the prices put upon their heads. Military colonies were likewise plant- ed in all parts of Italy — lands being taken by force for that purpose : thus purging Italy of the Marian leaven, Sulla was resolved to create in it a new population, which should be pliant to aristocratic influence. 100 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. The work of the soldier over, Sulla commenced that of the legislator. Appointed perpetual dictator b. c. 82, he continued for three years to ex- ercise the sovereignty, making alterations in the constitution, the general effect of which was to lessen the power of the people in political affairs, and reforming the criminal law. In b. c. 79, he surprised every one by abdicating the dictatorship, and retiring into private life ; and in the fol lowing year he died of a loathsome and incurable disorder, brought on by his debaucheries. Among other evidences of Sulla's literary accomplish- ments, he left memoirs of his own life composed in Greek. POMPBY— CICERO— CATILINE— (LESAR. After the death of Sulla, the most distinguished man of the aristocratic party was Pompey, who had been engaged in reducing Sicily and Africa to allegiance after his chief had triumphed in Italy. Some attempts were made to revive the Marian cause after the dictator's death, but by the ex- ertions of Pompey and others they were suppressed, and only in Spain had the Marian party still a stronghold. There the brave Sertorius, at the head of the Marian refugees and the native Spaniards, was fast establish- ing a power likely to rival that of Italy. None of the Sullanian generals, not even Pompey, who went to Spain in B. c. 76, could gain an advantage when opposed to his splendid generalship ; and had he not perished by treachery (b. c. 74), Spain would have become an instrument in his hands for overturning all that had been done by Sulla in Italy. Possibly even Spain might have superseded her sister peninsula as the seat of Roman power. But after the death of Sertorius, his army crumbled away ; and, conquering his successor Perpenna, Pompey found the pacification of Spain an easy task. Returning to Italy in the height of the reputation which the discharge of this office procured to him, he arrived (b. c. 71) in time to have some share in another war of a frightful character which had been desolating Italy in his absence. In the year B. c. 73, seventy gladiators, headed by a Thracian named Spartacus, had broken out of a school, or rather gladiator warehouse, at Capua, where they were kept in training ; and, speedily joined by all the slaves and gladiators of the neighborhood, they had taken up their position on Mount Vesuvius. Finding himself at the head of a large army, Spartacus had given battle to several Roman generals, and defeated them ; and the conquering host which he comman- ded was on the point of crossing into Sicily, after ravaging Italy, when it was attacked and cut to pieces by the praetor Licinius Crassus (b. c. 71). Spartacus died fighting ; such of the gladiators and slaves as were taken prisoners were crucified, or impaled alive ; and the remnant which had es- caped Crassus were met and destroyed in the north of Italy by Pompey, as he was returning from Spain. Pompey and Crassus were chosen con suls for the year b. c. 70, the former being then in his thirty-sixth year. Although both were disciples of Sulla, yet obeying the necessities of the time, they repealed several of his enactments, and passed various measures of liberal tendency. Pompey was at this time the idol of Rome ; and although after his con- sulship he retired into private life, he was soon called upon to exercise his abilities in a post of greater dignity and responsibility than had ever been formally conferred on any Roman before him. The Mediterranean was at DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 101 that time infested with pirates, who had become so numerous and so auda- cious during the recent convulsions, that the coast of the Italian peninsula itself was not safe from their attacks, and not a ship could sail from any port in the Roman dominions, even in the service of government, without the risk of being captured. To enable Pompey to free the Empire from this nuisance, he was invested (b. c. 67) with supreme command for three years over the whole Mediterranean and its coasts for 400 stadia inland, with power to raise as many men and ships and as much money as he chose. Thus virtually made master of the Roman world, Pompey exerted himself so vigorously and judiciously, that within the short period of three months he had cleared the sea of every pirate vessel. That his command might not lie dormant for the remainder of the three years for which he had been appointed, a tribune of the people proposed and carried a law conferring on him the additional command of Pontus, Bithynia, and Armenia, in order to secure his services in finishing a war which was then going on with Mithridates. This was the third war with that monarch ; for there had been a second short war with him b. c. 83-81. The present war had orig- inated in some overtures made by Sertorius to Mithridates in b. c. 74 ; but Sertorius having died in the same year, Mithridates was left to maintain the war alone. The general sent to oppose him was Lucullus, who carried on the war very successfully till Pompey came to supersede him. For four years Pompey remained in Asia, breaking the power of Mithridates, and negotiating with the monarchs of Parthia, Armenia, etc. He traver- sed the greater part of Asia Minor, establishing the Roman influence ; de- throned the king of Syria, and added it and Phoenicia to the number of the Roman provinces ; entered Palestine, where a civil Avar was then ra- ging between the brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, declared in favor of the former, besieged and took Jerusalem, and having imposed a tribute on the Jews, commenced his march homewards. On his return through Asia Minor, he found that Mithridates had in the meantime killed himself in despair ; and as there was no one to take up that monarch's part, he was able to parcel out Asia Minor as he chose — erecting some portions into pro- vinces, and giving others in charge to tributary princes. With the glory of having thus subjugated and settled the East, the fortunate Pompey pre- pared to return to Rome in the year B.C. 62. Meanwhile Rome had been the scene of one of the most extraordinary attempts at revolution recorded in history — the famous conspiracy of Cat- iline. No passage in Roman history is involved in such obscurity as this; for the accounts of the conspiracy left by Sallust and other Latin authors are not nearly so satisfactory to the genuine student of history, as they are pleasant to the mere reader for amusement. M. Me'rime'e supposes that, several years after Sulla's death, there arose in Rome four distinct parties — the ' oligarchical faction,' consisting of the small number of fam- ilies, the chiefs of which directed the senate, and in fact governed the re- public ; the ' aristocratic faction,' comprehending the mass of the senators, anxious to exercise the power which they saw usurped by a small number of their colleagues ; the ' party of Marius,' including all those whose fam- ilies had been persecuted by Sulla, and who now began to rally, and aspire to power ; and lastly, the ' military factions,' embracing a crowd of old officers of Sulla, who, having squandered the fortunes they had gained un- der him, and seeing themselves excluded from public affairs, were eager 102 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. for some convulsion which might improve their condition. At the head of the first party was Pompey, now absent in Asia. In his absence, the soul of the oligarchical party was the celebrated Marcus Tullius Cicero — an advocate of extraordinary intellect, born b. c. 106, a few months after Pompey, and who, entering public life early, had soon established his rep- utation as the first orator in Rome. Of plebeian birth, it might have been expected that he would attach himself to the democratic side ; but circum- stances, and his natural disposition, which was weak, and fond of the con- sideration of others, had won him over to the side of the oligarchy, to whom his talents were invaluable. Having passed through the quaestorship, and edileship, and praetorship, which last he held b. c. 66, he now aspired to the highest dignity in the state. Such was the leader of the oligarchical party. The leader of the aristocratic party was Crassus, formerly the colleague of Pompey in the consulship, and now his personal rival. Be- sides Crassus, the senators had an active and most conscientious partisan in Marcus Porcius Cato, who had been tribune of the people — a great- grandson of Cato the Censor, and possessed of all his integrity. The leader of the third or Marian party was a man six years younger than Pompey or Cicero, and who, known during his youth for his accomplishments, his love of pleasure, his firmness of purpose, and the boundless generosity of his character, had just earned for himself the applauses of all Rome by the lavish magnificence of his edileship (b. c. 65). This was Caius Julius Caesar, the greatest man that ever Rome produced. He was the son of a man who had died suddenly, without having made any figure in public life ; his family was one of the noblest in Rome ; and his aunt had been the wife of Marius. Literature and pleasure had occupied his youth, and only now was he beginning to take an active part in public affairs, although with a force and earnestness which at once marked him out as a man who was to lead. With chivalrous recklessness of consequences, he had done justice to his uncle's memory at a time when it was hardly safe to mention the name of Marius ; and now the relics of the Marian party gathered round him with hope, while the oligarchy and aristocracy, with the pre- sentiment of what he was to become, would fain have crushed him. Nine years older than Caesar, and three years older than Cicero or Pompey, was the leader of the fourth or military faction — Lucius Sergius Catilina, more commonly called Catiline, a man of illustrious birth, and who had distin- guished himself as one of the ablest and most ferocious officers of Sulla. His reputation, owing partly to his haggard personal appearance, and partly to vague rumors of horrible crimes which he had committed, was one of the blackest ; and as he walked along the streets with gigantic body, but hurried and uncertain step, men pointed, and said that that was Catiline. Yet he possessed extraordinary abilities, and a peculiar power of fascina- ting those with whom he wished to establish a friendly relation. He had already been praetor (b. c. 67), and there was a large class, consisting prin- cipally of debauched young patricians and ruined military men, who look- ed forward eagerly to his election to the consulship. Prevented, by a charge of extortion brought against him in his capacity of praetor, from becoming a candidate for the consulship of the year b. c. 65, Catiline came forward as candidate in the following year. Cicero was his rival ; and the senators mustered in sufficient strength to return the ora- tor. Enraged at his defeat, Catiline began to plot a seditious movement DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 103 with his patrician adherents, among whom were Lentulus, Cethegus, Caep- arius, etc. Rome, it was said, was to be set on fire, and the consuls and many of the senators murdered. Towards the end of the year (b. c. 64), these designs had become ripe, and emissaries of Catiline were abroad throughout Italy. Meanwhile Cicero had obtained private intelligence of the conspiracy, and on the 8th of November he addressed Catiline in such vehement terms in the senate-house, that the conspirator fled into Etruria, from which he continued to correspond with his accomplices in Rome. Having obtained satisfactory proofs of the guilt of these accomplices, and having been empowered by the senate to act as he chose for the good of state, Cicero caused Lentulus, Cethegus, Statilius, and Caeparius to be ap- prehended ; and these four, notwithstanding the motion of Caesar for a more moderate punishment, were put to death in prison ; Cicero's activity had saved the Commonwealth. Catiline, however, who had raised troops in Etruria, continued to menace the state till the beginning of B. c. 62, when he and many of his patrician supporters died fighting like lions against the troops sent to destroy them. Thus the insane movement of the mili- tary faction was crushed : there remained, however, much of the Catilina- rian leaven diffused through Italy — men of broken fortunes and profligate characters, to whom turmoil and riot afforded the only chance of promotion. THE TRIUMVIRATE— CAESAR'S GALLIC WARS— WAR BETWEEN (LESAR AND POMPEY. When Pompey returned to Rome (b. c. 61), he found the senatorial party predominant, and Cicero incessantly talking about the Catilinarian conspiracy, and how he had crushed it. Pompey enjoyed a triumph more splendid than any conquering general had received before him ; and the sums which he added to the public treasury were enormous ; yet he could not procure from the senate that general ratification of his measures in Asia to which he thought himself entitled. Cato and other senators insisted on a full investigation of his measures one by one, ere the sanction which he required should be granted. This conduct on the part of the senators brought Pompey into closer connection with Caesar ; and these two eminent men, finding that they agreed in many of their views, and that at least they were one in their opposition to the senate, resolved to unite their forces so as to work for their common ends with double strength. For va- rious reasons, it was found desirable to admit Crassus to this political part- nership ; and accordingly, in the year b. c. 60, was formed that famous coalition for mutual support between Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, which is known in Roman history by the name of the ' First Triumvirate.' Elected to the consulship of the year B. c. 59, Caesar infused new life into Reman politics, proposing measures of so liberal a nature, and persevering in them with such obstinacy, that the senate became almost frantic, and his col- league Bibulus shut himself up in his house for eight months in disgust. Among these measures was a ratification of Pompey's proceedings in Asia, and an agrarian law for providing lands for Pompey's disbanded soldiers and a number of destitute citizens. In the same year Caesar gave his daughter Julia in marriage to Pompey, who had already been married twice. On retiring from the consulship, he obtained, by an unusual stretch of generosity on the part of the grateful people and the intimidated senate, 104 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. the supreme command for five years over the two Gauls (Cisalpine and Transalpine) and Illyricum. This was probably the great object of Caesar's desires ; at all events, it was the best possible thing which could have hap- pened for him and the republic. Master of Gaul, and with an army devo- ted to his will, he could there mature his power silently and undisturbed, and qualify himself for entering, at the proper period, upon the career for which he was destined, and rescuing, by military force, the ill-governed Empire out of the hands of contending factions. The condition of affairs in Rome during Caesar's absence in Gaul was indeed such as to prove the necessity of some radical change in the system of the Commonwealth. All was confusion and violence. Clodius, a profli- gate relic of the Catilinarian party, having been elected to the tribuneship B. c. 58, procured the banishment of Cicero for his conduct in the affair of the conspiracy. In the following year, however, Clodius having in the meantime made himself generally odious, Cicero was recalled. Pompey and Crassus were elected consuls for the year b. c. 55. Mindful of their connection with Caesar, who was of course in constant correspondence with them, they procured a prolongation of his command over the Gauls for a second period of five years ; at the same time obtaining for themselves — Pompey, the government of Spain for five years ; and Crassus that of Sy- ria and adjacent countries for a similar period. In b. c. 55, Crassus set out for the scene of his command, where, soon afterwards, he perished in a fruitless expedition against the Parthians ; Pompey remained at home, governing Spain by deputies. During several subsequent years, Rome was in a state of anarchy and misrule — the streets perambulated by armed mobs, partisans on the one hand of Clodius, and on the other of a powerful citizen called Milo, between whom a feud was carried on, as desperate and bloody as any that ever distracted a European town in the middle ages. In one of the numerous scuffles which took place between the contending parties, Clodius was killed ; and taking advantage of the opportunity, the tottering government asserted its rights by bringing Milo to trial, and pro- curing his banishment. Meanwhile the remedy was preparing. Among the marshes and forests of Gaul, the great Caesar was accumulating that strength of men and pur- pose with which he was to descend on Italy and shiver the rotton fabric of the Commonwealth. ' Fain,' says the eloquent Michelet — ' fain would I have seen that fair and pale countenance, prematurely aged by the debauch- eries of the capital — fain would I have seen that delicate and epileptic man, marching in the rains of Gaul at the head of his legions, and swimming across our rivers, or else on horseback, between the litters in which his secretaries were carried, dictating even six letters at a time, shaking Rome from the extremity of Belgium, sweeping from his path two millions of men, and subduing in ten years Gaul, the Rhine, and the ocean of the north. This barbarous and bellicose chaos of Gaul was a superb material for such a genius. The Gallic tribes were on every side calling in the stran- ger ; Druidism was in its decline ; Italy was exhausted ; Spain untame- able ; Gaul was essential to the subjugation of the world.' Caesar's Gallic wars of themselves form a history. We have an account of them yet re- maining from the pen of the conqueror himself, and that of his friend Ilir- tius. Suffice it to say, that in eight years (b. c. 58-50) Caesar had con quered all Gaul, including the present France and Belgium ; had paid two DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 105 visits to the island of Great Britain (b. c. 55-54) ; and was able, in the spring of b. c. 50, to take up his residence in Cisalpine Gaul, leaving the 300 tribes beyond the Alps, which he had conquered by such bloody means, not only pacified, but even attached to himself personally. His army, which included many Gauls and Germans, were so devoted to him, that they would have marched to the end of the world in his service. Caesar's conquests in Gaul were of course a subject of engrossing inter est at Rome, and when the city enjoyed an interval of repose from the commotions caused by Clodius and Milo, nothing else was talked of. ' Com- pared with this man,' said Cicero, ' what was Marius ?' and the saying was but an expression of the popular enthusiasm. Caesar's visits to Britain excited especial interest ; and at first there were not wanting sceptics who maintained that there was no such island in existence, and that the alleged visit of Caesar to that place of savages, where pearls were found in the riv- ers, was a mere hoax on the public. As, however, the period of Caesar's command drew near its close, and it became known that he aspired to a second consulship, the fears of the aristocratic party began to manifest themselves. ' What may not this conqueror of Gaul do when he returns to Rome ? ' was the saying of Cato, and others of the senators. ' Accustomed during so many years to the large and roomy action of a camp, will he be able to submit again to civic trammels ? Will he not rather treat us as if we were 'his subordinate officers — Roman laws as if they were savage cus- toms — and our city itself as if it were a Gallic forest ? ' Unfortunately, also, the Triumvirate no longer existed to support Caesar's interests. Cras- sus was dead ; and Pompey — whose connection with Caesar had been sev- ered by the death of his wife, Caesar's beloved daughter Julia (b. c. 54) — had since gone over to the aristocratic party, to which he had formerly be- longed, and whose policy was, upon the whole, more genial to his character. In B. c. 52, he enjoyed a third consulship, without a colleague, having been appointed by the senators as the man most likely to restore order to the distracted state ; and during the following year, he lent his aid to those en- emies of Caesar who insisted that, ere he should be allowed to stand for the consulship, he should be obliged to resign his Gallic command, and resume his station as a private citizen, ready to meet any charges which might be brought against him. Caesar did not want agents in Rome — some of them paid, some of them voluntary — to plead his cause ; and through these he offered to resign his command, provided Pompey would do the same with regard to Spain. The proposal was not listened to ; and a decree of the senate having been passed that Caesar should disband his army against a certain day, under pain of being treated as a public enemy, his agents left the city, and hastened to his camp in Cisalpine Gaul (b. c. 50). Caesar did not delay a moment. Sending orders to his various legions distributed through Gaul to follow him as speedily as possible, he placed himself at the head of such forces as were with him at the instant, crossed the small stream called the Rubicon, which separated his province of Cisal- pine Gaul from Italy, and advanced towards Rome, amid cheers of welcome from the populations which he passed through. Utterly bewildered by his unexpected arrival, the whole senatorial party, with Pompey at their head, abandoned Rome, and proceeded into the south of Italy, where they tried to raise forces. Caesar pursued them, and drove them into Greece. Then hastening into Spain, he suppressed a rising Pompeian movement in that 106 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. country. Returning to Rome with the title of Dictator, which had been bestowed on him during his absence, he passed various salutary measures for restoring order in Italy, and among them one conferring the Roman cit- izenship on the Cisalpine Gauls ; then crossed over into Greece (b. c. 49) to give battle to Pompey, who had meanwhile assembled forces from all parts of the Roman dominion. At length the two armies met on the plain of Pharsalia in Thessaly (9th August b. c. 48), when Pompey sustained a complete defeat. Not long afterwards he was killed by the orders of Ptol- emy, king of Egypt, when seeking to land on the coast of that country. Caesar, who had used his victory with great moderation, arrived in Egypt soon after, and remained there several months, fascinated by Cleopatra, who was then at -war with her brother Ptolemy. Having settled the affairs of Egypt, Caesar proceeded to Asia Minor, crushed an insurrection there headed by Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, and then (September, b. c. 47) returned to Italy. He remained there but a few months, setting out in the beginning of B. c. 46 for Africa, where the relics of the Pompeian party had taken refuge. These were soon de- feated; and Cato, the most distinguished man among them, killed himself rather than to fall into his conqueror's hands. Pompey's two sons escaped to Spain, where they excited an insurrection, which, however, was soon sup- pressed. EXTINCTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH— DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH OF CAESAR— THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE— CIVIL WARS OF MARK ANTONY AND OCTAVIANUS. From August b. c. 48, when he defeated Pompey at Pharsalia, till March B. c. 44, when he was assassinated, Julius Caesar was supreme mas- ter of the Roman world. Senate and people vied with each other in con- ferring dignities upon him ; and all the great offices and titles recognized by the Roman constitution — as consul, dictator, censor, tribune, etc. — were concentrated in his person, while he exercised the virtual patronage of al- most all the rest. In short, the Commonwealth may be said to have ceased when he defeated Pompey ; and had he lived long enough, there is no doubt that he would have fully established the Empire. It was not so much, how- ever, in organic changes of the constitution, as in practical reforms of vast moment, that Caesar exercised the enormous power which had been placed in his hands. Besides the various measures of reform which he actually carried into effect during his dictatorship, among which his famous reform of the Calendar deserves especial mention, there were innumerable schemes which he had projected for himself, and some of which he would probably have executed, had his life not been cut short. To extend the Roman do- minion in the East; to drain the Pontine marshes ; to cut through the Isthmus of Corinth ; to prepare a complete map of the Roman Empire ; to draw up a new digest of Roman law ; to establish public libraries in the metropolis — such were a few of the designs which this great man enter- tained at the time when the conspiracy was formed which led to his assas- sination. At the head of this plot, which consisted of about sixty persons of note, were Brutus and Cassius, both men of the highest abilities, and es- teemed by Caesar ; and the former at least actuated by motives of the pur- est character. The immediate occasion of the conspiracy was the rumc DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 107 that Caesar intended to accept the title of king, which some of his adher- ents were pressing upon him. When the plot was matured (b. c. 44) it was resolved that Caesar should be assassinated in the senate-house on the ides (the 15) of March, on which day it was understood a motion was to be brought forward by some of his friends for appointing him king of Italy. ' Upon the first onset,' says Plutarch, ' those who were not privy to the design were astonished, and their horror of the action was so great, that they durst not fly, nor assist Caesar, nor so much as speak a word. But those who came prepared for the business enclosed him on every side, with their naked daggers in their hands, and which way soever he turned he met with blows, and saw their swords leveled at his face and eyes. Bru- tus gave him one stab in the groin. Some say that he fought and resisted all the rest, and moved from one place to another calling for help ; but when he saw Brutus's sword drawn, he covered his face with his robe, and quietly surrendered himself, till he was pushed, either by chance or design, to the pedestal on which Pompey's statue stood, which by that means was much stained with his blood : so that Pompey himself may seem to have had his share in the revenge of his former enemy, who fell at his feet, and breathed out his soul through the multitude of his wounds ; for they say he received three-and-twenty.' The assassination of Caesar has justly been pronounced ' the most stupid action that ever the Romans committed.' The later ages of the republic had been one continued scene of violence and anarchy ; and not until Caesar had risen to the chief power in the state was there a restoration of order and efficient government. His assassination plunged the Roman dominions into new and complicated civil wars. On the one side were the conspirators with Brutus and Cassius at their head, bent on the futile pro- ject of throwing back the Empire into the condition of a republic. On the other were Mark Antony, an able and valiant officer of Caesar's ; Le- pidus, another officer of less distinguished abilities ; and Marcus Octavius, a young man of eighteen, Caesar's grandnephew, and who, as his uncle's heir, now assumed the name of Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. These three united themselves into a triumvirate (November B. C. 44) for aveng- ing Caesar's death, and settling the affairs of the republic. After making themselves masters of Italy, and putting to death by wholesale proscrip- tion all those citizens whose views they suspected, among others the great and amiable Cicero, they pursued the conspirators into Greece. At length, in the autumn of B. c. 42, two great battles were fought at Philippi in Macedonia between the republican forces and those of the triumvirate. The former were defeated; Cassius caused himself to be slain, Brutus committed suicide, and the triumvirs thus remained masters of the Roman world. They divided it among them : Antony assuming the government of the East, Lepidus obtaining Africa, and Octavianus returning to Italy, master of the countries adjacent to that peninsula. Each continued to govern his share for some time independently ; but a quarrel ensuing be- tween Octavianus and Lepidus, the latter was deprived of his power, and obliged to retire into private life. The Empire was now divided between Antony and Octavianus, the former master of the East, the latter of the West. At length, however, political and private reasons led to a rupture between the two potentates (b. c. 33). The rash and pleasure-loving Antony, who had been caught in the toils of Cleopatra, the licentious 108 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA queen of Egypt, and therefore one of his subject sovereigns as master of the East, was no match for the cunning, abstemious, and remorseless Oc- tavianus. Defeated at the battle of Actium (2d September b. c. 31), he fled with Cleopatra to Egypt, where, being hard pressed by Octavianus, they both died by their own hands. Octavianus thus remained sole mas- ter (b. c. 30) of the great Empire which Julius Caesar had prepared for him ; and under the new name of Augustus, he continued to wield the sovereignty during the long period of forty-four years (b. c. 30 - A. D. 14). During these forty-four years, the various races and nations which bo many centuries of conquest had connected together, became consolidat- ed into that historic entity — ' The Roman Empire.' CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE UNDER AUGUSTUS. The Roman Empire under Augustus consisted of Italy and the follow- ing countries governed as provinces : — In Europe, Sicily, Sardinia, and the other islands in the west of the Mediterranean, Gaul as far as the Rhine, Spain, Illyricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, and the islands of the iEgean ; in Asia, all the countries between the Caspian Sea, the Parthian Empire, the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, the Mediterranean, and the Caucasus ; and in Africa, Mauritania, Numidia, the ancient territory of Carthage, Cyrene, and Egypt. Within these lim- its there may have been included, in all, about 100,000,000 of human beings, of different races, complexions, languages, and degrees of civiliza- tion. Not less than one-half of the whole number must have been in a condition of slavery, and of the rest, only that small proportion who, un- der the envied name of Roman citizens, inhabited Italy, or were distribut- ed, in official or other capacities, through the cities of the Empire, enjoyed political independence. These 'citizens,' diffused through the conquered countries, constituted the ingredient by which the whole was kept in union. Working backwards and forwards in the midst of the various populations in which they were thus planted, the Romans assimilated them gradually to each other, till Celts, Spaniards, Asiatics, etc., became more or less Romanized. This process of assimilation was much facilitated by the cir- cumstance that, with the exception of Judea and other portions of the East, all the nations of the Roman Empire were polytheistic in their beliefs, so that there was no fundamental repugnance in this respect between the modes of thought of one nation and those of another. In fact, the Ro- man Empire may be defined as a compulsory assemblage of polytheistic na- tions, in order that Christianity might operate over a large surface at once of that polytheism which it was to destroy and supersede. In the twenty- fifth year of the reign of Augustus, and while that prince was ruling with undisturbed sway over 100,000,000 of fellow-polytheists, there took place in that small monotheistic corner of his dominions which lay on the south- ern border of the Levant, an event, the importance of which the wisest of the Romans could not have foreseen. This was the birth, in an obscure Jewish town, of Jesus Christ. From that town, and from that obscure corner of the vast Roman Empire, was to proceed an influence which was to overspread the polytheistic nations, eat out or dissolve into itself all ex- isting creeds and philosophies, and renovate the thoughts, the habits, the whole constitution of mankind. Waiting for this influence, the various DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 109 nations — Celts, Greeks, Spaniards, etc., — were submitted to the prelim- inary pressure of Roman institutions, modifying, and in some cases chang ing, their native characters. The eastern half of the Empire, however, had been too thoroughly impregnated with the Greek element to yield easi- ly to the new pressure ; and accordingly while the Latin language spread among the barbarians of the west, Greek still continued to be the language of the East. This demarcation between the western or Latin-speaking and the eastern or Greek-speaking portions of the Empire became exceed- ingly important afterwards. Of this vast empire Rome was the metropolis, now a city of innumera- ble streets and buildings, and containing, it is calculated, a population of about two millions and a half. From Rome roads branched out in all direc- tions leading to the other towns of Italy, and passing through the villa- studded estates of the rich Roman citizens. From the coasts of Italy, the Mediterranean afforded an easy access to the various provinces, by whose industry the metropolis and Italy itself were in a great measure supported. The provinces themselves were traversed by roads connecting town with town, and laying all parts of the Empire open to the civil and military functionaries of government. Usually residing at Rome, the will of the emperor vibrated through a hierarchy of intermediate functionaries, so as to be felt throughout the whole of his vast dominions. In effect, this will was absolute. In Augustus, as in Julius Caesar, all the great offices of state, which had so long subsisted as mutual checks upon each other, were united, so as to confer on him power of the most unlimited de- scription. The senate still met, but only as a judicial body in cases of treason, or legislatively to pass the decrees which Augustus had previously matured with a few private counselors ; and the comitia were still held, but only to elect candidates already nominated by the emperor. In this system of absolute dominion in the hands of a single individual, the Ro- mans cheerfully acquiesced, partly from experience of the superior nature of the government thus exercised to the wretched anarchy from which they had escaped, and partly in consequence of the hopelessness of revolt against a man who had the entire military force of the Empire at his dis- posal. In Rome and Italy, the public peace was preserved by the prceto- rian cohorts — bodies of soldiers of tried valor, to whom Augustus gave double pay. Throughout the provinces, the people were kept in check by the regular troops, who were accumulated, however, principally in the frontier provinces of the Empire, where they might both maintain tran- quillity among the recently-conquered populations, and resist the attacks of the barbarian races beyond. The provinces where military force was required, Augustus retained in his own hands, administering them through legates appointed by himself, usually for several years ; the others he in- trusted to the senate, who named governors for a single year. The cities of the Empire were the centres of Roman influence. It was in them that the Roman citizens were congregated, that schools were es- tablished, and that the various agencies of civilization operated most uni- formly. In the rustic populations of the provinces, the national individu- ality was preserved with the national language. It was part of the policy of Augustus to found cities in the choicest situations in the provinces ; and so rapid was the spread of the Roman civilization during his reign, that Roman writers and orators of note began to be produced even in remote 110 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. parts of the Empire. The Greek language and literature began also to penetrate the provinces of the west, and to find students among the Celts and Spaniards THE SUCCESS OF AUGUSTUS — DISSEMINATION OF CHRISTIANITY — DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE. During a period of nearly three centuries after the death of Augustus, the Empire remained, so far as political arrangements were concerned, pretty nearly as he had left it ; and the history of Rome during these cen- turies is little more than an account of the personal characters of the suc- cessive emperors. Some of these seem to have been specimens of the ut- most depravity to which human nature could attain ; others were men of great mind, and worthy of their station. At first, the Empire was inher- ited as a birthright by those who could claim descent from Augustus ; • but in the end, the real patrons of the sovereign dignity were the armies, and especially the praetorian cohorts. To raise favorite generals to the pur- ple, and afterwards to murder them for the sake of the donations which it was customary to receive in the case of a new accession, became the pas- time of the various armies ; and sometimes it happened that there were sev- eral emperors at the same time, different armies throughout the Empire having each appointed one. The effect of these military appointments was to raise to the highest dignity of the state men born at a distance from Rome, and who, spending their lives in the camp, entertained no affection for the city of the Caesars. Meanwhile, under all the emperors alike, the great family of nations incorporated under the Roman rule were daily advancing towards that condition out of which modern society was to arise. The reader, however, must imagine for himself the toil and bustle of the successive generations of Celts, Spaniards, Greeks, Africans, and Asiatics, who were born and buried during these three important centuries in which modern civilization was cradled ; all that we can give here is a chronolog ical list of the emperors during that period : — Augustus, - - Tiberius, - - - Caligula, - • - Claudius, - - - Nero, - - - - Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, - - - Titus, - - - - Doroitian, - - - Nerva, - - - - Trajan, - - - - Hadrian, - - - Antonius Pius, - ' Marcus Antoninus, ' Com modus, - - ' Pertinax, - - - ' Septimius Severus, ' 14 A.D to 37 " 38 " 41 " 41 " 54 " 54 " 68 " G8 " 70 " 70 " * 79 " 79 " 81 " 81 " 96 " 96 " 98 " 98 " • 117 " 117 " 138 " 138 " 161 " 161 " 180 " 180 " 192 " 193 .d., Caracalla, - - ' Heliogabalus, - ' Alexander Severus, " ' Julius Maximinus, " ' Gordian, - - - - " ' Philip, " ' ' Decius, .... " ' ' Gallus, --- - " ' Valerian and Gallienus, " ' Gallienus, - - - " ' Aurelius, - . - - " ' Aurelianus, - - - " 1 Tacitus, .... " 1 Florian, - - - - " ' Probus, ---- " Cams. " from 211 a.d. to 217 a.d " 218 " 222 " " 222 " " 235 " " 238 " " 243 " " 249 " " 251 " 253 " 193 261 268 270 275 276 276 282 211 " Diocletian & Maximian," 284 235 238 243 249 251 253 260 268 270 275 276 282 284 305 The only facts connected with the reigns of these emperors which need be noticed here are, that in the reign of Claudius, Britain was added to the Roman dominion ; that under the great Trajan, the Empire was still farther extended ; and that under Caracalla, the Roman franchise was extended to all the free inhabitants of the Empire, The vices of such emperors a3 DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. Ill Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, may pass unno- ticed, as may also the military achievements of some of the later emperors. The reign of Diocletian, however (a. d. 248-305), constitutes an epoch in the history of the Empire. Finding the unwieldy mass too great for the administration of a single individual, he divided it between himself and his colleague Maximian, assigning to Maximian the western or Latin- speaking nations, and retaining the East in his own hands. Under each emperor there was to be a royal personage called Caesar, who was to gov- ern part of that emperor's section of the Empire, and afterwards succeed him in the chief dignity. This arrangement did not last long ; and after various subdivisions of the Empire, and struggles between emperors and Caesars, the whole was reunited under Constantine the Great (a. d. 306- 337). Under this remarkable man Christianity was established as the re ligion of the Empire. During the three centuries which had elapsed between the crucifixion of Christ — which took place in the nineteenth year of the reign of Tibe- rius — and the accession of Constantine to the supreme government of the whole Empire, the new religion had been silently but surely spreading it- self ; first among the Jews, then among the Greek or eastern, and lastly among the Latin or western Gentiles. It had been subjected to numerous persecutions, some local, and others general, over the whole Empire ; but had, nevertheless, made such progress, that it is calculated that in Constan- tine's reign about a twentieth part of the whole population of the Empire were professed Christians, while even over the nineteen-twentieths who continued in polytheism, the indirect influence of Christianity had been immense. Led to embrace Christianity himself, although with a consid- erable tincture of polytheistic superstition, Constantine gave his imperial recognition to the already fully-organized ecclesiastical system of the Chris- tians, with its churches, presbyters, bishops, metropolitans. The civil ban having thus been removed from the profession of Christianity, it began to prevail in form, as it already did in fact, over the heterogeneous polythe- ism of the Empire. Another important act of Constantine's reign, besides his proclamation of toleration for Christianity (a. d. 321), was his removal of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople. Not long after this was effected, Constantine died at the age of sixty, leaving the Empire divided among his three sons. One of them, Constantius, ultimately acquired the whole, and transmitted it to his successors ; but in the year 395, Theodosius, one of these successors, effected a permanent separation between the East and the West. From that date, the history of Rome divides itself into two distinct histories — that of the Western or Latin and that of the Eas- tern or Greek empire. The latter protracted its existence till a. d. 1453, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks : the former crumbled to pieces much earlier, before the attacks of the northern barbarians, who finally destroyed it in 476. DOWNFALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. From an early period, the Empire had been assailed on its northern frontier by the German and Sclavonian races living east of the Rhine and north of the Danube. Partly by force, and partly by negotiation, the au- 112 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. thorities of the Empire had been able to keep these barbarian populations in check ; but towards the end of the fourth century, the growing decrepi- tude of the Empire tempted invasion, and hordes of barbarians from Scan- dinavia, Russia, and Tartary, rolled themselves toward the Danube. At first, it seemed as if the eastern empire would be the first to fall before them ; but the tide of invasion was at length decisively diverted towards the west. Province after province was torn away by Goths, Alans, Huns, Vandals, and others : Italy itself was ravaged several times ; and at length, A. D. 476, Romulus Augustus, the last sovereign, was dethroned, and Italy became a prey to the Germans. The various steps in this gradual disin- tegration of the Empire, the heroic deeds of the two chief agents in the dismemberment — Alaric, king of the Goths, and Atfila, king of the Huns — and the gradual formation of Romano-Germanic kingdoms out of frag- ments of the shattered Roman society, cannot here be detailed. HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Under the title of the Middle Ages is comprehended that period of history which succeeded the destruction of the Roman western empire and extended to the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, when learning was revived in Europe. This period of about eight hundred years may be said to divide ancient from modern times. The early portion of the middle ages is sometimes styled the Dark Ages ; for during this time the ancient civilization of Rome, a bequest from Egypt and Greece, disappeared, and ancient institutions perished, without anything better being substituted. The middle ages altogether differ from any other period in history. They may be generally described as an era of universal disorder, in which was maintained a struggle between force and reason. Old govern- ments were broken up, and new ones took their place, only to be dismem- bered in turn. Literature sunk into obscurity, and was confined to the cells of monks. Slavery was universal, and was modified alone by the be- nign influence of Christianity. Gradually, as it will be seen, nations as- sumed a settled character, arts were discovered, and for military turbulence were substituted peaceful institutions. Much, therefore, as there is to deplore in the history of the middle ages, there is not a little to commend and be grateful for. We must view these ages as being the cradle of mod- ern civilization, the era whence sprung much that we venerate in our insti- tutions, much that distinguishes modern from ancient manners. THE EASTERN EMPIRE TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY. It is necessary to begin a history of the middle ages with reference to the decline of the Roman Empire. This decline was caused by various cir- cumstances, but chiefly by the weakened condition of society. Instead of rearing a respectable lower and middle class, the Roman aristocracy kept the mass of the people in slavery, so that at length society consisted of but a comparatively small number of privileged persons, including the mili • DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 118 tary, and vast numbers of serfs or slaves — the hangers-on of great men — and in effect paupers. ' The freedom of the ancient world expired in the course of ages,' says Alison, ' from the small number of those who enjoyed its benefits. The ruling citizens became corrupted from the influ- ence of prosperity, or by the seduction of wealth ; and no infusion of en- ergy took place from the lower ranks to renovate their strength or supply their place.' Besides this general, there was a special cause. In 821 , Constantine transferred the imperial abode from Rome to Byzantium, a city situated on the Bosphorus, and afterwards called Constantinople. In his endeavoi'S to make this city the seat of government, Constantine only par- tially succeeded ; for it generally happened after his day that there was one emperor in the East and another in the West, and not unfrequently two or three different individuals in the provinces, at the head of consid- erable military forces, claiming partial and even universal empire. Rome itself, and the countries of western Europe, were soon taken posession of by barbarous intruders, and lost all the characteristics and individuality of empire ; but Constantinople continued for a thousand years the abode of men who had still the name of emperors, reckoning themselves the descendants of the Caesars, although they had long ceased to wield anything but the shadow of power. Constantine was himself instrumental in dismembering his empire, having before his death divided it among no fewer than five individuals — namely, his three sons, Constantine, Constans, Constantius, and his two nephews, Dalmatius and Annipalianus, both of whom bore in addition the surname of Caesar — a name still popular among a people who wished themselves to be considered Roman. Constantine II soon fell a sacrifice to the cruelty and ambition of his brother Constans, who in his turn lost his life in attempting to quell a re- volt among his subjects ; and Constantius, the youngest of the sons, having found means to destroy the two Caesars, and five other cousins, and two uncles, found himself at an early period of life the undisputed master of the empire. He reigned twenty-four years, but left no monuments of goodness or of greatness, having wasted his time in the practice of vice, or in the equally unprofitable, if more innocent, employment of disputing with bishops on the abstrusest points of doctrinal theology ; while a host of enemies, apparently from every side of his dominions, were engaged in undermining and laying waste the empire. It was in the West that these attacks were first made, though perhaps it was in the East that they were fiercest. Numberless and powerful barbarians now began to pour unceas- ingly upon Gaul, Spain, and latterly upon Italy itself, from the forests of the north, and in particular from those of Germany — a country whose inhabitants have been remarkable in the history of the world, both as hav- ing originated many of the greatest movements in society, and as having laid open more of the sources of human thought than any people that could be named. The Franks, Saxons, Goths, and Alemanni, devastated the fine countries watered by the Rhine, and so effectually severed them from the Empire, that from this period their history becomes wholly separate. At the same time the Sarmatians, Persians, Scythians, and others, made dread- ful incursions in the East. All that Constantius could do to stem this pow- erful tide was to raise his kinsman Julian, whom he surnamed Caesar, to command in the army. Julian had been early instructed in the Christian religion, but he is not 8* 114 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. known to have ever given it any credit, although he has been often called apostate. He had imbibed the philosophy of Plato in the schools of Ath- ens ; and with this learning, with the elements of a great character in his mind, and with the models of Caesar, of Trajan, and of Marcus Antonius in his eye, he formed the design, and seemed to have the ability, to raise up and consolidate the glories of a falling Empire. His victories over the Alemanni in Gaul, although they preserved the Empire, excited only the en»vy of the emperor, and Constantius was about to depose him from his command, when his own death saved him from the ignominy to which the soldiery would certainly have subjected him for any attempt to degiade their favorite commander. Julian was himself declared emperor by the army, and the people had lost both the power and the will to resist. Un fortunately for his fame, Julian perished in battle with the Persians only three years after his accession. In that short period he had reformed many abuses in the state ; and though personally hostile to the Christian religion, and though he used both arguments and ridicule against it, he not only ad- vocated, but practiced universal toleration. It is creditable also to Julian, that in establishing the ancient orders of Roman priesthood, he was at paina to enforce a strict morality in all the relations of life. He was succeeded, after the fall of several candidates, by Valentinian, whose father had been a soldier from the Danube. This emperor took for colleague his brother Valens, to whom he assigned Constantinople and the government of the East. The reign of Valens was signalized by the irruption into Europe of an enemy till then unknown to the Romans ; these were the Huns, a con- federation of Tartar tribes, some of whom had obtained the ascendancy and control over the rest, and led them on to invade the nations of Europe. Their numbers and ferocity led the ancient writers to describe them in terms of consternation, which to moderns, who are no strangers to Calmucs, Cossacks, Tartars, and other tribes of similar origin, appear sufficiently lu- dicrous. They never lived in houses, slept under trees, ate raw flesh, and were altogether superior in war even to the Goths, who were now in alli- ance with the Romans, and had begun to relish the comforts of a settled life. They were, therefore, driven away before the Huns, and were forced, in search of a home, to invade the Roman territory. Here they were opposed by the Emperor Valens ; but they defeated his army, and made his own life a sacrifice. He was succeeded by his nephew Gratian, who chose for his colleague Theodosius, a general of talents and celebrity. This emperor restored the confidence of his own army, and broke the power of the Goths, by his skill and caution ; and was the first of the em- perors who practiced the mode of dividing the barbarians against one an- other, by giving money to such of their tribes as he imagined would make useful auxiliaries. This system, which the wealth of the emperors (from their possession of all the maritime and trading cities) enabled them long to use against their poorer enemies, often saved the Empire at the expense of its dignity ; for though the money was given at first as a gratuity, it was sometimes demanded in times of weakness as a tribute. This Theodosius (commonly called the Great) was the first who made Christianity the es- tablished religion of the Empire (890). He procured a senatorial edict in favor of the Christians and their religion, sanctioned the destruction of the heathen temples, and forbade the performance of sacrifices either in public or private. The Empire under this prince still preserved its origin- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 115 al extent; but he divided it between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius (394), and its parts were never afterwards reunited. From the death of Theodosius II (449) to the reign of Justinian (527), the Eastern Empire continued without any considerable alteration, though there were many changes and intrigues in the court and army. The reign of the latter prince is memorable on several accounts : it was under his aus- pices that a knowledge of the silk manufacture was first brought to Europe, where it gave employment to much ingenious industry (900). Justinian also caused certain eminent lawyers to prepare a code of laws, and an abridgement of law decisions, etc. called the Pandects, which were used by all his successors, and have been adopted as the basis of their laws by sev- eral countries of Europe. With the single exception of the Code de Napo- leon, these form the only complete and perfect abstract of national law which any government has given to its people. Whatever may have been Justinian's errors in other respects, his having projected this work, and pro- cured so many able ministers to execute it, must redound forever to his honor. The talents and virtues of his general Belisarius regained to the Empire Africa and a great part of Italy, from the Vandals and Ostrp^oths ; this conquest, however, only prevented the latter region from being uuitod under one government, and has been the cause of its remaining a feeble and divided country ever since. In the reign of Tiberius shortly after (580), the people of Rome, though they entreated with great earnestness the aid and pity of the emperor, who now claimed to rule over them, were unable to obtain any relief, and remained distracted between their attachment to the ancient head of the Empire, and the claims of his enemies who occupied the rest of Italy. The next emperor who merits attention is Heraclius (610), a native of Africa. The Eastern Empire had till now preserved its ancient boundaries in their full extent, and was mistress of Carthage, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, besides Greece, and the countries on the Danube. The Roman ar mies on the eastern frontier had, however, been lately driven in by Chos- roes, king of Persia, who now occupied all the north of Africa and Syria. This was the first great violation of their territory sustained by the emper- ors of Constantinople ; and Heraclius avenged it with a celerity and eifect which made the Persians tremble. His triumph, however, was short, for the latter part of his reign was disturbed by the rise and victories of Mo- hammed. The successors of this signal impostor, after breaking the power of Persia (already weakened by the victories of Heraclius), immediately attacked the Roman Empire ; then defeated its armies in two battles, oc- cupied all Syria, and obliged the emperor (now an old man) to retire to Constantinople. He died in 641. The continued victories of the followers of Mohammed (called Arabs or Saracens) soon deprived the Empire of Egypt, Africa, and Syria ; and in 668 they followed up their success by attacking Constantinople itself. The city sustained two sieges, in the first of which the Saracens were encamped in its neighborhood, and carried on the operations of a siege at intervals, for seven years ; and in the second, for nearly two. In both the Saracens wasted immense resources ineffectually. The Empire had now lost all its provinces eastward of Mount Taurus, and the cities of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch, were in the hands of the Mohammedans. There was little further change in its condition till the 116 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. year 867, under the Emperor Basil, who gave new vigor both to the internal administration and to the military resources of the government. This prince, and his immediate predecessor Zimisces, made the Roman arms — for they still wished to be called Romans — respected on the Euphrates, and Tigris, and asserted the ancient warlike reputation and boundaries of the Empire. They were now, however, deprived of the resources they had enjoyed in the secure possession of the great commercial cities of the Medi- terranean — Alexandria, Carthage, Caesarea, etc. ; and the trade and reve- nues of those which remained were crippled and diminished, from the want of that free general intercourse which had existed when they were all under one government. Hence the armies were maintained with greater diffi- culty, and any victories that were gained could not be followed up with effect. The early enemies of the Empire — the Goths, Vandals, and Huns — had now settled into civilized communities, and were no longer formida- ble. The foes with whom it contended latterly were the Bulgarians and Seljukian Turks ; the former of whom were rather troublesome than danger ous, but the latter, who had succeeded the Saracens in the dominion of Asia, aimed at nothing short of the destruction of the Roman name. They succeeded at last by defeating and taking prisoner the Emperor Romanus Diogenes, in tearing away almost the whole province of Asia Minor (1099) ; so that the emperors were now confined to the dominions in Europe, which, however, still formed a monarchy not much smaller than France or Spain. The manners of the court of Constantinople during much of this period were dissolute and corrupt. We are told of one emperor who ordered a plate of human noses to be brought to his table ; another was accustomed to seize the deputies of cities whose tribute was in arrear, and suspend them with their heads downwards over a slow fire ; a third got up farces in mock- ery of the ceremonies of religion ; and, in general, the appointment of offi- cers, and even the succession to the Empire (where it was not seized by some successful general), were in the hands of the women and eunuchs of the palace. The cities and provinces generally acquiesced as to the choice of an emperor in the decision of the capital or army ; this circumstance shows that the laws were attended to, and that there was a regular system of government, which were not much disturbed by the personal character of the reigning prince. The countries of Greece, however, which had form- erly been the seat of knowledge and the arts, were now sunk in ignorance ; and the little learning that was cultivated in Athens was only scholastic divinity, or the pedantry of law and grammar. There is no scholar, or phi- losopher, or poet, of the empire of Constantinople who is generally known to posterity. A great change took place in the relations of the Empire after the eleventh century. It was still pressed by the Turks on the East, who now occupied Asia Minor, and were only separated from Constantinople by the Hellespont ; while in Europe its territories were disturbed by the incursions of certain Norman adventurers who had settled in Sicily. Against these enemies the Emperor Claudius Comnenus, an active prince, and full of resources, made all the resistance which his diminished revenues allowed. He applied to the Christian sovereigns of Europe to aid him in expelling the Mohammedans from the territories of the Empire, but above all, to drive out the Turks from the land of Judea, which they occupied and profaned, and where they harassed the Christian pilgrims who desired DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 117 to visit the scenes of Scripture history. His appeal was received in Eu- rope at a time when many concurring causes had brought the mass of the people to a state of uneasiness which at once foreboded and rendered necessary some extensive change in their condition. Countrymen of their own, pilgrims from the shrine of the tomb of Chist, had returned and filled them with horror by a recital of indignities which Turkish infidels were casting on those scenes and subjects with which their own most sacred feelings were associated ; and the result was that extraordinary outpouring of the inhabitants of Europe upon Asia, which has been termed the Cru- sades, and to which we shall afterwards advert. ARABIA — MOHAMMED — EMPIRE OF THE SARACENS. It was not before the sixth century that Arabia became peculiarly re- markable in the history of the world. The wild Arabs, as they have been generally called, had already signalized themselves by incursions on the Empire of the East, when Mohammed was born, in the year 569 (some say, 571) of the Christian era, at Mecca, the principal city of their country. He is said to have been descended from some great families ; but it is cer- tain that his immediate progenitors were poor, and he had little education but what his own means and his own mind could give him. Yet this man became the founder of a great empire, and the fabricator of a religion which has continued to our own day to affect greater numbers of mankind than Christianity itself. At an early period of life, we are told, ' he re- tired to the desert, and pretended to hold conferences with the Angel Ga- briel, who delivered to him, from time to time, portions of a sacred book or Koran, containing revelations of the will of the Supreme Being, and of the doctrines which he required his prophet (that is, Mohammed himself) to communicate to the world.' The Mohammedan religion, as the so-called revelations of this great imposter have since been designated, was a strange mixture of the superstitions of Arabia, the morality of Christ, and the rites of Judaism. It was to this happy mixture of tenets, usages, and traditions already existing among his countrymen, and to the applicability of the precepts of the Koran to all legal transactions and all the business of life, that Mohammed seems to have owed his extraordinary success. Others, indeed, have attributed this to certain indulgences allowed in the Koran ; but in reality these indulgences existed before, and the book breathes upon the whole an austere spirit. This extraordinary work inculcated ele- vated notions of the Divine nature and of moral duties : it taught that God's will and power were constantly exerted towards the happiness of His creatures, and that the duty of man was to love his neighbors, assist the poor, protect the injured, to be humane to inferior animals, and to pray seven times a day. It taught that, to revive the impression of those laws which God had engraven originally in the hearts of men, He had sent his prophets upon earth — Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed — the last, the greatest, to whom all the world should owe its conversion to the true -religion. By producing the Koran in detached parcels, Mo- hammed had it in his power to solve all objections by new revelations. It was only after he was well advanced in years that his doctrines began to be received. At first, indeed, they were so violently opposed by his fellow-citizens of Mecca, that the prophet was obliged to flee from the city 118 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. to save his life. This event is called by his followers Hegira, or the Flight : it occurred in the 622d year of the Christian era ; and they reckon dates from it as we do from the birth of Christ. Mohammed took refuge in the city of Medina, and by the aid of his disciples there, he was soon able to return to Mecca at the head of an armed force. This enabled him to subdue those who would not be convinced ; and henceforward he proceeded to make proselytes and subjects together, till at length, being master of all Arabia and of Syria, his numerous followers saluted him king (627). This extraordinary man died suddenly, and in the midst of suc- cesses, at the age of sixty-one (632). Abubeker, his father-in-law and successor, united and published the books of the Koran, and continued and extended the empire which Mohammed had left him. A more powerful caliph (such was the title given to this series of mon- archs) was Omar, the successor of Abubeker (6C5). Barbarity, ferocity, and superstition seem to have been mingled and to have reached their height in the person of Omar. It was by his order that the most magnifi- cent library of antiquity, that of Alexandria, consisting of 700,000 vol- umes, was burned to ashes. The reason which he gave for this act is worth preserving : — ' If these writings,' he said, ' agree with the Koran, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.' By himself and his generals this ferocious conqueror added Syria, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Egypt, Lybia, and Numidia, to his empire. Next came Otman, and then Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed himself. The name of Ali is still revered by Mussulmans. His reign was short, but glorious. ' After some internal troubles,' says Hallam, ' the Saracens won their way along the coast of Africa, as far as the pillars of Hercules, and a third province was irre- trievably torn from the Greek empire. These Western conquests intro- duced them to fresh enemies, and ushered in more splendid successes. Encouraged by the disunion of the Visigoths [ in Spain] , and invited by treachery, Muza, the general of a master who sat beyond the opposite ex- tremity of the Mediterranean Sea, passed over into Spain, and within about two years the name of Mohammed was invoked under the Pyrenees.' Nineteen caliphs of the race of Omar succeeded Ali, and after these came the dynasty of the Abassydee, descended by the male line from Mo- hammed. The second caliph of this race, named Almanzor, removed the seat of empire to Bagdad (762), and introduced learning and the culture of the sciences, which his successors -continued to promote with zeal and liberality. This was some recompense for those indignities which had been cast upon literature by the brutal Omar. Perhaps the obligations of mod- ern Europe to Arabia at this time have been overstated ; but it is not to be denied that learning, almost totally excluded and extinct in Europe during the eight and ninth centuries, found an asylum here. It has been matter of dispute how the tastes of these fierce Arabians became thus first direc- ted. They probably owed it to the Greeks ; but it is certain that what they got they returned with interest. We are said to derive our present arithmetical figures from this strange people ; and geometry,- astronomy, and alchemy were their favorite pursuits. The graces of light literature were not neglected, as is shown by the One Thousand and One Nights ' Entertainments, a production of this period, which still continues to solace the hours of childhood and old age among ourselves, and attests the extent DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 119 of fancy and the variety of genius among those that gave it birth. Haroun al Raschid, who flourished in the beginning of the ninth century, is cele- brated as a second Augustus. He was cotemporary with Charlemagne, and communications of a friendly nature are said to have passed between them. Within fifty years from the death of Mohammed, the Saracens had rais- ed an empire, not only temporal, but also spiritual, more extensive and more powerful than what remained of the empire of Constantinople ; and within a hundred, they had subdued not only Persia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Arabia, but also Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. It seemed, indeed, in the course of the eight century, as if Asia and Europe both should yield o their victorious arms, and become one great Mohammedan domin- ion. But the mighty fabric, of mushroom growth, crumbled into dust with equal speed. After the first extension of their conquests, they ceased to acknowledge any one head of their empire, and the successful generals of the provinces contented themselves by paying a religious respect to the caliphs of Bagdad, as the successors of the prophet, while they retained the power of conquerors for themselves. In the year 732 they sustained a great defeat in France from Charles Martel, who became the father of an illustrious race of kings. No fewer than 375,000 Saracens are said to have been left dead on the field of this battle, and it is certain that they never after cherished the hope of subduing Europe. About the middle of the ninth century (848), they projected the conquest of Italy, and even laid siege to Rome itself. But they were entirely repulsed by Pope Leo IV ; their ships were dispersed by a storm, and their army cut to pieces. Spain was the only European country in which they were able to obtain a permanent footing, and in it alone have they left traces of their existence. FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF ROME TO THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE — ORIGIN OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. The Empire of the Caesars fell in the West only by degrees, and the changes introduced by the northern tribes were gradual, though they proved great. Province after province yielded to the invaders ; and before the end of the fifth century, every country in Europe had undergone extensive changes, and received fresh accessions to the number of its inhabitants. The Visigoths had seated themselves in Spain, the Franks in Gaul, the Saxons in the Roman provinces of South Britain, the Huns in Pannonia, and the Ostrogoths in Italy and the adjacent provinces. And not only had they been enabled to take up their abode, but in general they became mas- ters, and changed the face of all that they touched : ' new governments, laws, languages ; new manners, customs, dresses ; new names of men and of countries, prevailed ; and an almost total change took place in the state of Europe.' That change has been called a change from light to dark- ness, and it assuredly led to the extinction of that taste for literature and that regular administration of government which were the relieving fea- tures of the Roman despotism. But if it thus produced an immediate evil, it led to an ultimate good. The population was reinvigorated by the ad- mixture of the new races, and from the fresh elements it had acquired there sprung institutions which might be considered as in many respects an improvement upon those that formerly prevailed. 120 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. It was out of these new circumstances that what has been called the Feudal System took its rise. This was a feature in society unknown in former ages. Hitherto men had been the slaves of individual masters, or, as in the more celebrated states of antiquity, they were bound together by the common tie of citizenship, and owed allegiance to none. Patriot- ism was their highest virtue, and all looked upon the state as a parent, to which, having got support from it, they were bound to give support in their turn. But in these times the rude inhabitants of the north had formed little or no conception of what a state was, and at first they were not pre- pared to relinquish their much-cherished individual freedom in exchange for rights which they thought they did not need. Changes at length came over them ; and society gradually took new forms. Those who had led them on to battle, began to be looked upon as their guardians in peace. Victorious armies, cantoned out into the countries which they had seized, continued arranged under their officers, each of whom had a separate ter- ritory allotted to him, on which he could retain and support his immediate followers, while the principal leader had the largest ; and in this way all were bound in allegiance, both to their immediate superiors and to their chief, and all were in readiness to be called out to arms whenever their ser- vices were thought to be required. This ' military chieftainship,' infusing itself as an element in the barbarian societies, was the first advance to any- thing like civil or social government since the extinction of the Roman power. Nations, indeed, were still far from having the advantage of a regular government. The method of conducting judicial proceedings, and of administering justice, was still peculiarly unsettled and uncertain. The authority of the magistrate was so limited, and the independence assumed by individuals so great, that they seldom admitted any umpire but the sword. It was then that trial by ordeal became universal, and men's guilt or inno- cence was thought to be proved by the capacity of their bodies to with- stand the influences of red-hot iron or boiling water applied to them, or by their overcoming their accuser in single combat. These observations are applicable, with scarcely any variation, to all the nations which settled in Europe during the fifth and sixth centuries. Speak- ing of this subject, Dr. Robertson says — 'Though the barbarous nations which framed it [the Feudal System], settled in their new territories at different times, came from different countries, spoke various languages, and were under the command of separate leaders, the feudal policy and laws were established, with little variation, in every kingdom of Europe. This amazing uniformity hath induced some authors to believe that all these na- tions, notwithstanding so many apparent circumstances of distinction, were originally the same people. But it may be ascribed, with greater proba- bility, to the similar state of society and of manners to which they were accustomed in their native countries, and to the similar situation in which they found themselves on taking possession of their new domains.' We shall now offer a few remarks respecting them individually. No people at this period exhibited a more energetic character than the Franks, a Teutonic race originally settled on the Lower Rhine and Weser, and who had acquired their name (freemen) while successfully resisting the Roman power in an earlier age. About the year 486, they were un- der the rule of Clovis, who achieved the conquest of Gaul by the defeat of the Roman governor, and afterwards added Burgundy and Aquitaine to DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 121 his dominions — the former by marriage, and the latter by the forcible ex- pulsion of the Visigoths. This may be considered as the foundation of the French monarchy. Clovis adopted the Christian faith, and caused his people to follow his example. It is remarkable that while in war he exer- cised unlimited power over his subjects, they shared with him the legisla- tive authority, meeting annually in the Champs de Mars to suggest and deliberate upon public measures, in the settlement of which the meanest soldier had equally a voice with his sovereign. At the death of Clovis in 511, his four sons divided the kingdom, which was afterwards reunited, divided again, and again united, amidst scenes of tumult and bloodshed. The line of kings proceeding from Clovis (called Merovignian from his grandsire Meroveus) dwindled in time into utter in- significance, while the chief power was wielded by an important officer, called the Mayor of the Palace. Among the most remarkable of these was Pepin Heristal, Duke of Austrasia, who ruled France for thirty years with great wisdom and good policy. His son, Charles Martel, who suc- ceeded to his power, distinguish himself by that great victory over the Sar- acens (a. d. 732), which checked their career in Europe. An appeal by Pepin le Bref, the son of Charles Martel, to the pope of Rome, whose authority had by this time become great, ruled that he who had the power should also have the title of king, and this put an end to the reign of the descendants of Clovis (752). Pepin remunerated the pope for this service by turning his arms against the Lombards in Italy, some of whose dominions he conferred upon the Holy See ; and these, it is said, were the first of the temporal possessions of the church. Pepin died (768), leaving two sons, Carloman and Charles, who succeeded him in the empire. Carloman died at an early period of life, but Charles (sub- sequently Charlemagne) survived to achieve for himself a fame far greater than that of any other individual during the middle ages, with perhaps the single exception of Mohammed. We shall proceed to speak of "him and of his times, after making one or two observations on some other European countries. Spain was among the earliest countries lost to the Roman Empire. From about the year 406, this country, in whole or in part, had been suc- cessively invaded and subdued by Suevi, Alans, Vandals, and Visigoths. The last-named people were in possession of the greater part of the coun- try before the year 585, and erected a monarchy which existed till 712, when they were subdued by the Saracens or Moors. The Saracens made their descent on Spain from Africa, where Nuza, a viceroy of the caliph of Bagdad, had already made extensive conquests. They easily overran Spain and vanquished Don Rodrigo, or Roderic, the last of the Gothic kings. Abdallah, son of Muza, married the widow of Roderic, and the two nations entered into union. Before the conclusion of the eighth cen- tury, Abdalrahman, one of the Moorish generals, had laid aside all tem- poral subjection to the caliph of Bagdad, and formed Spain into an inde- pendent kingdom. His residence was at Cordova, and this city became renowned as one .of the most enlightened in Europe under several succeed- ing reigns. Those parts of Spain which were under the Moorish kings embraced also their religion. The northern provinces never owned their dominion. Towards the conclusion of the sixth century, Italy was in the possession 122 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. of the Longobeards, or Lombards, who continued master of the greater part of it for two centuries. Of their rule, history has recorded little be- sides murders and confusion. It was during this period that the Saxon Heptarchy was formed in Britain. CHARLEMAGNE — THE NEW WESTERN EMPIRE. By far the greatest character who appeared in Europe at this period was Charles, the son of Pepin le Bref, and known in history by the name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great. 'In the course of a reign of forty- five years,' says Mr. Tytler, f Charlemagne extended the limits of his em- pire beyond the Danube, subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria, conquered and subjected all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the Vistula, made himself master of a great portion of Italy, and successfully encountered the arms of the Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons. His war with the Saxons was of thirty years ' duration ; and their final conquest was not achieved without an inhuman waste of blood. At the re- quest of the pope, and to discharge the obligations of his father Pepin to the holy see, Charlemagne, though allied by marriage to Desiderius, king of the Lombards, dispossessed that prince of all his dominions, and put a final period to the Lombard dominion in Italy (774). When Charlemagne made his first entry into Rome, he was crowned king of France and of the Lombards by Pope Adrian I ; and afterwards, on a second visit, he was consecrated Emperor of the West by the hands of Pope Leo III (800). He probably attached some importance to these rites, but it is to be remarked that, as yet, the pontiff was not in the en- joyment of that high influence by which he afterwards could confer or with- draw sovereignty at his pleasure. ' It is probable,' continues the authority above quoted, ' that had Charle- magne chosen Rome for his residence and seat of government, and at his death transmitted to his successor an undivided dominion, that great but fallen empire might have once more been restored to lustre and respect ; but Charlemagne had no fixed capital, and he divided, even in his lifetime, his dominion among his children (806).' Charlemagne died in the year 814, aged seventy-two. His last days were employed in consolidating, rather than extending, his empire, by the making of laws which have ren- dered his name famous, and his memory even blessed. ' Though engaged in so many wars,' says Dr. Russell, ' Charlemagne was far from neglecting the arts of peace, the happiness of his subjects, or the cultivation of his own mind. Government, manners, religion, and letters, were his constant pur- suits. He frequently convened the national assemblies for regulating the affairs both of church and state. In these assemblies he proposed such laws as he considered to be of public benefit, and allowed the same liberty to others ; but of this liberty, indeed, it would have been difficult to deprive the French nobles, who had been accustomed, from the foundation of the monarchy, to share the legislation with their sovereign. His attention ex- tended even to the most distant corners of his empire, and to all ranks of men. He manifested a particular regard for the common people, and stud- ied their ease and advantage. The same love of mankind led him to re- pair and form public roads ; to build bridges where necessary ; to make DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 123 rivers navigable for the purposes of commerce ; and to project that grand canal which would have opened a communication between the German Ocean and the Black Sea, by uniting the Danube and the Rhine.' Amidst all his greatness, his personal habits were simple ; his dress was of the plain- est sort, and such even as to shame his own courtiers ; his hours of study set apart, and seldom omitted even in the busiest times of his life ; his daughters were taught spinning and housewifery, and his sons trained by himself in all the accomplishments of the age. Charlemagne was fond of the company of learned men, and greatly encouraged their residence in his dominions. In this respect he resembled his cotemporary Haroun Ras- chid, so famous in Arabian history, and Alfred the Great, who appeared in England shortly after this period. Superior to all national prejudice, he elevated an Englishman named Alcuin to the head of his royal academy. He was zealous for the extension of Christianity ; and one of the few blots upon his name arises from his having, in the spirit of his age, caused 4000 Saxon prisoners to be beheaded in one day, because they would not submit to be baptized. Charlemagne established schools in the cathedrals and principal abbeys, for the teaching of writing, arithmetic, grammar, logic, and music. Of the sons of Charlemagne, Louis, the youngest, surnamed the Debon- naire, or gentle, was the only one who survived. He succeeded to all his father's dominions, except Italy, which fell into the hands of Bernard, a grandson of Charlemagne. Louis, deficient in vigor of character, was un- able to hold together the great empire left to him by his father. Having, among the first acts of his reign, given large portions of it to his children, the remainder of his life was spent in disgraceful quarrels with them ; and after his death (840), the empire was formally divided — Lothaire, his eld- est son, obtaining Lorraine and Provence ; while Charles the Bald, a young- er son, continued sovereign of the western parts of France ; and Louis be- came king of Germany. Thus abruptly terminates the history of the sec- ond western empire. FRANCE FROM THE TIME OF CHARLES THE BALD TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. During the reign of Charles the Bald, France first suffered from the at- tacks of the Normans, a race of bold and needy adventurers from the north of Europe. Their plundering invasions were continued for upwards of seventy years ; till at length (912) the French king was compelled to pur- chase their amity by yielding to Rollo their leader the country afterwards from them called Normandy, of which Rouen was the capital. The first successor of Charles the Bald with whose name history has associated any- thing worth remembering, was Charles, surnamed the Fat (885). He was the son of that Louis to whom Germany had been before assigned, and was thus enabled to bring that country and France for a short time once more under a single ruler. In the turbulence of the times Charles was soon de- posed ; and during the century which followed, France, so lately the cen- tre of an empire little less than that of Rome in the days of its Caesars, was split up into a multitude of independencies, by nobles who would own only a very slender subjection to the kings. Out of these nobles at last sprang Hugh Capet (987), who was enabled, on the death of Louis V, to place 124 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. himself on the throne. He was already possessed of great property, and proved to be also a prince of much ability and penetration. He established the royal residence at Paris, which his predecessors had deserted, and be- came the founder of a family which, in one of its branches, occupied the throne of France till the overthrow of monarchy in 1848. He deserves to be mentioned with honor, as being among the first of European kings who trusted to prudence, counsel, and moderation, rather than force of arms, in effecting his purposes. On his death (996), in the fifty-seventh year of his age and the tenth of his reign, he was succeeded by his son Robert, who had all his father's equitable disposition without his vigor of character. He was subjected to a degree of tyranny on the part of the church of which perhaps the history of the world does not afford such another example. Robert had been guilty of marrying a cousin in the fourth degree without a dispensation from the Holy See — that is, without paying a fine for what was only an imaginary offense. Gregory V, who then occupied the pon- tifical chair, threatened to excommunicate Robert if he should not dismiss his wife, and, on Robert's refusal, actually did so, and laid all his domin- ions under an interdict. This punishment proved tremendous in its effects ; for though the king himself showed sense and courage enough to despise the wrath of the pontiff, yet his subjects deserted him in terror. The priests, in consequence of the interdict, refused sacrament to the sick all over the country, and the dead were everywhere left unburied. when mass was no longer said. In these circumstances the unfortunate king submit- ted. A second marriage, contracted with the consent of the church, proved very unhappy. The new queen, Constantia, or Constance, made many efforts to embroil her husband and his family, and in the midst of these Robert died (1031). His son Henry succeeded, and it was during his reign that those pilgrimages to the Holy Land, which were so soon to end in the Crusades, took their rise. Of these we shall speak by them- selves. In the meantime we take leave of France by mentioning that Hen- ry's successor was Philip (1060), whose reign is remarkable as having witnessed the beginning of those contests with England which continued at intervals till the early part of the nineteenth century. At this period (1066) the Norman3 invaded and conquered England, where their leader, William, Duke of Normandy, became the founder of an important dynasty. THE GERMAN EMPIRE BEFORE THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. Germany had no political existence until the time of Charlemagne, when it was formed by him into part of the western empire. Towards the con- clusion of the ninth century it became an empire of itself. In the year 887, Arnold, a natural son of Charloman, and nephew of Charles the Fat, was declared emperor by an assembly of bishops and nobles. These as- semblies in Germany always retained a voice in the election of their em- perors ; and though they often made their choice from the line of success- ion, they never acknowledged any hereditary rights whatever. After the death of Arnold's son, called Louis III, their choice fell upon Conrad, Duke of Franconia (912). Conrad's successor was Henry I, surnamed the Fowler. He was a prince of great abilities, and introduced order and good government into the empire. 'He united the grandees and curbed DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 125 their usurpations ; built, embellished, and fortified cities ; and enforced with great rigor the execution of the laws in the repression of all enor- mities. He had been consecrated by his own bishops, and maintained no correspondence with the see of Rome. His son, Otho the Great, who suc- ceeded him (938), united Italy to the Empire, and kept the popedom in complete subjection. He made Denmark tributary to the imperial crown, annexed the crown of Bohemia to his own dominions, and seemed to aim at a paramount authority over all the sovereigns of Europe.' In these times the papacy was much disordered. 'Formosus, twice ex communicated by Pope John VIII, had himself arrived at the triple crown. On his death, his rival, Pope Stephen VII, caused his body to be dug out of the grave, and after trial for his crimes, condemned it to be flung into the Tiber. The friends of Formosus fished up the corpse, and had interest to procure the deposition of Stephen, who was strangled in prison. A succeeding pope, Sergius III, again dug up the ill-fated car- case, and once more threw it into the river. Two infamous women, Ma- rosia and Theodora, managed the popedom for many years, and filled the chair of St Peter with their own gallants or their adulterous offspring.' — Tytler. It was amidst this confusion and these disturbances that Otho was induced to turn his arms on Italy. He shortly became master of it all, and had himself declared emperor by the Holy See, with all the pomp that had attended the same ceremony to Charlemagne (962). Pope John XII, whom Otho had been the means of raising to the pontifical chair, rebelled soon after. Otho returned to Rome in fury, had John deposed, hanged one-half of the senate before he left the city, and wrung a solemn acknowledgement from an assembly of reluctant bishops, that the emperor had a right not only to nominate to vacant bishoprics, but also to elect the pope himself. Otho died (972), and was followed in succession by Otho II, Otho III, St. Henry, Conrad II, and Henry III, the history of whose reigns exhibits nothing instructive, or upon which the mind can rest with pleasure. Henry IV (1056) was a distinguished victim of papal tyranny. The celebrated Hildebrand, known as Gregory VII, was in this age the means of raising the power of the church to a height which it had never reached before. During Henry's contest with this daring and ambi- tious pontiff, he made him twice his prisoner, and twice did the thunders of the Vatican excommunicate and depose him in consequence. As a specimen of the power and insolence of this pope, we may mention that Henry, dispirited by the effect which his excommunication had upon his friends and followers, having resolved to go to Rome and ask absolution from Gregory in person, did so ; and presenting himself as a humble peni- tent at the palace of St Peter, was there stripped of his robes, and obliged to remain in that condition, in an outer court, in the month of January (1077), barefooted, among snow, and fasting, for three successive days, before he was allowed to implore forgiveness for his offences ! On the fourth day he was permitted to kiss the toe of his holiness, and then receiv ed absolution ! Henry died in 1106. FROM THE NINTH TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. Italy. The state of Italy during this period has been already partially noticed in the preceding section. From the time of Lothaire, to whom it tel 128 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA was nominally assigned as a separate kingdom (843), to that of Otho the Great (964), the country was raraged by contending tyrants. Between the invasions of the Normans on the one hand, and the claims of the Ger- man emperors on the other, it became much distracted, and was ultimately split up into several independent states. Some of these, particularly Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, became afterwards independent and powerful republics. It was during this period that the foundation of the temporal power of the popes was laid. Spain. During the period of which we have been treating, Spain seemed less a part of Europe than any other country in it. The greater part of it still continued under the dominion of the Moors, and apparently with advantage. ' This period,' says Mr. Tytler, ' from the middle of the eight to the middle of the tenth century, is a most brilliant era of Arabian magnificence. Whilst Haroun al Raschid made Bagdad illustrious by the splendor of the arts and sciences, the Moors of Cordova vied with their brethren of Asia in the same honorable pursuits, and were undoubtly at this period the most enlightened of the states in Europe. Under a series of able princes, they gained the highest reputation, both in arts and arms, of all the nations of the West.' And yet these Eastern conquerors seem to have had their troubles as well as others. A race of powerful nobles among them, as in the other countries of Europe, distracted the country, and made effective government impossible. The Christian part of the pop- ulation, still possessed of several provinces in the north, might have taken advantage of such a state of things for repossessing themselves of their lost country ; but civil dissension was still greater among themselves ; and Christian princes readily formed alliances with the Moors, if they saw a prospect of weakening an immediate enemy by that means, forgetting that the common foe still remained to harass them. But the detail of these nu- merous and petty contentions need not detain us longer ; nor does the his- tory of Spain assume any importance till towards the conclusion of the fifteenth century, when the united arms of Ferdinand and Isabella expel- led the Moors for ever from the country. GENERAL STATE OF EUROPE IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY. Before the end of the tenth century, Europe had reached a point of darkness and degradation beyond which it seemed impossible to go. Though long nominally converted to the Christian religion, the nations of Europe may be said to have scarcely exhibited, up to this period, a single distinc- tive mark of what men understand by Christian civilization. ' The barbar- ous nations,' says Dr. Robertson, ' when converted to Christianity, changed the object, not the spirit of their religious worship. They endeavored to conciliate the favor of the true God by means not unlike to those which they had employed in order to appease their false deities. Instead of as- piring to sanctity and virtue, which alone can render men acceptable to the great Author of order and of excellence, they imagined that they satisfied every obligation of duty by a scrupulous observance of external ceremo- nies. Religion, according to their conception of it, comprehended nothing else ; and the rites by which they persuaded themselves that they should gain the favor of Heaven, were of such a nature as might have been ex- pected from the rude ideas of the ages which devised and introduced them. DEPARTMENT OF IIISTORY. 129 They were either so unmeaning as to be altogether unworthy of the Being to whose honor they were consecrated, or so absurd as to be a disgrace to reason and humanity. Charlemagne in France, and Alfred the Great in England, endeavored to dispel this darkness, and gave their subjects a slight glimpse of light and knowledge. But the ignorance of the age was too powerful for their efforts and institutions. The darkness returned, and settled over Europe more thick and heavy than before.' The clergy were the only body of men among whom any knowledge or learning now remain- ed ; and this superiority they employed to continue, if not to deepen, the degradation into which society had fallen. The superstitious belief that moral crimes could be expiated by presents to the Deity, if not originated by them, at least found them its strenuous defenders, for the reason that a gift to God meant, in plainer language, a solatium to the church. The priests would have made men believe that avarice was the first attribute of the Deity, and that the saints made a traffic of their influence with Heaven. Hence Clovis is said to have jocularly remarked, that ' though St. Martin served his friends very well, he also made them pay well for his trouble.' Persons in the highest ranks and most exalted stations could neither read nor write. Of the clergy themselves, many of them did not understand the Breviary which it was their duty to recite ; and some of them, it is as- serted, could scarcely read it. Those among the laity who had to express their assent in writing, did so by a sign of the cross attached to the docu- ment (sometimes also by a seal) ; and to this day, in consequence, we speak of signing a document when we subscribe our names. The evils of the feudal system, too, had by this time become excessive and insupportable. Every petty chief was a king in his own dominions, and his vassals were his subjects, if indeed they should not be called slaves. These barons made laws of their own, held courts of their own, coined money in their own names, and levied war at their own pleasure against their enemies ; and these enemies were not unfrequently their kings. In- deed the kings of these times can be looked upon in no other light than as superior lords, receiving a nominal and empty homage for lands which, in the fictitious language of feudal law, were said to be held of the crown. In these circumstances, what might we expect to be the condition of the great body of the people ? They were either actual slaves, or exposed to so many miseries, arising from pillage and oppression, that many of them made a voluntary surrender of their liberty in exchange for bread and protection from the feudal lords. There was no people, as that term is now understood. ' There was nothing morally in common,' says Guizot, ' be- tween the lord and the serfs ; they formed part of his domains, and were his property ; under which designation were comprised all the rights that we at present call rights of public sovereignty, as well as the privileges of private property ; he having the right of giving laws, of imposing taxes, and of inflicting punishment, as well as that of disposing and selling. In fact, as between the lord and the laborers on his domain, there were no recognized laws, no guarantees, no society, at least so far as may be pred- icated of any state in which men are brought into contact.' In what way society rose above so many accumulated evils, and light sprang from so much darkness, we shall now endeavor to show. The most remarkable and the most lasting influence, beyond all question, was that exerted by the Crusades. y * 130 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. THE CRUSADES. ' It is natural to the human mind,' says Dr. Robertson, ' to view tnose places which have been distinguished by being the residence of any cele- brated personage, or the scene of any great transaction, with some degree of delight and veneration. To this principle must be ascribed the super- stitious devotion with which Christians, from the earliest ages of the church, were accustomed to visit that country which the Almighty had se lected as the inheritance of his favorite people, and in which the Son of God had accomplished the redemption of mankind. As this distant pil- grimage could not be performed without considerable expense, fatigue, and danger, it appeared the more meritorious, and came to be considered as an expiation for almost every crime. An opinion which spread with rapidity over Europe about the close of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century, and which gained universal credit, wonderfully augment- ed the number of credulous pilgrims, and increased the ardor with which they undertook this useless voyage. The thousand years mentioned by St. John [Rev. xx. 2, 3, 4] were supposed to be accomplished, and the end of the world to be at hand. A general consternation seized mankind ; many relinquished their possessions, and, abandoning their friends and families, hurried with precipitation to the Holy Land, where they imagined that Christ would quickly appear to judge the world. While Palestine continued subject to the caliphs, they had encouraged the resort of pilgrims to Jerusalem, and considered this as a beneficial spe- cies of commerce, which brought into their dominions gold and silver, and carried nothing out of them but relics and consecrated trinkets. But the Turks having conquered Syria about the middle of the eleventh century, pilgrims were exposed to outrages of every kind from these fierce barba- rians. This change happening precisely at the juncture when the panic terror which I have mentioned rendered pilgrimages most frequent, filled Europe with alarm and indignation. Every person who returned from Palestine related the dangers he had encountered in visiting the holy city, and described with exaggeration the cruelty and vexations of the infidel Turks. Among the most notorious of those who had returned with these accounts, was a monk known by the name of Peter the Hermit. By all accounts this individual seems to have been a weak-minded and contemptible being. He is represented as running from city to city, and from kingdom to king- dom, bareheaded, with naked arms and legs, and bearing aloft a ponderous crucifix in his hand, imploring and preaching with an enthusiastic madness on the necessity of wresting the Holy Land from the hands of the infidels. In a more enlightened age, Peter the Hermit would probably have been confined as a troublesome lunatic ; in this, however, he was not only al- lowed to go on, but was encouraged and abetted in his career. The ambi- tious Hildebrande had expressed a strong desire to send armed forces from Europe to exterminate the Mohammedans from Palestine, in order that an- other country might be brought under his spiritual subjection ; and Urban II, who at this time occupied the chair of St. Peter, warmly seconded the efforts of the enthusiastic monk. Nor was Peter's success small. Vast multitudes proclaimed themselves ready to engage in the undertaking. Two DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 131 great councils of the church, one of them held at Placentia, and the other at Clermont, in Auvergne, attended by prelates, princes, and immense mul titudesof the common people, declared enthusiastically for the war (1095). The pope himself attended at the last, and Peter and he having both ad- dressed the multitude, they all exclaimed, as if impelled by an immediate inspiration, 'It is the will of God! it is the will of God!' These words were thought so remarkable, that they were afterwards employed as the motto on the sacred standard, and came to be looked upon as the signal of battle and rendezvous in all the future exploits of the champions of the cross. Persons of all ranks now flew to arms with the utmost ardor. The remission of penance, the dispensation of those practices which supersti- tion imposed or suspended at pleasure, the absolution of all sins, and the assurance, of eternal felicity, were the rewards held out by the church to all who joined the enterprise ; and ' to the more vulgar class,' says Mr. Hallam, ' were held out inducements which, though absorbed in the over- ruling fanaticism of the first Crusade, might be exceedingly efficacious when it began to flag. During the time that a Crusader bore the cross, he was free from suits for his debts, and the interest of them was entirely abolished ; he was exempted, in some instances at least, from taxes, and placed under the protection of the church, so that he could not be impleaded in any civil court, except in criminal charges or questions relating to land.' It was in the spring of the year 1096, that Peter set out for Judea, at the head of a promiscuous assemblage of 80,000 men, with sandals on his feet, a rope about his waist, and every other mark of monkish austerity. Soon after, a more numerous and better disciplined force of 200,000 fol- lowed, including some able and experienced leaders. Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert, Duke of Normandy (son of William the Conqueror of England), the Counts of Vermendois, Toulouse, and Blois, are a few of the more il- lustrious. The progress of this immense mass of human beings on their journey was marked by misery and famine. They had vainly trusted to Heaven for a supernatural supply of their wants, and in their disappoint- ment they had plundered all that came in their way. ' So many crimes and so much misery,' says Mr. Hallam, ' have seldom been accumulated in so short a space, as in the three years of the first expedition ;' and another historian says that a 'fresh supply of German and Italian vagabonds,' re- ceived on the way, were even guilty of pillaging the churches. It is cer- tain that before the hermit reached Constantinople, the number of his forces had dwindled down to 20,000. Alexis Comnenus, then emperor of Con- stantinople, who had applied to the states of Europe for assistance, without much hope of obtaining it, in order that he might be enabled to resist a threatened attack by the Turks upon himself, was surprised and terrified at the motley group of adventurers who had now reached the shore of his dominions. He readily afforded them the means for transporting them- selves across the Bosphorus, and performed the same friendly office to the larger force which followed under Godfrey and others ; glad, apparently, to have the barbarians of the north, as his subjects called them, out of his do- minions. The Sultan Solyman met the army of the hermit, if army it could be called, and cut the greater part of it to pieces on the plains of Nicea. The second host proved more successful. In spite of their want of discipline, their ignorance of the country, the scarcity of provisions, and the excess of fatigue, their zeal, their bravery, and their irresistible force, 332 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. enabled them twice to overthrow old Solyman, to take his capital Nice, and after an obstinate resistance, the citjof Antioch also (1098). At length (1099) they reached Jerusalem, much diminished in numbers, and broken in spirit ; but with persevering assiduity they proceeded to lay siege to the city, and in six weeks they became its masters. Their cruel conduct to the inhabitants attests the barbarous feelings of their hearts. ' Neither arms defended the valiant, nor submission the timorous ; no age nor sex was spared ; infants on the breast were pierced by the same blow with their mothers, who implored for mercy ; even a multitude of ten thousand persons who surrendered themselves prisoners and who were promised quar- ters, were butchered in cold blood by these ferocious conquerers. The streets of Jerusalem were covered with dead bodies. The triumphant war- riors, after every enemy was subdued and slaughtered, turned themselves, with sentiments of humiliation and contrition, towards the holy sepulchre. They threw aside their arms, still streaming with blood; they advanced with reclined bodies and naked feet and heads to that sacred monument ; they sung anthems to Him who had purchased their salvation by His death and agony ; and their devotion, enlivened by the presence of the place where He had suffered, so overcame their fury, that they dissolved in tears, and bore the appearance of every soft and tender sentiment. So inconsistent is human nature with itself, and so easily does the most effeminate super- stition ally both with the most heroic courage and with the fiercest barbarity !' With a becoming foresight, the Crusaders established a Christian king dom in the heart of Palestine ; and at the head of it, by universal consent was placed Godfrey, whose goodness and justice had signalized him, and gained him respect in the midst of the general wickedness. The pope, however, was too eager to enjoy the triumph to which he had looked forward, and sending an ignorant and obtruding ecclesiastic to assume this command, Godfrey retired ; and thus was lost undoubtedly the best chance that Euro- peans ever had of really posessing the Holy Land. The Turks had now time to recover their strength and renew their attacks : they did so : many of the Crusaders had in the meantime returned home, and those of them who remained, surrounded and menaced by such foes, at last implored aid from Christendom. There the spirit which had been raised by Peter the Hermit was far from being extinguished ; and another, more eloquent and more learned than Peter — namely, St. Bernard — had arisen to keep alive the flame of devotion. Roused by his preachings, Europe sent forth a sec- ond Crusade (1147). It consisted of 200,000 French, Germans, and English, in two divisions, the first led on by Conrad III of Germany, and the second by Louis VII of France. Strangely enough, both these lea- ders permitted themselves to be drawn into a snare by false guides, fur- nished by the Greek emperor ; and both armies, one after another, were withdrawn amidst the rocks of Laodicea, and after being nearly starved by famine, they were cut to pieces by the Sultan of Iconium. This Cru- sade proved the most disastrous of them all. ' Thousands of ruined fami lies,' says Russell, ' exclaimed against St. Bernard for his deluding prophe- cies : he excused himself by the example of Moses, who, like him, he said, had promised to conduct the Israelites into a happy country, and yet saw the first generation perish in the desert.' Itwas shortly after this period that the illustrious Saladin appeared (1180). Born among an obscure Turkish tribe, this individual fixed himself by his DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 183 bravery and conduct on the throne of Egypt and began to extend his con- quest in the East. The still existing, though wretchedly-supported king- dom of the Christians in Palestine, proving an obstacle to the progress of his arms, Saladin directed his power against it, and assisted by the treach ery of the Count of Tripoli, he completely overcame the Christians in battle (1187). The holy city itself fell into his hands after a feeble resistance; and except some cities on the coast, noching remained to the Christians of all that a century before, it cost Europe so much to acquire. The followers of the cross, however, were not yet wholly disheartened ; and a third great Crusade was entered into before the end of the twelfth century. The three greatest sovereigns of Europe — Fredrick Barbarossa of Ger- many, Philip Augustus of France, and Richard Coeur de Lion of England — all took part in the scheme. The forces of Fredrick were earliest in the field. He had passed through the unfriendly territories of the Greek em- pire, crossed the Hellespont, and defeated the infidels in several battles, before Richard or Philip had stirred from home. The Christians of the East were beginning to look with hope and pride on so great assistance ; but they seemed fated to be unfortunate. Fredrick died (1190) from having thrown his body, heated by exertion, into the cold river of Cydnus ; and his army, like the others that had gone before it, dwindled into noth- ing. The united armies of Richard and Philip followed. In their progress, the feelings of envy and national hatred rose above the object which had brought them together. Philip returned, disgusted or dismayed, shortly after they reached their destination ; and Richard was thus left alone to uphold the glory of European arms. He did it nobly. With a mixed army of French, German, and English soldiers, amounting in all to 30,000, Richard performed feats of valor which have not been surpassed in the history of any time or nation. On the plains of Ascalon, a tremendous battle was fought with Saladin, and that brave and great man was defeated, and 40,000 of his soldiers are said to have been left dead upon the field of battle. But this conquest was unavailing, and the followers of Richard began to fear that there would be no end to their struggles. The zeal which had brought so many of them from their homes, and sustained them so long in absence, at last abated. Saladin readily concluded a treaty by which Christians might still be permitted to visit the tomb of Christ unmolested, and Richard left the Holy Land for ever. It is due to the memory of Saladin (who did not long survive this period) to state that, after he made himself master of Jerusalem, he never molested the Christians in their de- votions — a circumstance which, by contrast, reflects infinite disgrace on the cruel barbarities of the first Crusaders. In his last will he ordered alms to be distributed among the poor, without distinction of Jew, Christian, or Mohammedan ; intending by this bequest to intimate that all men are brethren, and that when we would assist them, we ought not to inquire what they believe, but what they feel — an admirable lesson to Christians, though from a Mohammedan. But the advantages in science, in moderation, and humanity, seem at this period to have been all on the side of the Saracens. There were no more great Crusades. Considerable bands of private ad- venturers still continued to move eastward ; but disaster and disgrace atten- ded every effort, and Europe at last became disheartened when the bones of two millions of her sons lay whitened on the plains of Asia, and so little 134 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. had been accomplished. Nevertheless, in the year 1202, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was able to raise another considerable army for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre ; but having reached Constantinople at a time when there was a dispute in the succession to the throne, he readily laid aside the project of the Crusade, took part in the quarrel, and in the course of five months he was himself the emperor. The citizens of Venice in Italy, who had lent their vessels for this enterprise, shared in the triumphs of the piratical Crusaders : they obtained the Isle of Candia, or Crete. Baldwin, however, was soon driven from the throne, and murdered ; though the Lat- ins, as his successors from the West were called, kept possession of Con- stantinople for fifty-seven years. At this period (1227) a great revolution took place in Asia. Ghenghis Khan, at the head of a body of Tartars, broke down from the north upon Persia and Syria, and massacred indiscriminately Turks, Jews, and Chris- tians, who opposed them. The European settlements in Palestine must soon have yielded to these invaders, had not their fate been for a while re- tarded by the last attempt at a Crusade under Louis IX of France. This prince, summoned, as he believed, by Heaven, after four years' preparation set out for the Holy Land with his queen, his three brothers, and all the knights of France (1248). His army began their enterprise, and we may say ended it also, by an unsuccessful attack on Egypt. The king went home, and reigned prosperously and wisely for thirteen years ; but the same frenzy again taking possession of him, he embarked on a Crusade against the Moors in Africa, where his army was destroyed by a pestilence, and he himself became its victim (1270). Before the end of the thirteenth century (1291) the Christians were driven out of all their Asiatic possessions. ' The only common enterprise,' says Robertson, ' in which the European nations were engaged, and which they all undertook with equal ardor, remains a singular monument of hu man folly.' INSTITUTION OF CHIVALRY, ETC. Among the most remarkable institutions of the middle ages was that of Chivalry. The institution was certainly not the result of caprice, nor a source of unmixed extravagance, as it has been represented, but an effort of human nature to express its feelings of love, honor and benevolence, at a time when the spirit of liberty was extinguished, and religion had become debased. The feudal state was a state of perpetual war, rapine, and an- archy, during which the weak and unarmed were often exposed to injuries. Public protective law scarcely had an existence ; and in these circumstan- ces assistance came oftenest and most effectually from the arms of private friends. It was the same feeling of courage, united to a strong sense of duty, which both gave rise to chivalry, and led such multitudes to join the Crusades. Chivalry existed before them, and it survived them. Those whose devoted themselves to a life of chivalry were called knights, end sometimes knight-errants, in allusion to their habits of wandering from c ne country to another in search of helpless objects, which their generosity might find a pleasure in relieving and defending. Admission to the order of knighthood was long reckoned an honor of the highest sort : and to ful- fill the vows which entrants took upon them might well be considered so. They were bound, ' by God, by St. Michael, and St. George,' to be loyal, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 135 brave, and hardy ; to protect the innocent, to redress the injuries of tho wronged ; and, above all, to uphold and defend the characters of women. The institution of chivalry is sometimes thought to have thrown an air of ridiculousness upon everything connected with the softer sex, and some of the vagaries of knight-errantry gave sufficient countenance to such a sup- position ; but on the whole we are bound to rate its beneficial influences in elevating the female character high indeed, when we contrast the gross and groveling situation held by the sex in former times with the high and virtuous emotions that we have learned to associate in modern times with the name of woman. If the whole of this effect is not to be ascribed to chivalry, not a little of it must certainly be so ; nor do its beneficial effects end here. The feelings of honor, courtesy, and humanity, which distin- guished it, spread themselves into other parts of conduct. War, in partic- ular, was conducted with less ferocity, and humanity came to be deemed as necessary to an accomplished soldier as courage. The idea of a gentler- man is wholly the production of chivalry ; and during the twelfth, thir- teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, a sense of honor and a refinement of manners towards enemies sprung up, which have extended to modern times, and form a distinguishing feature of them. The history of the Crusades has carried us over nearly two centuries of the history of Europe. But Europe might be said, almost without exag- geration, to have been then in Asia. It was certainly not the scene of any transaction of importance during all that period. The numerous quarrels, both public and private, which had before agitated the several countries, and had constituted all their history, gave way, by mutual consent, as well as by the orders of the church, to the one idea which then reigned supreme among them. Society was thus unconsciously the means of permitting some of those powerful and pacific principles to come into play, which were soon to give it a new destiny. The absence of so many great barons du- ring the time of the Crusades, was a means of enabling the common peo- ple, who have hitherto lived as their slaves, to raise themselves in public standing and estimation; while the possessions of many of these barons, by sale or the death of their owners without heirs, reverted to the sover- eigns. In this way the power of the people and of royalty advanced to- gether, and both at the expense of the class of nobility. The people were not unwilling to exchange the mastery of inferiors for that of a superior ; and the kings, on their part, looked on this rising power of the people with pleasure, as it offered a shield to protect them from the insolence of tho nobles. In these circumstances boroughs began to flourish. This was a new element in the progress of civilization. Men who had hitherto skulk- ed in castles, and had sacrificed their liberties and their lives for bread and protection from isolated chiefs, now found that, by a union among them selves, they might secure bread by industry, and protection and liberty by mutual aid. Multitudes, therefore, forsook their feudal subservience to enjoy independent citizenship. Villeins, or laborers, joyfully escaped, to take their place on a footing of equality with freemen ; and sovereigns found means to pass a law that if a slave should take refuge, in any of the new cities, and be allowed to remain there unclaimed for a twelvemonth, he had thereby become free, and was henceforth a member of the commu- nity. Another improvement which kings were able to introduce about this time was the gradual abolition of minor courts of justice, which barons 136 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. had previously held in their several domains, and their getting public and universal law administered by judges of their own appointment. Even single combat, the practice most inveterately adhered to of any among the ancient nobles, became less frequent and less honorable. The more revolt ing and absurd features of it were wholly abolished, though the great absurdity, and indeed the great crime itself, cannot be said to have become totally extinct, even up to our own day, when we recollect that the bar- barous practice of duelling is still permitted to exist. The effect, however, produced by the Crusades, which proved greatest in its consequences, though perhaps it was the most unlooked for at the time, was the rise of commerce. The first of these expeditions had journeyed to Constantinople by land ; but the sufferings were so great, that all the rest were induced to go by sea. The Italian cities of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, furnished the vessels which conveyed them ; and the sums of money ob- tained by the freight of so many and so great armies were immense. This, however, was but a small part of what the Italian citizens gained by the expeditions to the Holy Land. The Crusaders contracted with them for military stores and provisions ; and any of the Asiatic possessions of value, which came temporarily into the hands of the Christians, became emporiums of commerce for them. The sweet reward of labor was thus first felt for ages in Europe. New arts were brought from the East, and many of those natural productions of the warmer climates were first intro- duced into the West, which have since afforded the materials of a lucrative and extended commerce. We will allude in a separate section to the bril liant career of several of the Italian Republics. In these views we represent the fairest side of the picture. There were yet many obstacles in the way of a complete and harmonious* evolution of the principles of civilization. But the elements all seemed now to have ac- quired existence, and time only was required to consolidate and strengthen them. FROM THE CRUSADES TO THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY- RISE OF SOME NEW POWERS. The most remarkable general feature of European society about the time of the Crusades was the papal influence. Between the pontiffs and the German emperors there was kept up a perpetual struggle for power ; but for a long time the advantage was almost always with the popes. The treatment which some of the emperors received from them was extremely humiliating. Frederick Barbarossa was compelled to kiss the feet of his ho- liness, Alexander III, and to appease him by a large cession of territory, after having indignantly denied his supremacy, and refused the customary homage. Henry VI, while doing homage on his knees, had his imperial crown kicked off by Pope Celestinus, who, however, made some amends for this indigni- ty by the gift of Naples and Sicily. Henry had expelled the Normans from these territories, which now became appendages of the German em- pire (1194). In the beginning of the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent HI was imagined to have permanently established the powers of the Holy See, and its right to confer the imperial crown ; but this proved far from being the case. In the time of Frederick II, who succeeded Otho IV (1212), the old contentions rose to more than the usual height, and two DEPAKTMENT OF HISTORY. 137 factions sprung up in Italy, known by the names of Guelphs and Ghibel- lines, the former maintaining the supremacy of the popes, and the latter that of the emperors. Frederick maintained the contest which now arose between himself and the popes with much spirit ; but on his death (1250) the splendor of the empire was for a considerable time obscured. At length Rodolph of Hapsbourg, a Swiss baron, was elected emperor (1274). Ro- dolph became the founder of the House of Austria, and ruled with both vigor and moderation. His son Albert I was the means of causing the in- habitants of Switzerland to assert and obtain their liberty, by his attempt- ing to bind them in subjection to one of his children, and then using force to compel them. In the pass of Morgarten, a small army of four or five hundred of these brave mountaineers defeated an immense host of Austri- ans (1315). Sixty pitched battles, it is said, were fought between the contending parties ; but the spirit of William Tell, who appeared at this time, and of his patriot countrymen, rose above all attempts to enslave them ; and the Swiss cantons secured a freedom which their descendants enjoy to this day. The further history of Germany, for nearly a century, is not politically important. Disputes between the emperors and the papa- cy still continued, though the balance of advantage was now oftener against the church. About the beginning of the fifteenth century, the great papal schism, as it has been called, took place. It arose from there being no fewer than three different claimants for the chair of St. Peter — Gregory XII, who was owned pope by the Italian states ; Benedict XIII, by France ; and Alex- ander V, a native of Candia, by a number of the cardinals. This schism proved very hurtful to the authority of the church, though in that respect it benefited the interests of society, and contributed to open men's eyes. The appearance of John Huss at this time aided in producing that effect. Huss proclaimed the same opinions as the great English reformer Wick- liffe. He was branded of course by the clergy as a heretic and propa- gator of sedition. The general council of the church, held at Constance (1414), concocted no fewer than thirty-nine articles in which Huss is said to have erred. Some of the points he denied having professed, and others he offered to support by argument ; but his voice was drowned by the clam- ors of bigotry. His hair was cut in the form of a cross ; upon his headwas put a paper mitre, painted with the representation of three devils ; and he was delivered over to the secular judge, who condemned both him and his writings to the flames. A similar fate shortly after befell his disciple, Je- rome of Prague, who is said to have exhibited the eloquence of an apostle and the constancy of a martyr at the stake (1416). In revenge for these cruelties, the Hussites of Bohemia kept up a war with the empire for twen- ty years ; and it was only after having their right to express their opinions acknowledged that they desisted. The great schism lasted for many years. A Neapolitan archbishop, named Bari, was elected and deposed by the resident cardinals at Rome within a few months. Boniface IX and Inno- cent VI were each temporarily his successors. The result of the length- ened dispute may be stated to be, that papal authority was greatly weak- ened ; the government of the church was brought down among a class of ecclesiastics that had never before tasted the sweets of power ; and future popes were obliged to resort to such questionable practices for the mainten- ance of their dignity, that men in general began to lose respect for their 138 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. sanctity, and a foundation was laid for changes which it fell to the lo^ cf Luther and others to effect. The period which witnessed these transactions was remarkable for the continued wars between France and England. In the beginning of the twelfth century, the famous dispute for supremacy arose between Thomas- a-Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry II, which ended in the death of the prelate (1171), but in the triumph of his principles. The be- ginning of the thirteenth century is memorable in English history, as hav- ing witnessed the granting of the Magna Charta by King John ; and to- wards the conclusion of it appeared Edward I, whose name is associated with the first great attempts to subdue the Scots on the part of England. The bravery of Wallace and of others averted that calamity for ever. Wales was not so fortunate ; and Ireland had already become a conquered province. During this period, several of those countries in the north of Europe, which have made a considerable figure in modern history, for the first time attracted attention. The greatest of these was Russia. In the middle of the thirteenth century, the tribes of Tartary made a complete conquest of this country, and for about a hundred years they maintained their suprem- acy. At length Ivan ascended the throne of Moscow (1462), and over- coming the Tartars, established a kingdom of his own, and was able to form an alliance with the Emperor Maximilian of Germany, who did not hesitate to style him brother. This was the first entrance of Russia into European politics. Before the end of the fourteenth century, the Christian religion had pen- etrated into Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, and Poland ; but it failed in pro- ducing any immediate beneficial effect. The political events which took place in these countries, however, were very various at this period, but proved too unimportant in their results to admit of being even outlined here. THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS— COMMERCE IN GENERAL. Among the Italian cities, Venice, at the extremity of the Adriatic, Ra- venna, at the south of the mouth of the Po, Genoa, at the foot of the Ligu- rian mountains, Pisa, towards the mouths of the Arno, Rome, Gaeta, Na- ples, Amalphi, and Bari, were either never conquered by the Lombards, or were in subjection too short a time to have lost many of their ancient hab- its and customs. In this way these cities naturally became the refuge of Roman civilization, at a time when other parts of Europe were wading through barbarian darkness. The feudal system never prevailed among them with any force ; and several of these and other cities had important privileges conferred upon them by the German emperors at a very early period. Sismondi, the historian of Italy, asserts that Otho I (936) erect- ed some of them into municipal communities, and permitted them the elec- tion of their own magistrates. It is certain that, in 991, the citizens of Milan rose in tumult, expelled an archbishop from their city, and were able to establish a qualified right to interfere in future elections. The after- history of Milan is eventful and tragical ; but we can only give a short ac- count of it here. In the middle of the twelfth century, Frederick Barbar- ossa became engaged with the cities of Lombardy, and particularly with it, DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 139 in extensive and destructive wars. In the year 1162 Milan was finally overcome ; the walls and houses were razed from their foundation, and the suffering inhabitants dispersed over other cities, obtaining sympathy in their distress, and communicating their enthusiastic love of freedom in return. The republican form of government was adopted in every considerable town ; and before the end of the thirteenth century, there was a knowledge, a power, and an enterprise, among these apparently insignificant republics which all Europe could not match. The beneficial though unlooked-for effect of the Crusades upon commerce has already been mentioned. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the commerce of Europe was almost entirely in the hands of the Italians, more commonly known in those ages by the name of Lombards. The re- public of Pisa was one of the first to make known to the world the riches and power which a small state might acquire by the aid of commerce and liberty. Pisa had astonished the shores of the Mediterranean by the num- ber of vessels and galleys that sailed under her flag, by the succor she had given the Crusaders, by the fear she had inspired at Constantinople, and by the conquest of Sardinia and the Balearic Isles. Immediately preceding this period, those great structures which still delight the eye of the travel- er — the Dome, the Baptistry, the Leaning Tower, and the Campo Santo of Pisa had all been raised ; and the great architects that spread over Eu- rope in the thirteenth century, had mostly their education here. But un- fortunately, the ruin of this glorious little republic was soon to be accom- plished. A gi-owing envy had subsisted between it and Genoa during the last two centuries, and a new war broke out in 1282. It is difficult to com- prehend how two simple cities could put to sea two such prodigious fleets as those of Pisa and Genoa. Fleets of thirty, sixty-four, twenty-four, and one hundred and three galleys, were successively put to sea by Pisa, under the most skillful commanders ; but on every occasion the Genoese were able to oppose them with superior fleets. In August, 1284, the Pisans were defeated in a naval engagement before the Isle of Meloria ; thirty- five of their vessels were lost, five thousand persons perished in battle, and eleven thousand became prisoners of the Genoese. After a few further in- effectual struggles, Pisa lost its standing. The greatest commercial, and altogether the most remarkable city of the Italian republics, was Venice. Secluded from the world, on a cluster of islands in the Adriatic, the inhabitants of this city had taken up their abode in the course of the fifth century, and they boasted themselves to have been independent of ail the revolutions which Europe had been un- dergoing since the fall of the Roman Empire. This might be true to a great extent, though for long it was certainly more the result of their ob- scurity than their power. By the tenth century, however, the desendants of those fishermen that had first taken refuge here, were able to send fleets abroad which could encounter and overawe both Saracens and Nor- mans. The Venetians had all along kept up a correspondence with Constan- tinople during the darkest periods of the middle ages. This was greatly renewed and extended about the time of the Crusades. When Constan- tinople was taken by the Latins (1204), the Venetians, under their doge, or chief magistrate, Henry Dandalo, became possessed of three-eighths of that great city and of the provinces, and Dandalo assumed the singularly accurate title of Duke of Three-Eighths of the Roman Empire. The 140 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Venetians greatly increased their share of the spoil by making advanta geous purchases from the more needy of the Crusaders. Among the most important of these was the Isle of Candia, which they retained till the middle of the seventeenth century. The idea of a bank took its rise in this city, and an establishment of that nature, simply for the receipt of de- posits, is said to have existed in it as soon as the year 1157. But it was not till about a century later that banking, as the term is now understood, began at all to be practised. The merchants of Lombardy and of the south of France began at that time to remit money by bills of exckange^ and to make profit upon loans. The Italian clergy who had benefices beyond the Alps, found the new method of transmitting money exceeding- ly convenient ; and the system of exacting usury or interest, after experi- encing every obstruction from ignorance and bigotry, became a legal part of commerce. In the thirteenth century the government of Venice was entirely republican ; but continued wars with Genoa reduced both cities. These wars were all conducted on the seas, and the display of naval strength on both sides seems prodigious, when we reflect on the poor condition of Italy at the present day. Besides these wars for objects of ambition, there were continual jealousies which rose above enlightened views of self-interest, and led to the most disgraceful broils. At the mid- dle of the fourteenth century a battle took place between the rival citizens, in which the Genoese were defeated. Their loss was immense, and in dis- tress and in revenge they gave themselves up to John Visconti, Lord of Milan, then the richest and among the most ambitious of the petty tyrants of Italy, hoping that he would give them the means to reestablish their fleet and continue the war with the Venetians. He did so, and in another naval engagement, fought in 1354, in the Gulf of Sapienza, the Venetians were entirely defeated. But the Genoese had sacrificed their liberty in their thirst for revenge. Visconti became their master instead of friend. Venice was able to rise above its temporary discomfiture, and during the fifteenth century its fame and power became greater than they had ever been before. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the Venetians cap- tured the town of Padua, and gradually lost their empire of the sea while they acquired possessions on the continent. Among the most famous of the Italian states at this period was Florence ; and its fame was founded, not on arms, but on literature. Like the other Italian cities, however, it owed its first elevation to the commercial indus- try of its inhabitants. There was a curious division of the Florentine citizens, subsisting about the beginning of the thirteenth century, into companies or arts. These were at first twelve — seven called the greater arts, and five the lesser ; but the latter were gradually increased to four- teen. The seven greater arts were those of lawyers and notaries, of dealers in foreign cloth (called sometimes calimala), of bankers or money- changers, of woolen-drapers, of physicians and druggists, or dealers in silk, and of furriers. The inferior arts were those of retailers of cloth, butchers, smiths, shoemakers, and builders. It was in the thirteenth cen- tury that Florence became a republic, and it maintained its independence for two hundred years. In the beginning of the fifteenth century it be- came peculiarly distinguished by the revival of Grecian literature and the cultivation of the fine arts. Cosmo de Medici, who lived a citizen of Florence at this time, and was known by the name of the Grand Duke of DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 141 Tuscany — descended from a long line of ancestors, whose wealth had been honorably acquired in the prosecution of the greater arts — possessed more riches than any king in Europe, and laid out more money on works of learning, taste, and charity, than all the princes of his age. The same liberality and munificence distinguished his family for several generations. The commercial success of the states of Italy induced the inhabitants of northern Europe to attempt similar enterprises. In the thirteenth cen- tury the seaports on the Baltic were trading with France and Britain, and with the Mediterranean. The commercial laws of Oleron and Wisbuy (on the Baltic) regulated for many ages the trade of Europe. To pro- tect their trade from piracy, Lubec, Hamburg, and most of the northern seaports, joined in a confederacy, under certain general regulations, term- ed the League of the Hanse Toivns ; a union so beneficial in its nature, and so formidable in point of strength, as to have its alliance courted by the predominant powers of Europe. 'For the trade of the Hanse Towns with the southern kingdoms, Bruges on the coast of Flanders was found a convenient entrepot, and thither the Mediterranean merchants brought the commodities of India and the Levant, to exchange for the produce and manufactures of the north. The Flemings now began to encourage trade and manufactures, which thence spread to the Brabanters ; but their growth being checked by the impolitic sovereigns of those provinces, they found a more favorable field in England, which was destined thence to derive the great source of its national opulence.' THE TURKS — FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. We have already seen the weakness of the empire of Constantinople at the time of the Crusades ; we have seen the city sacked and the govern- ment seized by the champions of the cross. The Greeks regained their em- pire in the year 1261, but in a mangled and impoverished condition. For nearly two centuries it continued in a similar state. Andronicus, son of Michael Palseologus, who had restored the Greek empire, allowed himself to be persuaded that as God was his protector, all military force was unnecessary ; and the superstitious Greeks, regardless of danger, em- ployed themselves in disputing about the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, when their unfortunate situation made it necessary that they should have been studying the art of war, and training themselves to military disci- pline. In the meantime, the Turks had become a powerful people. They had embraced the Mohammedan religion long before the time of the Cru- sades, and proved powerful obstacles to the success of those expeditions. About the beginning of the fourteenth century they established an empire of their own in Asia Minor, under Othman or Ottoman, and to this day the Ottoman Empire is a name given to the dominions of their descendants. By degrees they encroached on the borders of the empire of Constantino- ple, and they were only prevented from subverting it at a much earlier period than they did, by being called upon to defend themselves from the arms of an Eastern conqueror who arose at this time. Tamerlane, other- wise called Timerbek, was a prince of the Usbek Tartars, and a descend- ant from Ghenghis Khan. After having overrun Persia, and a great part of India and Syria, this great conqueror was invited by some of the 142 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. minor princes of Asia, who were suffering under the Ottoman tyranny, to come and protect them. Tamerlane was flattered by the request, and having brought a great army into Phrygia, he was there met by Bajazet, the Ottoman emperor, who readily gave battle, but was defeated and made prisoner (1402). Tamerlane made Samarcand the capital of his empire, and there received the homage of all the princes of the East. Illiterate himself, he was solicitous for the cultivation of literature and science in his dominions ; and Samarcand became for a while the seat of learning, politeness, and the arts, but was destined to relapse after a short period into its ancient barbarism. The Turks, after the death of Tamer- lane, resumed their purpose of destroying the empire of the East. The honor, or disgrace, as it may be thought, of effecting this, fell to the lot of Mohammed II, commonly surnamed the Great. At the early age of twenty-one, Mohammed projected this conquest. His countrymen had already passed into Europe ; they had possessed themselves of the city of Adrianople, and indeed had left nothing of all the empire of the East to the Greeks but the city of Constantinople itself. The preparations made for defense were not such as became the descendants of Romans, and the powers of Europe now looked upon the East with the most supine indiffer- ence. The Turks assailed the city both on the land side and on that of the sea ; and battering down its walls with their cannon, entered sword in hand, and massacred all who opposed them (1453). Mohammed, like many other ambitious conquerors, showed himself unwilling to destroy un- necessarily. The imperial edifices were preserved, and the churches were converted into mosques ; the exercise of their religion was freely allowed to the Christians, and this privilege they have never been deprived of. Constantine (for that was the name of the last, as well as the first emper- or of the East) was slain in battle. From the time that it was founded by Constantine the Great, the city had subsisted 1123 years. Mohammed liberally patronized the arts and sciences. He was himself not only a politician, but a scholar, and he invited both artists and men of letters to his capital from the kingdoms of Europe. But "the taking of Constanti- nople had an effect contrary to his wishes : it dispersed the learned Greeks, or Greeks who were called learned, all over Europe ; and this, among other things, may be looked upon as a help to the great revival of letters which the fifteenth century witnessed. The taking of Constanti- nople was followed by the conquest of Greece and Epirus ; and Italy might probably have met with a similar fate, but for the fleet of the Ven- etians, who opposed the arms of Mohammed with considerable success, and even attacked him in Geece ; but the contending powers soon after put an end to hostilities by a treaty. By this time Europe was trembling at Mohammed's success, and was afraid, not without reason, that he might pursue his conquests westward. It was relieved from fear by his death, which took place in 1481. His descendants have continued to our own day to occupy one of the finest countries in Europe ; and it was only in the present age that Greece was liberated from their dominion. RISE OF CIVIL FREEDOM AND SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. Civil freedom, as we have seen, dawned first in the great commercial cities of Italy, whence it spread to Germany, Flanders, and Britain. DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 143 This important change in society may be traced to the institution of free communities of traders, or guilds of merchants ; and such confederacies were a necessary consequence of the usurpation and tyranny of the nobles and feudal possessors of the soil. In the eleventh and twelfth centu- ries the usurpations of the nobility became intolerable ; they had reduced the great body of the people to a state of actual servitude. Nor was such oppression the portion of those alone who dwelt in the country, and were employed in cultivating the estates of their masters. Cities and villages found it necessary to hold of some great lord, on whom they might depend for protection, and became no less subject to his arbitrary jurisdiction. The inhabitants were deprived of those rights which, in social life, are deemed most natural and inalienable. They could not dis- pose of the effects which their own industry had acquired, either by a later will, or by any deed executed during their lives. Neither could they marry, nor carry on lawsuits, without the consent of their lord. But as soon as the cities of Italy began to turn their attention towards commerce, and to conceive some idea of the advantages which they might derive from it, they became impatient to shake off the yoke of their inso- lent lords, and to establish among themselves such a free and equal gov- ernment as would render property and industry secure. The Italian cities were the first to emancipate themselves, and their example was followed in other great seats of population, the king of the country in general countenancing the establishment of free communities, in order to gain support against the encroachments of the overgrown power of the barons. The first community of this description formed in Scotland is understood to have been that of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which received its charter from William the Lion. Towns, upon acquiring the right of com- munity, became so many little republics, governed by known and equal laws. The inhabitants being trained to arms, and being surrounded by walls, they soon began to hold the neighboring barons in contempt, and to withstand aggressions on their property and privileges. Another great good, of fully more importance, was produced. These free communities were speedily admitted, by their representatives, into the great council of the nation, whether distinguished by the name of a Parliament, a Diet, the Cortes, or the States-General. This is justly esteemed the greatest event in the history of mankind in modern times. Representatives from the English boroughs were first admitted into the great national council by the barons who took up arms against Henry III in the year 1265 ; being summoned to add to the greater popularity of their party, and to strengthen the barrier against the encroachments of regal power. Read- ers may draw their own conclusions from an event which ultimately had the effect of revolutionising the framework of society, and of rear- ing that great body of the people commonly styled ' the middle class.' The enfranchising of burghal communities led to the manumission of slaves. Hitherto the tillers of the ground, all the inferior classes of the country, were the bondsmen of the barons. The monarchs of France, in order to reduce the power of the nobles, set the example, by ordering (1315 - 1318) all serfs to be set at liberty on just and reasonable condi- tions. The edicts were carried into immediate execution within the royal domain. The example of their sovereigns, together with the expectation of considerable sums which they might raise by this expedient, led many 144 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. of the nobles to set their dependents at liberty ; and servitude was thus gradually abolished in almost every province of the kingdom. This bene- ficial practice similarly spread over the rest of Europe ; and in England, as the spirit of liberty gained ground, the very name and idea of person- al servitude, without any formal interposition of the legislature to prohibit it, was totally banished. While society was assuming the semblance of the form it now bears, the progress of improvement was accelerated by various collateral circum- stances, the first of which worth noticing was The Revival of Letters. The first restorers of learning in Europe were the Arabians, who, in the course of their Asiatic conquests, became acquainted with some of the ancient Greek authors, discovered their merits, and had them translated into Arabic, esteeming those principally which treated of mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. They dissemi nated their knowledge in the course of their conquests, and founded schools and colleges in all the countries which they subdued. The western kingdoms of Europe became first acquainted with the learning of the an- cients through the medium of those Arabian translations. Charlemagne caused them to be retranslated into Latin ; and, after the example of the caliphs, founded universities at Bonona, Pavia, Osnaburg, and Paris. Sim- ilar efforts were made in England by Alfred ; and to him we owe the es- tablishment, or at least the elevation, of the university of Oxford. The first efforts, however, at literary improvement were marred by the sub- tleties of scholastic divinity. Perhaps the greatest and wisest literary character of the middle ages Avas an English friar, named Roger Bacon. This extraordinary individual was not only learned, but, what was more uncommon in those times, he was scientific. Hallam asserts that he was acquainted with the nature of gunpowder, though he deemed it prudent to conceal his knowledge, fie saw the insufficiency of school philosophy, and was the first to insist on experiment and the observation of nature as the fittest instruments by which to acquire knowledge. He reformed the calendar, and made discoveries in astronomy, optics, chemistry, medicine, and mechanics. It is to Italy, however, that we owe the first and greatest exertions in the revival of letters. The spirit of liberty which had arisen among its re- publics was favorable to the cultivation of literature and accordingly we find that not only did they produce many individuals who were most active and successful in bringing to light the relics of classical lore, but that there also arose among them men possessed of the highest order of original ge- nius. Florence produced Dante so early as 1265. Dante was associated with the magistracy of his native city in his earlier years ; but having given dissatisfaction in that capacity, he was banished, and in his exile produced his great poem entitled the ' Divine Comedy.' It is a representation of the three supposed kingdoms of futurity — Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise — divided into one hundred cantos, and containing about 14,000 lines. The poem has been much praised. Petrarch, born in the year 1304, was like- wise a Florentine by birth. The misfortunes of his father had impover- ished the family, and Petrarch was too proud to take the usual method of retrieving his affairs. His genius, however, earned for him the friendship of many Italian princes, and even of more popes than one, although he had exerted his talents to expose the vices of their courts. Petrarch's personal DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 145 character seems to have exhibited some unamiable traits ; but he has sung of love, friendship, glory, patriotism, and religion, in language of such sweet- ness and power as to have made him the admiration of every succeeding age. Boccaccio, like the two great poets named, was a Florentine. He was born in 1313, and his name has descended to posterity less associated with his poetry than the light, elegant, and easy prose of his novels. The discovery of Justinian's Laws, as detailed in the Pandects, was another event which powerfully tended to modify the barbarism that pre- vailed during the middle ages in Europe. The invention of the Mariner 's Compass must be reckoned of still greater importance, and yet it is absolutely unknown to whom we owe it. That honor has been often bestowed on Gioia, a citizen of Amalphi, who lived about the commencement of the fourteenth century. But the polarity of the magnet at least was known to the Saracens two hundred years before that time ; though even after the time of Gioia, it was long before the magnet was made use of as a guide in navigation. ' It is a singular cir- cumstance,' says Mr. Hallam,' and only to be explained by the obstinacy with which men are apt to reject improvement, that the magnetic needle was not generally adopted in navigation till very long after the discovery of its properties, and even after their peculiar importance had been per- ceived. The writers of the thirteenth century, who mentioned the polarity of the needle, mention also its use in navigation ; yet Campany has found no distinct proof of its employment till 1403, and does not believe that it was frequently on board Mediterranean ships at the latter part of the preceding age.' The Genoese, however, are known in the fourteenth cen- tury to have come out of that inland sea, and steered for Flanders and England. But by far the greatest sailors of the age were the Spaniards and Portuguese. This latter nation had little or no existence during the greater part of the middle ages, but in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth cen- turies, they were able to expel the Moors from a great part of their country ; and in the beginning of the fifteenth, John, surnamed the Bastard, who was then their king, was the first European prince who exhibited a respect- able navy. It was in 1486 that this adventurous people first doubled the Cape of Good Hope. The discovery of America (1493) may be mentioned supplementary to the invention of the mariner's compass, as an event which, without it, could never have taken place. The immortal honor of that discovery rests with Christopher Columbus, a sailor of Genoa. After unsuccessful appli- cations at almost every court in Europe, and braving obloquy and contempt, Columbus at last obtained a miserable force from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain ; and with no landmark but the heavens, nor any guide but his com- pass, he launched boldly into the sea, and at last conducted Europeans to the great western hemisphere. In the course of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, various discoveries in the arts were made, which powerfully tended to the advancement of society ; among these the more important were the inven- tion of gunpowder and firearms, clocks and watches, paper-making and printing. This last, the greatest of all, prepared the way for the Refor- mation in religion, in the sixteenth century, by which religious was added to civil freedom, and a great spur given to individual activity. 10* 146 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. CONQUEST BY THE ROMANS. Previously to the year 55 before Christ, the British Islands, in com- mon with the whole of northern and western Europe, were occupied by barbarous tribes, who bore nearly the same relation to the civilized nations of Greece and Italy, which the North American Indians of the present day bear to the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United States. The Ro- mans, who for ages had been extending their power over their rude neigh- bors, had concluded the conquest of Gaul, now called France, when, in the year just mentioned, their celebrated commander, Julius Caesar, learning from the merchants of that country that there was another fertile land on the opposite side of the narrow sea now termed the British Channel, re- solved to proceed thither, and subject it also to the Roman arms. Disem- barking at the place since called Deal, he soon overawed the savage na- tives, though they were naturally warlike, and averse to a foreign yoke. He did not, however, gain a firm footing in Britain till the succeeding year, when he employed no fewer than 800 vessels to convey his troops from Gaul. Except along the coasts, where some tillage prevailed, the British tribes lived exactly as the Indians now do, upon animals caught in hunting, and fruits which grew spontaneously. They stained and tattooed their bod- ies, and had no religion but a bloody idolatry called Druidism. The peo- ple of Ireland were in much the same condition. Little was done on this occasion to establish the Roman power in Britain ; but about a century afterwards — namely, in the year of Christ 43, when the emperor Claudius was reigning at Rome — another large army invaded the island, and reduced a considerable part of it. A -British prince called Caradoc, or Caractacus, who had made a noble defense against their arms, was finally taken and sent prisoner to Rome, where he was regarded with the same wonder as we should bestow upon a North American chief who had greatly obstructed the progress of settlements in this quarter of the world. In the year 61, an officer named Suetonius did much to reduee the Britons, by destroying the numerous Druidical temples in the Isle of An- glesea ; religion having in this case, as in many others since, been a great support to the patriotic cause. He soon after overthrew the celebrated British princess Boadic^a, who had raised an almost general insurrection against the Roman power. In the year 79, Agricola, a still greater general, extended the influence of Rome to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, which he formed into a frontier, by connecting them with a chain of forts. It was his policy, after he had subdued part of the country, to render it permanently attached to Rome, by introducing the pleasures and luxuries of the Capital. He was the first to sail round the island. In the year 84, having gone beyond the Forth, he was opposed by a great concourse of the rude inhabitants of the north, under a chief name Galgacus, whom he completely overthrew at Mons Grampius, or the Grampian Mountain ; a spot about which there are many disputes, but which was probably at Ardoch in Perthshire, where there are still magnificent remains of a Roman camp. Tacitus, a writer related to DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 147 Agricola, gives a very impressive account of this great conflict, and exhib- its the bravery of the native forces as very remarkable ; but the correct- ness of his details cannot be much relied on. It appears that Agricola, while on the western coast of Scotland, was de- sirous of making the conquest of Ireland, which he thought would be use- ful, both as a medium of communication with Spain, and as a position whence he could overawe Britain. He formed an acquaintance with an Irish chief, who, having been driven from his country by civil commotions, was ready to join in invading it. By him Agricola was informed that the island might be conquered by one legion and a few auxiliaries. The inhabitants, ac- cording to Tacitus, bore a close resemblance to the Britons. It is generally allowed that the Romans experienced an unusual degree of difficulty in subduing the Britons ; and it is certain that they were baf- fled in all their attempts upon the northern part of Scotland, which was then called Caledonia. The utmost they could do with the inhabitants of that country, was to build walls across the island to keep them by them- selves. The first wall was built in the year 121, by the Emperor Hadrian, between Newcastle and the Solway Firth. The second was built by the Emperor Antoninus, about the year 140, as a connection of the line of forts which Agricola had formed between the Firths of Forth and Clyde. This boundary was not long kept, for in 210 we find the Emperor Severus for- tifying the rampart between the Tyne and Solway. Roman armies, how- ever, probably under the command of Lollius Urbicus, had penetrated far beyond the more northerly wall, although, unfortunately, no accounts of their reception are preserved. From comparing Roman remains lately dis- covered with ancient geographies, it is held as established that the Romans reached the north-east end of Loch Ness, near the modern town of Inver- ness. The number of roads and camps which they made, and the regular- ity with which the country was divided into stations, prove their desire to preserve these conquests. When the conquest was thus so far completed, the country was governed in the usual manner of a Roman province ; and towns began to rise in the course of time — being generally those whose names are found to end in Chester, a termination derived from eastra, the Latin word for camp. The Christian religion was also introduced, and Roman literature made some progress in the country. CONQUEST BY THE SAXONS. At length a time came when the Romans could no longer defend their own native country against the nations in the north of Europe. The sold- iers were then withdrawn from Britain (about the year 440), and the peo- ple left to govern themselves. The Caledonians, who did not like to be so much straitened in the north, took advantage of the unprotected state of the Britons to pour in upon them from the other side of the wall, and des- poil them of their lives and goods. The British had no resource but to call in another set of protectors, the Saxons, a warlike people who lived in the north of Germany, and the Jutes and Angles, who inhabited Denmark. The remedy was found hardly any better than the disease. Having once acquired a footing in the island, these hardy strangers proceeded to make it a subject of conquest, as the Romans had done before, with this material difference, that they drove the British to the western parts of the island, 148 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. particularly into Wales, and settled, with new hordes of their countrymen, over the better part of the land. So completely was the population changed, that, excepting in the names of some of the hills and rivers, the British lan- guage was extinguished, and even the name of the country itself was changed, from what it originally was to Angle-land or England, a term ta- ken from the Angles. The conquest required about two hundred and fifty years to be effected, and, like that of the Romans, it extended no farther north than the Firths of Forth and Clyde. Before the Britons were final- ly cooped up in Wales, many battles were fought ; but few of these are accurately recorded. The most distinguished of the British generals were the Princes Vortimer and Aurelius Ambrosius. It is probably on the achievements of the latter that the well-known fables of King Arthur and his knights are founded. England, exclusive of the western regions, was now divided into seven kingdoms, called Kent, Northumberland, East Anglia, Mercia, Essex, Sus- sex, and Wessex, each of which was governed by a race descended from the leader who had first subdued it ; and the whole have since been called by historians the Saxon Heptarchy, the latter word being composed of two Greek words, signifying seven kingdoms. To the north of the Forth dwelt a nation called the Picts, who also had a king, and were in all probability the people with whom Agricola had fought under the name of Caledonians. In the Western Highlands there was another nation, known by the name of the Scots, or Dalriads, who had gradually migrated thither from Ire- land, between the middle of the third century and the year 503, when they established, under a chief named Fergus, a monarchy destined in time to absorb all the rest. About the year 700 there were no fewer than fifteen kings, or chiefs, within the island, while Ireland was nearly in the same situation. In Britain, at the same time, five languages were in use, the Latin, Saxon, Welsh, the Pictish, and the Irish. The general power of the country has been found to increase as these nations and principalities were gradually amassed together. Although three of the Saxon kingdoms, Wessex, Mercia, and Northum- berland, became predominant, the Heptarchy prevailed from about the year 58.5 to 800, when Egbert, king of Wessex, acquired a paramount in- fluence over all the other states, though their kings still continued to reign. Alfred, so celebrated for his virtues, was the grandson of Egbert, and be- gan to reign in the year 871. At this time the Danes, who are now a qui- et, inoffensive people, were a nation of pirates, and at the same time hea- thens. They used to come in large fleets, and commit dreadful ravages on the shores of Britain. For some time they completely overturned the sov- ereignty of Alfred, and compelled him to live in obscurity in the centre of a marsh. But he at length fell upon them when they thought themselves in no danger, and regained the greater part of his kingdom. Alfred spent the rest of his life in literary study, of which he was very fond, and in forming laws and regulations for the good of his people. He was perhaps the most able, most virtuous, and most popular prince that ever reigned in Britain ; and all this is the more surprising, when we find that his prede- cessors and successors, for many ages, were extremely cruel and ignorant. He died in the year 901, in the fifty-third year of his age. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 149 CONQUEST BY THE NORMANS. The Saxon line of princes continued to rule, with the exception of three Danish reigns, till the year 1066, when the crown was in the possession of a usurper named Harold. The country was then invaded by William, Duke of Normandy, a man of illegitimate birth, attended by a large and powerful army. Harold opposed him at Hastings (October 14), and after a well-contested battle, his army was defeated, and himself slain. Wil- liam then caused himself to be crowned king at Westminster ; and in the course of a few years he succeeded, by means of his warlike Norman fol- lowers, in completely subduing the Saxons. His chiefs were settled upon the lands of those who opposed him, and became the ancestors of most of the present noble families of England. Previously to this .period, the Church of Rome, which was the only sur- viving part of the power of that empire, had established its supremacy over England. The land was also subjected to what is called the feudal system (see History of the Middle Ages), by- which all proprietors of land were supposed to hold it from the king for military service, while the tenants were understood to owe them military service in turn for their use of the land. All orders of men were thus kept in a chain of servile obedi- ence, while some of the lower orders were actually slaves to their superiors. In the year 853, Kenneth, king of the Scots, had added the Pictish kingdom to his own, and his descendant Malcolm II, in 1020, extended his dominions over not only the south of Scotland, but a part of the north of England. Thus, putting aside Wales, which continued to be an inde- pendent country, under its own princes, the island was divided, at the time of the Norman Conquest, into two considerable kingdoms, England and Scotland, as they were for some centuries afterwards. Ireland, which had also been invaded by hordes from the north of Europe, was divided into a number of small kingdoms, like England under the Saxon Heptarchy. EARLY NORMAN KINGS. William, surnamed The Conqueror, reigned from 1066 to 1087, being chiefly engaged all that time in completing the subjugation of the Saxons. He is allowed to have been a man of much sagacity, and a firm ruler ; but his temper was violent,- and his disposition brutal. At the time of his death, which took place in Normandy, his eldest son Robert happening to be at a greater distance from London than William, who was the second son, the latter individual seized upon the crown, of which he could not af- terwards be dispossessed, till he was shot accidentally by an arrow in the New Forest, in the year 1100. Towards the close of this king's reign, the whole of Christian Europe was agitated by the first Crusade — an ex- pedition for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Saracens. Robert of Normandy had a high command in this enterprise, and gained much fame as a warrior ; but while he was in Italy, on his return, his youngest brother Henry usurped the throne left vacant by William, so that he was again disappointed of his birthright. Henry I — surnamed Beauclere, from his being a fine scholar — was a prince of some ability; but he dis- graced himself by putting out the eyes of his eldest brother, and keeping 150 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. him nearly thirty years in confinement. Such barbarous conduct shows that in this age might was the only right, and that men hesitated at no ac- tions which might promise to advance their own interests. Cotemporary with William the Conqueror in England, was Malcolm III in Scotland, surnamed Canmore, from his having a large head. This prince, after overthrowing the celebrated usurper Macbeth, married Mar- garet, a fugitive Saxon princess, through whom his posterity became the heirs of that race of English sovereigns. He was a good prince, and by settling Saxon refugees upon his lowland territory, did much to improve the character of the Scottish nation, who are described as having been before this time a nation in which there was no admixture of civilization. At Malcolm's death, in 1093, the crown was contested for a while by a usurper called Donald Bane, and the elder sons of the late monarch, but finally fell to the peaceable possession of his youngest son David I, who was a prince of much superior character, apparently, to the Norman sover eigns who lived in the same age. The church of Rome having now gained an ascendancy in Scotland, David founded a considerable number of mon asteries and churches for the reception of the ministers of that religion. All the most celebrated abbacies in Scotland took their rise in his time. Henry Beauclerc of England, in order to strengthen his claim by a Saxon alliance, married Maud, the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and of Princess Margaret. By her he had an only daughter of the same name, whom he married first to the Emperor of Germany, and then to Geoffrey Plantagenet, eldest son of the Earl of Anjou, in France. This lady and her children by Plantagenet were properly the heirs of the English crown ; but on the death of Henry, in 1135, it was seized by a usurper named Stephen, a distant member of the Conqueror's family, who reigned for nineteen years, during which the country was rendered almost desolate by civil contests, in which David of Scotland occasionally joined. On the death of Stephen, in 1154, the crown fell peacefully to Henry II, who was the eldest son of Maud, and the first of the Plantagenet race of sovereigns. Henry was an acute and politic prince, though not in any respect more amiable than his predecessors. His reign was principally marked by a series of measures for reducing the power of the Romish cler- gy, in the course of which some of his courtiers, in 1171 thought they could not do him a better service than to murder Thomas-a-Becket, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, who had been the chief obstacle to his views, and was one of the ablest and most ambitious men ever produced in England. For his concern in this foul transaction, Henry had to perform a humilia- ting penance, receiving eighty lashes on his bare back from the monks of Canterbury. We are the less inclined to wonder at this circumstance, when we consider that about this time the Pope had power to cause two kings to perform the menial service of leading his horse. ■ Henry was the most powerful king that had yet reigned in Britain. Be- sides the great hereditary domains which he possessed in France, and for which he did homage to the king of that country, he exacted a temporary homage from William of Scotland, the grand-son of David, a monarch of great valor, who took the surname of the lAon, and who reigned from 1166 to 1214. Henry also added Ireland to his domininions. This island had previously been divided into five kingdoms — Munster, Leinster, Meath, Ulster, and Connaught. The people, being quite uncivilized, were perpet- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 151 ually quarreling among themselves ; and this, with their heathen religion, furnished a flimsy pretext for invading them from England. Dermot Mac- morrough, king of Leinster, having been dethroned by his subjects, intro- duced an English warrior, Richard, Earl of Strigul, generally called Strongboiv, for the purpose of regaining his possessions. A body com- posed of 50 knights, 90 esquires, and 460 archers, in all 600 men, was enabled by its superior discipline to overthrow the whole warlike force that could be brought against them ; and the conquest was easily comple- ted by Henry in person, who went thither in 1172. The military leaders were left to rule over the country ; but they managed their trust so ill, that the Irish never became peaceable and improving subjects of the Nor- man king, as the English had gradually done. RICHARD CCEUR DE LION — JOHN — MAGNA CHARTA. Henry II was much troubled in his latter years by the disobedience of his children. At his death, in 1189, he was succeeded by his son Richard, styled Cceur de Lion, or the Lion-hearted, from his head strong courage, and who was much liked by his subjects on that account, though it does not appear that he possessed any other good qualities. At the coronation of Richard, the people were permitted to massacre many thousands of unoffending Jews throughout the kingdom. Almost immediately after his accession, he joined the king of France in a second Crusade ; landed in Palestine (1191) and fought with prodigious valor, but with no good result. On one occasion, being offended at a breach of truce by his opponent Sala- din, he beheaded 5000 prisoners ; whose deaths were immediately revenged by a similar massacre of Christian prisoners. In 1192, he returned with a small remnant of his gallant army, and being shipwrecked at Aquileia, wandered in disguise into the dominions of his mortal enemy the Duke of Austria, who, with the Emperor of Germany, detained him till he was re- deemed by a ransom, which impoverished nearly the whole of his subjects. This prince spent the rest of his life in unavailing wars with Philip of France, and was killed at the seige of a castle in Limousin, in 1199, after a reign of ten years, of which he had spent only about three months in England. John, the younger brother of Richard, succeeded, although Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, the son of an intermediate brother, was the proper heir. John, who was at once vain, cruel, and weak, alienated the affections of his subjects almost at the very first by the assassination of his nephew, which he is said to have performed with his own hands. The weakness of kings is often the means of giving increased liberties and privileges to the people. The paltry tyranny and wickedness of John caused his barons to rise against him, and the result was that, on the 19th June, 1215, he was compelled by them to sign what is called the Magna Oharta, or great Charter, grant- ing them many privileges and exemptions, and generally securing the per- sonal liberty of his subjects. The principal point concerning the nation at large was, that no tax or supply should be levied from them without their own consent in a great Council — the first idea of a Parliament. _ Some excellent provisions were also made regarding courts of law and justice, so as to secure all but the guilty. The Pope, it appears, regarded the Magna Charta as a shameful viola • 152 AMERICAF ENCYCLOPEDIA. tion of the royal prerogative, and xecommunicated its authors, as being worse, in his estimation, than infidels. The opinion of a leading modern historian is very different. He, says, ' To have produced the Great Charter, to have preserved it, to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England on the esteem of mankind.' • HENRY in — ORIGIN OF PARLIAMENT. John, at his death in 1216, was succeeded by his son, Henry III, a weak and worthless prince, who ascended the throne in his boyhood, and reigned fifty six years, without having performed one worthy act of suffi- cient consequence to be detailed. In his reign was held the first assem- blage approaching to the character of a Parliament. It was first called in 1225, in order to give supplies for carrying on a war against France. The money was only granted on condition that the Great Charter should be confirmed ; and thus the example was set at the very first, for rendering sup- plies a check upon the prerogative of the king, and gradually reducing that power to its present comparatively moderate level. Under the earlier Nor- man kings, and even, it is believed, under the Saxons, an assembly called the Great Council had shared with the sovereign the power of framing laws ; but it was only now that the body had any power to balance that of the sov- ereign, and it was not till 1265 that representatives from the inhabitants of towns were introduced. EDWARD I AND II — ATTEMPTED CONQUEST OF SCOTLAND. Henry III, at his death in 1272, was succeeded by his son Edward I, a prince as warlike and sagacious as his father was the reverse. He dis- tinguished himself by his attempts to add Wales to his kingdom, an object which he accomplished in 1282, by the overthrow and murder of Llewellen, the last prince of that country. In the meantime, from the death of Wil- liam the Lion in 1214, Scotland had been ruled by two princes, Alexander II, and III, under whom it advanced considerably in wealth, civilization, and comfort. On the death of Alexandria III, in 1285, the crown fell to his granddaughter Margaret, a young girl, whose father was Eric, king of Norway. Edward formed a treaty with the Estates of Scotland for a marriage between this princess and his son, whom he styled Prince of Wales. Unfortunately, the young lady died on her voyage to Scotland ; and the crown was left to be disputed by a multitude of distant relations, of whom John Baliol and Robert Bruce seem to have the best right. Edward, being resolved to make Scotland his own at all hazards, inter- fered in this dispute, and being appointed arbitrator among the competitors, persuaded them to own in the first place an ill-defined claim put forward by himself of the right of paramountcy or superior sovereignty over Scotland. When this was done, he appointed Baliol to be his vassal king, an honor which the unfortunate man was not long permitted to enjoy. Having driven Baliol to resistance, he invaded the country, overthrew his army, and strip- ping him of his sovereignty, assumed to himself the dominion of Scotland, as a right forfeited to him by the rebellion of his vassal. After he had re- tired, a brave Scottish gentleman, named William Wallace, raised an insur- rection against his officers, and defeating his army at Stirling in 1298, DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 153 cleared the whole country of its southern invaders. But in the succeeding year, this noble patriot was defeated by Edward in person at Falkirk, and the English yoke was again imposed. It may be remarked, that this could have hardly taken place if the common people, who rose with Wallace, and who were wholly of Celtic and Saxon origin, had been led and encouraged by the nobility. The grandees of Scotland, and even the competitors for the crown, being recent Norman settlers, were disposed to render obedience to the English sovereign. Some time after the death of Wallace, while Edward was engrossed with the French wars, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, grand son of him who had competed with Baliol, conceived the idea of putting himself at the head of the Scots, and endeavoring by their means at once to gain the crown, and to recover the independence of the kingdom. After a series of adventures, among which was the unpremeditated murder of a rival named Comyn, Bruce caused himself, in 1306, to be crowned at Scone. For some time after he had to skulk as a fugitive, being unable to maintain his ground against the English officers ; but at length he became so for- midable, that Edward found it necessary (1307) to lead a large army against him. The English monarch, worn out with fatigue and age, died on the coast of the Solway Firth, when just within sight of Scotland, leaving his sceptre to his son Edward II. That weak and foolish prince immediately returned to London, leaving Bruce to contest with his infe- rior officers. After several years of constant skirmishing, during which the Scottish king was able to maintain his ground, Edward resolved to make one de- cisive effort to reduce Scotland to subjection. In the summer of 1314, he invaded it with an army of 100,000 men. Bruce drew up his troops, which were only 30,000 in number, at Bannockburn, near Stirling. Partly by steady valor, and partly by the use of stratagems, the Scots were victori- ous, and Edward fled ignominiously from the field. The Scottish king gained an immense booty, besides securing his crown and the indepen- dence of his country. He soon after sent his brother Edward, with a body of troops, to Ireland, to assist the native chiefs in resisting the English. This bold young knight was crowned King of Ireland, and for some time held his ground against the English forces, but was at length defeated and slain. The weakness of Edward II was chiefly shown in a fondness for favor- ites, into whose hands he committed the whole interests of his people. The first was a low Frenchman, named Piers Gaveston, who soon fell a victim to the indignation of the barons. The second, Hugh Spencer, mis- governed the country for several years, till at length the Queen and prince of Wales raised an insurrection against the king, and caused him to be deposed, as quite unfit to reign. The Prince was then crowned as Edward III (1327), being as yet only about fourteen years of age ; and in the course of a few months the degraded sovereign was cruelly put to death in Berkeley Castle. During the minority of the young king, the reins of government were held by his mother and the Earl of March. Under their administration, a peace was concluded with King Robert of Scotland, of which one of the conditions was a full acknowledgement of the independence of the Scot- tish monarchy, which had been a matter of dispute for some ages. 154 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. EDWARD III— RICHARD II. Edward III, who soon after assumed full power, was destined to make good the remark prevalent at this time, that the kings of England were alternately able and imbecile. He was a warlike and sagacious monarch, and inspired by all his grandfather's desire of conquest. In 1329, Robert Bruce died, and was succeeded by his infant son David II, to whom a young sister of the English king was married, in terms of the late treaty. Notwithstanding this connection, Edward aided a son of John Baliol in an attempt to gain the Scottish crown. Edward Baliol overthrew the Regent of Scotland at Duplin, September 1332, and for two months reigned as King of Scots, while David and his wife took refuge in France. Though now expelled, Baliol afterwards returned to renew his claims, and for many years the country was harassed by unceasing wars, in which the English took a leading part. But for his attention being diverted to France, Edward III would have made a more formidable effort to subdue Scotland, and might have suc- ceeded. He was led into a long course of warfare with France, in conse- quence of an absurd pretension which he had made to its crown. In the victories which he had gained at Cressy (August 26, 1346) and Poitiers (September 17, 1356), the national valor, his own, and that of his cele- brated son, the Black Prince, were shown conspicuously ; but this lavish expenditure of the resources of his kingdom, in which he was supported by his parliament, was of no permanent benefit, even to himself, for whom alone it was made. In those days, almost all men fought well, but very few had the art to improve their victories. John, king of France, who had been made captive at Poitiers, and David, king of Scotland, who had been taken in 1346, while conducting an invasion of England, were at one time prisoners in England ; but no permanent advantage was ever gained over either of the states thus deprived of their sovereigns. In 1361, af- ter about twenty years of active fighting, the English king left France with little more territory than he had previously enjoyed. Edward had invaded Scotland with a powerful army in 1356, but without making any impression. The Scots, under David's nephew, Robert Stuart, effectu- ally protected themselves, not only from his arms, but from a proposal which David himself basely undertook to make, that Lionel, the third son of the English king, should be acknowledged as his successor. Edward died in 1377, a year after the decease of his son the Black Prince ; and notwith- standing all their brilliant exploits, the English territories in France were less than at the beginning of the reign. England was at this time affected more than at any other by the fash- ions of chivalry. This was a military enthusiasm, which for some centu- ries pervaded all Christian Europe. It prompted, as one of its first princi- ples, a heedless bravery in encountering all kinds of danger. Its votaries were expected to be particularly bold in behalf of the fair sex, insomuch that a young knight would sometimes challenge to mortal combat any one who denied his mistress to be the loveliest in the world. Tournaments were held, at which knights clad in complete armor would ride against each other at full speed with leveled lances, merely to try which had the greatest strength and skill ; and many were killed on these occasions. It DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 155 was a system full of extravagance, and tending to bloodshed ; but never- theless it maintained a certain courtesy towards females, and a romantic principle of honor, which we may be glad to admire, considering how rude was almost every other feature of the age. Edward III, was succeeded by his grandson, Richard II, then a boy of eleven years of age, and who proved to be a person of weak and profligate character. The Commons took advantage of the irregularity of his government to strengthen their privileges, which they had with difficulty sustained during the more powerful rule of his predecessor. Early in this reign they assumed the right, not only of taxing the country, but of seeing how the money was spent. Indignant at the severity of a tax imposed upon all grown-up persons, the peasantry of the eastern parts of England rose, in 1381, under a person of their own order, named Wat Tyler, and advanced, to the number of 60,000, to London, where they put to death the chancellor and primate, as evil counselors of iheir sovereign. They demanded the abolition of bondage, the liberty of buying and selling in fairs and markets, a general pardon, and the re- duction of the rent of land to an equal rate. The king came to confer with them at Smithfield, where, on some slight pretense, Walworth, mayor of London, stabbed Wat Tyler with a dagger — a weapon which has since figured in the armorial bearings of the metropolis. The peas- ants were dismayed, and submitted, and no fewer than fifteen hundred of them were hanged. Wat Tyler's insurrection certainly proceeded upon a glimmering sense of those equal rights of mankind which have since been generally acknowledged ; and it is remarkable, that at the same time the doctrines of the reformer Wickliffe were first heard of. This learned ecclesiastic wrote against the power of the Pope, and some of the most important points of the Romish faith, and also executed a translation of the Bible into English. His writings are acknowledged to have been of material, though not immediate effect, in bringing about the reformation of religion. The country was misgoverned by Richard II till 1399, when he was deposed by his subjects under the leading of his cousin, Henry, Duke of Lancaster. This person, though some nearer the throne were alive, was crowned as Henry IV, and his predecessor, Richard, was soon after murdered. In the meantime, David of Scotland died in 1371, and was succeeded by Robert Stuart, who was the first monarch of that family. Robert I, dying in 1389, was succeeded by his son Robert II, who was a good and gentle prince. He had two sons, David and James ; the former was starved to death by his uncle, the Duke of Albany ; and the latter, when on his way to France for his education, was seized by Henry IV of England, and kept captive in that country for eighteen years. Robert II then died of a broken heart (1406), and the kingdom fell into the hands of the Duke of Albany, at whose death, in 1419, it was governed by his son Duke Murdoch, a very imbecile personage. HOUSE OF LANCASTER. Henry IV proved a prudent prince, and comparatively a good ruler. The settlement of the crown upon him by parliament was a good prece- dent, though perhaps only dictated under the influence of his successful 156 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. arms. He was much troubled by insurrections, particularly a formidable one by Percy, Earl of Northumberland — and one still more difficult to put down in Wales, where Owen Glendower, a descendant of the British princes, kept his ground for several years. On the death of Henry IV in 1413, he was succeeded by his son, who was proclaimed under the title of Henry V. The young king at- tained high popularity, on account of his impartial administration of jus- tice, and his zeal to protect the poor from the oppressions of their superiors. His reign is less agreeably marked by the persecutions of the Lollards, a body of religious reformers, many of whom were condemned to the flames. Being determined to use every endeavor to gain the crown of France, which he considered his by right of birth, he landed in Norman- dy with 30,000 men (August 1415), and gave battle to a much superior force of the French at Agincourt. He gained a complete victory, which was sullied by his afterwards ordering a massacre of his prisoners, under the apprehension that an attempt was to be made to rescue them. The war was carried on for some years longer, and Henry would have proba- bly succeeded in making good his claim to the French crown, if he had not died prematurely of a dysentery (August 31, 1422), in the thirty- fourth year of his age, leaving the throne to an infant nine months old, who was proclaimed as Henry VI, King of France and England. Under Henry VI, whose power was for some time in the hands of his uncle the Duke of Bedford, the English maintained their footing in France for several years, and at the battle of Verneuil, in 1424, rivaled the glory of Cressy and Poitiers. At that conflict, a body of Scotch, 7000 strong, who had proved of material service to the French, were nearly cut off. In 1428, when France seemed completely sunk beneath the English rule, the interests ot the native prince were suddenly revived by a simple maiden, named Joan of Arc, who pretended to have been com- missioned by Heaven to save her country ; and entering into the French army, was the cause of several signal reverses to the English. By her enthusiastic exertions, and the trust everywhere reposed in her supernatur al character, Charles VII was crowned at Rheims in 1430. Being soon after taken prisoner, the heroic maiden was, by the English, condemned for witchcraft, and burnt. Nevertheless, about the year 1453, the French monarch had retrieved the whole of his dominions from the English, with the exception :>f Calais. Henry VI was remarkable for the extreme weakness of his character. His cousin, Richard, Duke of York, descended from an elder son of Edward III, and therefore possessed of a superior title to the throne, conceived that Henry's imbecility afforded a good opportunity for assert- ing what he thought his birthright. Thus commenced the famous Wars of the Hoses, as they were called, from the badges of the families of York and Lancaster — the former of which was a white, while the latter was a red rose. In 1454, the duke gained a decisive victory over the forces of Henry, which were led by his spirited consort, Margaret of Anjou. In some succeeding engagements the friends of Henry were victorious ; and at length, in the battle of Wakefield (December 24, 1460), the forces of the Duke of York were signally defeated, and him- self, with one of his sons, taken and put to death. His pretensions were then taken up by his eldest son Edward, who, with the assistance of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 157 Earl of "Warwick, gained such advantages next year, that he assumed the crown. Before this was accomplished, many thousands had fallen on both sides. Henry, who cared little for the pomp of sovereignty, was confined in the Tower. Scotland, in the meantime (1424), had redeemed her king from his captivity in England ; and that prince, styled James I, had proved a great legislator and reformer, not to speak of his personal accomplishments in music and literature, which surpassed thos3 of every cotemporary monarch. James did much to reduce the Highlands to an obedience under the Scottish government, and also to break up the enormous power of the nobles. By these proceedings, however, he excited a deep hatred in the bosoms of some of his subjects ; and in 1437 he fell a victim to assassination at Perth. He was succeeded by his infant son, James II, the greater part of whose reign was spent in a harassing contention with the powerful house of Douglas, and who was finally killed, in the flower of his age, by the bursting of a cannon before Roxburgh Castle. His successor, James III, was also a minor, and, on reaching man's estate, proved to be a weak, though not ill-meaning prince. He fell a victim, in 1488, to a conspiracy formed by his subjects, and which was led by his eldest son. The morality of princes in this age seems to have been much upon a par with that ascribed to the Turkish sovereigns of a later period. They never scrupled to destroy life, either within the circle of their own family, or out of it, when it suited their interests or their ambition to do so. HOUSE OF YORK. Edward, of the House of York, styled Edward IV, who commenced his reign in the nineteenth year of his age, reigned ten years, perpetu- ally disturbed by renewed attempts of the Lancastrian party, of which he mercilessly sacrificed many thousands who fell into his hands. At length, having offended the Earl of Warwick, who had been chiefly instrumental in placing him upon the throne, that powerful nobleman raised an insur- rection against him, and in eleven days was master of the kingdom, while Edward had to take refuge on the continent. Henry VI was then re stored, and Warwick acquired the title of King-maker. Nine months af- ter (1471), Edward landed with a small body of followers, and having called his partisans arround him, overthrew and killed Warwick at St. Alban's. Margaret of Anjou, who had fought battles for her husband in almost every province of England, gathered a new army, and opposed Edward at Tewkesbury Park, where she was completely defeated. Her son and husband being taken, were murdered in cold blood, and she her- self spent the remainder of her singular life in France. Edward reigned, a profligate and a tyrant, till 1483, when he died in the forty-second year of his age. He had previously caused his brother, the equally prof- ligate Duke of Clarence, to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. During the reign of Edward IV, the plague frequently broke out in England, and carried off immense numbers of the people. It was par- ticularly fatal in London, and in all other places where many houses were huddled closely together, with imperfect means of cleaning and ventila- tion. It wa? calculated that the disease, on one occasion in this reign, 158 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. destroyed as many lives as the fifteen years' war. The plague did not cease to occur in England, as well as in other European countries, until considerable improvements had taken place in the habits of the people, especially in point of cleanliness. Edward V, the eldest son of Edward IV, was a boy of eleven years when he succeeded to the crown. His uncle, Richard, Duke of Glou- cester, a wicked and deformed wretch, soon after contrived to obtain the chief power, and also to cause the murder of the young king and his still younger brother in the Tower. He then mounted the throne under the title of Richard III. For two years, this disgrace to human- ity continued to reign, though universally abhorred by his people. At length, in 1485, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, a connexion rather than a descendant of the Lancaster family, resolved to make an attempt upon the English crown. Having landed with about 2000 followers at Milford Haven, he advanced into the country, and speedily gained such accession of force as enabled him to meet and overthrow Richard at Bos- worth Field, where the tyrant was slain, and the victorious Richmond was immediately proclaimed king, under the title of Henry VII. The new monarch soon after sought to strengthen his title by marrying Eliza- beth, the daughter and heir of Edward IV, by which it was said the families of York and Lancaster were united. HOUSE OF TUDOR — HENRY VII. Under Henry VII the country revived from the evils of a long civil war, in the course of which the chief nobility had been broken down, and the industry and commerce of the land interrupted. It was remarkable, nevertheless, that, during the past period, England was upon the whole an improving country. The evils of war had fallen chiefly on those who made it ; the government, however disturbed by various claimants of the throne, was mild and equitable — at least as compared with that of other countries ; and the people at large throve under a system in which their own consent, by the voice of the House of Commons, was necessary to the making of every new law, and the laying on of every tax. The reign of Henry VII was much disturbed by insurrections, in conse- quence of his imperfect title. A baker's boy, named Lambert Symnel, and a Jew's son, named Perkin Warbeck, were successively set up by the York party — the one as a son of the late Duke of Clarence, and the other as the younger brother of Edward V, but were both defeated. Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn in 1499 ; and nearly about the same time, Henry procured, by forms of law, the death of the Earl of Warwick, the real son of the late Duke of Clarence, a poor idiot boy, whom he had kept fifteen years in confinement, and whose title to the throne, being superior to his own, rendered him uneasy. Henry though a cruel prince, as were most of the sovereigns of Lis age, was a sagacious and peaceful ruler. He paid great attention to all his affairs, and in some of his acts looked far beyond the present time. For example, by marrying his daughter Margaret to James IV of Scotland, he provided for the possibility of the future union of the two crowns. By a law allowing men of property to break entails, he insured the re- duction of the great lords, and the increase of the number of small pro- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 159 prietors. His constant policy was to depress the chief nobles, and to el- evate the clergy, lawyers, and men of new families, as most likely to be dependent on him. The greatest fault of his character was his excessive love of money, of which he amassed an immense sum. During his reign, Ireland Avas made more dependent on the English crown by a statute prohibiting any parliament from being held in it until the king should give his cod sent. HENRY VIII. Henry VII died in April 1509, in the fifty-third year of his age. His eldest surviving son and successor, Henry VIII, was now in his eight- eenth year. Young, handsome, and supposed to be amiable, he enjoyed at first a high degree of popularity. Some years before, he had been affi- anced to Catharine, a Spanish princess, who had previously been the wife of his deceased brother Arthur : he was now married to this lady, the Pope having previously granted a dispensation for that purpose. For many years the reign of Henry was unmarked by any unusual incidents. The chief administration of affairs was committed to a low-born but proud churchman, the celebrated Cardinal Wolsey. The king became much engaged in continental politics ; and during a war which he carried on against France, his brother-in-law James IV, who sided with that state, made an unfortunate irruption into the north of England, and was over- thrown and slain, with the greater part of his nobility (September 9, 1513), at Flodden. About this time some changes of great importance to European soci- ety took place. Almost ever since the destruction of the Roman Empire, the nations which arose out of it had remained in subjection to the Papal See, which might be said to have inherited the universal sway of that government, but altered from an authority over the bodies of men to an empire over their minds. In the opinion of many, this authority of the Roman Catholic religion had in the course of time become much abused, while the religion itself was corrupted by many superstitious observances. So long as men had continued to be the thoughtless warriors and unlet- tered peasants which they had been in the middle ages, it is not probable that they would ever have called in question either the authority of the Pope or the purity of the Catholic faith. But, with knowledge, and the rise of a commercial and manufacturing class, came a disposition to in- quire into the authority of this great religious empire. The art of print- ing, discovered about the middle of the preceding century, and which was now rendering literature accessible to most classes of the community, tended greatly to bring about this revolution in European intellect. The minds of men, indeed, seem at this time as if awaking from a long sleep ; and it might well have been a question with persons who had reflection, but no experience, whether the change was to turn to evil or to good. When men's minds are in a state of preparation for any great change, a very small matter is required to set them in motion. At Wittemberg, in Germany, there was an Augustine monk, named Martin Luther, who became incensed at the Roman see, in consequence of some injury which he conceived to have been done to his order by the Pope having granted the privilege of selling indulgences to the Dominican order of friars. Being 160 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. a man of a bold and inquiring mind, he did not rest satisfied till he had convinced himself, and many others around him, that the indulgences were sinful, and that the Pope had no right to grant them. This happened about the year 1517. Controversy and persecution gradually extended the views of Luther, till he at length openly disavowed the authority of the Pope, and condemned some of the most important peculiarities of the Catho- lic system of worship. In these proceedings, Luther was countenanced by some of the states in Germany, and his doctrines were speedily estab- lished in the northern countries of Europe. THE REFORMATION. Henry VIII, as the second son of his father, had been originally educa- ted for the church, and still retained a taste for theological learning. He now distinguished himself by writing a book against the Lutheran doctrines ; and the Pope was so much pleased with it as to grant him the title of De- fender of the Faith. Henry was not destined, however, to continue long an adherent of the Roman pontiff. In the year 1527, he became enam- ored of a young gentlewoman named Anne Boleyn, who was one of his wife's attendants. He immediately conceived the design of annulinghis marriage with Catharine, and marrying this younger and more agreeable person. Finding a pretext for such an act in the previous marriage of Catharine to his brother, he attempted to obtain from the Pope a decree, declaring his own marriage unlawful, and that the dispensation upon which it had proceeded was beyond the powers of the former Pope to grant. The pontiff ( Clement VII ) was much perplexed by this request of King Henry, because he could not accede to it without offending Charles V, Emperor of Germany, one of his best supporters, and the nephew of Queen Catharine, and at the same time humbling the professed powers of the Papacy, which were now trembling under the attacks of Luther. Henry desired to employ the influence of his minister, Cardinal "VVolsey, who had now reached a degree of opulence and pride never before attained by a subject of England. But Wolsey, with all his greatness, could not venture to urge a matter disagreeable to the Pope, who was more his master than King Henry. The process went on for several years, and still his passion for Anne Boleyn continued unabated. Wolsey at length fell under the king's displeasure for refusing to serve him in this object, was stripped of all his places of power and wealth, and in November 1530, expired at Leicester Abbey, declaring that, if he had served his God as diligently as his king, he would not thus have been given over in his gray hairs. The uncontrollable desire of the king to possess Anne Boleyn, was destined to be the immediate cause of one of the most important changes that ever took place in England — no less than a total reformation of the national religion. In order to annul his marriage with Catharine, and enable him to marry Anne Boleyn, he found it necessary to shake off the authority of the Pope, and procure himself to be acknowledged in Parliament as the supreme head of the English church. His marriage with Anne took place in 1533, and in the same year was born his celebrated daughter Elizabeth. In 1536, Henry became as anxious to put away Queen Anne as he had ever been to rid himself of Queen Catharine. He had contracted a pas- sion for Jane Seymour, a young lady then of the queen's bedchamber, as DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 161 Anne herself had been in that of Catharine. In order to gratify this new passion, he accused Anne of what appears to have been an imaginary frailty, and within a month from the time when she had been an honored queen, she was beheaded (May 19) in the Tower. On the very next day he married Jane Seymour, who soon after died in giving birth to a son ( after- wards Edward VI. ) His daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were declared illegitimate by act of Parliament, and therefore excluded from the suc- cession. Hitherto, though professing independence of Rome, Henry still main- tained, and even enforced, by severe and bloody laws, the most of its doc- trines. He now took measures for altering this system of worship to some- thing nearer the Lutheran model, and also for suppressing the numerous monasteries through the country. Being possessed of more despotic power, and, what is stranger still, of more popularity, than any former sovereign of England, he was able to encounter the dreadful risk of offending by these means a vastly powerful corporation, which seems moreover, to have been regarded with much sincere affection and respect in many parts of England. No fewer than 645 monasteries, 2374 chanteries and chapels, 90 colleges, and 110 hospitals, enjoying altogether a revenue of <£161,000, were broken up by this powerful and unscrupulous monarch. He partly seized the revenues for his own use, and partly gave them away to the persons who most actively assisted him and who seemed most able to pro- tect his government from the effects of such a sweeping reform. By this act, which took place in 1537, the Reformation was completed in England. Yet for many years Henry vacillated so much in his opinions, and en- forced these with such severe enactments, that many persons of both reli- gions were burnt as heretics. It was in the southern and eastern parts of England, where the commercial class at this time chiefly resided, that the doctrines of the Reformation were most prevalent. In the western and northern parts of the country, Catholicism continued to flourish ; and in Ireland, which was remotest of all from the continent, the Protestant faith made little or no impression. After the death of Jane Seymour, Henry married Anne of Cleves, a German princess, with whose person, however, he was not pleased ; and he therefore divorced her by an act of Parliament. He next married Cathe- rine Howard, niece to the Duke of Norfolk ; but had not been long united to her when he discovered that she had committed a serious indiscretion before marriage. This was considered a sufficient reason for beheading the unfortunate queen, and attainting all her relations. Though Henry had thus murdered two wives, and divorced other two, and become, moreover, a monster in form as well as in his passions and mind, he succeeded in ob- taining for his sixth wife ( 1543 ) Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer, who, it is certain, only contrived to escape destruction by her extraordinary prudence. Almost all who ever served Henry VIII as ministers, either to his authority or to his pleasures, were destroyed by him. Wolsey was either driven to suicide, or died of a broken heart . Thomas Cromwell, who suc- ceeded that minister, and chiefly aided the king in bringing about the Re- formation — Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor, the most virtuous, most able and most consistent man of his time — the Earl of Surrey, who was one of the most accomplished knights of the age, and the first poet who 11* 162 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. wrote the English language with perfect taste — all suffered the same fate with Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. When James IV died at Flodden,in 1513, the Scottish crown fell to his infant son James V, who struggled through a turbulent minority, and was now a gay, and, upon the whole, an amiable prince. His uncle, Henry VIII, endeavored to bring him into his views respecting religion ; but James, who was much in the power of the Catholic clergy, appears to have wished to become the head of the Popish party in England, in the hope of succeeding, by their means, to the throne of that country. A war lat- terly broke out between the two monarchs, and the Scottish army having refused to fight, from a dislike to the expedition, James died ( December 1542 ) of a broken heart, leaving an only child, Mary, who was not above a week old. Henry immediately conceived the idea of marrying his son Edward to this infant queen, by which he calculated that two hostile na- tions should be united under one sovereignty, and the Protestant church in England be supported by a similar establishment in Scotland. This pro- ject, however, was resisted by the Scots, of whom very few as yet were inclined to the Protestant doctrines. Henry, enraged at their hesitation, sent a fleet and army, in 1544, to inflict vengeance upon them. The Scots endured with great patience the burning of their capital city, and many other devastations, but still refused the match. The government of Scot- land was now chiefly in the hands of Cardinal Beaton, a man of bold and decisive intellect, who zealously applied himself to suppress the reforming preachers, and regarded the English match as likely to bring about the destruction of the Catholic religion. EDWARD VI — QUEEN MARY. Henry died, January 28, 1547, leaving the throne to his only son, a boy of ten years of age, who was immediately proclaimed king under the title of Edavard VI. The Duke of Somerset, maternal uncle to the young king, became supreme ruler under the title of Protector, and continued to maintain the Protestant doctrines. Under this reign, the church of Eng- land assumed its present form, and the Book of Common Prayer was com- posed nearly as it now exists. Somerset being resolved to effect, if possible, the match between Edward VI and Mary of Scotland, invaded that coun- try in the autumn of 1547, and was met at Musselburgh by a large army under the governor, the Earl of Arran. Though the Scotch were anima- ted by bitter animosity against the English, against their religion, and against the object of their expedition, they did not fight with their usual resolution, but were defeated, and pursued with great slaughter. Finding them still obstinate in refusing to give up their queen, Somerset laid waste a great part of the country, and then retired. Previous to this period, Cardinal Beaton had been assassinated by private enemies ; but the Scotch were encouraged to persevere by the court of France, to which they now sent the young queen for protection. In the reign of Edward VI the government was conducted mildly, until the Protector Somerset was degraded from his authority by the rising in- fluence of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who caused him soon after to be tried and executed. Northumberland, who was secretly a Roman Catholic, was not so mild or popular a ruler. Yet, throughout the whole DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 163 reign of Edward VI which was terminated by his death on the 6th of July 1553, at the early age of sixteen, no religious party was persecuted, ex- cept those who denied the fundamental doctrines of the Chi'istian religion. It would have been well for the honor of a church which has produced many great men, and to which the modern world is indebted for the very existence of Christianity, if it had not been tempted after this period to commence a very different course of action. The crown now belonged by birthright to Mary, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII, who was a zeal- ous Catholic. Northumberland, however, assuming the illegitimacy of that princess and her sister Elizabeth, set up as queen the Lady Jane Grey, who was descended from a younger sister of King Henry, and who had been married to a son of the Duke of Northumberland. Lady Jane was the most beautiful, most intelligent, and mogt amiable of, all the females who appear in the history of England. Though only seventeen, she was deeply learned, and yet preserved all the unaffected graces of character proper to her interesting age. Unfortunately, 'her father-in-law North- umberland was so much disliked, that the Catholics were enabled to dis- place her ^from the throne in eight days, and to set up in her stead the Princess Mary. Northumberland, Lady Jane, and her husband, Guildford, Lord Dudley, were all beheaded by that savage princess, who soon after took steps for restoring the Catholic religion, and married Philip II, king of Spain, in order to strengthen herself against the Protestant interest. Mary experienced some resistance from her Protestant subjects, and being under great suspicion of her sister Elizabeth, who professed the reformed faith, but took no part against her, was almost on the point of ordering her to execution also. As soon as she had replaced the Catholic system, and found herself in possession of sufficient power, she began that career of persecution which has rendered her name so infamous. Five out of fourteen Protestant bishops, including the revered names of Cranmer, Lat- imer, and Ridley, were committed to the flames as heretics ; and during the ensuing part of her reign, which was closed by her death, November 17, 1558, nearly three hundred persons suffered in the same manner. These scenes did not take place without exciting horror in the minds of Englishmen in general, including even many Catholics ; but the royal au- thority was at all times too great under this line of princes to allow of ef- fectual resistance. Such a persecution, however, naturally fixed in the minds of the British Protestants a hereditary horror for the name of Cath- olic, which has in its turn been productive of many retaliatory persecutions, almost equally to be lamented. In the latter part of her reign, she was drawn by her husband into a war with France, of which the only effect was the loss of Calais, the last of the French possessions of the sovereigns of England. The natural sourness of Mary's temper was increased by this disgraceful event, as well as by her want of children, and she died in a state of great unhappiness. ELIZABETH — MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS — REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND. A more auspicious scene opened for England in the accession of Eliza- beth, a princess of great native vigor of mind, and who had been much improved by adversity, having been kept in prison during the whole reign of her sister. From the peculiar circumstances of Elizabeth's birth, her 164 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. right of succession was denied by all the Catholics at home and abroad. This party considered Mary, Queen of Scots, who was descended from the eldest sister of Henry VIII, and had been brought up in the Catholic faith at the court of France, as their legitimate sovereign. Elizabeth had no support in any quarter, except among her Protestant subjects. The Pope issued a bull, which directly or indirectly, pronounced her a usurper, and gave permission to her subjects to remove her from the throne. The court of France professed to consider the Queen of Scots, who had recent- ly been married to the Dauphin, as the Queen of England. Under these circumstances, Elizabeth found no chance of safety except in restoring and maintaining the Protestant religion in her own country, and in seeking to support it in all others where the people were favorable to it. The Scot- tish nation being now engaged in a struggle with their regent, Mary of Guise, in behalf of Protestantism, Elizabeth gladly acceded to a proposal made by the nobles of that country, and sent a party of troops, by whose assistance the reformed religion was established (1560). In bringing about this change, the chief native leaders were James Stuart, a natural son of King James V, and John Knox, who had once been a friar, but was now a Protestant preacher. As a natural consequence of the obliga- tion which the English queen had conferred upon the Scottish reformers, she acquired an influence over the country which was never altogether lost. About the time when the Scottish Parliament was establishing the re- formed religion, Mary of Guise breathed her last, leaving the country to be managed by the reforming nobles. Her daughter, the Queen of Scots, now eighteen years of age, and the most beautiful woman of her time, had in 1559 become the queen-consort of France ; but in consequence of the death of her husband, she was next year left without any political interest in that country. She accordingly, in August 1561, returned to Scotland, and assumed the sovereignty of a country which was chiefly under the rule of fierce nobles, and where the people, from the difference of their reli- gious faiths, as well as their native barbarism, were little fitted to yield her the obedience of loyal and loving subjects. The change of religion in Scotland was of a more decisive kind than it had been in England. The English Reformation had been effected by sovereigns who, while they wished to throw off the supremacy of the Pope, and some of the Catholic rites, desired to give as little way as possible to popular principles. They therefore not only seized the su- premacy of the church to themselves, but, by bishops and other dignita- ries, made it an efficient instrument for supporting monarchical government. In Scotland, where the Reformation was effected by the nobles and the people, at a time when still bolder principles had sprung up, none of this machinery of power was retained. The clergy were placed on a footing of perfect equality ; they were all of them engaged in parochial duties, and only a small part of the ancient ecclesiastical revenues was allowed to them. In imitation of the system established at Geneva, their general affairs, instead of being intrusted to the hands of bishops, were confided to courts formed by themselves. These courts, being partly formed by lay elders, kept up a sympathy and attachment among the community, which has never existed in so great a degree in the English church. What was of perhaps still greater importance, while a large part of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 165 ancient revenues was absorbed by the nobles, a very considerable portion was devoted to the maintenance of parish schools, under the express control of the clergy. These at once formed regular nurseries of Prot- estant Christians, and disseminated the elements of learning more exten- sively over this small and remote country than it had ever been over any other part of the world. Queen Mary, having little power in her own country, was obliged to govern by means of her natural brother, James Stuart, whom she created Earl of Moray, and who was the leader of the Protestant in- terest in Scotland. Personally, however, she was intimately connected with the great Catholic powers of the continent, and became a party, in 1564, to a coalition formed by them for the suppression of Protestantism all over Europe. She had never yet resigned her pretensions to the English throne, but lived in the hope that, when the Catholics succeeded in everywhere subduing the Protestants, she would attain that object. Elizabeth, who had only the support of the Protestant part of her own subjects, with a friendly feeling among the Scotch and other unimportant Protestant nations, had great reason to dread the confederacy formed against her. She nevertheless stood firm upon the Protestant faith, and the principles of a comparatively liberal and popular government, as the only safe position. A series of unfortunate events threw Mary into the hands of Elizabeth. The former queen, in 1565, married her cousin Lord Darnley, and by that means alienated the affections of her brother and chief minister, the Earl of Moray, as well as of other Protestant lords, who raised a rebel- lion against her, and were obliged to fly into England. Soon after, the jealousy of Darnley respecting an Italian musician named Rizzio, who acted as French secretary to the queen, united him in a conspiracy with the banished Protestant noblemen for the murder of that humble foreign- er, which was effected under very barbarous circumstances, March 9, 1566. Mary, who was delivered in the succeeding June, of her son James, withdrew her affections entirely from her husband, and began to confide chiefly in the Earl of Bothwell, who some months afterwards caused Darnley to be blown up by gunpowder, while he lay in a state of sickness ; in which transaction it has always been suspected, but never proved, that the queen had a considerable share. Bothwell soon after forced her, in appearance, into a marriage, which excited so much indig- nation among her subjects, that the same Protestant lords who had effect- ed the Reformation, and were the friends of Elizabeth, easily obtained the possession of her person, and having deposed her, crowned her infant son as king, under the title of James VI, while the regency was vested in the Earl of Moray. In May 1568, Mary escaped from her prison in Lochleven, and put herself at the head of a body of her partisans, but was defeated by the regent at the battle of Langside, and was then com- pelled to seek refuge in England. By placing her rival under strict con- finement, and extending an effectual protection to the regents Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton, who successively governed Scotland, Elizabeth fortified herself in a great degree against the Catholic confederacy. 166 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. GOVERNMENT OF ELIZABETH. It has already been seen that the liberties of the people were much favored by the frequent interruptions in the succession to the crown. Whenever one branch of the Plantagenet family displaced another, the new king, feeling himself weak, endeavored to strengthen his title by procuring a parliamentary enactment in support of it. It thus became established as a regular principle in the English government, that the people who were represented in parliament had something to say in the appointment of their king. A considerable change, however, had taken place since the accession of Henry VII. The great power acquired by that king, through his worldly wisdom and the destruction of the nobility during the civil wars, had been handed down through four successive princes, who inherited the crown by birthright, and did not require to cringe to the people for a confirmation of their title. The parliaments, therefore, were now a great deal more under the control of the sovereign than they had formerly been. From an early period of his reign, Henry VIII never permittedkhis parliament to oppose his will in the least. To the various changes of* religion under successive sovereigns, the parlia- ments presented no obstacle. An idea was now beginning to arise, very much through the supremacy which the sovereigns had acquired over the church, that the right of the crown was one derived from God, and that the people had nothing to do with it, except to obey what it dictated to them. Of this notion, no one took so much advantage, or was at so much pains to impress it, as Elizabeth. No doubt her arbitrary measures were generally of a popular nature, yet this does not excuse them in principle ; and their ultimate mischief is seen in the attempts of future sovereigns to pursue worse ends upon the same means. Elizabeth's government consisted entirely of herself and her ministers, who were, from the beginning to the end of her reign, the very spirit and essence of the enlightened men of England. Her prime minister was the celebrat- ed Lord Burleigh, by far the most sagacious man who ever acted as a minister in Britain ; and all her emissaries to foreign courts were of one complexion — circumspect and penetrating men, ardently devoted to their country, their mistress, and to the Protestant religion. On the acoession of Elizabeth, the two celebrated acts of Supremacy and Conformity were passed, for the purpose of crushing the political in- fluence of the Popish religion ; an end which they sufficiently accom- plished. By the act of supremacy, all beneficed clergymen, and all hold- ing offices under the crown, were compelled to take an oath adjuring the temporal and spiritual jurisdiction of any foreign prince or prelate, on pain of forfeiting their offices, while any one maintaining such suprema- cy was liable to heavy penalties. The other statute prohibited any one from following any clergyman who was not of the established religion, under pain of forfeiting his goods and chattels for the first offense, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of imprisonment during life for the third ; while it imposed a fine of a shilling on any one absenting him- self from the established church on Sundays and holidays. By means of a court of ecclesiastical commission, which the queen erected, these laws, and others of a more trifling and vexatious nature, were enforced DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 16T with great severity. It may afford some idea of the barbarity of the age, and of the terror in which the church of Rome was now held, that, during the reign of Elizabeth, one hundred and eighty persons suffered death by the laws affecting Catholic priests and converts. WAR IN THE NETHERLANDS. For more than a century after the Reformation, religion was the real or apparent motive of the most remarkable transactions in European history. It is scarcely necessary to point out that this sentiment, though in gen- eral the purest by which human beings can be actuated, is, like all the other higher sentiments of our nature, when offended or shocked, capable of rousing the inferior sentiments into great activity. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, European society was comparatively unenlight- ened and barbarous ; we therefore find the variances of opinion respecting religion were then productive of far fiercer feelings than they are in our own more humane age. The Protestant heresy, as it was termed by the Catholics, was also a novelty, the remote effects of which no man could foretell ; it was mingled with political questions, and by some princes was supposed to forebode a general revolt against momfrchical authority. We are not therefore to wonder that great cruelties were committed, either by the Catholics in seeking to support the church of Rome, or by the Pro- testants in endeavoring to insure themselves against a renewal of severities inflicted by the opposite party. Nor is it necessary, in the present age, that the adherents of either faith should retain any feeling of displeasure against the other, on account of barbarities which took their rise in the ignorance and rudeness of a former period, and of which the enlightened of both parties have long since disapproved. In the Netherlands, which formed part of the dominions of Philip II of Spain, the reformed faith had made considerable advances. Philip, like other Catholic princes, entertained the idea that this new creed, besides being condemnable as a heresy and an offense against the Deity, tended to make men independent of their rulers. Finding the people obstinate in their professions, he commenced a war with the Netherlanders, for the purpose of enforcing his authority over their consciences. This war las- ted about twenty years ; for the Netherlanders, though a nation of no great strength, fought like desperate men, and endured the most dreadful hardships rather than submit. The chief leader in this war of liberty was William, Prince of Orange, one of the purest and most courageous patriots that ever breathed. Elizabeth could not help wishing well to the Nether- landers, though for a long time her dread of Spain, then one of the great- est powers in Europe, prevented her from openly assisting them. At the same time, about two millions of the people of France were Protestants, or, as they were then called, Huguenots, who acted also for the general Protestant cause with as much energy as the great strength of the French government would permit. Elizabeth at length, in 1578, extended an open protection to the Netherlanders, excusing herself to Philip by stat- ing her fear that they would otherwise throw themselves into the arms of France. The northern provinces were thus enabled to assert their inde- pendence, and to constitute the country which has since been called Holland. 168 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. DEATH OP MARY, QUEEN OP SCOTS The Catholic powers of the continent formed many schemes for annoy- ing or dethroning Elizabeth ; and the imprisoned Scottish queen, or her adherents, were generally concerned in them. The King of Spain, deter- mined at length to make a decisive effort, commenced the preparation of a vast fleet, which he termed the Invincible Armada, and with which he designed to invade the English shores. Elizabeth, her ministers, and peo- ple, beheld the preparations with much concern, and their fears were in- creased by the plots which were incessantly forming amongst her Catholic subjects in behalf of the Queen of Scots. An act was passed declaring" that any person, by or for whom any plot should be made against the Queen of England, should be guilty of treason. When, soon after, a gen- tleman named Babington formed a conspiracy for assassinating Elizabeth and placing Mary on the throne, the latter queen became of course liable to the punishment of treason, although herself innocent. She was subjected to a formal trial in her prison of Fotheringay Castle, and found guilty. Elizabeth hesitated for -some time to strike an unoffending and unfortunate person, related to her by blood, and her equal in rank. But at length fears for herself got the better of her sense of justice, and, it may be added, of her good sense, and she gave her sanction to an act which leaves an ineffaceable stain upon her memory. On the 7th of February 1587, Mary Queen of Scots, was beheaded in the hall of the castle, after an embittered confinement of more than eighteen years. James VI was now, after a turbulent minority, in possession of the reins of government in Scotland, but with little real power, being a de- pendent and pensioner of Elizabeth, and at the same time much controll ed by the clergy, who asserted a total independence of all temporal au thority, and considered themselves as the subjects alone of the Divine founder of the Christian faith. James made many attempts to assert a control over the church like that enjoyed by the English monarch, and also to introduce an Episcopal hierarchy, but never could attain more than a mere shadow of his object. The chief influence he possessed arose in fact from his being regarded as heir presumptive to the English crown. SPANISH ARMADA — REBELLION LN IRELAND. In 1588, the Spanish Armada, consisting of 130 great vessels, with 20,000 land forces on board, set sail against England, while 34,000 more land forces prepared to join from the Netherlands. Amidst the conster nation which prevailed in England, active measures were taken to de fend the country ; thirty vessels prepared to meet the Armada, and an- other fleet endeavored to block up the Netherlands forces in port. The command was taken by Lord Howard of Effingham. Troops were also mustered on land to repel the invaders. The English fleet attacked the Armada in the Channel, and was found to have a considerable ad- vantage in the lightness and manageableness of the vessels. As the Ar- mada sailed along, it was infested by the English in the rear, and by a series of desultory attacks, so damaged as to be obliged to take ref DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 169 uge on the coast of Zealand. The Duke of Parma now declined to em- bark the Netherlands forces, and it was resolved by the admiral, that they should return to Spain by sailing round the Orkneys, as the winds were contrary to their passage directly back. Accordingly they proceeded northward, and were followed by the English fleet as far as Flamborough Head, where they were terribly shattered by a storm. Seventeen of the ships, having 5,000 men on board, were cast away on the Western Isles and the coast of Ireland. Of the whole Armada, fifty-three ships only returned to Spain, and these in a wretched condition. The seamen, as well as the soldiers who remained, were so overcome with hardships and fatigue, and so dispirited by their discomfiture, that they filled all Spain with accounts of the desperate valor of the English, and of the tempes- tuous violence of that ocean by which they were surrounded. Though the Protestant church had meanwhile been established in Ire- land, the great bulk of the people continued to be Roman Catholics. The native rudeness of the people and their chiefs, and the discontent oc- casioned by what was considered as a foreign church establishment, ren- dered the country turbulent and difficult to govern. Sir John Perrot, the deputy, proposed to improve the country by public works and English laws ; but it was thought injurious to England to improve the condition of Ireland. A series of rebellions under chiefs named O'Neill was the consequence, and the English government was maintained with great dif- ficulty, and at an enormous expense. The rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, was particularly formidable. The English officers were at first unsuccessful, and met with some serious defeats. In 1599, Tyrone gained so great a victory, that the whole province of Munster declared for him. He then invited the Spaniards to make a descent on Ireland, and join him. The queen sent over her favorite, the Earl of Essex, with 20,000 men ; but he did not proceed with vigor, and soon after found it necessary to return to England to justify himself. Next year Tyrone broke the truce he had formed with Essex, overran the whole country, and acted as sovereign of Ireland. If Spain had at this time given him the support he asked, Ireland might have been dissevered from the English orown. Elizabeth now selected as her deputy for Ireland, Blount, Lord Mount- joy, who was in every respect better fitted than Essex to conduct such a warfare. As a preliminary step, this sagacious officer introduced jealousy and disunion among the Irish chiefs. The very celerity of his movements tended to dispirit the insurgents. In 1601, six thousand Spaniards lan- ded in Kinsale harbor, for the purpose of supporting the Irish. Mount- joy immediately invested the place, and prevented them from acting. Tyrone marched from the south of Ireland to their relief, and was met and overthrown by a much inferior English force, after which Kinsale was surrendered. About the time when Elizabeth died (1603), Tyrone submitted, and Ireland was once more reduced under the authority of the English crown. CONCLUSION OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. It is remarkable, that while Elizabeth increased in power and resourc- es, she became more noted for feminine weaknesses. In her early years 170 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. she had shown a stoicism, and superiority to natural affections, not usually observed in women. But in her old age, she became both volatile and susceptible to an extraordinary degree ; so that the hand which she had withheld in her younger days from the noblest princes of Europe, seemed likely to be bestowed in her old age upon some mere court minion. Her favorite in middle life was Robert, Earl of Leicester, a profligate and a tri- fler. In her latter days she listened to the addresses of the Earl of Essex, a young man of greater courage and better principle, but also headstrong and weak. Essex, who had acquired popularity by several brilliant mili- tary enterprises, began at length to assume an insolent superiority over the queen, who was on one occasion so much provoked by his rudeness as to give him a hearty box on the ear. Notwithstanding all his caprices, presumption, and insults, the queen still doatingly forgave him, until he at length attempted to raise an insurrection against her in the streets of Lon- don, when he w T as seized, condemned, and after much hesitation, executed (February 25, 1601). Elizabeth, in at last ordering the execution of Essex, had acted upon her usual principle of sacrificing her feelings to what was necessary for the public cause ; but in this effort, made in the sixty-eighth year of her age, she had miscalculated the real strength of her nature. She was ob- served from that time to decline gradually in health and spirits. About the close of 1601, she fell into a deep hypochondria or melan- choly. She could scarcely be induced to have herself dressed, and at length became so much absorbed by her sorrow as to refuse sustenance, and sat for days and nights on the floor, supported by a few cushions, brought to her by her attendants. On the 24th of March 1603, she expired, after a reign of nearly forty-five years, during which England advanced — po- litically and commercially — from the condition of a second-rate to that of a first rate power, and the Protestant religion was established on a basis from which it could never afterwards be shaken. The reign of Elizabeth saw the commencement of the naval glory of Eng- land. Down to the reign of Henry VII, there was no such thing as a navy belonging to the public, and the military genius of the people was de- voted exclusively to enterprises by land. The rise", however, of a com- mercial spirit in Europe, which in 1492 had caused the discovery of Amer- ica, and was again acted upon by the scope for adventure which that discovery opened up, had latterly caused great attention to be paid to nautical affairs in England. Englishmen of all ranks supported and entered into enterprises for discovering unknown territories ; and under Drake, Cav- endish, Raleigh, and Frobisher, various expeditions of more or less magni- tude were sent out. The colonies of North America were now commenced. Amongst the exertions of private merchants, our attention is chiefly attrac- ted by the commencement of the northern whale-fishery, the cod-fishery of Newfoundland, and the less laudable slave-trade in Africa. When hos- tilities with Spain became more open, the English commanders made many successful attacks upon her colonies in the West Indies, and also upon the fleets of merchant vessels which were employed to carry home the gold, and other almost equally valuable products of the New World, to the Spanish harbors. These attacks were now made in a more systematic manner, and with more effect, as a revenge for the affair of the Armada. It may be said that the dominion of Britain over the seas was perfected al- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 171 most in a single reign ; a power which has been of such advantage to the country, both in protecting its commerce, and keeping it secure from foreign invasion, that its origin would have conferred everlasting lustre on this period of British history, even although it had not been characterised by any other glorious event. The chief articles exported from England to the continent were, wool, cloth, lead, and tin: formerly these had been sent in vessels belonging to the Hanse Towns — certain ports of the north of Europe, possessing great privileges — but now English vessels Avere substituted for this trade. Bir- mingham and Sheffield were already thriving seats of the hardware manu- facture, and Manchester was becoming distinguished for making cottons, rugs, and friezes. Stocking-weaving and the making of sailcloth, serge, and baize, took their rise in this reign. The progress of other arts was much favored by the bloody persecutions in the Netherlands, which drove into England great numbers of weavers, dyers, cloth-dressers, and silk- throwers. Amongst the wealthier classes, the wearing of handsome ap- parel and of gold ornaments and jewelery, made a great advance. Coach- es were introduced, but for a time thought only fit for the use of ladies. Great improvements were made in the building of houses. Theatrical amusements were begun, and attained great vogue, though only in London. The smoking of tobacco was introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh, who became acquainted with the plant in Virginia. At the end of Elizabeth's reign, the population of London was about 160,000, or a tenth of what it now is; and the whole kingdom probably contained about 5,000,000 of inhabitants. THE STUARTS — JAMES I. The successor of Elizabeth, by birthright, was James VI of Scotland (styled James I of England), who was now arrived at the prime of life, and had been married for some years to the Princess Anne of Denmark, by whom he had two sons, Henry and Charles, and one daughter named Elizabeth. James immediately removed to London, and assumed the gov- ernment of England, while his native kingdom, though thus united under the same sovereignty, still retained its own peculiar institutions. At the suggestion of the king, who wished to obliterate the distinction of the two countries, the common name of G-reat Britain was now conferred upon them. King James was an oddity in human character. His person was naturally feeble, particularly in his limbs, which were scarcely sufficient to support his weight. He had great capacity for learning, some acuteness, and a considerable share of wit; but was pedantic, vain and weak. He believed kings to be the deputies of God, and accountable to God alone for their actions. He was equally disposed with Elizabeth to govern despot- ically, or according to his own will ; but he wanted the vigor and the tact for securing popularity which enabled his predecessor to become so much the mistress of her subjects. Notwithstanding the energy of Elizabeth, the popular spirit had gradu- ally been acquiring force in her reign. It was chiefly seen in the acts of the Puritans, a religious party, who wished to make great reforms in the church, both in its government and its worship, and who, from the fervor of their devotions and the strictness of their manners, might be likened to the Presbyterians of Scotland. King James found considerable difficulty 172 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. at the very first in controlling this party and evading their demands. He was no less troubled, on the other hand, by the Catholics, who, recollecting his mother Mary, conceived that he would be inclined to make matters more easy to them in England. Upon the whole, there were such difficul- ties in the way, as, to have steered successfully through them, would have required a wiser instead of a weaker ruler than Elizabeth. GUNPOWDER PLOT. The disappointment of the Catholics on finding that the severe laws against them were not to be relaxed, led to a conspiracy on the part of a few gentlemen of that persuasion, of whom the chief was William Catesby, a person of dissolute habits. It was arranged that, on the day of the meeting of Parliament, November 5, 1605, the House of Lords should be blown up by gunpowder, at the moment when the King, Lords, and Com- mons were assembled in it, thus destroying as they thought, all their chief enemies at one blow, and making way for a new government which should be more favorable to them. Accordingly, thirty-four barrels of powder were deposited in the cellars beneath the House, and a person named Guy Fawkes was prepared to kindle it at the proper time. The plot was dis- covered, in consequence of the receipt of a letter by Lord Monteagle, warning him not to attend the meeting of Parliament. An investigation took place during the night between the 4th and 5th of November, when the gunpowder was discovered, and Fawkes taken into custody. He con- fessed his intentions ; and the rest of the conspirators fled to the coun- try, where most of them were cut to pieces in endeavoring to defend them- selves. Notwithstanding the atrocious character of this plot, the king could never be induced to take advantage of it, as most of his subjects desired, for the purpose of increasing the persecution of the Catholic party. He probably feared that new severities might only give rise to other at- tempts against his life. PLANTATIONS IN IRELAND. The state in which the king found Ireland at his accession, afforded an opportunity for commencing a more generous policy in reference to that country, and introducing regulations favorable to internal improvement. Previously to this reign, the legislative authority of the English govern- ment was confined to the small district called the ' Pale,' while the rest was governed by native sovereigns or chiefs, whose connection with the king of England was merely that of feudal homage, which did not prevent them from making wars or alliances with each other. Subject to depreda- tions from these powerful barons, the native Irish, from a very early period, petitioned for the benefit of the English laws ; but the Irish Parliament, which was composed of the English barons, was never at a loss for the means of preventing this desirable measure from being effected. James was in reality the first king who extended the English law over the whole of Ireland, by making judicial appointments suited to the extent of the country. This he was enabled to do, by the recent wars having put the country more completely in his power than it had been in that of any former monarch. He began by extending favor to the Irish chiefs, not excepting DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 173 Tyrone. He passed an act of oblivion and indemnity by which all persons who had committed offenses, coming to the judges of assize within a cer- tain day, might claim a full pardon. At the same time, toleration was vir- tually refused to the Catholic persuasion, and much discontent therefore still existed. Some of the chieftains having conspired against the crown, were attainted, and their lands were given to English settlers, with a view to improving the population of the country by an infusion of civilized persons. But this experiment, though well-meant, was managed in a partial spirit, and gave rise to much injustice. In 1613, the first Irish Parliament was held in which there were any representatives of places beyond the Pale. THE KING'S CHILDREN — THE SPANISH MATCH. In 1612, the king had the misfortune to lose his eldest son, Henry, a youth of nineteen, who was considered as one of the most promising and accomplished men of the age. The second son, Charles, then became the heir-apparent, and James was busied for several years in seeking him out a suitable consort. The Princess Mary of Spain was selected, a match which could not be popular, considering that the young lady was a Catholic and of a family who had long been enemies of England. The prince, at- tended by the Duke of Buckingham, made a romantic journey in disguise to Madrid to push the match ; but a quarrel between the British and Span- ish ministers led to its being broken off, and to a bloody war between the two nations. Elizabeth, the only remaining child of the king, was married in 1613, to Frederick, Prince Palatine of the Rhine, who was afterwards so unfortunate as to lose his dominions, in consequence of his placing him- self at the head of the Bohemians, in what was considered as a rebellion against his superior, the Emperor of Germany. This discrowned pair, by their youngest daughter Sophia, who married the Duke of Brunswick, were the ancestors of the family which now reigns in Britain. FEATURES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF JAMES I. The reign of James I was not marked by what are called great events. This was greatly owing to his timid character, which induced him to main- tain peace, at whatever sacrifice, throughout the greater part of his reign. The prime leaders of his government were youthful favorites, who posses- sed no merit but personal elegance. Experienced statesmen, brave soldiers, and learned divines, had to bow to these dissolute youths, if they wished to advance in royal favor. Even Bacon, the noblest intellect of the age, and who, by the result of his studies, has done more than almost any other man to promote the progress of knowledge, is found to have attached him- self to the minion Duke of Buckingham, for the purpose of improving his interest at court. In despotic countries, the vices of the court often corrupt all classes; but it was otherwise at that period in Britain. The country gentlemen, and the merchants in the incorporated towns, had priv- ileges which the court dared not too often violate, and a feeling of recti- tude and independence was encouraged among these classes, which the statesman of the age too much overlooked. The House of Commons gave frequent resistance to the court, and often compelled James to yield, at the very moment when he was preaching his doctrines of divine right. In hia 174 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. first Parliament, they took into consideration several grievances, such as purveyance, a supposed right in the officers of the court to seize what pro- visions they pleased, at any price, or at no price ; another was the right of granting monopolies, which had become a source of revenue to the court by cheating the country, certain persons having the monopoly of certain manufactures and articles of domestic consumption, which they were allow- ed to furnish at their own prices. The Commons likewise remonstrated against all pluralities in the church, and against a new set of canons which the king and the church tried to force on the nation without their consent. In 1614 they threatened to postpone any supply till their grievances were redressed. The king, in his turn, threatened to dissolve them if they did not immediately grant a supply ; and they allowed him to take his course, which did not fill his coffers. These, and many other instances of bold re- sistance, should have given warning to the court. They were the shadows of coming events, and attention to them might have saved the bloodshed and confusion of the succeeding reign. English literature, which first made a decisive advance in the reign of Elizabeth, continued to be cultivated with great success in the reign of King James. The excellence of the language at this time as a medium for literature, is strikingly shown in the translation of the Bible now exe- cuted. It is also shown in the admirable dramatic writings of Shak- speare, and in the valuable philosophic works of Bacon. The inductive philosophy, made known by the last writer — namely, that mode of reason- ing which consists in first ascertaining facts, and then inferring conclusions from them — reflects peculiar lustre on this period of British history. Very great praise is also due to Napier of Merchiston, in Scotland, for the invention of logarithms, a mode of calculating intricate numbers, essential to the progress of mathematical science. CHARLES I— HIS CONTENTIONS WITH THE HOUSE OF COMMONS King James died in March 1625, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and was succeeded by his son Charles, now twenty five years of age. One of the first acts of the young king was to marry the Princess Henri- etta Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France, and a Catholic. This was an unfortunate step for the House of Stuart, for the two eldest sons of the king and queen, though educated as Protestants, were influenced in some measure by the religious creed of their mother, so that they ulti- mately became Catholics ; and this, in the case of the second son, James II, led to the family being expelled from the British throne. After breaking off the proposed match with the Princess Mary of Spain, Britain eagerly threw itself into a war with that country, which was still continued. To supply the expenses of that contest, and of a still more unnecessary one into which he was driven with France, the king applied to Parliament, but was met there with so many complaints as to his government, and such a keen spirit of popular liberty, that he deemed it necessary to revive a practice followed by other sovereigns, and particularly Elizabeth, of compelling his subjects to grant him gifts, or, as they were called, benevolences, and also to furnish ships at their own charge, for carrying on the war. Such expedients, barely tolerated under the happy reign of Elizabeth, could not be endured in this age, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 175 when the people and the Parliament were so much more alive to their rights. A general discontent spread over the nation. The Commons, seeing that if the king could support the state by self-raised taxes, he would soon become independent of all control from his Parliaments, resolv ed to take every measure in their power to check his proceedings. They also assailed him respecting a right which he assumed to imprison his sub- jects upon his own warrant, and to detain them as long as he pleased. Having made an inquiry into the ancient powers of the crown, before these powers had been vitiated by the tyrannical Tudors, they embodied the result in what was called a Petition of Right, which they presented to him as an ordinary bill, or rather as a second Magna Charta, for replac- ing the privileges of the people, and particularly their exemption from ar bitrary taxes and imprisonment, upon a fixed basis. With great difficulty Charles was prevailed upon to give his sanction to this bill (1628) ; but his disputes with Parliament soon after ran to such a height, that he dis- solved it in a fit of indignation, resolving never more to call it together. About the same time his favorite minister, the Duke of Buckingham, was assassinated at Portsmouth, and Charles resolved thenceforward to be in a great measure his own minister, and to trust chiefly for the support of his government to the English hierarchy, to whose faith he was a devoted adherent, and who were, in turn, the most loyal of his subjects. His chief counselor was Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of narrow and bigoted spirit, and who made it his duty rather to increase than to diminish the ceremonies of the English church, although the tendency of the age was decidedly favorable to their diminution. For some years Charles governed the country entirely as an irresponsible despot, levying taxes by his own orders, and imprisoning such persons as were obnoxious to him, in utter defiance of the Petition of Right. The Puritans, or church reformers, suffered most severely under this system of things. They were dragged in great numbers before an arbitrary court called the Star-Chamber, which professed to take cognizance of offenses against the king's prerogative, and against religion; and sometimes men venerable for piety, learning, and worth, were scourged through the streets of London, and had their ears cut off, and their noses slit, for merely differ- ing in opinion, on the most speculative of all subjects, with the king and his clergy. The great body of the people beheld these proceedings with horror, and only a fitting occasion was wanted for giving expression and effect to the public feeling. THE LONG PARLIAMENT — THE IRISH REBELLION. The English Parliament met in November, and immediately commenc- ed a series of measures for effectually and permanently abridging the royal authority. There was even a party who, provoked by the late arbi- trary measures, contemplated the total abolition of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic. The Earl of Strafford was impeached of treason against the liberties of the people, and executed (May 12, 1641), notwithstanding a solemn promise made to him by the king that he should never suffer in person or estate. Archbishop Laud was impeached and imprisoned, but reserved for future vengeance. The remaining ministers of the king only saved themselves by flight. Some of the judges were 176 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. imprisoned and fined. The abolition of Episcopacy was taken into con- sideration. The Catholics fell under a severe persecution ; and even the person of the queen, who belonged to this faith, was not considered safe. The cruel policy by which large portions of Ireland were depopulated, and then planted with colonies of English and Scotch settlers had been continued during the reign of Charles. In addition to this and other local causes of complaint, the state of religion was one which pervaded nearly the whole country, and was always becoming more and more impor- tant. Though the reformed faith had been established for nearly a cen- tury, it had made little progress except among the English settlers. The greater part of the nobility, and also of the lower orders, were still at- tached to the ancient creed ; and a Catholic hierarchy, appointed by the Pope, and supported by the people, enjoyed as much respect and obedi- ance as when that religion was countenanced by the state. The refusal of the Catholics to take the oath of supremacy, which acknowledged the king to possess a right which their faith taught them to belong to the Pope, necessarily excluded them from all branches of the public service. There were also penal laws against the profession of Catholicism and a severe court of Star-Chamber to carry these into execution. Thus situated, the Irish Catholics had two powerful motives to mutiny — a confidence in their num- bers, and a constant sense of suffering under the government. In 1633, the Earl of Strafford was appointed viceroy of Ireland. His government was vigorous, and those institutions which he thought proper to patronize flourished under it ; but his great aim was to make the king absolute, and he rather subdued than conciliated the popular spirit. When summoned in 1640 to attend the king in England, he left the Irish gov- ernment in the hands of Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlase, as lords justices. Immediately after his departure, the spirit which he thought he had quelled began to reappear, being encouraged both by his ab- sence and the success which the Scottish Covenanters had experienced in a war against religious restraint. A conspiracy, involving most of the country without the Pale, and including many persons within it, was formed chiefly under the direction of a gentleman named Roger Moore, who possessed many qualities calculated to endear him to the people. Some circum- stances excited the suspicion of the Protestants ; and among others, the return of several officers who had been in the service of the king of Spain, under pretense of recruiting for the Spanish army. But the appa- rent tranquillity of the country baffled all scrutiny. The 23d of October 1641, being a market-day, was fixed on for the capture of Dublin Castle. During the previous day, nothing had occurred to alarm the authorities. In the evening of the 22d, the conspiracy was accidentally discovered, and measures were taken to save Dublin ; but a civil war raged next morning in Ulster, and speedily spread over the country. The design of Sir Phelim O'Neill, and the other leaders of this insurrec- tion, was simply political. They conceived the time a good and opportune one for striking a blow against the government as the Scots had success- fully done ; and their conduct was in the outset characterized by lenity. But they could not allay the hatred with which the Catholics looked upon their adversaries ; and a spirit of revenge broke out among their followers, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 177 which was aggravated to cruel outrage, when they heard that the conspi- racy was discovered in Dublin. The spirit of retaliation was let loose, and political wrongs, unfeelingly inflicted, were, as is often the case, ferociously avenged. The massacre of an immense number of Protestants held forth an awful lesson of the effects which oppressive Jaws produce on the human passions. The government rather aggravated than alleviated the evil, by offering the estates of all in rebellion to those who should aid in reducing them to obedience. This drove the insurgents to desperation, postponed the complete extinction of the war for several years. It is to be remark- ed, that though the Irish were struggling for both national and religious freedom, they gained no sympathy from the patriots of Britain, who, on the contrary, urged the king to suppress the rebellion, being afraid that a religious toleration in Ireland would be inconsistent with the same privilege in their own country. The Scottish Covenanters, themselves so recently emancipated from a restraint upon their consciences, contributed ten thou- sand troops to assist in restoring a similar restraint upon the Irish. THE CIVIL WAR. It was generally allowed by moderate people, that in the autumn of 1641, at which time the labors of the Parliament had continued one year, the king had granted redress of all the abuses for which the earlier part of his reign, and the British constitution in general, were blameable. If he could have given a guarantee that he never would seek to restore any of these abuses, or attempt to revenge himself upon the men who had been chiefly concerned in causing him to give up, there would have been no further contention. Unfortunately, the character of the king for fidelity to his engagements was not sufficiently high to induce the leaders of the House of Commons to depend upon him : they feared that if they once permitted him to resume his authority there would be no longer any safety for them ; and they deemed it necessary that things should be prevented from falling into their usual current. They therefore prepared a paper call- ed Tlie Remonstrance, containing an elaborate view of all the grievances that had ever existed, or could now be supposed to exist ; and this they not only presented to the king but disseminated widely among the people, with whom it served to increase the prevailing disaffection. From this time it was seen that the sword could alone decide the quarrel between the king and the Parliament. Charles made an unsuccessful at- tempt (January 4, 1642) to seize six of the most refractory members, for the purpose of striking terror into the rest. This served to widen still further the breach. In the earlier part of 1642, the two parties severally employed themselves in preparing for war. Yet, even now, the king grant- ed some additional concessions to his opponents. It was at last, upon a demand of the Parliament for the command of the army — a privilege always before, and since, resting with the crown — that he finally broke off all amicable intercourse. He now retired with his family to York. The Parliament found its chief support in the mercantile classes of Lon- don and of the eastern coast of England, which was then more devoted to trade than the west, and in the Puritan party generally, who were allied intimately with the Presbyterians of Scotland, if not rapidly becoming assimilated with them. Charles on the other hand looked for aid to the 12* 178 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. nobility and gentry, who were able to bring a considerable number of de- pendents into the field. The Parliamentary party was by the other styled Roundheads, in consequence of their wearing short hair ; while the friends of the Parliament bestowed upon their opponents the epithet of Malig- nants. The Royalists were also, in the field, termed Cavaliers, from so many of them being horsemen. On the 25th of August 1642 the king erected his standard at Nottingham, and soon found himself at the head of an army of about ten thousand men. The Parliament had superior for- ces, and a better supply of arms ; but both parties were very ignorant of the art of war. The king commanded his own army in person, while the Parliamentary forces were put under the charge of the Earl of Essex. The first battle took place, October 23, at Edgehill, in Warwickshire, where the king had rather the advantage, though at the expense of a great number of men. He gained some further triumphs before the end of the campaign, but still could not muster so large an army as the Parliament. During the winter, the parties opened a negotiation at Oxford ; but the demands of the Parliament being still deemed too great by the king, it came to no successful issue. Early in the ensuing season, the king gained some considerable advan- tages ; he defeated a Parliamentary army under Sir William Waller at Stratton, and soon after took the city of Bristol. It only remained for him to take Gloucester, in order to confine the insurrection entirely to the eastern provinces. It was even thought at this time that he might have easily obtained possession of London, and thereby put an end to the war. Instead of making such an attempt, he caused siege to be laid to Glouces- ter, which the army of Essex relieved when it was just on the point of capitulating. As the Parliamentary army was returning to London, it wa3 attacked by the royal forces at Newbury, and all but defeated. Another section of the royal army in the north, under the Marquis of Newcastle, gained some advantages ; and, upon the whole, at the close of the campaign of 1643, the Parliamentary cause was by no means in a flourishing condi tion. In this war there was hardly any respectable military quality exhibited besides courage. The Royalists used to rush upon the enemy opposed to them, without any other design than to cut down as many as possible, and when any part of the army was successful, it never returned to the field while a single enemy remained to be pursued ; the consequence of which was, that one wing was sometimes victorious, while the remainder was com- pletely beaten. The Parliamentary troops, though animated by an enthu- siastic feeling of religion, were somewhat steadier, but nevertheless had no extensive or combined plan of military operations. The first appearance of a superior kind of discipline was exhibited in a regiment of horse com- manded by Oliver Cromwell, a gentleman of small fortune, who had been a brewer, but was destined, by great talent, and address, joined to an un- relenting disposition, to rise to supreme authority. Cromwell, though him- self inexperienced in military affairs, showed from the very first a power of drilling and managing troops, which no other man in either army seemed to possess. Hence his regiment soon became famous for its exploits DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 179 SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT The Royal successes of 1643 distressed alike the English Parliament and the Scottish nation, who now began to fear the loss of all the political meliorations they had wrested from the king. The two Parliaments there- fore entered, in July, into a Solemn League and Covenant, for prosecu- ting the war in concert, with the view of ultimately settling both church and state in a manner consistent with the liberties of the people. In terms of this bond, the Scots raised an army of twenty-one thousand men, who entered England in January 1644 ; and on the 1st of July, in company with a large body of English forces, overthrew the king's northern army on Long Marston Moor. The defeat was severely felt by the king. He gained a victory over Waller at Copredy Bridge, and caused Essex's army to capitulate in Corn- wall (September 1) ; but in consequence of a second fight at Newbury (October 27), in which he suffered a defeat, he was left at the end of the campaign with greatly diminished resources. A new negotiation was com- menced at Uxbridge ; but the terms asked by the Parliament were so ex- orbitant, as to show no sincere desire of ending the war. In truth, though the Presbyterian party were perhaps anxious for peace, there was another party, now fast rising into importance, who were actua- ted by no such wishes. These were the Independents, a body of men who wished to see a republic established in the state, and all formalties whatever removed from the national religion. Among the leaders of the party was Oliver Cromwell, whose mind seems to have already become in- spired with lofty views of personal aggrandizement. This extraordinary man had sufficient address to carry a famous act called the Self -Denying Ordinance, which ostensibly aimed at depriving all members of the legis- lature of commands in the army, but had the effect only of displacing a few noblemen who were obnoxious to his designs. He also carried an act for modeling the army anew, in which process he took care that all who might be expected to oppose his views should be excluded. It was this party more particularly that prevented any accommodation taking place between the king and his subjects. CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR. The English campaign of 1645 ended in the complete overthrow of the king. Throughout the war, his enemies had been continually improving in discipline, in conduct, and in that enthusiasm which animated them so largely ; while the Royalists had become, out of a mere principle of oppo- sition, so extremely licentious, as to be rather a terror to their friends than to their enemies. The new-modeling of the Parliamentary army, which took place early in 1645, had also added much to the effectiveness of the troops, who were now nominally commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax, but in reality by Oliver Cromwell, who bore the rank of lieutenant-general. The consequence was that, in a pitched battle at Naseby (June 14), the king was so completely beaten, that he and his party could no longer keep the field. He had no resource but to retire into Oxford, a town zealously affected to his cause, and well fortified. 180 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. He endeavored, from this forlorn position, to renew the negotiations for a peace ; but every attempt of that kind was frustrated by the Indepen- dents, who, though a minority in the House of Commons, possessed great power through the army, and, as already mentioned, were desirous of ef- fecting greater changes in church and state than those for which the war was originally undertaken. Dreading the influence of this body, Charles retired privately from Oxford (May 1646) on the approach of the Parlia- mentary forces, and put himself under the protection of the Scottish army at Newark. As the views of the Scotch throughout the war had been steadily con- fined to the security of the Presbyterian religion, along with the safety of the king's person and the establishment of a limited monarchy, they receiv- ed him with great respect at their camp, and entered into negotiations for effecting their grand object. If Charles would have acceded to their views, he might have immediately resumed a great part of his former power ; and the agitations of many subsequent years, as well as his own life, might have been spared. But this was forbidden, not only by his strong prepos- session in favor of the Episcopal forms of worship, but also by his convic- tion, that the Episcopal form of church government was alone compatible with the existence of monarchy. He therefore disagreed with the Presby- terians on the very point which they considered the most vital and impor- tant. From the time when Charles first threw himself into the Scottish camp, the English Parliament had made repeated and strenuous demands for the surrender of his person into their hands. The Scots, however, though acting partly as a mercenary army, asserted their right, as an independent nation under the authority of the king, to retain and protect him. At length, despairing of inducing him to sanction the Presbyterian forms, and tempted by the sum of £400,000, which was given to them as a compen- sation for their arrears of pay, they consented to deliver up their monarch, but certainly without any apprehension of his life being in danger, and, indeed, to a party quite different from that by which he afterwards suffer- ed. The Scottish army then retired (January 1647) to their native coun- try, and were there disbanded. The king was now placed in Holdenby Castle, and negotiations were opened for restoring him to power, under certain restrictions. While these were pending, the Parliament deemed it unnecessary to keep up the army, more especially as its spirit was plainly observed to be of a danger- ous character. On attempting, however, to dismiss this powerful force, the English Commons found that their late servants were become their masters. The troops began to hold something like a Parliament in their own camp ; a party of them, under Cornet Joyce, seized the king's person, and brought him to Hampton Court. Cromwell, who was at the bottom of their mach- inations, received from them the chief command ; and at his instigation they retorted upon the Parliament with a demand for the dismissal of the leaders of the Presbyterian party, and a general right of new-modeling the government and settling the nation. The House of Commons, sup- ported by the city of London, made a bold opposition to these demands, but was ultimately obliged to yield to a force which it had no means of resisting. From that time military violence exercised an almost uncon- trolled mastery over England. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 181 TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KE*G. The leaders of the army being anxious to fortify themselves by all possi- ble means against the Presbyterians, opened a negotiation with the king, whose influence, such as it now was, they proposed to purchase, by allow- ing Episcopacy to be the state religion, and leaving him in command of the militia. Charles, however, with characteristic insincerity, carried on at the same time a negotiation with the Presbyterians, which, being dis covered by the military chiefs, caused them to break off all terms with him. Under dread of their resentment, he made his escape from Hampton Court ( November 11, 1647 ) : and after an unsuccessful atempt to leave the kingdom, was obliged to put himself under the charge of the governor of Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of Wight. Here he entered upon a new negotiation with the House of Commons, to whom he made proposals, and from whom he received certain proposals in return ; all of which were, how- ever, rendered of non-avail by a secret treaty which he at the same time carried on with a moderate party of the Scottish Presbyterians. He finally agreed with the latter party, but under strict secrecy, to give their form of church government a trial of three years, and yield to them in several other points ; they, in return, binding themselves to unite their strength with the English Royalists, for the purpose of putting down the Independent party, now predominant in the English Parliament. With some difficulty the Duke of Hamilton and others, who conducted this ne- gotiation, succeeded, by a vote of the Scottish Parliament, in raising an army of 12,000 men, with which they invaded England in the summer of 1648. The more zealous of the clergy and people of Scotland protested against an enterprise, which, from its cooperating with Royalists and Episco- palians, and not perfectly insuring the ascendancy of the Presbyterian church, appeared to them as neither deserving of success nor likely to command it. As the Scottish army penetrated the western counties, par- ties of Presbyterians and Royalists rose in different parts of England, and for some time the ascendancy of the Independents seemed to be in consid- erable peril. But before the forces of the enemy could be brought togeth- er, Cromwell, with 8000 veteran troops, attacked and overthrew Hamilton at Preston, while Fairfax put down the insurgents in Kent and Essex. Hamilton was himself taken prisoner, and very few of his troops ever re- turned to their native country. While Cromwell was employed in suppressing this insurrection, and in restoring a friendly government in Scotland, the Presbyterians of the House of Commons, relieved from military intimidation, entered upon a new nego- tiation with Charles, which was drawing towards what appeared a success- ful conclusion — though the king secretly designed to deceive them, and to pursue other means for an effectual restoration — when the army return- ed to London, breathing vengeance against him for the last war, of whieh they considered him as the author. Finding the Parliament in the act of voting his concessions to be satisfactory, Cromwell sent two regiments, under Colonel Pride, who forcibly excluded from it about two hundred members of the Presbyterian party ; a transaction remembered by the epithet of Pride's Purge. The remainder, being chiefly Independents, were ready to give a color of law to whatever farther measure might be 182 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. dictated by the military leaders. Convinced of the utter faithlessness of the king, and that, if he continued to live, he would take the earliest op- portunity of revenging himself for what had already been done, Cromwell and his associates resolved to put him to death. A high court of Justice, as it was called, was appointed by ordinance, consisting of a hundred and thirty-three persons, named indifferently from the Parliament, the army, and such of the citizens as were known to be well affected to the Indepen- dent party. This body sat down in Westminster Hall (January 20, 1049), under the presidency of a barrister named Bradshaw, while another named Coke acted as solicitor for the people of England. Charles, who had been removed to St James' Palace, was brought before this court, and accused of having waged and renewed war upon his people, and of having attempted to establish tyranny in place of the limited regal power with which he had been intrusted. He denied the authority of the court, and protested against the whole of the proceedings, but was nevertheless found guilty and condemned to die. On the 30th of January, he was accor- dingly beheaded in front of his palace of Whitehall. THE COMMONWEALTH — SUBJUGATION OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. Though the execution of the king produced a considerable reaction in fa- vor of royalty, the small remaining part of the House of Commons, which got the ridiculous name of the Mump, now established a republic, under the title of the Commonwealth, the executive being trusted, under great limitations, to a council of forty-one members, while in reality Cromwell possessed the chief influence. The House of Peers was voted a grievance, and abolished, and the people were declared to be the legitimate source of all power. Soon after the king's death, the Duke of Hamilton, and a few other of his chief adherents, were executed. During the progress of the civil war, Ireland had been the scene of al- most ceaseless contention among the various parties of the king, the En- glish House of Commons, and the Catholics, none of which could effectual- ly suppress the rest. The most remarkable event was a secret agreement which Charles made, in 1646, with the Earl of Glamorgan, to establish tho Catholic religion in Ireland, on condition that its partisans should assist him in putting down his enemies in England and Scotland ; a transaction which ultimately injured his reputation, without leading to any solid advan- tage. At the time of his execution, the Royalists were in considerable strength under the Duke of Ormond, while Hugh O'Neill was at the he,ad of a large party of Catholics, who were not indisposed to join the other par- ty, provided they could be assured of the establishment of their religion. While the two parties in union could have easily rescued the country from the English connection, Cromwell landed (August 1649) with 12,000 horse and foot, and in a series of victories over the scattered forces of his various opponents, succeeded without any great difficulty in asserting the sway of the Commonwealth. One of his most important actions was the capture of Drogheda, where he put the garrison and a number of Catholic priests to the sword, in order to strike terror into the nation. The people of Scotland, who had had scarcely any other object in the civil war than the establishment of their favorite form of worship, and were eincere friends to a limited monarchy, heard of the death of the king with DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 188 the greatest indignation, and immediately proclaimed his eldest son Charles. Early in 1650, the young monarch, who had taken refuge in Holland, sent Montrose with a small force to attempt a Cavalier insurrection in Scotland ; but this nobleman being taken and put to death, Charles found it necessary to accede to the views of the Scotch respecting the Presbyterian religion, and he was accordingly brought over and put at the head of a considerable army, though under great restrictions. Cromwell, who had now nearly completed the conquest of Ireland, lost no time in returning to London, and organizing an army for the suppression of this new attempt against the Commonwealth. On the 19th of July he crossed the Tweed, and advanced through a deserted country to Edinburgh, where the Scottish army lay in a fortified camp. Sickness in his army, and the want of provisions, soon after compelled him to retreat ; and the Scottish army, following upon his rear, brought him into a straightened position near Dunbar, where he would soon have been under the necessity of surrendering. In the midst of his perplexities (September 3), he beheld the Scots advancing from the neighboring heights to give him battle, and, in a transport of joy, ex claimed, ' The Lord hath delivered them into our hands ! ' The movement was solely the result of interference on the part of the clergy who followed the Scottish camp : the better sense of Gen. Leslie would have waited for the voluntary surrender of his enemy. In the fight which ensued, the vet eran troops of Cromwell soon proved victorious. The Scots fled in conster nation and confusion, and were cut down in thousands by their pursuers. This gained for Cromwell the possession of the capital and of all the south east provinces ; but the Covenanters still made a strong appearance at Stirling. Cromwell spent a whole year in the country, vainly endeavoring to brin£ on another action. During the interval (January 1, 1651), the Scots crowned the young king at Scone, part of the ceremony consisting in his acceptance of the Solemn League and Covenant. In the ensuing summer, Cromwell at length contrived to out-flank the position of the Scottish army ; but the result was, that Charles led his troops into England without oppo sition, and made a very threatening advance upon the capital. Ere the Royalists had time to rally around him, Cromwell overtook the king at Worcester, where, after a stoutly-contested fight (September 3, 1651), h* proved completely victorious. Charles, with great difficulty, escaped abroad, and Scotland, no longer possessed of a military force to defend it self, submitted to the conqueror. All the courts of the Scottish church were suppressed, and the ministers were left no privilege but that of preach ing to their flocks. The country was kept in check by a small army under General Monk, and in a short time was declared by proclamation to be uni ted with England. THE PROTECTORATE. After the country and its dependencies had been thoroughly settled under the new government, the republican leaders resolved upon com mencing hostilities against Holland, which, during the civil war, had man ifested a decided leaning towards the king, and had recently treated the triumphant party with marked disrespect. In the summer of 1652, the Dutch fleet, under its famous commanders Van Tromp, De Ruyter, and 184 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. De Witt, had several encounters with the English ships, under Admirals Blake and Ayscue, without any decided success on either side. But in the ensuing spring, an action was fought between Blake and Van Tromp, in which the latter lost eleven ships. The Dutch then sued for peace, which the Rump Parliament, for various reasons, were little inclined to grant. Their principal motive for prosecuting the war, was a conviction that it tended to restrict the power of Cromwell, to whom they now paid by no means a willing obedience. Cromwell, perceiving their design, proceeded with 300 soldiers to the House (April 1653), and entering with marks of the most violent indignation, loaded the members with re- proaches for their robbery and oppression of the public ; then stamping with his foot, he gave signal for the soldiers to enter, and addressing him- self to the members, ' For shame ! ' said he ; ' get you gone ! give place to honester men ! I tell you you are no longer a Parliament : the Lord has done with you ! ' He then commanded ' that bauble,' meaning the mace, to be taken away, turned out the members, and locking the door, returned to Whitehall with the key in his pocket. Being still willing to keep up the appearance of a representative gov ernment, Cromwell summoned one hundred and forty-four persons in Eng land, Ireland, and Scotland, to assemble as a Parliament. These individu als, chiefly remarkable for fanaticism and ignorance, were denominated the Barebones Parliament, from the name of one of the members, a leather seller, whose assumed name, by a ridiculous usage of the age, was Praise-God Barebones. As the assembly obtained no public respect, Cromwell took an early opportunity of dismissing it. His officers then constituted him Protector of the Commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland, with most of the prerogatives of the late king. The war against Holland was still carried on with great spirit. In the summer of 1653, two naval actions, in which both parties fought with the utmost bravery, terminated in the triumph of the English, and the com- plete humiliation of the Dutch, who obtained peace on the condition of paying homage to the English flag, expelling the young king from their dominions, and paying a compensation for certain losses to the East India Company. In a war which he subsequently made against Spain, the fleets of the Protector performed some exploits of not less importance. The respect which he* thus gained for the English name throughout Eu- rope, is one of the brightest points in his singular history. But while generally successful abroad, he experienced unceasing difficulties in the management of affairs at home. Of the various Parliaments which he summoned, no one was found so carefully composed of his own creatures as to yield readily to his will : he was obliged to dissolve them all in suc- cession, after a short trial. He also experienced great difficulty in rais- ing money, and sometimes applied for loans in the city without success. His own officers could scarcely be kept in subordination, but were con- stantly plotting a reduction of his authority. The Royalists, on the other hand, never ceased to conspire for his destruction ; one named Colonel Titus, went so far as to recommend his assassination in a pamphlet enti- tled ' Killing no Murder,' after reading which he was never seen again to smile. The last Parliament called by Cromwell was in January 1656 ; when, besides the Commons, he summoned the few remaining peers, and endeav DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 185 ored, by ennobling some of his officers, to make up a kind of Upper House. This assembly proved as intractable as its predecessors, and he contracted such a disgust at the very nature of a representative legisla- ture, as to resolve, like Charles I, never to call another. His health finally gave way, and he died on the 3d September 1658, a day which was thought to be propitious to him, as it was the anniversary of several of his victories. His eldest son, Richard, a weak young man, succeeded him as Protector, and was at first treated with all imaginable respect ; but he could not long maintain a rule which even his father had ultimately failed in asserting. He quietly sunk out of public view, leaving the su- preme authority in the hands of the Rump, which had taken the opportun- ity to reassemble. THE RESTORATION — DUTCH WAR. This remnant of an old Parliament continued in power till the autumn of 1659, when it gave way to a council of the officers who had been in command under Cromwell. The latter government, in its turn, yielded to the Rump, which sat down once more in December. The people, finding themselves made the sport of a few ambitious adventurers, began to long for some more fixed and respectable kind of government. At this crisis, General Monk, commander of the forces in Scotland, conceived the de- sign of settling the nation. He left Scotland (January 2, 1660), with a considerable army ; and though he kept his thoughts scrupulously to him- self, all men bent their eyes upon him, as a person destined to realize their hopes. He reached London (February 3), and was received with feigned respect by the Rump. Some resistance was attempted by Lam- bert, one of Cromwell's officers, but in vain. Ere long, Monk was able to procure the restoration of the members who had been excluded from Parliament by Cromwell, who, being a majority, gave an immediate as- cendancy to anti-republican views. As soon as this was effected, an act was passed for calling a new and freely-elected Parliament ; after which, the existing assembly immediately dissolved itself. The new Parliament proved to be chiefly composed of Cavaliers and Presbyterians, men agreeing in their attachment to monarchy, though differing in many other views. After some cautious procedure, in which the fears inspired by the late military tyranny were conspicuous, they agreed to invite the king from his retirement in Holland, and to restore him to the throne lost by his father. They were so glad to escape from the existing disorders, that they never thought of making any preliminary arrangement with the king as to the extent of his prerogative. On the 29th of May, being his thirtieth birthday, Charles II entered London amidst such frantic demonstrations of joy, that he could not help thinking it his own fault, as he said, that he had been so long separated from his people. One of the first measures of the new monarch was the passing of a bill of indemnity, by which all persons concerned in the late popular movements were pardoned, excepting a few who had been prominently concerned in bringing the king to the block. Harrison, Scrope, and a few other regicides, were tried and executed ; and the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were raised from the grave and exhibited upon 186 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. gibbets. In Scotland, only three persons suffered — the Marquis of Argyle, Johnston of Warriston, and Mr. Guthry, a clergyman : it was considered remarkable, that the marquis had placed the crown upon the king's head at Scone in the year 1651. Excepting in these acts, the king showed no desire of revenging the death of his father, or his own exclusion from the throne. The Parliament which called him home was constituted a legal one by his own ratification of an act for that purpose. In the settlement of other matters, it seemed the prevailing wish that all the institutions of the country should be made as nearly what they Avere before the civil war as possible. Thus the Episcopal church was estab- lished both in England and Scotland, though not without causing about a third of the clergy in both countries to resign their charges. The stern and enthusiastic piety which prevailed during the civil war, was now treated with ridicule, and the most of the people vied with each other in that licentious riot and drunkenness which is condemned by all systems of faith. The nation, in fact, seemed intoxicated with the safety which they supposed themselves to have at length gained, in a restoration to the im- perfect freedom they enjoyed before the civil war. Ireland, which, during the Protectorate, had been managed by Henry, a younger son of Cromwell, acceded to the Restoration with as much readi- ness as any other part of the British dominions. An act was passed for settling property, by which the Catholics obtained some slight benefits, but which, in its main effects, tended to confirm the rights of the settlers introduced by Cromwell. Though Charles had been restored with the approbation of a very large portion of his subjects, his most zealous friends were the Royalists and Episcopalians ; hence he almost immediately subsided into the character of a party ruler. It was deemed necessary that he should maintain an arm- ed force for the protection of his person, and to keep down popular distur- bances. He therefore caused several horse regiments to be embodied un- der the name of Life Guards, being chiefly composed of Royalist gentle- men upon whom a perfect dependence could be placed ; and he afterwards added two or three foot regiments, the whole amounting to about 5000 men. The King paid these troops chiefly out of the money allowed for his own support, for Parliament did not sanction his keeping up such a force, and the nation generally beheld it with suspicion. This was the commencement of a standing army in England. Personally indolent, dissolute, and deficient in conscientiousness, and surrounded almost exclusively by the ministers of the basest pleasures, Charles was not qualified to retain the sincere respect of a people whose habitual character is grave and virtuous. His extravagant expenditure soon cooled the affections of his Parliament, and he began to find consid- erable difficulties in obtaining money. To relieve himself from this em- barrassment, he accepted .£40,000 from the French king for Dunkirk, a French port, which had been acquired by Cromwell. For the same purpose, he married a Portuguese princess of the Catholic religion, who possessed a dowry of half a million. He also commenced (1664) a war against Holland, for apparently no better reason than that, in applying the Parliamentary subsidies necessary for keeping up hostilities, he might have an opportunity of converting part of the money to his own personal use. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 187 This Dutch war was chiefly conducted by sea. On the 3d of June 1665, an English fleet of 114 sail met a Dutch one which numbered just one ship less, near Lowestoffe, and after an obstinate fight, gained a com- plete victory, depriving the enemy of eighteen vessels, and compelling the vest to take refuge on their own coast. The commander on this occasion was the Duke of York, the king's younger bi-other ; a man of greater appli- cation and more steady principles, but who soon after became unpopular, in consequence of his avowing himself a Catholic. Some other Avell-contested actions took place at sea, and the English, upon the whole, confirmed their naval supremacy. Owing, however, to a failure of the supplies, the king was obliged to lay up his best vessels in ordinary, and to send only an inferior force to sea. The Dutch took ad- vantage of this occurrence to send a fleet up the Thames (June 10, 1667), which, meeting with no adecpiate resistance, threatened to lay the capital in ruins and destroy its shipping. Fortunately, the Dutch admiral did not think it expedient to make this attempt, but retired with the ebb of the tide, after having sunk and burnt nearly twenty vessels, and done much other damage. The king, finding himself rather impoverished than enrich- ed by the war, soon after concluded a peace. PLAGUE AND FIRE OF LONDON — PERSECUTION IN SCOTLAND. In the meantime two extraordinary calamities had befallen the metropo- lis. In the summer of 1665, London was visited by a plague, which swept off about 100,000 people, and did not experience any abatement till the approach of cold weather. On this occasion the city presented a wide and heartrending scene of misery and desolation. Rows of houses stood tenantless, and open to the winds ; the chief thoroughfares were overgrown with grass. The few individuals who ventured abroad, walked in the mid- dle of the streets, and when they met, declined on opposite sides to avoid the contact of each other. At one moment were heard the ravings of de- lirium, or the wail of sorrow, from the infected dwelling ; at another the merry song or careless laugh from the tavern, where men were seeking to drown in debauchery all sense of their awful situation. Since 1665, the plague has not again occurred in London, or in any other part of the kingdom. The second calamity was a conflagration, which commenced on the night of Sunday the 2d of September 1666, in the eastern and more crowded part of the city. The direction and violence of the wind, the combustible nature of the houses, and the defective arrangements of that age for extin- guishing fires, combined to favor the progress of the flames, which raged during the whole of the week, and burnt all the part of the city which lie-3 between the Tower and the Temple. By this calamity, 13,200 houses and and 89 churches, covering in all 430 acres of ground, were destroyed. The flame at one time formed a column a mile in diameter, and seemed to mingle with the clouds. It rendered the night as clear as day for ten miles around the city, and is said to have produced an effect upon the sky which was observed on the borders of Scotland. It had one good effect, in causing the streets to be formed much wider than before, by which the city was rendered more healthy. By the populace, this fire was believed to have been the work of the Catholics, and a tall pillar, with 188 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. an inscription to that effect, was reared in the city, as a monument of the calamity. This pillar with its inscription still exists ; but the fire is now believed to have been occasioned purely by accident. THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE — THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. The kingdom of France was at this period, under Louis XIV, rising into a degree of power and wealth which it had never before known. Louis had some claims through his wife upon the Netherlands ( since called Bel- gium), which were then part of the Spanish dominions. He accordingly endeavored to posess himself of that country by force of arms. A jeal- ousy of his increasing power, and of the Catholic religion, professed by his people, induced the English to wish that his aggressions should be re- strained. To gratify them, Charles entered into an alliance with Holland and Sweden, for the purpose of checking the progress of the French king. In this object he was completely successful, and consequently he became very popular. The Parliament, however, having disappointed him of sup- plies, he soon after changed his policy, and with the assistance of five abandoned ministers — Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lau- derdale, who were called the cabal, from the initials of their names form- ing that word, resolved to render himself, if possible, independent of Par- liament ; in other words, an absolute prince. In consideration of a large bribe from Louis, he agreed to join France in a war against Holland, with a view of putting an end to that example of a Protestant republic. War was accordingly declared in May 1672, and the naval force of England was employed in meeting that of the Dutch by sea; while Louis led a powerful army across the Rhine, and in a very short time had nearly reduced the whole of the Seven Provinces. In this emergency the Dutch could only save themselves from absolute ruin by laying a great part of their country under water. The English, who had not entered heartily into this war, soon began to be alarmed for the fate of Holland, which was almost their only support against the dread of Popery ; and though forbid- den under severe penalties to censure the government measures, they soon contrived to exhibit so much dissatisfaction, as to render a change of pol- icy unavoidable. The king found it necessary to assemble his Parliament (February 1673), and it was no sooner met than it passed some acts highly unfavorable to his designs. Among these was the famous Test Act, so called because it enacted the imposition of a religious oath upon all persons about to enter the public service, the design being to exclude the Catholics from office. Above all things, the House of Commons declared that it would grant no more supplies for the Dutch war. The king resolved to prorouge the as- sembly ; but before he could do so, they voted the alliance with France, and several of his ministers to be grievances. Charles, who, in wishing to be absolute, had been inspired by no other motive than a desire of ease, now saw that there was a better chance of his favorite indulgence in giving way to his subjects than in any other course ; and he at once abandoned all his former measures, and concluded a separate peace with Holland. This country was now beginning, under the conduct of the Prince of Or- ange, to make a good defense against the French, which it was the better enabled to do by obtaining the friendship of Germany and Spain. In the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 189 year 1678, after a war which, without any decisive victories, will ever re- fleet lustre upon Holland, a peace was concluded. The Prince of Orange, in the previous year, had married the Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of the Duke of York, and educated in the reformed faith — an alliance which pleased the English, from its strengthening the Protestant interest, and which was destined, some years after, to bring about important re- sults. During the whole of this reign the corruptness of the court was very great ; but it was in some measure the protection of the public. Charles spent vast sums in debauchery, and thus made himself more dependent on his Commons than he would otherwise have been. Many of the Commons were exceedingly corrupt, and all kinds of evil methods were adopted to render them more so. Bribes were distributed among them, and they were frequently closeted; that is, brought into the presence of the king in- dividually, and personally solicited for votes. Still a considerable party maintained its purity and independence, and long kept the majority against the court. THE RYE-HOUSE PLOT — DEATH OF CHARLES II. A fit of slavishness now befell the English nation, as remarkable in its extent as the late fury against the court and the Catholics. Supported by this mood of the people, Charles caused all the corporations in the king- dom to give up their old charters, and accept of new ones, by which he became all-powerful over the elections of magistrates, and consequently, over those of parliamentary representatives should ever another election of that kind take place. The leaders of the late majority in Parliament, comprising the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Russell (son of the Earl of Bed- ford), the Earl of Essex, Lord Howard, the famous Algernon Sydney, and John Hampden, grandson of the patriot who first resisted Charles I, being reduced to absolute despair, formed a project for raising an insurrec- tion in London, to be supported by one in the west of England, and another under the Earl of Argyle in Scotland, and the object of which should bo confined to a melioration of the government. They were betrayed by an associate named Rumsay, and implicated, by a train of unfortunate cir- cumstances, in a plot for assassinating the king (styled the Rye-house Plot), of which they were perfectly innocent. By the execution of Russell and Sidney, and some other severities, the triumph of the king might be con- sidered as completed. After having been an absolute sovereign for nearly four years, he died (February 6, 1685), professing himself at the last t'j be a Catholic, and was succeeded by the Duke of York. Charles II was a prince of a gay and cheerful disposition, and so noted a sayer of witty things, and so addicted to humorous amusements, that he was called ' the Merry Monarch.' His wit, shrewdness, and good humor, form the best side of his character. On the otner side, we find a deficien- cy of almost every active virtue and of all steady principle. He never allowed any duty of his station, or any claim upon his justice or clemency, to interfere with his own interests, or even to disturb him in his indolent and vicious pleasures. Neglecting his wife, who never had any children, he spent most of his time with his various mistresses, who openly lived at court, and were even received by the queen. Of these ladies, the most 190 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. remarkable were Louisa Querouaile, whom he created Duchess of Ports- mouth, and Barbara Villiers, whom he made Duchess of Cleveland. Six sons of the king by his mistresses were made dukes, and five of these were the progenitors of families in the present English nobility. During the reign of Charles II, the nation advanced considerably in the arts of navigation and commerce ; and the manufactures of brass, glass, silk, hats, and paper, were established. The post-office, set up during the Commonwealth as a means of raising money, was advanced in this reign, and the penny-post was now begun in London by a private person. Roads were greatly improved, and stage-coach traveling was commenced, though not carried to any great extent. During this reign, tea, coffee, and choco- late, which have had a great effect in improving and softening manners, were first introduced. In 1660, the Royal Society was established in London, for the cultivation of natural science, mathematics, and all useful knowledge. The science of astronomy was greatly advanced by the in- vestigations of Flamstead and Halley. But the greatest contribution to science was made by Sir Isaac Newton, whose Principles of Natural Phi- losophy were published in 1683 : in this work, the true theory of plane- tary motion was first explained, in reference to the principle of gravitation. Among the literary men of the period, the first place is to be assigned to John Milton, author of the 'Paradise Lost' and other poems: Samuel Butler shines as a humorous and satirical poet, and Edmund Waller as a lyrist. Amongst divines, the highest names connected with the church are those of Jeremy Taylor and Isaac Barrow ; while the highest among the Nonconformists are those of Richard Baxter and John Bunyan. The theatre, which had been suppressed during the Commonwealth, was revi- ved in this reign ; but the drama exhibited less talent and more licentious- ness than it did in the previous reigns. Female characters, which had formerly been acted by men, were now for the first time performed by females. JAMES II — EXPEDITION OF MONMOUTH. Charles II, with all his faults, had conducted himself towards his sub- jects with so much personal cordiality, and had so well calculated his ground before making any aggressions upon popular liberty, that he might proba- bly have pursued his arbitrary career for many years longer. But his brother James, though much more respectable as a man, more industrious, and more sincere, wanted entirely the easiness of carriage, pleasantry, and penetration, which were the grounds of the late king's popularity and suc- cess. He was, moreover, an avowed Catholic, and inspired by an ardent desire of reforming the nation back into that faith. He began his reign by declaring before the privy-council his intention to govern solely by the laws, and to maintain the existing church ; and such was the confidence in his sincerity, that he soon became very popular. Addresses poured in upon him from all quarters, professing the most abject devotion to his per son. The Parliament called by him voted an ample revenue, and expressed the greatest servility towards him in all things. The doctrines of passive obedience, and the divine right of the sovereign, were now openly preach- ed. The university of Oxford promulgated an elaborate declaration of DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 191 passive obedience to rulers, which they declared to be ' clear, absolute, and without any exception of any state or order of men.' The remains of the Whig party still existed, though in exile, and there were some districts of the country where they were supposed to have con- siderable influence. The Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle (the latter of whom had been condemned to death in Scotland, for adding a qualification to the test-oath, but had escaped) met in Holland, and pro- jected two separate invasions, for the purpose of expelling King James. The former soon after landed in the west of England with a small retinue, and quickly found himself at the head of 5000 persons, though irregularly armed. At several places he caused himself to be proclaimed king, which offended many of his principal adherents, as inconsistent with his previous engagements. Upon the whole, his conduct was not energetic enough for the management of such an enterprise. Being attacked by the king's troops near Bridgewater, his infantry fought with some spirit, but being deserted by the cavalry, and by the duke himself, were obliged to give way. Monmouth was taken and executed. Many of his followers were hanged without form of trial by the royal troops, and others were after- wards put to death, with hardly any more formality, by the celebrated Chief- Justice Jefferies, whom the king sent down with a commission to try the offenders. The butchery of several hundred men of low condition, who were unable of themselves to do any harm to the government, was looked upon as a most unjustifiable piece of cruelty, even if it had been legally done ; and the principal blame was popularly ascribed to the king. The Earl of Argyle sailed in May with a corresponding expedition, and landed in that part of the West Highlands which owned his authority. Unfortunately for him, the government had received warning, and seized all the gentlemen of his clan upon whom he had chiefly depended. He nevertheless raised between 2000 and 3000 men, and made a timid advance to Glasgow, in the expectation of being joined by the persecuted Presby- terians of that part of the country. Being surrounded on the march by various parties of troops, he dispersed his army, and sought to escape in disguise, but was taken, brought to Edinburg, and executed. Thus termi- nated the last effort made by the Whig party to ameliorate the despotic sway of the Stuarts. ARBITRARY MEASURES OF THE KING. Encouraged by his success, James conceived that he might safely begin the process of changing the established religion of the country. On the plea of his supremacy over the church, he took the liberty of dispensing with the test-oath in favor of some Catholic officers, and thus broke an act which was looked upon, under existing circumstances, as the chief safe- guard of the Protestant faith. His Parliament, servile as it was in tern poral matters, took the alarm at this spiritual danger, and gave the king so effectual a resistance that he resorted to a dissolution. Transactions pre- cisely similar took place in Scotland. Heedless of these symptoms, he proclaimed a universal toleration, for the purpose of relieving the Catholics, and thus assumed the unconstitutional right of dispensing with acts of Parliament. The nation was thrown by this measure, and by the numerous promotions of Roman Catholics, into a 192 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. state of great alarm ; even the clergy, who had been so eager to preach an implicit obedience to the royal will, began to see that it might be pro- ductive of much danger. When James commanded that his proclamation of toleration should be read in every pulpit in the country, only two hun- dred of the clergy obeyed. Six of the bishops joined in a respectful peti- tion against the order ; but the king declared that document to be a seditious libel, and threw the petitioners into the Tower. In June 1688, they were tried in Westminster Hall, and to the infinite joy of the nation acquitted. Blinded by religious zeal, the king proceeded on his fatal course. In defiance of the law, he held open intercourse with the Pope, for the resto- ration of Britain to the bosom of the Romish church. He called Catholic lords to the privy-council, and even placed some in the cabinet. Chapels, by his instigation, were everywhere built, and monks and priests went openly about his palace. A court of high commission — a cruel instru- ment of power under Charles I — was erected, and before this every cler- ical person who gave any offense to the king was summoned. He also excited great indignation, by violently thrusting a Catholic upon Magdalen College, at Oxford, as its head, and expelling the members for their resis- tance to his will. Public feelings was wound to the highest pitch of ex- citement by the queen being delivered (June 10, 1688) of a son, who might be expected to perpetuate the Catholic religion in the country, and whom many even went the length of suspecting to be a suppositious child, brought forward solely for that purpose. The disaffection produced by these circumstances extended to every class of the king's subjects, except the small body of Roman Catholics, many of whom could not help regarding the royal measures as imprudent. The Tories were enraged at the ruin threatened to the church of England, which they regarded as the grand support of conservative principles in the empire. The Whigs, who had already made many strenuous efforts to ex- clude or expel the king, were now more inflamed against him than ever. The clergy, a popular and influential body, were indignant at the injuries inflicted upon their church ; and even the dissenters, though comprehen- ded in the general toleration, saw too clearly through its motive, and were too well convinced of the illegality of its manner, and of the danger of its object, as affecting the Protestant faith, to be exempted from the general sentiment. But for the birth of the Prince of Wales, the people at large might have been contented to wait for the relief which was to be expected, after the death of the king, from the succession of the Princess of Orange, who was a Protestant, and united to the chief military defender of that interest in Europe. But this hope was now shut out, and it was necessary to resolve upon some decisive measures for the safety of the national re- ligion. THE REVOLUTION. In this crisis, some of the principal nobility and gentry, with a few clergymen, united in a secret address to the Prince of Orange, calling upon him to come over with an armed force, and aid them in protecting their faith and liberties. This prince, who feared that England would soon be joined to France against the few remaining Protestant powers, and also that his prospects of the succession in that country, as nephew and son-in- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 193 law of the king, were endangered, listened readily to this call, and imme- diately collected a large fleet and army, comprising many individuals, natives of both Scotland and England, who had fled from the severe gov- ernment of the Stuart princes. The preparations for the expedition were conducted with great secrecy, and James was partly blinded to them, by a rumor that their only object was to frighten him into a closer connection with France, in order to make him odious to his subjects. When he was at length assured by his minister in Holland that he might immediately expect a formidable invasion, he grew pale, and dropped the letter from his hands. He immediately ordered a fleet and large army to be collected, and, that he might regain the affections of his subjects, he called a par- liament, and undid many of his late measures. The people justly suspec- ted his concessions to be insincere, and were confirmed in their belief, when, on a rumor of the Prince of Orange being put back by a storm, he re- called the writs for assembling Parliament. On the 19th of October, the Prince of Orange set sail with 50 ships of war, 25 frigates, 25 fire-ships, and 500 transports, containing 15,000 land troops. A storm occasioned some damage and delay ; but he soon put to sea again, and proceeded with a fair wind along the British Channel, ex- hibiting from his own vessel a flag on which were inscribed the words, ' The Protestant Religion and the Liberties op England,' with the appo- site motto of his family, ' Je Maintiendrei'' — ' I will maintain.' As he passed between Dover and Calais, his armament was visible to crowds of spectators on both shores, whose feelings were much excited at once by its appearance and its well-known purpose. The English fleet being detained at Harwich by the same wind which was so favorable to the prince, he landed (November 5) without opposition at Torbay, and immediately proceeded to circulate a manifesto, declaring the grievances of the kingdom, and promising, with the support of the people, to redress them. At the first there seemed some reason for fear that the prince would not meet with adequate support. On his march to Exeter, and for eight days after arriving there, he was not joined by any person of consequence. The nation, however, soon became alive to the necessity of giving him encour- agement. The gentry of Devon and Somersetshires formed an association in his behalf. The Earls of Bedford and Abingdon, with other persons of distinction, repaired to his quarters at Exeter. Lord Delamere took arms in Cheshire ; the city of York was siezed by the Earl of Danby ; the Earl of Bath, governor of Plymouth, declared for the prince ; and the Earl of Devonshire made a like declaration in Derby. Every day discovered some new instance of that general confederacy into which the nation had entered against the measures of the king. But the most dangerous symptom, and that which rendered his affairs desperate, was the spirit which he found to prevail in his army. On his advancing at its head to Salisbury, he learned that some of the principal officers had gone over to the Prince of Orange. Lord Churchill (afterwards famous as Duke of Marlborough), Lord Tre- lawney, and the king's son-in-law, George, Prince of Denmark, successive- ly followed this example. Even his daughter, the Princess Anne, deserted him. In great perplexity, he summoned a council of peers, by whose ad- vice writs were issued for a new Parliament, and commissioners despatched to treat with the prince. A kind of infatuation now took possession of the king ; and having sent the queen and infant prince privately to France, he 13* 194 AMEBICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. quitted the capital at midnight, almost unattended, for the purpose of fol lowing them, leaving orders to recall the writs and disband the army. By this procedure, the peace of the country was imminently endangered ; but it only served to hasten the complete triumph of the Prince of Orange, who had now advanced to Windsor. The supreme authority seemed on the point of falling into his hands, when, to his great disappointment, the king, having been discovered at Feversham, in Kent, was brought back to Lon- don, not without some marks of popular sympathy and affection. There was no alternative but to request the unfortunate monarch to retire to a country-house, where he might await the settlement of affairs. James, finding his palaces taken possession of by Dutch guards, and dreading as- sassination, took the opportunity to renew his attempt to leave the king- dom. He proceeded on board a vessel in the Medway, and after some ob- structions, arrived safely in France, where Louis readily afforded him an asylum. The same day that the king left Whitehall for the last time, his nephew and son-in-law arrived at St. James'. The public bodies immediately wait- ed on him, to express their zeal for his cause ; and such of the members of the late Parliaments as happened to be in town, having met by his invita- tion, requested him to issue writs for a convention, in order to settle the nation. He was in the same manner, and for the same purpose, requested to call a convention in Scotland. The English convention met on the 22d of January 1689, and during its debates the prince maintained a magnan- imous silence and neutrality. The Tory party, though it had joined in calling him over, displayed some scruples respecting the alteration of the succession, and seemed at first inclined to settle the crown on the princess, while William should have only the office of regent ; but when this was mentioned to the prince, he calmly replied, that in that event, he should immediately return to Holland. A bill was then passed, declaring that ' James II, having endeavored to subvert the constitution, by breaking the original contract between the king and the people, and having withdrawn himself from the kingdom, has abdicated the government ; and that the throne is thereby become vacant.'' To the bill was added a Declaration of Hights — namely, an enumeration of the various laws by which the royal prerogative and the popular liberties had formerly been settled, but which had been violated and evaded by the Stuart sovereigns. William and Ma- ry, having expressed their willingness to ratify this declaration, were pro- claimed king and queen jointly — the administration to rest in William ; and the convention was then converted into a Parliament. In Scotland, where the Presbyterians had resumed an ascendancy, the convention came to a less timid decision. It declared that James, by the abuse of his power, had forfeited all right to the crown — a decision also affecting his posterity : and William and Mary were immediately after proclaimed. By a bill passed in the English Parliament, the succession was settled upon the survivor of the existing royal pair ; next upon the Princess Anne and her children ; and finally, upon the children of Will- iam by any other consort — an arrangement in which no hereditary prin- ciple was overlooked, except that which would have given a preference to James and his infant son. By the Revolution, as this great event was styled, it might be consider- ed as finally decided that the monarchy was not a divine institution, supe- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 195 rior to human challenge, as the late kings had represented it, but one de- pendent on the people, and established and maintained for their benefit. RESISTANCE IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND. The new government was at first extremely popular in Scotland ; but one portion of the people was much opposed to it. This consisted of the Highland clans — a primitive race, unable to appreciate the rights which had been gained, prepossessed in favor of direct hereditary succession, and of such warlike habits, that though a minority, they were able to give no small trouble to the peaceful Lowlanders. When the Scottish convention was about to settle the crown on William and Mary, Viscount Dundee, formerly Graham of Clave rhouse, and celebrated for his severity upon the recusant Presbyterians, raised an insurrection in the Highlands in favor of King James, while the Duke of Gordon, a Catholic, still held out Edin- burgh Castle in the same interest. It was with no small difficulty that the new government could obtain the means of reducing these opponents. The castle, after a protracted siege, was given up in June (1689) Gen- eral Macky was despatched by William, with a few troops, to join with such forces as he could obtain in Scotland, and endeavor to suppress the insurrection in the Highlands. He encountered Dundee at Killiecrankie (July 27), and, though his troops were greatly superior in number and discipline, experienced a complete defeat. Dundee, however, fell by a musket-shot in the moment of victory, and his army was unable to follow up its advantage. In a short time the Highland clans were induced to yield a nominal obedience to William and Mary. In Ireland, a much more formidable resistance was offered to the revo- lution settlement. Since the accession of James, the Romish faith might be described as virtually predominent in that kingdom. The laws against Catholics had been suspended by the royal authority, all public offices were filled by them, and though the established clergy were not deprived of their benefices, very little tithe was paid to them. The viceregal office was held by the Earl of Tyrconnel, a violent and ambitious young man, dis- posed to second the king in all his imprudent measures, and resolved, in the event of their failing, to throw the country into the hands of the French. The people at large being chiefly Catholics, were warmly attached to the late sovereign, whose cause they regarded as their own Early in the spring of 1689, James proceeded from France to Ireland, where he was soon at the head of a large though ill-disciplined army. He immediately ratified an act of the Irish Parliament for annulling that set- tlement of the Protestants upon the lands of Catholics, which had taken place in the time of Cromwell, and another for attainting 2000 persons of the Protestant faith. The Protestants, finding themselves thus dispossessed of what they considered their property, and exposed to the vengeance of a majority over whom they had long ruled, fled to Londonderry, Inniskillen, and other fortified towns, where they made a desperate resistance, in the hope of being speedily succoured by King William. That sovereign now led over a large army to Ireland, and (July 1) attacked the native forces under his father-in-law at the fords of the river Boyne, near the village of Dunore, where he gained a complete victory. James was needlessly dispirited by this disaster, and lost no time in sail- 196 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. ing again to France. In reality, the Irish made a better appearance, and fought more vigorously, after the battle of the Boyne than before it. The Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James, and the Earl of Tyrconnel, still kept the field with a large body of cavalry, and the infantry were in the meantime effectually protected in the town of Limerick. Will- iam invested this town, and in one assault upon it lost 2000 men, which so disheartened him, that he went back to England, leaving his officers to prosecute the war. The Irish army afterwards fought a regular battle at Aghrim, when partly owing to the loss of their brave leader, St. Ruth, they were totally routed. The remains of the Catholic forces took refuge in Limerick, where they finally submitted in terms of a treaty which seem- ed to secure the Catholic population in all desirable rights and privileges. REIGN OF WILLIAM III. Though all military opposition was thus overcome, William soon found difficulties of another kind in the management of the state. The Tories, though glad to save the established church by calling in his interfer- ence, had submitted with no good grace to the necessity of making him king ; and no sooner was the danger past, than their usual principles of hereditary right were in a great measure revived. From the name of the exiled monarch, they now began to be known by the appellation of Jacobites. James' hopes of a restoration were thus for a long time kept alive, and the peace of William's mind was so much embittered, as to make his sov- ereignty appear a dear purchase. Perhaps the only circumstances which reconciled the king to his situation, was the great additional force he could now bring against the ambitious designs of Louis XIV. Almost from his accession he entered heartily into the combination of European pow- ers for checking this warlike prince, and conducted military operations against him every summer in person. The necessity of having supplies for that purpose rendered him unfit, even if he had been willing, to resist any liberal measures proposed to him in Parliament, and hence his passing of the famous Triennial Act in 1694, by which it was appointed that a new Parliament should be called every third year. In this year died Queen Mary, without offspring ; after which William reigned as sole mon- arch. The peace of R rswick, concluded in 1697, by which the French power was confined to the limits, permitted William to spend the concluding years of his reign in peace. In 1700, in consideration that he and his sister-in- law Anne had no children, the famous Act of Succession was passed, by which the crown, failing these two individuals, was settled upon the next Protestant heir, Sophia, Duchess of Hanover, daughter of Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of James I. The reign of King William is remarkable for the first legal support of a standing army, and for the commencement of the national debt. It is also distinguished by the first establishment of regular banks for the deposit of monev , and the issue of a paper currency. Formerly, the business of bank- ing, as far as necessary, was transacted by goldsmiths, or through the me dium of the public Exchequer, by which plans the public was not sufficient- ly insured against loss. In 1695, the first public establishment for the purpose, the Bank of England, was established by one William Paterson, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 197 a scheming Scotsman ; and next year the Bank of Scotland was set on foot by one Holland, an English merchant. The capital in the former case be- ing only XI, 200,000, and in the latter, the tenth part of that sum. In the reign of King William flourished Sir William Temple, an emi- nent political and philosophical writer, to whom is usually assigned the honor of first composing the English language in the fluent and measured manner which afterwards became general. The most profound philosoph- ical writer of the age was John Locke, author of an Essay on the Human Understanding, an Essay on Toleration, and other works. Bishop Tillot- son stands high as a writer of elegant sermons. The greatest name in polite literature is that of John Dryden, remarkable for his energetic style of poetry, and his translations of Virgil and Juvenal. QUEEN ANNE— MARLBOROUGH'S CAMPAIGNS. William was succeeded by his sister-in-law, Anne, second daughter of the late James II ; a princess now thirty-eight years of age, and chiefly remarkable for her zealous attachment to the church of England. The movement against the king of France had not been confined to Great Britain ; it was a combination of that power with the emperor of Germany and the states of Holland. Queen Anne found it necessary to maintain her place in the Grand Alliance, as it was termed ; and the Duke of Marlborough was sent over to the continent with a large army to prosecute the war in conjunction with the allies. Now commenced that career of military glory which has rendered the reign of Anne and the name of Marlborough so famous. In Germany and Flanders, under this command- er, the British army gained some signal successes, particularly those of Blenheim and Ramillies; in Spain, a smaller army, under the chivalrously brave Earl of Peterborough, performed other services of an important kind. The war, however, was one in which Britain had no real interest — for it has been seen that Spain has continued under a branch of the House of Bourbon without greatly endangering other states. A party, consisting chiefly of Tories, endeavored, in 1706, to put an end to the war ; and France was so much reduced in strength, as to con- cede all the objects for which the contest had been commenced. But the people were so strongly inspired with a desire of humiliating France, which in commerce and religion they considered their natural enemy, that some ambitious statesmen of a contrary line of politics were enabled to mar the design of a treaty. Among these was the Duke of Marlbor- ough, who, being permitted to profit not only by his pay, but by perquisites attached to his command, wished the war to be protracted, merely that he might make his enormous wealth a little greater. It was in consequence of these unnecessary interferences with continental politics, urged chiefly by the people, and by a class of statesmen popular at the time, that the first large sums of the national debt were contracted. UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. Since their religious enthusiasm had been laid at rest by the Revolution Settlement, the Scottish people had been chiefly animated by a desire of participating in the commerce of England. The treatment of their expe- 198 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. dition to Darien had now inspired them with a bitter feeling against their southern neighbors, and they resolved to show their power of counter- annoyance by holding up threats of dissenting from England in the matter of the succession. In 1703, their Parliament passed the famous Act of Security, by which it was ordained that the successor of her majesty in Scotland should not be the same with the individual adopted by the Eng lish Parliament, unless there should be a free communication of trade between the countries, and the affairs of Scotland thoroughly secured from English influence. Another act was at the same time passed for putting the nation under arms. The English ministers then saw that an incorporating union would be necessary to prevent the Pretender from gaining the Scottish crown, and to protect England from the attacks of a hostile nation. For this purpose they exerted themselves so effectually in the Scottish Parliament, as to obtain an act, enabling the queen to nomi- nate commissioners for the arrangement of a union. The men appointed, thirty on each side, were, with hardly an exception, the friends of the court and of the Revolution Settlement ; and the treaty accordingly was drawn up without difficulty. In October 1706, this document was submitted to the Scottish Parlia- ment, and was found to contain the following principal points : — That the two nations were to be indissolubly united under one government and leg- islature, each, however, retaining its own civil and criminal law ; the crown to be in the House of Hanover ; the Scottish Presbyterian church to be guaranteed ; forty- five members to be sent by the Scottish counties and burghs to the House of Commons, and sixteen elective peers to be sent to the Upper House by the nobles ; the taxes to be equalized, but, in consideration of the elevation of the Scotch imposts to the level of the English (for the latter people already owed sixteen millions), an equiva- lent was to be given to Scotland, amounting to nearly four hundred thou- sand pounds, which was to aid in renewing the coin, and other objects. These terms were regarded in Scotland as miserably inadequate ; and the very idea of the loss of an independent legislature and a place among governments, raised their utmost indignation. Nevertheless, by dint of bribery, the union was carried through Parliament ; and from the 1st of May 1707, the two countries formed one state, under the title of the Kingdom of Great Britain. PEACE OF UTRECHT — DEATH OP QUEEN ANNE. The members of the cabinet applied themselves, though very secretly, to the business of bringing about a peace. When their plans were ma- tured, the consent of the House of Commons was easily gained ; but the Lords having shown some reluctance, it was found necessary to create twelve new peers, in order to overpower the sense of that part of the legislature. After a tedious course of negotiation, Britain and Holland concluded a peace at Utrecht (1713), leaving the emperor of Germany still at war. By this arrangement, Philip V was permitted to retain Spain and the Indies, but no other part of the dominions which his am- bitious grandfather had endeavored to secure*for him ; and it was provid- ed that he and his descendants should never inherit the kingdom of France, nor any future king of France accede to the crown of Spain. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 199 Britain obtained nothing tangible by all her exertions, except the possess- ion of Gibraltar and Minorca, and the privilege of being exclusively em- ployed to carry slaves to the Spanish American colonies. It has justly been considered a stain upon the nation, that it should have concluded a separate peace under such clandestine circumstances, as the interests of the other belligerent parties were thereby greatly injured. For the grati- fication of their High Church supporters, the ministers obtained an act for preventing dissenters from keeping schools, and another for establishing church patronage in Scotland, the former of which was repealed in the following reign. It is believed that Queen Anne and her Tory ministers were in secret willing to promote the restoration of the main line of the Stuart family, and Harley and St. John are now known to have intrigued for that pur- pose. But before any plan could be formed, the queen took suddenly ill and died (August 1, 1714), when the ministers had no alternative but to proceed according to the Act of Settlement. The Electress Sophia being recently dead, her son, the elector, was proclaimed under the title of George I. The reign of Queen Anne is not more distinguished by the wonderful se- ries of victories gained by Marlborough, than by the brilliant list of literary men who now flourished, and who have caused this to be styled the Augus- tan age of English literature, as resembling that of the Roman Emperor Augustus. Alexander Pope stands unrivaled in polished verse on moral subjects. Jonathan Swift is a miscellaneous writer of singular vigor and an extraordinary kind of humor. Joseph Addison wrote on familiar life and on moral and critical subjects with a degree of elegance before un- known. Sir Richard Steele was a lively writer of miscellaneous essays. This last author, with assistance from Addison and others, set on foot the ' Tatler,' ' Spectator,' and ' Guardian,' the earliest examples of small periodical papers in England, and which continue to this day to be regar- ded as standard works. Cibber, Congreve, Vanburgh, and Farquhar, were distinguished writers of comedy ; and Prior, Philips, and Rowe, were pleasing poets. In graver literature, this age is not less eminent. Dr. Berkeley shines as a metaphysician ; Drs. Sherlock, Atterbury, and Clark as divines ; and Bentley as a critic of the Roman classics. ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER — REBELLION OF 1715-16. The new sovereign lost no time in coming over to Britain, and fixing himself in that heritage which his family has ever since retained. He was fifty-four years of age, of a good, though not brilliant understanding, and very firm in his principles. Knowing well that the whigs were his only true friends, he at once called them into the administration. It was the custom of that period for every party, on getting into power, to try to annihilate their opponents. Not only were the whole Tory party insulted by the king, but a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to prepare articles of impeachment against Oxford, Bolingbroke, the Duke of Ormond, and the earl of Strafford. Bolingbroke, perceiving his life to be in danger, fled to the continent ; and his attainder was in consequence moved and carried by his rival Walpole. Ormond suffered a similar fate. 200 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Oxford, after a protracted trial, was only saved in consequence of a differ ance between the Lords and Commons. During the first year of King George, the Tories kept up very threaten ing popular disturbances in favor of High Church principles; but the Whigs, gaining a majority in the new House of Commons, were able to check this a little by the celebrated enactment called the Riot Act, which permits military force to be used in dispersing a crowd, after a certain space of time has been allowed. Disappointed in their hopes of office and power, and stung by the treatment of their leaders, the Tories re- solved to attempt bringing in the Pretender by force of arms. With an eager hopefulness, which for a long time was characteristic of the party, they believed that all England and Scotland were ready to take up arms for the Pretender, when in reality there was but a limited portion of the people so inclined, and that portion unwilling to move if they saw the least risk or danger. Blind to these circumstances, and without design or con- cert, they commenced the unfortunate civil war of 1715. The Earl of Mar, who had been a secretary of state in the late ad- ministration, raised his standard in Braemar (September 6), without any commission from the Pretender, and was soon joined by Highland clans to the amount of 10,000 men, who rendered him master of all Scotland north of the Forth. There, however, he weakly permitted himself to be cooped up by the Duke of Argyle, who with a far less numerous force, had posted himself at Stirling. Mar expected to be supported by an invasion of England by the Duke of Ormond, and a rising of the people of that country. But the Duke completely failed in his design, and no rising took place, except in Northumberland. There Mr. Foster, one of the members of Parliament for the county, and the Earl of Derwentwater, with some other nobleman, appeared in arms, but unsupported by any considerable portion of the people. Mar detached a party of 1800 foot, under Mackin- tosh of Borlum, to join the Northumbrian insurgents, who complained that they had no infantry. The junction was managed with great address ; and at the same time some noblemen and gentlemen of the south of Scot- land attached themselves to the southern army. The government was ill provided with troops but it nevertheless sent such a force against Mr. Fos- ter, as obliged him to retire with his men into the town of Preston, in Lancashire, where, after an obstinate defense, the whole party (November 13) surrendered themselves prisoners at the king's mercy. On the same day, the Earl of Mar met the Duke of Argyle at Sheriffmuir, near Dum- blane, where a battle was fought, in which, after the manner of the battles in the civil war, the right wing of each army was successful, but neither altogether victorious. The Duke withdrew in the face of his enemy to Stirling, and the earl retired to Perth, resolved to wait for the news of an invasion from France, and for the arrival of the Pretender, whom he had invited to Scotland. Mar did not for some time become aware how little reason he had to expect support from France. Louis XIV, upon whom the hopes of the party greatly rested, had died in September, leaving the government to the Regent Orleans, who had strong personal reasons for wishing to culti- vate the good-will of the British monarch, and of course declined to assist in the present enterprise. The Pretender, nevertheless, sailed for Scot- land, and on the 22d of December, arrived incognito at Peterhead, bring- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 201 ing nothing but his person to aid his adherents. Mar, who had already attempted to negotiate a submission to the government, brought him for- ward to Perth, where he was amused for some time with preparations for his coronation. But before he had been many days there, the Duke of Argyle found himself in a condition to advance against the insurgent force ; and on the 30th of January 1716, this unfortunate prince commenced a retreat to the north, along with his dispirited army. On the 4th of Feb- ruary, he and the Earl of Mar provided for their own safety by going on board a vessel at Montrose, and setting sail for France : the army dispers- ed itself into the Highlands. For this unhappy appearance in arms, the Earl of Derwentwater, Viscount Kenmure, and about twenty inferior per- sons, were executed ; forty Scottish families of the first rank lost their es- tates, and many excellent members of society became exiles for the re- mainder of their lives. The suppression of this insurrection, and the ruin of so many Tory leaders, tended to increase the power of the Whig party, and the stability of the Hanoverian dynasty. The government, nevertheless, acted under considerable difficulties, as they were opposed by the majority of the clergy and country gentry, as well as by the whole of the mob feeling, except in the large commercial towns. To avoid the hazard of too often appealing to the people, they carried, in 1716, a bill for repealing King William's Triennial Act, and protracting the present and all future Parliaments to a duration of seven years. The chief popular support of the government was in the dissenters, and in the middle classes of the community. From the peace of Utrecht, Britain remained free from foreign war for nearly thirty years, excepting that, in 1719, the ministry was called on to interfere for the repression of an attempt on the part of Spain to regain her Italian territories. GEORGE II — WAR "WITH SPAIN. George I, at his death in 1727, was succeeded by his son, George II, a prince of moderate abilities, but conscientious, and free from all gross faults. In the early part of his reign, Walpole effected some useful meas- ures, and upon the whole was a vigorous and enlightened administrator of public affairs, though nothing can justify the extensive system of bribery by which alone he pretended to manage the House of Commons. After a peace of extraordinary duration, he was urged, much against his will, into a contest with Spain, on account of some efforts made by that country to check an illicit trade carried on by British merchants in its American col- onies. REBELLION OF 1745-46. The Pretender had married, in 1719, the Princess Clementina Sobieski of Poland, and was now the father of two sons in the bloom of youth, the the elder of whom has been distinguished in history by the title of Prince Charles Stuart. The misfortunes of the British arms on the continent, and the dissensions which prevailed among the people and the Parliament, encouraged this prince to make an attempt to recover the throne of his ancestors. In 1744, he had been furnished by France with a large fleet 202 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. and ample stores to invade the British dominions, but had been driven back by a storm, and prevented from again setting sail bj a superior fleet under Sir John Norris. Though the French monarch would not grant him any further supply, Charles resolved to make the proposed attempt, trusting solely to the generosity and valor of his friends in Britain. He therefore landed from a single vessel, with only seven attendants, on the coast of Inverness-shire, where the clans most attached to his family chiefly resi- ded. By merely working upon the ardent feelings of the Highland chiefs, he soon induced several of them to take up arms, among whom were Locheil, Clanranald, Glengarry, and Keppoch. On the 19th of August 1745 he raised his standard at Glenfinnan, with- in a few miles of the government station of Fort William, and found him- self surrounded by about 1500 men. The government was at first inclin- ed to disbelieve the intelligence of these proceedings, but was soon obliged to take steps for its own defense. A reward of thirty thousand pounds was offered for the head of the young prince, who with all his family, was under attainder by act of Parliament ; and Sir John Cope, comman- der of the forces in Scotland, was ordered to advance with what troops he had into the Highlands, and suppress the insurrection. Cope proceeded on this mission with about 1400 infantry ; but on finding the Highlanders in possession of a strong post near Fort Augustus, he thought it necessary to go aside to Inverness. Charles, taking advantage of this ill-advised movement, immediately poured his motley followers down into the Low- lands, gaining accessions everywhere as he advanced ; and there being no adequate force to oppose him, he took possession successively of Perth and Edinburgh. Cope now transported his troops back to Lothian by sea, and on the 21st September, a rencontre took place between him and Charles at Prestonpans. Seized with a panic, the royal troops fled disgracefully from the field, leav- ing the prince a complete victory. With the lustre thus acquired by his arms, he might have now, with four or five thousand men, made a formida- ble inroad into England. Before he could collect such a force, six weeks passed away, and when at length (November 1) he entered England, a large body of troops had been collected to oppose him. After a bold ad- vance to Derby, he was obliged by his friends to turn back. At Stirling he was joined by considerable reinforcements, and on the 17th of January 1746, a battle took place at Falkirk between him and General Hawley, each numbering about 8000 troops. Here Charles was again successful ; but he was unable to make any use of his victory, and soon after found it necessary to withdraw his forces to the neighborhood of Inverness, where he spent the remainder of the winter. The Duke of Cumberland now put himself at the head of the royal troops, which had been augmented by 6000 auxiliaries under the Prince of Hesse. During the months of Feb- ruary and March, the Highland army was cooped up within its own terri- tory by the Hessians at Perth, and the royal troops at Aberdeen. At length, April 16, Prince Charles met the English army in an open moor at Culloden, near Inverness, and experienced a total overthrow. He had himself the greatest difficulty in escaping from the country, and the High- lands were subjected for several months to the horrors of military violence in all its worst forms "DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 203 GEORGE III— BUTE ADMINISTRATION— rEACE OF 1763. Soon after his accession, George III espoused the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, by whom he had a large family. One of his earli- est political measures was to confer one of the state-secretaryships upon the Earl of Bute, a Scottish nobleman of Tory or Jacobite predilections, who had been his preceptor, and possessed a great influence over his mind. This, with other alterations, infused a peaceful disposition into his majesty's counsels, which was not much relished by Mr. Pitt. That minister, hav- ing secretly discovered that Spain was about to join France against Brit- ain, and being thwarted in the line of policy, which he consequently thought it necessary to assume, retired with a pension, and a peerage to his wife ; after which the ministry was rendered still less of a warlike temper. A negotiation for peace was entered into with France, which offered, for that end, to give up almost all her colonial possessions. The demands of the British were, however, rather more exorbitant than France expected, and not only was the treaty broken off, but Spain commenced those hostilities which Mr. Pitt had foretold. Nevertheless, Britain continued that splen- did career of conquest, which, except at the beginning, had been her for- tune during the whole of this war. In a very few months Spain lost Ha- vana, Manilla, and all the Philippine Isles. The Spanish forces were also driven out of Portugal, which they had unjustly invaded. At sea the British fleets reigned everywhere triumphant, and at no former period was the country in so proud a situation. The ministry, however, were sensi- ble that war, even with all this good fortune, was a losing game ; and they therefore, much against the will of the nation, concluded a peace in Feb- ruary 1763. By this treaty Great Britain gave up a certain portion of her conquests, in exchange for others which had been wrested from her ; but she was nev- ertheless a gainer to an immense amount. She acquired from the French, Canada, that part of Louisiana east of the Mississippi, Cape Breton, Sene- gal, the islands of Grenada, Dominica, St. Vincent's, and Tobago, with all the acquisitions which the French had made upon the Coromandel coast in the East Indias since 1749. From Spain she acquired Minorca, East and West Florida, with certain privileges of value. The continental states in alliance with Great Britain were also left as they had been. These ad- vantages on the part of Great Britain had been purchased at the expense of an addition of sixty millions to the national debt, which now amounted in all to £133,959,270. Since the accession of the Brunswick family in 1714, the government had been chiefly conducted by the Whig party, who formed a very power- ful section of the aristocracy of England. Walpole, Pelham, Newcastle, and Pitt, had all ruled chiefly through the strength of this great body, who, till the period subsequent to the rebellion of 1745, seem to have had the support of the most influential portion of the people. After that perwd, when the Stuart claims ceased to have any effect in keeping the crown in check, a division appears to have grown up between the government and the people, which was manifested in various forms eve-; before the demise of George II, but broke out in a very violent manner during the early years of his successor's reign. George III, who had imbibed high notions 204 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. of the royal prerogative from the Earl of Bute, showed, from the beginning of his career, an anxious desire to extend the power of the crown, to shake off the influence of the great Whig families, and keep popular force of all kinds within strict limits. A stranger, with no connection in the country, a favorite, and, more- over, a man of unprepossessing manners, the Earl of Bute had neither the support of the aristocracy nor of the people. He was assailed in Parlia- ment, and through the newspapers, with the most violent abuse — the un- popular peace furnishing a powerful topic against him. To this storm he at length yielded, by retiring (April 8, 1763). AMERICAN STAMP ACT. The administration of Mr. Grenville is memorable for the first attempt to tax the American colonies. An act passed under his influence (March 1765) for imposing stamps on those countries, appeared to the colonists as a step extremely dangerous to their liberties, considering that they had no share in the representation. They therefore combined almost universally to resist the introduction of the stamped paper by which the tax was to be raised. Resolutions were passed in the various assemblies of the States, protesting against the assumed right of the British legislature to tax them. Partly by popular violence, and partly by the declarations issued by the local legislative assemblies, the object of the act was completely defeated. The home government were then induced to agree to the repeal of the act, but with the reservation of a right to impose taxes on the colonies. Between the Stamp Act and its repeal, a change had taken place in the ad- ministration : the latter measure was the act of a Whig ministry under the Marquis of Rockingham, which, however, did not long continue in power, being supplanted by one in which Mr. Pitt, now created Earl of Chatham, held a conspicuous place. The second Pitt administration was less popular than the first: the Earl of Chesterfield, reflecting on the title conferred on the minister, at the same time that he sunk in general esteem, called his rise a fall up stairs. All the ministries of this period labored under a pop- ular suspicion, probably not well founded, that they only obeyed the will of the sovereign, while the obnoxious Earl of Bute, as a secret adviser behind the throne, was the real, though irresponsible minister. At the suggestion of Mr. Charles Townshend, a member of the Earl of Chatham's cabinet, it was resolved, in 1767, to impose taxes on the Amer- icans in a new shape ; namely, upon British goods imported into the colo- nies, for which there was some show of precedent. An act for imposing duties on tea, glass, and colors, was accordingly passed with little opposi- tion. Soon after this, Mr. Townshend died, and the Earl of Chatham, who had been prevented by illness from taking any share in the business, re- signed. The Americans met the new burdens with the same violent oppo- sition as formerly. In 1770, the Duke of Grafton retired from the cabinet, and his place was supplied by Lord North, son of the Earl of Guilford. The new minis- try was the tenth which had existed during as many years, but the first in which the king might be considered as completely free of the great Whig families, who, by their parliamentary influence, had possessed the chief power since the Revolution. This was the beginning of a series of Tory DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 205 administrations, which, with few and short intervals, conducted the affairs of the nation down to the close of the reign of George IV. THE AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. Meanwhile the remonstrances of the American colonists had induced the ministry to give up all the new taxes, with the exception of that on tea, which it was determined to keep up, as an assertion of the right of Parlia- ment to tax the colonies. In America, this remaining tax continued to ex- cite as much discontent as the whole had formerly done, for it was the principle of a right to impose taxes which they found fault with, and not the amount of the tax itself. Their discontent with the mother country was found to affect trade considerably, and the British merchants were anx- ious to bring the dispute to a close. The government was then induced to grant such a drawback from the British duty on tea, as enabled the East India Company to offer the article in America at a lower rate than former- ly, so that the American duty, which was only three pence per pound, did not affect the price. It was never doubted that this expedient would sat- isfy the colonists, and large shipments of tea were accordingly sent out from the British ports. The principle of the right to tax still lurked, how- ever under the concession, and the result only showed how little the senti- ments of the Americans were understood at home. The approach of the tea cargoes excited them in a manner totally un- looked-for in Britain. At New York and Philadelphia, the cargoes were forbidden to land; in Charleston, where they were permitted to land, they were put into stores, and were prohibited from being sold. In Boston harbor, a ship-load was seized and tossed into the sea. This last act was resented by the passing of a bill in Parliament for interdicting all commercial intercourse with the port of Boston, and another for taking away the legislative assembly of the state of Massachusetts. The former measure was easily obviated by local arrangements ; and in reference to the latter, a Congress of repre- sentatives from the various States met at Philadelphia, in September 1774, when it was asserted that the exclusive power of legislation, in all cases of taxation and internal policy, resided in the provincial legislatures. The same assembly denounced other grievances, which have not here been par- ticularly adverted to, especially an act of the British legislature for trying Americans, for treasonable practices, in England. The Congress also framed a covenant of non-intercourse, by which the whole utility of the col- onies to the mother country, as objects of trading speculation, was at once laid prostrate. The colonists still avowed a desire to be reconciled, on the condition of a repeal of the obnoxious statutes. But the government had now resolved to attempt the reduction of the colonists by force of arms. Henceforth, every proposal from America was treated with a haughty si- lence on the part of the British monarch and his advisers. The war opened in the summer of 1775, by skirmishes between the Brit- ish troops and armed provincials, for the possession of certain magazines. At the beginning there seemed no hope of the contest being protracted be- yond one campaign. The population of the colonies was at this time un- der three millions, and they were greatly inferior in discipline and appoint- ments to the British troops. They possessed, however, an indomitable zeal in the cause they had agreed to defend, and fought with the advantage 206 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. of being in the country of their friends. At Bunker's Hill, near Boston (June 17, 1775), they had the superiority in a well-contested fight with the British troops, of whom between two and three hundred were killed. At the end of one year, the British government was surprised to find that no progress had been made towards a reduction of the Americans, and sent out an offer of pardon to the colonists, on condition that they would lay down their arms. This proposal only met with ridicule. On the 4th of July 1776, the American Congress took the decisive step of a declaration of their independence, embodying their sentiment in a doc- ument remarkable for its pathos and solemnity. During the next two campaigns, the slender forces of the new republic were hardly able any- where to face the large and well-appointed armies of Great Britain. Much misery was endured by this hardy people in resisting the British arms. Notwithstanding every disadvantage and many defeats, America remained unsubdued. The first serious alarm for the success of the contest in America, was communicated in December 1777, by intelligence of the surrender of an army under General Burgoyne at Saratoga. In the House of Commons, the ministers acknowledged this defeat with marks of deep dejection, but still professed to entertain sanguine hopes from the vigor with which the large towns throughout Britain were now raising men at their own expense for the service of the government. Mr. Fox, the leader of the Opposition, made a motion for the discontinuance of the war, which was lost by 165 to 259, a much narrower majority than any which the ministry had before reckoned in the Lower House. In proportion to the dejection of the government, was the elation of the American Congress. Little more than two years before, the British sov- ereign and ministers had treated the petitions of the colonists with silent contempt ; but such had been the current of events, that, in 1778, they found it necessary, in order to appease the popular discontent, to send out commissioners, almost for the purpose of begging a peace As if to avenge themselves for the indignities of 1775, the Americans received these com- missioners with the like haughtiness ; and being convinced that they could secure their independence, would listen to no proposals in which the ac- knowledgment of that independence, and the withdrawal of the British troops, did not occupy the first place. The ministers, unwilling to submit to such terms, resolved to prosecute the war, holding forth to the public, as the best defense of their conduct, the necessity of curbing the spirit of insubordination, both in the American colonies and at home, which they described as threatening the overturn of the most sacred of the national in- stitutions. The rise of Great Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centu- ries, in wealth and military and naval power, had been observed by many of the surrounding states with no small degree of jealousy. France in particular, had not yet forgiven the triumphant peace which Britain had dictated in 1763. The Americans, therefore, by their emissary, the cele- brated Benjamin Franklin, found no great difficulty in forming an alliance with France, in which the latter power acknowledged the independence of the colonists, and promised to send them large auxiliary forces. Viewing the distressed state to which Britain was reduced by the contest, and con- cluding that the time had arrived to strike a decisive blow for the humilia- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. • 207 tion, Spain soon after declared war against her ; and in 1780, Holland was added to the number of her enemies. Russia then put herself at the head of what was called an Armed Neutrality, embracing Sweden and Denmark, the object of which was indirectly hostile to Britain. So tre- mendous was the force reared against Britain in 1779, even before all these powers had entered into hostilities, that it required about 300,000 armed men, 800 armed vessels, and twenty millions of money annually, merely to protect herself from her enemies. Even her wonted superiority at sea seemed to have deserted her ; and for some time the people beheld the unwonted spectacle of a hostile fleet riding in the Channel, which there was no adequate means of opposing. It was now obvious to the whole nation that this contest, upon whatever ground it commenced, was a great national misfortune ; and the Opposition in Parliament began to gain considerably in strength. After some votes, in which the ministerial majorities appeared to be gradually lessening, Mr. Dunning, on the 6th of April 1780, carried, by a majority of eighteen, a motion, 'that the influence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished.' This was looked upon as a severe censure of the government, considering that the House of Commons was not altogether a popular body, but included many who had seats there only through the in- fluence of the crown, or by the favor of the nobility and gentry. In the year 1778, an act had been passed, relieving the Roman Catholics in England from some of the severe penal statutes formerly enacted against them. The apprehension of a similar act for Scotland caused the people of that country to form an immense number of associations with a view to opposing it ; and in the early part of 1779, the popular spirit broke out at Edinburgh and Glasgow in several alarming riots, during which one- or two Catholic chapels, and some houses belonging to Catholics, were pillaged and burnt. An extensive Protestant Association was also formed in Eng- land, to endeavor to procure the repeal of the English act. This body was chiefly led by Lord George Gordon, a son of the late Duke of Gordon, and member of the House of Commons. In June 1780, an immense mob assembled in London to accompany Lord George to the House of Commons, where he was to present a petition against the act, signed by 120,000 persons. His motion for the repeal of the act being rejected by a vast ma- jority, he came out to the lobby and harangued the crowd in violent terms, suggesting to them similar acts to those which had taken place in Scotland. The mob accordingly proceeded to demolish the chapels of the foreign am- bassadors. Meeting with no effectual resistance, for the magistrates of the city were afraid to take decisive measures against them, they attacked Newgate, released the prisoners, and set the prison on fire. The new prison at Clerkenwell, the King's Bench, and Fleet Prisons, and the New Bridewell, were treated in like manner. At one time thirty- six fires were seen throughout the city. The mob had uncontrolled pos- session of the streets for five days, pillaging, burning, and demolishing ; until the king in council determined to authorize the military to put them down by force of arms. Tranquillity was then restored, but not before up- wards of 400 persons were killed and wounded. Many of the ringleaders were convicted and executed. Lord George Gordon was tried for high treason, but acquitted on a plea of insanity, which his subsequent life showed to be well founded. Similar outrages were attempted in other 208 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. cities, but prevented by the vigor of the magistrates. The chief sufferers from these riots were the party who aimed at political reforms. On the other hand, the king obtained increased respect, in consequence of the firmness he had shown in taking measures for the suppression of the riots. The states of North and South Carolina, which contained a larger pro- portion of persons friendly to the British crown than any of the northern states, had submitted, in 1780, to a British army under General Clinton. Next year the greater part of the troops which had been left in those states were conducted northward by Lord Cornwallis, in the hope of making fur- ther conquests ; but the consequence was that General Greene, after a se- ries of conflicts, in which he greatly distressed various parties of the Brit- ish troops, regained both Carolinas, while Lord Cornwallis took up a posi- tion at Yorktown in Virginia. At this time, General Washington, the American commander-in-chief, to whose extraordinary sagacity and purity of motives the colonists chiefly owed their independence, was threatening General Clinton's army at New York. Clinton tamely saw him retire to the southward, believing that he only meant to make a feint, in order to draw away the British from New York, when he in reality meant to attack Cornwallis. On the 29th of September (1781), Yorktown was invested by this and other corps of Americans and French ; and in three weeks more, the British batteries being completely silenced, Lord Cornwallis sur- rendered with his whole army. With this event, though some posts were still kept up by the British troops, hostilities might be said to have been concluded. At the next opening of Parliament many of those who had formerly sup- ported the war, began to adopt opposite views ; and early in 1782, a mo- tion, made by General Conway, for the conclusion of the war, was carried by a majority of nineteen. The necessary consequence was, that, on the 20th of March, Lord North and his colleagues resigned office, after twelve years of continued misfortune, during which the prosperity of the country had been retarded, a hundred millions added to the national debt, and three millions of people separated from the parent state. As usual in such cases, a new administration was formed out of the Opposition. The Marquis of Rockingham was made prime minister, and Mr. Fox one of the secretaries of state. The new ministers lost no time in taking measures for the restoration of peace. Unfortunately for their credit with the nation, Sir George Rodney gained an important victory over the French fleet of the island of Dominica, April 12, 1782, after the ministers had despatched another officer to supersede him in the command. On this occasion, thirty-seven British vessels encountered thirty-four French ; and chiefly by the dexterous manoeuvre of a breach of the ene- my's line, gained one of the most complete victories recorded in modern warfare. The triumph was eminently necessary, to recover in some meas- ure the national honor, and enable the ministers to conclude the war upon tolerable terms. In November, provisional articles for a peace with the United States of America, now acknowledged as an independent power, were signed at Paris, and the treaty was concluded in the ensuing Febru- ary. When the American ambassador was afterwards, for the first time, introduced at the British levde, the king received him kindly, and said with great frankness, that though he had been the last man in his domin ions to desire that the independence of America should be acknowledged, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 209 he should also be the last to wish that that acknowledgment should be withdrawn. War was soon after concluded with France, Spain, and Hol- land, but not without some considerable concessions of colonial territory on the part of Great Britain. The conclusion of this war is memorable as a period of great sufferinc, arising from the exhaustion of the national resources, the depression of commerce, and the accident of a bad harvest. The principles of prosper- ity were, after all, found to be so firmly rooted in the country, that imme- diately after the first distresses had passed away, every department of the state resumed its wonted vigor, and during the ensuing ten years of peace, a great advance was made in national wealth. In 1786, Mr. Pitt established his celebrated but fallacious scheme for redeeming the national debt, by what wa3 called a Sinking Fund. The revenue was at this time above fifteen millions, being about one million more than was required for the public service. This excess he proposed to Jay aside annually, to lie at compound interest ; by which means he cal- culated that each million would be quadrupled at the end of twenty-eight years, and thus go a great way towards the object he had in view. To this scheme Mr. Fox added the infinitely more absurd amendment, that, when the government required to borrow more money, one million of every six so obtained should be laid aside for the same purpose. The scheme was so well received as to increase the popularity of the minister, and it was not till 1813 that its fallacy was proved. In the same year commenced the parliamentary proceedings against Mr. Warren Hastings, for alleged cruelty and robbery exercised upon the na- tives of India during his governorship of that dependency of Great Britain. These proceedings were urged by Mr. Burke and other members of the Whig party, and excited so much public indignation against Mr. Hastings, that the ministry were obliged, though unwillingly, to lend their counten- ance to his trial, which took place before Parliament in the most solemn manner, and occupied in the aggregate one hundred and forty-nine days, extending over the space of several years. The proceedings resulted in the acquittal of Mr. Hastings. The king and queen had in the meantime become the parents of a numerous family of sons and daughters. The eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, had now for several years been of age, and exempted from the control of his father. He had no sooner been set up in an establishment of his own, than he plunged into a career of prodigality, forming the most striking contrast with the chastened simplicity and decorum of the paternal abode. He also attached himself to the party of the Opposition, though rather apparently from a principle of contradiction to his father, than a sincere approbation of their political objects. The result was the complete alienation of the Prince of Wales from the affections of his majesty. In November 1788, an aberration of intellect, resulting from an illness of some duration, was observed in the king, and it became necessary to provide some species of substitute for the exercise of the royal functions. To have invested the Prince of Wales with the regency, appeared the most obvious course ; but this would have thrown out the ministry, as it was to be supposed that his royal highness would call the chiefs of his own party to his councils. Mr. Fox contended that the hereditary nature of 14* 210 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. the monarchy pointed out an unconditional right in the prince to assume the supreme power under such circumstances ; but Mr. Pitt asserted the right of Parliament to give or withhold such an office, and proposed to assign certain limits to the authority of the intended regent, which would have placed the existing ministry beyond his reach. The Irish Parlia- ment voted the unconditional regency to the prince ; but that of Great Britain was about to adopt the modified plan proposed by Mr. Pitt, when, March 1789, the king suddenly recovered, and put an end to the difficulty. The debates on the regency question exhibit in a very striking light how statesmen will sometimes abandon their most favorite dogmas and strong est principles on the call of their own immediate interests. FRENCH REVOLUTION, AND CONSEQUENT WAR WITH FRANCE. The country had for several years experienced the utmost prosperity and peace, when it was roused by a series of events which took place in France. The proceedings of the French nation for redressing the politi- cal grievances under which they had long labored, commenced in 1789, and were at first very generally applauded in Britain, as likely to raise that nation to a rational degree of freedom. Ere long, the violence shown at the destruction of the Bastile, the abolition of hereditary privil- eges, the open disrespect for religion, and other symptoms of an extrava- gant spirit, manifested by the French, produced a considerable change in the sentiments of the British people. The proceedings of the French were still justified by the principal leaders of Opposition in Parliament, and by a numerous class of the community ; but they inspired the govern- ment, and the propertied and privileged classes generally, with great alarm and distrust. When at length the coalition of Austria and Prussia with the fugitive noblesse had excited the spirit of the French people to a species of frenzy, and led to the establishment of a Republic, and the death of the king, the British government and its supporters were effectually roused to a sense of the danger which hung over all ancient institutions, and a pretext was found (January 1793) for declaring war against France. A comparative- ly small body of the people were opposed to this step, which was also loudly deprecated in Parliament by Messrs. Fox and Sheridan ; but all these remonstrances were drowned in the general voice of the nation. At such a crisis, to speak of political reforms in England seemed the height of imprudence, as tending to encourage the French. All, there- fore, who continued to make open demonstrations for that cause, were now branded as enemies to religion and civil order. In Scotland, Mr. Thomas Muir, a barrister, and Mr. Palmer, a Unitarian clergyman, were tried for sedition, and sentenced to various terms of banishment. Citizens named Skirving, Gerald, and Margarot, were treated in like manner by the Scottish criminal judges, for offenses which could only be said to de- rive the character ascribed to them from the temporary and accidental circumstances of the nation. An attempt to inflict similar punishments upon the English reformers, was defeated by the acquittal of a shoemaker named Hardy ; but the party was nevertheless subjected, with the appar- ent concurrence of a large and influential portion of the people, to many minor severities. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 211 After alliances had been formed with the other powers hostile to France, the British ministers despatched an army to the Netherlands, under the command of the king's second son, the Duke of York, to cooperate in reducing the fortresses in possession of the French, while the town of Toulon, being inclined to remain under the authority of the royal family, put itself into the hands of a British naval commander. At first, the French seemed to fail somewhat in their defenses ; but on a more ardently republican party acceding to power under the direction of the famous Robespierre, the national energies were much increased, and the Duke of Brunswick experienced a series of disgraceful reverses. The Prussian government, having adopted new views of the condition of France, now began to withdraw its troops, on the pretext of being unable to pay them ; and though Britain gave nearly a million and a quarter sterling to induce this power to remain nine months longer upon the field, its cooperation was of no further service, and was soon altogether lost. On the 1st of June 1794, the French Brest fleet sustained a severe defeat from Lord Howe, with the loss of six ships ; but the republican troops not only drove the combined armies out of the Netherlands, but taking advantage of an unusually hard frost, invaded Holland by the ice which covered the Rhine, and reduced that country to a Republic under their own control. The successes of the British were limited to the above naval victory, the tem- porary possession of Corsica and Toulon, the capture of several of the French colonies in the West Indies, and the spoliation of a great quantity of the commercial shipping of France ; against which were to be reckoned the expulsion of an army from the Netherlands, the loss of 10,000 men and 60,000 stand of arms, in an unsuccessful descent upon the west coast of France, some considerable losses in mercantile shipping, and an increase of annual expenditure from about fourteen to nearly forty millions. In the course of the year 1795, the lower portions of the community began to appear violently discontented with the progress of the war, and to renew their demands for reform in the state. As the king was passing (October 29) to open the session of Parliament, a stone was thrown into his coach, and the interference of the horse guards was required to pro- tect his person from an infuriated mob. The ministers consequently ob- tained acts for more effectually repressing sedition, and for the dispersion of political meetings. They were at the same time compelled to make a show of yielding to the popular clamor for peace ; and commenced a ne- gotiation with the French Directory, which was broken off by the refusal of France fe> restore Belgium to Austria. In the ensuing year, so far from any advance being made towards the subjugation of France, the northern states of Italy were overrun by its armies, and formed into what was called the Cisalpine Republic. The celebrated Napoleon Bonaparte made his first conspicuous appearance as the leader of this expedition, which terminated in Austria submitting to a humiliating peace. At the close of 1796, a French fleet sailed for Ireland, with the design of revo- lutionizing that country, and detaching it from Britain ; but its object was defeated by stress of weather. At this crisis, a new attempt was made to negotiate with the French Republic ; but as the events of the year had been decidedly favorable to France, a renewed demand of the British for the surrender of Belgium was looked upon as a proof that they were not sincere in their proposals, and their agent was insultingly ordered to leave 212 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. the French territory. To add to the distresses of Britain, while Austria was withdrawn from the number of her allies, Spain, by a declaration of war in 1797, increased in no inconsiderable degree the immense force with which she had to contend. THREATENED INVASION— SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. For some time an invasion of Britain had been threatened by France ; and, sacred as the land had been for centuries from the touch of a foreign enemy, the successes of the republicans had hitherto so greatly exceeded all previous calculation, that the execution of their design did not appear improbable. Just as the inteference of the neighboring powers had, in 1792, roused the energies of the French, so did this proposed invasion stimulate the spirit of the British people. The clamors of reformers, and of those who were friendly to France, were now lost in an almost univer- sal zeal for the defense of the country ; and not only were volunteer corps everywhere formed, but the desire of prosecuting the war became nearly the ruling sentiment of the nation. The ministers, perceiving the advantage which was to be derived from the tendency of the national spirit, appeared seriously to dread an invasion, and thus produced an un- expected and very distressing result. The credit of the Bank of England was shaken ; a run was made upon it for gold in exchange for its notes, which it could not meet. On the 25th of February 1797, therefore, the Bank was obliged, with the sanction of the privy-council, to suspend cash payments — that is, to refuse giving coin on demand for the paper money which had been issued. This step led to a great depreciation in the value of Bank of England notes ; and was followed by a very serious derange- ment of the currency for a number of years. In April, a new alarm arose from the proceedings of the seamen on board the Channel fleet, who mutinied for an advance of pay, and the redress of some alleged grievances. A convention of delegates from the various ships met in Lord Howe's cabin, and drew up petitions to the House of Commons and the Board of Admiralty. Upon these being yielded to, order was restored ; but the seamen on board the fleet at the Nore soon after broke out in a much more alarming revolt ; and on the refusal of their demands, moored their vessels across the Thames, threat- ening to cut off all communication between London and the open sea. The reduction of this mutiny appeared at one time as if it could only be effected by much bloodshed ; but by the firmness of the government, and some skillful dealings with the seamen, a loyal party was formed, by whom the more turbulent men were secured, and the vessels restored to their respective officers. The ringleaders, the chief of whom was a young man named Richard Parker, were tried and executed. The same year was remarkable for several victories gained by the British fleets. A Spanish fleet of twenty-seven ships was attacked by fifteen vessels under Admiral Jervis (February 14), off Cape St. Vincent, and completely beaten, with the loss of four large vessels. A fleet under Admiral Harvey, with a military force under Sir Ralph Abercromby, cap tured the island of Trinidad, a Spanish colony. In October, a Dutch fleet, under Admiral De Winter, was attacked off the village of Camper- down, upon their own coast, by Admiral Duncan, who after a desperate DEPARTMENT OP IIISTORY. 213 battle, captured nine of the enemy's vessels. These naval successes compensated in some measure for the many land victories of the French, and served to sustain the spirit of the British nation under this unfortu- nate contest. In 1798, the French overran and added to their dominions the ancient republic of Switzerland, which gave them a frontier contiguous to Austria, and enabled them eventually to act with increased readiness and force upon that country. In this year, the directors of the French Republic, beginning to be afraid of the ambition of their general, Bonaparte, sent him at the head of an expedition to reduce and colonize Egypt, intending from that country to act against the British empire in the East Indies. The expedition was successful in its first object ; but the fleet which had conveyed it was attacked in Aboukir Bay, by Admiral Nelson (August 1), and almost totally destroyed or captured. While so much of the strength of the French army was thus secluded in a distant country, the eastern powers of Europe thought they might safely recommence war with the republic. Austria, Naples, and Russia, formed a confederacy for this purpose ; and Britain, to supply the necessary funds, submitted to the grievance of an income tax, amounting in general to ten per cent., in ad- dition to all her previous burdens. The new confederacy was so successful in 1799, as to redeem the great- er part of Italy. A Russian army, under the famous SuwaroiF, acted a prominent part in the campaign ; but, in the end, attempting to expel the French from Switzerland, this large force was nearly cut to pieces in one of the defiles of that mountainous country. In August of the same year, Great Britain made a corresponding attempt to expel the French from Hol- land. Thirty-five thousand men, under the Duke of York, formed the military part of the expedition. The fleet was successful at the first in taking the Dutch ships, but the army, having landed under stress of weather at an unfavorable place for their operations, was obliged, after an abortive series of skirmishes, to make an agreement with the French, purchasing permission to go back to their country by the surrender of 8000 prisoners from England. The reverses which France experienced in 1799, were generally attribu- ted to the weakness of the Directory — a council of five, to which the exe- cutive had been intrusted. Bonaparte suddenly returned from his army in Egypt, and, by a skillful management of his popularity, overturned the Directory, and caused himself to be appointed the sole depositary of the executive power of the state, under the denomination of Fir3t Consul. He immediately wrote a letter to King George, making overtures of peace, but was answered, by the British secretary, that no dependence could be placed by Great Britain on any treaty with France, unless her govern- ment were again consolidated under the Bourbons. Bonaparte, having much reason to wish for peace, made a reply to this note, vindicating France from the charge brought against her, of having commenced a system of aggression inconsistent with the interests of other states, and asserting her right to choose her own government — a point, he said, that could not decently be contested by the minister of a crown which was held by no other tenure. But the British government was at this time too much ela- ted by the expulsion of the French army from Italy, and the late changes 214 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. in the executive, which, in their estimation, betokened weakness, to be im- immdiately anxious for peace. The events of 1800 were of a very different nature from what had been calculated upon in England. Sir Sidney Smith, who commanded the British forces in Syria, had made a treaty with the French army after it had been left by Bonaparte, whereby it was agreed that the French should abandon Egypt, and retire unmolested to their own country. The British government, in its present temper, refused to ratify this arrangement, and the consequence was a continuance of hostilities. The French overthrew a large Turkish army at Grand Cairo, and made themselves more effectually than ever the masters of the country, so that Britain was obliged to send an army next year, under Sir Ralph Abercromby, to accomplish, at an immense expense, and a great waste of human life, what the French had formerly agreed to do. In Europe, the presence of Bonaparte produced equally disastrous results. By one of his most dexterous movements, he eluded the Austrians, led an army over the Alps by the Great St. Bernard into the Milanese, and having gained a decisive victory at Marengo (June 14), at once restored the greater part of Italy to French domination. Cotemporaneously with Napoleon's movements, Moreau led another army directly into Germany, overthrew the Austrians in several battles, and advanced to within seventeen leagues of their capital, Vienna. These re- verses obliged Austria next year (1801) to sue for and conclude a peace, by which France became mistress of all continental Europe west of the Rhine and south of the Adige. REBELLION IN IRELAND— UNION WITH GREAT BRITAIN. Although the government had been able, in 1783, to procure a dissolu- tion of the volunteer corps, the bulk of the Irish people continued to ex- press the most anxious desire for such a reform in their Parliament as might render it a more just representation of the popular voice. Unable to yield to them on this point, Mr. Pitt endeavored to appease them by ex- tending their commercial privileges ; but his wishes were frustrated, chiefly by the jealousy of the British merchants. A strong feeling of discontent, not only with the government, but with the British connection, was thus engendered in Ireland. The commencement of the revolutionary proceedings in France excited the wildest hopes of the Irish. Towards the close of the year 1791, they formed an association, under the title of the United Irishmen, comprehen- ding persons of all religions, and designed to obtain ' a complete reform of the legislature, founded on the principles of civil, political, and religious liberty.' The government from the first suspected this association of meditating an overturn of the state, and took strong measures for keeping it in check. Acts were passed for putting down its meetings, and the sec- retary, Mr. Hamilton Rowan, was tried and sentenced to a fine and two years' imprisonment for what was termed a seditious libel. At the same time, some concessions to the popular spirit were deemed indispensable, and the Irish Parliament accordingly passed acts enabling Catholics to in- termarry with Protestants, to practice at the bar, and to educate their own children. On discovering that a treasonable correspondence had been carried on DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 215 with France by some leading persons in the society of United Irishmen the government was so much alarmed as to send (1794) a Whig lord-lieu- tenant (Earl Fitzwilliam) to grant further concessions ; but ere anything had been done, the ministers were persuaded by the Protestant party to return to their former policy. The patriotic party now despaired of effect- ing any improvement by peaceable means, and an extensive conspiracy was entered into for delivering up Ireland to the French republic. The scheme was managed by a directory of five persons, and though half a million of men were concerned in it, the most strict secrecy was preserv- ed. In December 1796, a portion of the fleet which had been fitted out by the French to cooperate with the Irish patriots, landed at Bantry Bay ; but measures for a rising of the people not being yet ripe, it was obliged to return. Next year, the losses at Camperdown crippled the naval re- sources of France, and prevented a renewal of the expedition. Losing all hope of French assistance, the conspirators resolved to act without it; but their designs were betrayed by one Reynolds ; and three other members of the directory, Emmett, Macnevin, and Bond, were seized. Notwith- standing the precautionary measures which the government was thus ena- bled to take, the Union persisted in the design of rising on a fixed day. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, another of its leaders, was then arrested, and being wounded in a scuffle with his captors, soon after died in prison. On the 21st of May 1798, Lord Castlereagh, secretary to the lord-lieutenant, disclosed the whole plan of insurrection, which had been fixed to commence on the 23d. Though thus thwarted in their designs, and deprived of their best lead- ers, the conspirators appeared in arms in various parts of the country. Par- ties attacked Naas and Carlow, but were repulsed with loss. A large party, under a priest named Murphy, appeared in the county of "Wexford, and took the city of that name. Slight insurrections about the same time broke out in the northern counties of Antrim and Down, but were easily suppressed. In Wexford alone did the insurgents appear in formidable strength. Under a priest named Roche, a large party of them met and defeated a portion of the government troops ; but on a second occasion, though they fought with resolution for four hours, they were compelled to retreat. Another defeat at New Ross exasperated them greatly, and some monstrous cruelties were consequently practised upon their prisoners. On the 20th of June, their whole force was collected upon Vinegar Hill, near Enniscorthy, where an army of 13,000 men, with a proportionate train of artillery, was brought against them by General Lake. They were com- pletely overthrown and dispersed. From this time the rebellion languish- ed, and in July it had so far ceased to be formidable, that an act of am nesty was passed in favor of all who had been engaged in it, except the leaders. On the 22d of August, when the rebellion had been completely extin- guished, 900 French, under General Humbert, were landed at Killala, in the opposite extremity of the country from that in which the insurgents had shown the greatest strength. Though too late to be of any decisive effect, they gave some trouble to the government. A much larger body of British troops, under General Lake, met them at Castlebar, but retreat- ed in a panic. They then advanced to the centre of the country, while the lord-lieutenant confessed the formidable reputation which their country- 216 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA men had acquired, by concentrating an immensely disproportioned force against them. On the 8th of September, they were met at Carrick-on- Shannon by this large army, to which they yielded themselves prisoners of, war. During the ensuing two years, the British ministers exerted themselves to bring about an incorporating union of Ireland with Great Britain ; a measure to which the Irish were almost universally opposed, but which, by the use of bribes and government patronage liberally employed amongst the members of the Irish legislature, was at length effected. From the 1st of January 1801, the kingdom of Ireland formed an essential part of the empire, on which was now conferred the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The act of Union secured to the Irish most of the commercial privileges which they had so long sought. Upon a comparison of the aggregate exports and imports of the two countries, Ireland was to raise two parts of revenue for every fifteen raised by Great Britain, during the first twenty years of the Union, after which new reg- ulations were to be made by Parliament. One hundred commoners were to be sent by Ireland to the British (now called the Imperial) Parliament ; namely, two for each county, two for each of the cities of Dublin and Cork, one for the university, and one for each of the thirty-one most considera- ble towns. Four lord spiritual, by rotation of sessions, and twenty-eight lords temporal, elected for life by the Peers of Ireland, were to sit in the House of Lords. The Union, though, upon the whole, effected in a spirit of fairness to- wards Ireland, increased the discontent of the people, which broke out in 1803 in a new insurrection. Under Robert Emmet and Thomas Russell, a conspiracy was formed for seizing the seat of the vice-government, and for this purpose a great multitude of peasantry from the county of Kildare assembled (July 23) in Dublin. Disappointed in their attempt upon the castle, they could only raise a tumult in the streets, in the course of which Lord Kilwarden, a judge, and his nephew, Mr. Wolfe, were dragged from a carriage and killed. The mob was dispersed by soldiery, and Emmett and Russell, being seized, were tried and executed. CHANGE OF MINISTRY, AND PEACE OF AMIENS, 1801. At the commencement of 1801, Britain had not only to lament this un expected turn of fortune, but to reckon among her enemies the whole of the northern states of Europe, which had found it necessary to place them- selves on a friendly footing with Bonaparte, and though they did not de- clare war against Britain, yet acted in such a manner as to render hostili- ties unavoidable. Nelson sailed in March with a large fleet for Copenhagen, and proved so successful against the Danish fleet, as to reduce that country to a state of neutrality. The death of the Russian Emperor Paul, which took place at the same time, and the accession of Alexander, who was friendly to Britain, completely broke up the northern confederacy. Yet the great achievements of France on the continent, joined to the distresses of a famine which at this time bore hard on the British people, produced a desire for that peace which, a year before, might have been gained upon better terms. With a view, apparently, to save the honor of Mr. Pitt and his friends, a new ministry was appointed under Mr. Addington, by DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 217 whom a peace was at length, in the end of the year (1801), concluded with France, which was left in the state of aggrandizement which has just been described. The war of the French Revolution placed Great Britain in possession of a considerable number of islands and colonies in the East and West Indies and elsewhere ; and while only two war ships had been lost on her part, she had taken or destroyed 80 sail of the line, 181 frigates, and 224 small- er ships, belonging to the enemy, together with 743 privateers, 15 Dutch, and 76 Spanish ships. The triumphs of the British fleets were indeed nu- merous and splendid, and had the effect of keeping the national commerce almost inviolate during the whole of the war while that of France was nearly destroyed. There was, however, hardly the most trifling instance of success by land ; and the expenses of the contest had been enormous. Previously to 1793, the supplies usually voted by the House of Commons were £14,000,000 ; but those for 1801 were £42,197,000 — a sum about double the amount of the whole land-rent of the country. WAR RENEWED WITH FRANCE, 1803 — SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. It was only one of the results of the war against French independence, that France was led by the course of events to place herself under the control of her chief military genius, Napoleon Bonaparte ; a man singu- larly qualified for concentrating and directing the energies of a country in the existing condition of France, but animated more by personal ambition than by any extended views of the good of his species. It was soon manifested that Bonaparte did not relish peace. By taking undue advan- tage of several points left loose in the treaty, he provoked Great Britain to retaliate by retaining possession of Malta ; and the war was accordingly recommenced in May 1803. Britain immediately employed her superior naval force to seize the French West India colonies ; while France took possession of Hanover, and excluded British commerce from Hamburg. Bonaparte collected an immense flotilla at Boulogne, for the avowed pur- pose of invading England ; but so vigorous were the preparations made by the whole British population, and so formidable the fleet under Lord Nel- son, that he never found it possible to put his design in execution. In the year 1804, he was elevated to the dignity of Emperor of the French ; and France once more exhibited the formalities of a court, though not of the kind which the European sovereigns were anxious to see established. In April of the same year, the Addington administration was exchanged for one constructed by Mr. Pitt, and of which he formed the leader. In 1805, under the fostering influence of Great Britain, a new coalition of European powers, consisting of Russia, Sweden, Austria, and Naples, was formed against Napoleon. He, on the other hand, had drawn Spain upon his side, and was making great exertions for contesting with Britain the empire of the sea. A fleet of thirty-three sail, partly French and partly Spanish, met a British fleet of twenty-seven, under Nelson, off Cape Trafalgar, October. 25, 1805, and was completely beaten, though at the expense of the life of the British commander. Britain thus fixed perma- nently her dominion over the seas and coasts of the civilized world. At this time, however, Napoleon was asserting with equal success his supre- macy over continental Europe. By a sudden, rapid, and unexpected 218 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. movement, he conducted an army into Germany, where the Austrians were already making aggressions upon neutral territory. On the 17th October, he took the fortress of Ulm, with its artillery, magazines, and garrison of 30,000 men ; a month after, he entered Vienna without resistance. He then pursued the royal family, and the allied armies of Russia and Austria, into Moravia; and on the 2d of December 1805, he gained the decisive and celebrated victory of Austerlitz, which put an end to the coalition, and rendered him the dictator of the continent. This series of events caused much gloom in the British councils, and with other painful circumstances, among which was the impeachment of his colleague Lord Melville, for malpractices in the Admirality, proved a death-blow to Mr. Pitt, who expired on the 23d of January 1806, com- pletely worn out with state business, at the early age of forty-seven, half of which time he had spent in the public service. Mr. Pitt is universally allowed the praise of high talent and patriotism. But his policy has been a subject of dispute between the two great political parties into which British society is divided. By the Tories it is firmly believed that his entering into the war against the French Republic was the means of sav- ing the country from anarchy and ruin ; by the Whigs, that this step only ended to postpone the settlement of the affairs of France, and loaded Brit- ain with an enormous debt. Of the absence of all selfish views in the po- litical conduct oi Mr. Pitt, there can be no doubt ; for, so far from accu- mulating a fortune out ;•! the public funds, he left some debts, which Par- liament gratefully paid. Mr. Pitt's ministry was succeeded by one composed of Lord Grenville, Mr. Fox, and their friends ; it was comprehensively called Whig, although Lord Grenville was a Tory, except in his advocacy of the claims of the Catholics for emancipation. In the course of 1806, the new cabinet made an attempt to obtain a peace from France, which now threatened to bring the whole world to its feet. But the Grenville administration encounter- ed serious difficulties from the king, who never could be induced to look with the least favor on the Catholic claims, or those who advocated them. Exhausted by his useless labors, Mr. Fox died, September 13, 1806. Few names are more endeared to the British people than his, for, though the leader of the Whigs, he never excited any rancor in his opponents. He was remarkable for his frankness and simplicity. His abilities as a parliamentary orator and statesman were of the first order, and he was invariably the consistent and sincere friend of popular rights. A new coalition, excluding Austria, but involving Prussia, had been sub- sidised by Britain, and was preparing to act. With his usual decision, Napoleon led what he called his ' Grand Army' by forced marches into Prussia ; gained, on the 14th of October, the battles of Jena and Auer- stadt, which at once deprived that country of her army, her capital, and her fortresses ; and then proclaimed the famous ' Berlin Decrees,' by which he declared Great Britain in a state of blockade, and shut the ports of Europe against her merchandise. The King of Prussia, Frederick Will- iam III, took refuge with his court in Russia, which now was the only continental power of any importance that remained unsubdued by France. Towards that country Napoleon soon bent his steps, taking, as he went, assistance from Poland, which he promised to restore to independence. After a series of skirmishes and battles of lesser importance, he met the DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 219 Russian army in great strength (June 14, 1807), at Friedland, and gave it a total overthrow. He might now have easily reduced the whole coun- try, as he had done Austria and Prussia ; but he contented himself with forming a treaty (called the treaty of Tilsit, from the place where it was entered into), by which Russia agreed to become an ally of France, and entered into his views for the embarrassment of Britain by the exclu- sion of her commerce from the continental ports. France had thus, in the course of a few years, disarmed the whole of Europe, excepting Great Britain, an amount of military triumph for which there was no precedent in ancient or modern history. The Grenville administration was displaced in the spring of 1807, in con- sequence of the difference between its members and the king on the subject of the Catholic claims, which had long been urged by the Whig party, with little support from the people. The next ministry was headed by the Duke of Portland, and included Lords Hawkesbury and Castlereagh (af- terwards Earl of Liverpool and Marquis of Londonderry), and Mr. Can- ning, as secretaries ; Mr. Spencer Perceval being chancellor of the ex- chequer. After being accustomed to the services of such men as Pitt and Fox, the people regarded this cabinet as one possessing comparatively lit- tle ability. One of its first acts was the despatch of a naval armament to Copenhagen to seize and bring away the Danish shipping, which was expected to be immediately employed in subserviency to the designs of France, and for the injury of Britain. The end of the expedition was very easily obtained; but it was the means of lowering the honor of Britain in the estimation of foreign powers. FIRST PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN — SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. The retaliation of France, for the interferences of other powers with its Revolution, even supposing such retaliation justifiable, was now more than completed. Further measures could only appear as dictated by a desire of aggrandizement. But France was now given up to the direction of a military genius, who had other ends to serve than the defense of the coun- try against foreign aggression or interference. The amazing successes of Napoleon had inspired him with the idea of universal empire : and so great was the influence he had acquired over the French, and so high their mil- itary spirit, that the attainment of his object seemed by no means impossi- ble. There was a difference, however, between the opposition which he met with before this period , and that which he subsequently encountered. In the earlier periods of the war, the military operations of the European powers were chiefly dictated by views concerning the interests of govern- ments, and in which the people at large felt little sympathy. Henceforth a more patriotic spirit rose everywhere against Napoleon : he was looked upon in England and elsewhere as the common enemy of humanity and of freedom ; and every exertion made for the humiliation of France was ani- mated by a sentiment of desperation, in which the governors and governed alike participated. The Spanish peninsula was the first part of the prostrated continent where the people could be said to have taken a decidedly hostile part against Napoleon. He had there gone so far as to dethrone the reigning family, and give the crown to his elder brother Joseph. A sense of wrong 220 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. and insult, mingled with religious fanaticism, raised the Spanish people in revolt against the French troops ; and though their conduct was barbarous, it was hailed in Britain as capable of being turned to account. In terms of a treaty entered into with a provisional government in Spain, a small army was landed, August 8, 1808, in Portugal, which had been taken possession of by the French. Sir Arthur Wellesley, who afterwards became so famous as Duke of Wellington, was the leader of this force. In an engagement at Vimeira, on the 21st, he repulsed the French, under Junot, who soon after agreed, by what was called the Convention of Cintra, to evacuate the country. Sir Arthur being recalled, the British army was led into Spain under the command of Sir John Moore ; but this officer found the rein- forcements poured in by Napoleon too great to be withstood, and according- ly, in the end of December, he commenced a disastrous, though well-con- ducted retreat towards the port of Corunna, whither he was closely pur- sued by Marshal Soult. The British army suffered on this occasion the severest hardships and losses, but did not experience a check in battle, or lose a single standard. In a battle which took place at Corunna, Jan- uary 16, 1809, for the purpose of protecting the embarkation of the troops, Sir John Moore was killed. Much of the public attention was about this time engrossed by circum- stances in the private life of the eldest son of the king. The Prince of Wales had been tempted, in 1796, by the prospect of having his large debts paid by the nation, to marry the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, for whom he entertained no real affection. Almost ever since the marriage, he had shown the most marked disrespect for his consort, who consequent- ly lived separate from him, and was herself considered by many as not al- together blameless in her conduct as a matron. In 1809, Austria was induced once more to commence war with France. Upwards of half a million of men were brought into the field, under the command of the Archduke Charles. Bonaparte, leaving Spain comparative- ly open to attack, moved rapidly forward into Germany, and, by the victory of Eckmiihl, opened up the way to Vienna, which surrendered to him. After gaining a slight advantage at Essling, the archduke came to a sec- ond decisive encounter at Wagram, where the strength of Austria was completely broken to pieces. The peace which succeeded was sealed by the marriage of Napoleon to Maria Louisa, daughter of the emperor of Austria, for which purpose he divorced his former wife Josephine. In the autumn of 1809, the British government despatched an army of 100,000 men, for the purpose of securing a station which should command the navigation of the Sheldt. The expedition was placed under the command of the Earl of Chatham, elder brother of Mr. Pitt, a nobleman totally unac- quainted with military affairs on such a scale. The army, having disem- barked on the insalubrious island of Walcheren, was swept off in thousands by disease. The survivors returned in December without having done anything towards the object for which they set out. This tragical affair became the subject of inquiry in the House of Commons, which by a ma- jority of 272 against 232, vindicated the manner in which the expedition had been managed. SUCCESSES OF WELLINGTON IN SPAIN. A new expedition in Spain was attended with better success. Taking DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 221 advantage of the absence of Napoleon in Austria, a considerable army was landed, April 23, 1809, under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who immediately drove Soult out of Portugal, and then made a rapid move upon Madrid. King Joseph advanced with a considerable force under the command of Marshal Victor ; and on the 28th of July, attacked the British and Spanish troops in a strong position at Talavera. The contest was obstinate and sanguinary ; and though the French did not re- treat, the advantage lay with the British. As this was almost the first success which Britain experienced by land in the course of the war, Sir Arthur Wellesley became the theme of universal praise, and he was ele- vated to a peerage, under the title of Viscount Wellington of Talavera. He was obliged immediately to fall back upon Portugal, where he occupied a strong position near Santarem. Early in 1810, Napoleon reinforced the army in Spain and gave orders to Massena to ' drive the British out of the Peninsula.' Wellington posted his troops on the heights of Busaco — eighty thousand in number, includ- ing Portuguese — and there, on the 27th of September, was attacked by an equal number of French. Both British and Portuguese behaved well : the French were repulsed with great loss, and for the first time in the war, conceived a respectful notion of the British troops. Wellington now re- tired to the lines of Torres Vedras, causing the whole country to be deso- lated as he went, for the purpose of embarrassing the French. When Massena observed the strength of the British position, he hesitated ; and ultimately, in the spring of 1811, performed a disastrous and harassing retreat into the Spanish territory. It now became an object of importance with Wellington to obtain pos- session of the Spanish fortresses which had been seized by the French. On the 22d of April, he reconnoitered Badajos, and soon after laid siege to Almeida. Massena, advancing to raise the siege, was met on fair terms at Fuentes d'Onoro, May 5, and repulsed. Almeida consequently fell into the hands of the British. General Beresford, at the head of another body of British forces, gained the bloody battle of Albuera over Soult, and thereby protected the siege of Badajos, which, however, was soon after abandoned. During the same season, General Graham, in command of a third body of troops, gained the battle of Barossa. At the end of a cam- paign, in which the French were upon the whole unsuccessful, Wellington retired once more into Portugal. EVENTS OF 1811, 1812, AND 1813. The year 1811 was regarded as the period of greatest depression and distress which the British empire had known for several ages. At this time, with the exception of an uncertain footing gained in Spain, the in- fluence of England was unknown on the continent. Bonaparte seemed as firmly seated on the throne of France as any of her former monarchs, while every other civilized European kingdom either owned a monarch of his express appointment, or was in some other way subservient to him. By the Berlin and Milan decrees, he had shut the ports of the continent against British goods, so that they could only be smuggled into the usual markets. By British orders in council, which, though intended to be retaliatory, only increased the evil, no vessel belonging to a neutral power — such, for in- 222 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. stance, as the United States — was permitted to carry goods to those ports, unless they should previously land and pay a duty in Britain. Thus the nation at once suffered from the shortsighted despotism of the French em- peror, and from its own narrow and imperfect views of commerce ; for, by embarrassing America, it only deprived itself of one of its best and almost sole remaining customers. The power of Bonaparte, though sudden in its rise, might have been permanent if managed with discretion. It was used, however, in such a way as to produce a powerful reaction throughout Europe in favor of those ancient institutions, which, twenty years before, had been threatened with ruin. The exclusion of British goods — a measure which he had dictated in resentment against England — proved the source of great distress, op- pression, and hardship throughout the continent, and was greatly instru- mental in exciting a spirit of hostility against him. The very circumstance of a foreign power domineering over their native princes, raised a feeling in favor of those personages, which, being identified with the cause of na- tional independence, acted as a very powerful stimulant. On the other hand, a sense of the grasping ambition of Napoleon — of his hostility to real freedom — of his unscrupulousness in throwing away the lives of his subjects for his own personal aggrandizement — had for some time been gaining ground in France itself. In 1812, when the transactions in Spain had already somewhat impaired Napoleon's reputation, Alexander, Emperor of Russia, ventured upon a defiance of his decrees against British merchandise, and provoked him to a renewal of the war. With upwards of half a million of troops, appointed in the best manner, he set out for that remote country, determined to re- duce it into perfect subjection. An unexpected accident defeated all his plans. The city of Moscow, after being possessed by the French troops in September, was destroyed by incendiaries, so that no shelter remained for them during the ensuing winter. Napoleon was obliged to retreat ; but, overtaken by the direst inclemency of the season, his men perished by thou- sands in the snow. Of his splendid army, a mere skeleton regained central Europe. Returning almost alone to Paris, he contrived with great exer- tions to reinforce his army, though there was no replacing the veterans lost in Russia. Early in 1813, he opened a campaign in northern Germany, where the emperor of Russia, now joined by the king of Prussia and various minor powers, appeared in the open field against him. After various successes on both sides, an armistice was agreed to on the 1st of June, and Bona- parte was offered peace on condition of restoring only that part of his do- minions which he had acquired since 1805. Inspired with an overween- ing confidence in his resources and military genius, he refused these terms, and lost all. In August, when the armistice was at an end, his father-in- law, the emperor of Austria, joined the allies, whose forces now numbered 500,000 men, while an army of 300,000 was the largest which Napoleon could at present bring into the field. Henceforth he might be considered as overpowered by numbers. By steady, though cautious movements, the allies advanced to France, driving him reluctantly before them, and in- creasing their own force as the various states became emancipated by their presence. At the close of 1813, they rested upon the frontiers of France, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 223 while Lord Wellington, after two successful campaigns in Spain, had ad- vanced in like manner to the Pyrenees. HOME AFFAIRS— "WAR WITH AMERICA. Some changes had in the meantime taken place in the British adminis- tration. On the 11th of May, 1812, the premier, Mr. Perceval, was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, by a man named Bellingham, whom some private losses had rendered insane. Lords Liverpool and Castlereagh then became the ministerial leaders in the two Houses of Parliament, but were quickly voted down by a majority of four, upon a motion made by Mr. Stuart Wortley, afterwards Lord Wharncliffe. The ministry was finally rendered satisfactory to Parliament by the admission of Earl Harrowby as president of the council, Mr. Vansittart as chancellor of the exchequer, and Lord Sidmouth (formerly premier while Mr. Addington) as secretary for the home department ; Lord Liverpool continuing as premier, and Lord Castlereagh as foreign and war secretary. Notwithstanding the successes which were at this period brightening the prospects of Britain, the regent and his ministers did not enjoy much pop- ularity. The regent himself did not possess those domestic virtues which are esteemed by the British people, and he had excited much disapproba- tion by the steps which he took for fixing a criminal charge upon his con- sort. The general discontents were increased by the effects of the orders in council, for prohibiting the commerce of neutral states. Vast multitudes of working people were thrown idle by the stagnation of manufactures, and manifested their feelings in commotion and riot. The middle classes ex- pressed their dissatisfaction by clamors for parliamentary reform. At this unhappy crisis, provoked by the orders in council, as well as by a right assumed by British war-vessels to search for and impress English sailors on board the commercial shipping of the United States, that coun- try (June 1812) declared war against Britain. Before the news had reached London, the orders had been revoked by the influence of Lord Liv- erpool ; but the Americans, nevertheless, were too much incensed to re- trace their steps. During the summer and autumn, several encounters took place between single American and British ships, in which the former were successful. It was not till June 1, 1813, when the Shannon and Chesapeake met on equal terms, that the British experienced any naval tri- umph in this war with a kindred people. On land, the Americans endea- vored to annoy the British by assaults upon Canada, but met with no deci- sive success. The British landed several expeditions on the coast of the States ; and were successful at Washington, Alexandria, and at one or two other points, but experienced a bloody and disastrous repulse at New Or- leans. The war ended, December 1814, without settling any of the prin- ciples for which the Americans had taken up arms. But while thus simply useless to America, it was seriously calamitous to Britain. The com- merce with the States, which amounted in 1807, to twelve millions, was interrupted and nearly ruined by the orders in council, and the hostilities which they occasioned : henceforth America endeavored to render herself commercially independent of Britain, by the encouragement of native manufactures — a policy not immediately advantageous perhaps to herself, and decidedly injurious to Great Britain. The fatal effects of the Berlin 224 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. and Milan decrees to Napoleon, and of the orders in council to the interests of Britain, show how extremely dangerous it is for any government to in- terfere violently with the large commercial systems upon which the imme- diate interests of their subjects depend. PEACE OF 1814— SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. At the close of 1813, it was evident that Bonaparte could hardly defend nimself against the vast armaments collected on all hands against him Early in 1814, having impressed almost every youth capable of bearing arms, he opposed the allies on the frontiers with a force much less numer- ous and worse disciplined. Even now he was offered peace, on condition that he should only retain France as it existed before the Revolution. But this proposition was too humiliating to his spirit to be accepted ; and he entertained a hope that, at the worst, his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, would not permit him to be dethroned. Two months were spent in almost incessant conflict with the advancing allies, who, on the 30th of March, entered Paris in triumph ; and in the course of a few days, ratified a treaty with Napoleon, by which he agreed to resign the government of France, and live for the future as only sovereign of Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean. In the measures for settling France, Great Britain concurred by her representative Lord Castlereagh, who attended the allies during the cam- paign of 1814 ; and peace was proclaimed in London on the 20th of June. France was deprived of all the acquisitions gained both under the Repub- lic and the Empire, and restored to the rule of the ancient royal family in the person of Louis XVIII. The emperor of Russia and the king of Prus- sia visited England in June, and were received with all the honors due to men who were considered as the liberators of Europe. Wellington, now created a duke, received a grant of ,£400,000 from the House of Com- mons, in addition to one of ,£100,000 previously voted ; and had the hon- or to receive in person the thanks of the House for his services. Repre- sentatives from the European powers concerned in the war, met at Vienna, October 2, in order to settle the disturbed limits of the various countries, and provide against the renewal of a period of war so disastrous. Through- out the whole arrangements, Great Britain acted with a disinterested mag- nanimity, which, after her great sufferings and expenses, could hardly have been looked for, but was highly worthy of the eminent name which she bore amidst European nations. In March 1815, the proceedings of the Congress were interrupted by the intelligence that Napoleon had landed in France and was advancing in triumph to the capital. He had been encouraged by various favorable circumstances to attempt the recovery of his throne ; and so unpopular had the new government already become, that, though he landed with only a few men, he was everywhere received with affection, and on the 20th of March was reinstated in his capital, which had that morning been left by Louis XVIII. The latter sovereign had granted a charter to his people, by which he and his successors were bound to rule under certain restric- tions, and with a legislature composed of two chambers, somewhat resem- bling the British Houses of Parliament. Bonaparte now came under simi- lar engagements, and even submitted to take the votes of the nation for his DEPARTMENT OE HISTORY. 225 restoration ; on which occasion he had a million and a-half of affirmative, against less than half a million of negative voices, the voting being per- formed by ballot. His exertions to reorganize an army were successful to a degree which showed feia extraordinary influence over the French nation. On the 1st of June he had 559,000 effective men under arms, of whom 217,000 were ready to take the field. A Prussian army of more than 100,000 men, under Blucher, and one of about 80,000 British, Germans, and Belgians, under Wellington, were quickly rendezvoused in the Netherlands, while still larger armies of Aus- trians and Russians, making the whole force above 1,000,000, were rapid- ly approaching. These professed to make war, not on France, but against Bonaparte alone, whom they denounced as having, by his breach of the treaty, ' placed himself out of the pale of civil and social relations, and in- curred the penalty of summary execution.' Napoleon, knowing that his enemies would accumulate faster in proportion than his own troops, crossed the frontier on the 14th of June, with 120,000 men, resolved to fight Blucher and Wellington separately, if possible. The rapidity of his move- ments prevented that concert between the Prussian and English generals which it was their interest to establish. On the 16th, he beat Blucher at Ligny, and compelled him to retire. He had at the same time intrusted to Marshal Ney the duty of cutting off all connection between the two hostile armies. His policy, though not fully acted up to by his marshals, was so far successful, that Blucher retired upon a point nearly a day's march from the forces of Wellington. After some further fighting next day, Napoleon brought his whole forces to bear, on the 18th, against Wellington alone, who had drawn up his troops across the road to Brussels, near a place called Waterloo. The battle con- sisted of a constant succession of attacks by the French upon the British lines. These assaults were attended with great bloodshed, but nevertheless resisted with the utmost fortitude, till the evening, when Blucher came up on the left flank of the British, and turned the scale against the French, who had now to operate laterally, as well as in front. The failure of a final charge by Napoleon's reserve to produce any impression on the two ar- mies, decided the day against him : his baffled and broken host retired be- fore a furious charge of the Prussian cavalry, who cut them down unmer- cifully. On his return to Paris, Napoleon made an effort to restore the confidence of his chief counsellors, but in vain. After a fruitless abdica- tion in favor of his son, he retired on board a small vessel at Rockfort, with the intention of proceeding to America ; but being captured by a British ship of war, he was condemned by his triumphant enemies to perpetual confinement on the island of St. Helena, in the Atlantic, where he died in 1821. Louis XVIII was now restored, and the arrangements of the Congress of Vienna were completed. The expenses of Great Britain during the last year of hostilities exceeded seventy millions ; and the national debt, which in 1763 had been £230,000,000, now amounted to the vast sum of <£860,- 000,000. During the latter years of Napoleon, a reaction had taken place through- out Europe against the innovatory doctrines which, by producing the French Revolution, had been the cause, innocent or guilty, of so much ru- inous warfare. Encouraged by this sentiment, the sovereigns of Austria, 15* 226 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Prussia, and Russia, had no sooner settled the new government of France, than they entered, September 26, 1815, into a personal league or bond for assisting each other on all occasions when any commotion should take place among their respective subjects. This treaty was composed in somewhat obscure terms ; and from its professing religion to be the sole proper guide ' in the counsels of princes, in consolidating human institutions, and reme- dying their imperfections,' it obtained the name of the Holy Alliance. It was published at the end of the year, and communicated to the Prince Re- gent of England, who approved of, but did not accede to it. In May 1816, the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, was married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a young officer who had gained her affections when attending the allied sovereigns at the British court. In November 1817, to the inexpressible grief of the whole na- tion, the young Princess died, immediately after having given birth to a dead son. In August 1816, a British armament under Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers, and reduced that piratical state to certain desirable conditions re- specting the treatment of Christian prisoners. The year 1816, and the four following years, will always be memorable as an epoch of extraordinary distress, affecting almost every class of the community. The liberation of European commerce at the end of the war produced a proportionate diminution of that trade which England had pre- viously enjoyed, through her exclusive possession of the seas. While all public burdens continued at their former nominal amount, the prices of eve- ry kind of produce, and of every kind of goods had fallen far below the un- natural level to which a state of war and of paper money had raised them; and hence the expenses of the late contest, which had never been felt in the fictitious prosperity then prevalent, came to press with great severity upon the national resources, at a time when there was much less ability to bear the burden. To complete the misery of the country, the crops of 1816 fell far short of the usual quantity, and the price of bread was increased to an amount more than double that which has since been the average rate. On the 20th of January 1820, George III died at Windsor, in his eighty-second year, without having experienced any lucid interval since 1810. The Prince Regent was immediately proclaimed as George IV ; but there was no other change to mark the commencement of a new reign. A few days after the decease of George III, the Duke of Kent, his fourth son, died suddenly, leaving an infant daughter, Victoria, with a very near prospect to the throne. REIGN OF GEORGE IV. At the time when George IV commenced his reign, the recent proceed ings of the ministry, had inspired a small band of desperate men with the design of assassinating the ministers at a cabinet dinner, and thereafter attempting to set themselves up as a provisional government. On the 23d of February 1820, they were suprised by the police in their place of meet ing, and, after a desperate resistance, five were seized, among whom one Thistlewood was the chief. These wretched men were tried for high trea- son, and executed. Nearly about the same time, an attempt was made DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 227 by the workmen in the west of Scotland to bring about some alteration in the state ; and two men were executed. On the accession of the king, his consort's name had been omitted from the liturgy. This and other indignities induced her to return from a voluntary exile in Italy, June 1820, to the great embarrassment of the king and his ministers. Her majesty, who had long been befriended by the Opposition, was received by the people with the warmest expressions of sympathy. Whatever had been blameable in her conduct was over looked, on account of the greater licentiousness of life ascribed to her husband, and the persecution which she had suifered for twenty-four years. The king, who had established a system of observation round her majesty during her absence from the country, caused a bill of pains and penalties against her to be brought (July 6) into the House of Lords, which thus became a court for her trial. Messrs Brougham and Denman, who after- wards attained high judicial stations, acted as counsel for her majesty, and displayed great dexterity and eloquence in her defense. The examination of witnesses occupied several weeks ; and nothing was left undone which might promise to confirm her majesty's guilt. But no evidence of crimi- nality could soften the indignation with which almost all classes of the com- munity regarded this prosecution. Though the bill was read a second time by a majority of 28 in a house of 218, and a third time by 108 against 99, the government considered it expedient to abandon it, leaving the queen and her partisans triumphant. In July 1821, the coronation of George IV took place under circum- stances of great splendor. On this occasion, the queen made an attempt to enter Westminster Abby, for the purpose of witnessing the ceremony, but was repelled by the military officers who guarded the door ; an insult which gave such a shock to her health as to cause her death in a few days. From the year 1805, the Catholic claims had been a prominent subject of parliamentary discussion, and since 1821 they had been sanctioned by a majority in the House of Commons. Almost despairing of their cause, while left to the progress of mere opinion in the English aristocracy, the Irish Catholics had in 1824 united themselves in an Association, with the scarcely concealed purpose of forcing their emancipation by means of a terrifying exhibition of their physical strength. An act was quickly passed for the suppression of this powerful body ; but it immediately reappear- ed in a new shape. In fact, the impatience of the Catholic popula- tion of Ireland under the disabilities and degradation to which they were subjected on account of religion, was evidently becoming so very great, that there could be little hope of either peace or public order in that country till their demands were conceded. Though the English public lent little weight to the agitation, and the king was decidedly hostile to its object, Catholic emancipation rapidly acquired importance with all classes, and in all parts of the empire. In the spring of 1828, a kind of preparation was made for the concession, by the repeal of the test and corporation oaths, imposed in the reign of Charles II. The ministry soon after received an alarming proof of the growing force of the question. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald had vacated his seat for the county of Clare, on becoming president of the Board of Trade. He was a friend to emancipation, and possessed great influence in the county ; but he was also a member of an anti-Catholic administration. As an expedient for 228 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. annoying the ministry, the Catholic Association, and all the local influ- ences on that side, were set in motion to procure the return of Mr. Daniel O'Connell, the most distinguished orator of the Catholic party. To the surprise of the nation, Mr. O'Connell was returned by a great majority. It was even surmised that the laws for the exclusion of Catholics from Parliament would be unable to prevent him from taking his seat. The Duke of Wellington now began to see the necessity of taking steps towards a settlement of this agitating question ; and the first, and most difficult, was to overcome the scruples of the sovereign. At the opening of the session of 1829, in consequence of a recommendation from the throne, bills were introduced by ministers for removing the civil disabilities of Catho- lics, and putting down the Catholic Association in Ireland ; and notwith- standing a great popular opposition, as well as the most powerful exertions of the older and more rigid class of Tories, this measure was carried by a majority of 353 against 180 in the House of Commons, and by 217 to 112 in the House of Lords. REIGN OF WILLIAM IV. The agitations respecting the Catholic Relief Bill had in some measure subsided, when, June 26, 1830, George IV died of ossification of the vital organs, and was succeeded by his next brother, the Duke of Cla- rence, under the title of William IV. About a month after, a great sensation was produced in Britain by a revolution which took place in France, the main line of the Bourbon family being expelled, and the crown conferred upon Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans. By this event, a great impulse was given to the reforming spirit in Britain, and the de- mands for an improvement in the parliamentary representation became very strong. The consequence was the retirement of the Wellington ad- ministration in November, and the formation of a Whig cabinet, headed by Earl Grey. The agitations of the time were much increased by a sys- tem of nocturnal fire-raising, which spread through the south of England, and caused the destruction of a vast quantity of agricultural produce and machinery. The Whig ministry came into power upon an understanding that they were to introduce bills for parliamentary reform, with reference to the three divisions of the United Kingdom. These, when presented in March 1831, were found to propose very extensive changes, particularly the dis- franchisement of boroughs of small population, for which the members were usually returned by private influence, and the extension of the right of voting in both boroughs and counties to the middle classes of society. The bills accordingly met with strong opposition from the Tory, now called the Conservative party. By a dissolution of Parliament, the ministry found such an accession of supporters as enabled them to carry the meas- ure through the House of Commons with large majorities ; but it encoun- tered great difficulties in the House of Lords ; and it was not till after a temporary resignation of the ministry, and some strong expressions of popular anxiety respecting reform, that the bills were allowed to become law. During the few years which followed the passing of the Reform Bills, the attention of Parliament was chiefly occupied by a series of measures DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 229 ffhich a large portion of the public deemed necessary for improving the institutions of the country, and for other beneficial purposes. The most important of these, in a moral point of view, was the abolition of slavery in the colonies, the sum of twenty millions being paid to the owners of the negroes, as a compensation. By this act, eight hundred thousand slaves were (August 1, 1834) placed in the condition of freemen, but subject to an apprenticeship to their masters for a few years. In the same year, an act was passed for amending the laws for the sup- port of the poor in England, which had long been a subject of general complaint. One of the chief provisions of the new enactment established a government commission for the superintendence of the local boards of management, which had latterly been ill conducted, and were now pro- posed to be reformed. The able-bodied poor were also deprived of the right which had been conferred upon them at the end of the eighteenth century, to compel parishes to support them, either by employment at a certain rate, or pecuniary aid to the same amount : they were now left no resource, failing employment, but that of entering poor-houses, where they were separated from their families. The contemplated results of this measure were a reduction of the enormous burden of the poor-rates, which had latterly exceeded seven millions annually, and a check to the degradation which indiscriminate support was found to produce in the character of the laboring classes. Early in 1837, the ministry again introduced into the House of Com- mons a bill for settling the Irish tithe question ; but before this or any other measure of importance had been carried, the king died of ossification of the vital organs (June 20), in the seventy-third year of his age, and seventh of his reign, being succeeded by his niece, the Princess Victoria. The deceased monarch is allowed to have been a conscientious and amiable man, not remarkable for ability, but at the same time free from all gross faults. COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT REIGN. Queen Victoria began to reign June 20, 1837, having just completed her eighteenth year ; was crowned on the 28th of June in the following year ; and was married to her cousin, Prince Albert of Coburg and Gotha, February 10, 1840. In the autumns of 1842, '44, '47, and '48, her majesty visited Scotland, but on each occasion more in a private than in a state capacity ; residing at the mansions of the nobility that lay in her route to the Highlands, where the Prince Consort enjoyed the invigorating sports of grouse-shooting and deer-stalking. In 1843 she paid a visit, entirely divested of state formalities, to the late royal family of France ; and shortly after made another to her uncle, the king of the Belgians. In 1845, besides making the tour of the English midland counties, the royal pair visited the family of Prince Albert at Coburg and Gotha ; re- ceiving the attentions of the various German powers that lay on their out- ward and homeward route. Her majesty has received in turn the friendly visits of several crowned heads, among whom have been the ex-king of the French, Leopold of Belgium, the king of Saxony, and the emperor of Russia. Such interchanges and attentions are not without their impor 230 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. tance ; at all events they are characteristic of a new era in the mternation al history of Europe. The Whig ministry and measures, which had for some time been on the decline, were set aside by a vote of 'no confidence' in the summer of 1841 ; ft dissolution of Parliament was the consequence ; and after the new elec- tions, the Opposition was found to be so far in the ascendancy, that Vis count Melbourne tendered his resignation, and retired from public life, leaving Sir Robert Peel again to take the helm of affairs. The Parlia ment of 1841, under the direction of the Peel ministry, was in many respects one of the most important during the reigning dynasty. Besides passing several measures of benefit to the internal management of tho country, it established, by the abolition of the corn-laws and other restric- tive duties, the principles of free trade, and in that course Britain has since been followed by other nations ; it gave, by the imposition of a prop- erty and income tax, a preference to the doctrine of direct taxation ; it countenanced in all its diplomatic negotiations the duties and advantages of a peace policy ; and engaged less with political theories than with prac- tical and business-like arrangements for the commerce, health, and educa- tion of the country. In consequence of ministerial differences, Sir Robert Peel tendered his resignation as premier in June 1846, and was succeeded in office by Lord John Russell, to whom was assigned the further task of carrying out the principles of free trade, of legislating for Ireland in a time of dearth and famine (caused by successive failures of the potato crop), and of adopting some plan of national education — a subject which has been too long neglected in this otherwise great and prosperous empire. Since the accession of her majesty, Britain has been on the most friendly terms with the other nations of Europe — cooperating with them in the extension and liberation of commerce, the continuance of peace, the sup- pression of slavery, and the advancement of other measures of importance to civilization. The disputed boundaries between British America and the United States have been determined by friendly negotiation ; thus giv- ing permanency in the new world as well as in the old to the spirit of peace and national brotherhood. WAR WITH RUSSIA — ALLIANCE OF ENGLAND, FRANCE AND TURKEY. On the 12th of March, 1854, a treaty of alliance between England, France, and the Porte, was signed by the representatives of those powers. The treaty consists of five articles. By the first, France and England engage to support Turkey in her present struggle with Russia, by force of arms, until the conclusion of a peace which shall secure the independence of the Ottoman empire, and the integrity of the rights of the Sultan. The two protecting Powers undertake not to derive from the actual crisis, or from the negotiations which may terminate it, any exclusive advantage. By the second article the Porte, on its side, pledges itself not to make peace under any circumstances without having previously obtained the consent and solicited the participation of the two Powers, and also to employ all its resources to carry on the war with vigor. In the third article the two Powers promise to evacuate, immediately after the conclusion of the war, and on the demand of the Porte, all the points of the empire which their troops shall have occupied during the war. By the fourth article the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 231 treaty remains open for the signature of the other Powers of Europe who may wish to become parties to it ; and the fifth article guarantees to all the subjects of the Porte, without distinction of religion, equality in the eye of the law, and admissibility into all employments. To this treaty are attached, as integral parts of it, several protocols. One relates to the in- stitution of mixed tribunals throughout the whole empire ; a second is relative to an advance of 20,000,000fr. jointly by France and England ; and a third relates to the collection of the taxes and the suppression of the haratch or poll-tax, which, having been considered for a long time past by the Turkish Government as only the purchase of exemption from military service, leads, by its abolition, to the entrance of Christians into the army. The Russians continued to prosecute the war eagerly on the banks of the Danube, but any temporary success was more than counterbalanced by subsequent and more brilliant Turkish victories. In consequence of the atrocious conduct of the military authorities of Odessa, in firing upon an English flag of truce, a division of English and French steam frigates appeared before Odessa. On their arrival the great- est terror pervaded the city. The wealthy hired all the post-horses to re- move to the interior, and the inhabitants sought refuge in the neighboring country ; but the English and French steamers having withdrawn, after taking a survey of the roads, the alarm subsided, the population returned, and the shops were reopened. On the 21st of April, however, the appear- ance of thirty-three sail on the horizon created still greater terror, for it was evident that they were coming to avenge the insult above alluded to, and which, even at Odessa, was the subject of universal reprobation. The next day nothing could exceed the consternation, everybody being in con- stant apprehension of a catastrophe. The fears redoubled when after a bombardment of eight hours, the gunpowder magazine blew up, and the military stores were seen on fire. The sight of wounded soldiers brought in from the batteries, and the brutality of the governor and his forces to- wards the inhabitants, were not calculated to allay their terror. This affair produced great discouragement among the troops, and an excellent effect on the population, who perceived that the Russian army was unable to pro- tect them ; and that, if the city were not reduced to ashes, it was solely owing to. the generosity of the allied Powers. On the 14th June, the Duke of Cambridge with his staff, the brigade of Guards, and the Highland brigade (42d, 79th, and 93d regiments), arrived at Varna, where a numerous Anglo-French army was already en- camped. It is probable that the unexpected and retrograde movement of the Russians upon the Pruth — intelligence of which reached the allied generals about this time — occasioned a deviation from the plan of opera- tions originally contemplated, as it obviated the necessity of any active cooperation with Omer Pacha's army on the Danube. An expedition upon a gigantic scale was, however, planned, its destination being the Crimea and Sebastopol. The result of the Baltic operations may be given in few words. The fleet of the Czar, outnumbered by that of the allied powers, was detained in captivity at Helsingfors and Kronstadt, declining alike every offer of battle, and unable to stay the devastation that was effected along the Fin- nish shore of the Bothnian Gulf. Scarcely a Russian merchant vessel es- caped the vigilance of the cruisers ; and the whole line of her coasts, up w © EH < EH OQ O O 234 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. to the shoals of Kettle Island, were shown to be at the mercy of the allies. In a national point of view, there was not much to boast of in the achieve- ments of so stupendous a fleet. But there were individual acts of valor as bright as any that adorn the pages of naval history. Until the last twelvemonth opened a new page in history, it could not have been anticipated that the battle-field of Europe would be a little arid peninsula in the remotest corner of the Black Sea, and that the armies of Britain, France, Turkey, and Russia would be concentrated in direct strife around a fortress, whose very name was hardly known in this country be- fore the present war broke out. Connected with the barren steppes of the mainland of Southern Russia only by the narrow strip of flat and sandy land, not five miles across, which constitutes the Isthmus of Perekop, the Crimea stretches out in a nearly northerly direction, in the form of a diamond-shaped peninsula, about one- third the size of Ireland. At its western point is Cape Tarkham ; at its eastern, Kertch and Kaffa, and in the south, the bay, town, and fortress of Sebastopol. At least one third of the Crimea consists of vast waterless plains of sandy soil, rising only a few feet above the level of the sea, and in many places impregnated with salt ; but all along the south-eastern side of the peninsula, from Sebastopol to Kertch and Kaffa, there extends a chain of limestone mountains. Beginning at Balaklava, nine miles east of Sebas- topol, precipices fringe all this north-eastern coast ; but at the foot of these limestone precipices extends a narrow strip of ground, seldom half a league in width, intervening between the hills and the shore. It is in this pictur- esque and delightful region that the Allied army established its base of op • erations. A luxuriant vegetation descends to the water's edge. Chesnut trees, mulberries, almonds, laurels, olives, and cypresses grow along its whole extent. Numbers of rivulets of the clearest water pour down from the cliffs, which effectually keep off cold and stormy winds. Thickly stud ded with villages, and adorned with the villas and palaces of the richest Russian nobles, this tract offers a most striking contrast to the remainder of the peninsula or indeed to any part of Russia. The possession of the Crimea, and the construction of a maratime for- tress of the first order in the magnificent harbor of Akhtiar (for such was the former name of Sebastopol) were prominent parts of that vast scheme of policy, by which the genius of the Czar Peter, and his successors, trans- formed Muscovy into the Russian Empire. The ever-memorable expedition of the Allies, designed to wrench this fortress and fleet from the possession of the Czar, set sail from Varna in the first week of September, 1854. No naval expedition ever before equaled it. In the oay of Baltjik, where the expedition first rendezvoused, the sea was literally covered for a space of eight miles long with splendid shipping. Thirty-seven sail of the line — ten English, sixteen French, and eleven Turkish, about a hundred frigates and lesser vessels of war, and nearly two hundred of the finest steam and sailing transports in the world, lay at anchor, in one immense semicircle, nine or ten deep. The great line of battle-ships, with lights gleaming from every port, looked like illuminated towns afloat; while the other vessels, with position-lights hoisted at the main and fore, shed a light upon the sea, twinkling away until lost in the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 235 distance. Each division of the army carried lights, corresponding to the number of their division, and at night, when every ship was lighted up the scene was of the most extraordinary and interesting description. Con- stantinople, during the feast of Bairam, or the feast of Lamps, described in Moore's poems, would have been a worthy illustration. On the 4th of September, 1854, six hundred vessels sailed from Varna, bearing the combined army of 60,000 in the direction of Sebastopol: at the same time intelligence was received by the commanders of a signal victory obtained by Schamyl at Tiflis, over the Russians under Prince Bebutoff. They lost on this occasion many men and horses, seven guns, 3000 tents, all their amunition, baggage, provisions, and retreated in some disorder from Kutais and Kars to Taflis. On the 14th September, 58,000 men were landed at Eupatoria, about forty-five miles N. W. of Sebastopol. They subsequently advanced some distance inland without meeting with any opposition. The place of debarkation had many advantages. It is a small town, containing only 4,000 inhabitants, weakly defended by a garrison of about 12,000 men, and in no condition to resist an invasion such as this. The commanders had intended, in the first place, to have thrown up entrench- ments sufficiently strong to secure the place ; but having experienced no resistance, the troops marched at once towards their destination. In this march they proceeded for about eleven miles, along a slip of land, having on the left the salt lake Sasik, and the sea on their right. The country traversed is fertile, and well supplied with water by three rivers, the Alma, the Katcha, and the Balbek. On the left, or southern bank of the latter stream, the first obstacles encountered were the out- works recently thrown up by the Russians, and an old star fort. Having surmounted these, the Allies found themselves in possession of the high ground commanding the rear of the defenses on the northern shore of the inlet, and they were scarcely adapted to resist a strong attack. As the Black Sea expedition was departing from Varna for the Crimea, the Baltic fleet, or the greater part of it, received orders to " bear up" for England. On the night of the 18th September, 1854, orders were given by Lord Raglan that the troops should strike tents at daybreak. An advance had been determined upon, and it was understood that the Russian light cav- alry had been sweeping the country of all supplies up to a short distance from the outlaying pickets. At three o'clock next morning, the camp was roused by the reveille, and all the 30,000 sleepers woke into active life. Of Turkish infantry, 7,000 under Suleiman Pacha moved along by the sea side ; next came the divis- ions of Generals Bosquet, Canrobert, Forey, and Prince Napoleon. The order of march of the English army was about four miles to the right of their left wing, and as many behind them. The right of the allied forces was covered by the fleet, which moved along with it in magnificent order, darkening the air with innumerable columns of smoke, ready to shell the enemy should they attack the right, and commanding the land for nearly two miles from the shore. The troops presented a splendid appearance. The effect of these grand masses of soldiery descending the ridges of the hills, rank after rank, with the sun playing over forests of glittering steel, can never be forgotten by 236 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. those who witnessed it. Onward the torrent of war swept, wave after wave, huge stately billows of armed men ; while the rumbling of the artillery, and the tramp of cavalry, accompanied their progress. A halt took place about three o'clock, at a muddy stream, of which the men drank with avidity. At this stage they passed the Imperial post-house, twenty miles from Se- bastopol. Orders were given to halt and bivouac for the night, which was cold and damp, but the men were in excellent spirits, looking forward to the prob- ability of an engagement with the enemy with perfect confidence as to the result. On the morning of the 20th, ere daybreak, the whole force was under arms. They were marshaled silently ; no bugles or drums broke the still- ness ; but the hum of thousands of voices rose loudly from the ranks, and the watchfires lighted up the lines of the camp as though it were a great town. When dawn broke it was discovered that the Russians had retired from the heights. It was known that the Russians had been busy fortifying the heights over the valley through which runs the little river Alma, and that they had resolved to try their strength with the allied army in a po- sition giving them vast advantages of ground, which they had used every means in their power to improve to the utmost. The advance of the armies this great day was a sight which must ever stand out like a landmark of the spectator's life. Early in the morning, the troops were ordered to get in readiness, and at half-past six o'clock they were in motion. It was a lovely day ; the heat of the sun was tempered by a sea breeze. The fleet was visible at a distance of four miles, covering the ocean as it was seen be- tween the hills, and steamers could be seen as close to the shore as possi- ble. The Generals, St Arnaud, Bosquet, and Forey, attended by their staff, rode along the lines, with Lord Raglan and his Generals at second halt, and were received with tremendous cheering. The order in which the army advanced was in columns of brigades in de- ploying distance ; the left protected by a line of skirmishers of cavalry and of horse artillery. The advantage of the formation was, that the army, in case of a strong attack from cavalry and infantry on the left or rear, could assume the form of a hollow square, with the baggage in the centre. The great object was to gain the right of the position, so that the attacking par- ties could be sheltered by the vertical fire of the fleets. As soon as the po- sition of the allies could be accurately ascertained, the whole line, extend- ing itself across the champaign country for some five or six miles, advanced. At the distance of two miles the English army halted to obtain a little time to gather up the rear ; and then the troops steadily advanced in grand lines, like the waves of the ocean. The French occupied the high road, nearest the beach, with the Turks ; and the English marched to the left. At about one o'clock in the after- noon, the Light Division of the French army came in sight of the village of Almatamak, and the British Light Division descried that of Burliuk, both situated on the right bank of the river Alma. At the place where the bulk of the British army crossed, the banks of the Alma are generally at the right side, and vary from two and three to six and eight feet in depth to the water ; where the French attacked, the banks are generally formed by the unvaried curve of the river on the left hand side. A village is approached from the north by a road winding DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 287 through a plain nearly level till it comes near the village, where the ground dips, so that at the distance of three hundred yards a man on horseback can hardly see the tops of the nearer and more elevated houses, and can only ascertain the position of the stream by the -willows and verdure along its banks. At the left or south side of the Alma the ground assumes a very different character — smooth where the bank is deep, and greatly elevated where the shelve of the bank occurs, it recedes for a few yards at a mod- erate height above the stream, pierced here and there by the course of the winter's torrents, so as to form small ravines, commanded, however, by the heights above. It was on these upper heights, and to the sea, that the Russian army, forty-five thousand strong, besides six or eight thousand cav- alry, and at least a hundred pieces of artillery, were posted. A remarka- ble ridge of mountains, varying in height from 500 to 700 feet, runs along the course of the Alma on the left or south side with the course of the stream, and assuming the form of cliffs when close to the sea. At the top of the ridges, between the gullies, the Russians had erected earthwork bat- teries, mounted with 321b. and 241b. brass guns, supported by numerous field pieces and howitzers. These guns enfiladed the tops of the ravines parallel to them, or swept them to the base, while the whole of the sides up which an enemy, unable to stand the direct fire of the batteries, would be forced to ascend, were filled with masses of skirmishers, armed with an excellent two-grooved rifle, throwing a large solid conical ball with force at 700 and 800 yards, as the French learned to their cost. The principal battery consisted of an earthwork of the form of the two sides of a trian- gle, with the apex pointed towards the bridge, and the sides covering both sides of the stream, corresponding with the bend of the river below it, at the distance of 1000 yards ; while, with a fair elevation, the 32-pounclers threw, very often, beyond the houses of the village to the distance of 1400 and 1500 yards. This was constructed on the brow of a hill about 600 feet above the river, but the hill rose behind it for another 50 feet before it dipped away towards the road. The ascent of this hill was enfiladed by the fire of three batteries of earthwork on the right, and by another on the left, and these batteries were equally capable of covering the village, the stream, and the slopes which led up the hill to their position. In the first battery were thirteen 32-pounder brass guns of exquisite workmanship, which only told too well. In the other batteries were some twenty-five guns in all. The force of the British was about 26,000, that of the French about 23,000. It had not escaped the observation of the allied Commanders that tho Russian General had relied so confidently on the natural strength of his po- sition towards the sea where the cliff rose steep and high above the gardens of an adjacent village, that he had neglected to defend this part of his works by masses of troops or by heavy guns. These military defenses were, on the contrary, accumulated on his right and centre. The plan of the battle was therefore formed so as to enable the French, and a Turkish di- vision, in the first instance, to turn the Russian left, and gain the plateau ; and, as soon as this operation was accomplished, so as to occupy a portion of the Russian army, the British troops and the French Third Division were to attack the key of the position on the right of the enemy, while the French completed his defeat on the upper ground. 238 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. General Bosquet's division crossed the river Alma near the mouth about 11:30 ; the Turkish battalions crossing at the same time close to the bar, and within musket range of the beach. This movement was unopposed; and, although a crowd of French skirmishers and light-infantry crossed the gardens and brushwood below the hill, which might easily have been defend- ed, not a shot was fired on them, and not a gun seemed to bear on the line of march they followed. It was afterwards ascertained from the Russian prisoners, that Prince Menschikoff had left this line unguarded, because he regarded it as absolutely impassable even for goats. He did not know the Zouaves. With inconceivable rapidity and agility they swarmed up the cliff, and it was not till they formed on the height, and deployed from be hind a mound there, that the Russian batteries opened upon them. The fire was returned with great spirit, and a smart action ensued, during which General Bosquet's division was engaged for some time almost alone, until General Canrobert came to his support. The Turkish division, which pre- sented a very martial appearance, and was eager to fight, formed part of the army under the command of Marshal St. Arnaud ; and some regret was felt by these brave troops that they had no active part assigned to them in the struggle. While the French troops were scaling the heights, the French steamers ran in as close as they could to the bluff of the shore at the south side of the Alma, and commenced shelling the Russians in splendid style ; the shells bursting over the enemy's squares and batteries, and finally driv- ing them from their position on the right, within 3000 yards of the sea. The Russians answered the ships from the heights, but without effect. At 1:50 a line of skirmishers got within range of the battery on the hill, and immediately the Russians opened fire at 1200 yards, with effect, the shot ploughing through open lines of the riflemen, and falling into the ad- vancing columns behind. Shortly ere this time, dense volumes of smoke rose from the river, and drifted along to the eastward, interfering with the view of the enemy on the left. The Russians had set the village on fire. It was a fair exercise of military skill — was well executed — took place at the right time, and succeeded in occasioning a good deal of annoyance. It is said the Russians had taken the range of all the principal points in their front, and placed twigs and sticks to mark them. In this they were assisted by the post sign-boards on the road. The Russians opened a fu- rious fire on the whole English line. The round shot whizzed in every di- rection, dashing up the dirt and sand into the faces of the staff of Lord Rag- lan. Still he waited patiently for the development of the French attack. At length, an Aid-de-Camp came to him and reported the French had crossed the Alma, but they had not established themselves sufficiently to justify an attack. The infantry were, therefore, ordered to lie down, and the army for a short time was quite passive, only that the artillery poured forth an unceasing fire of shell, rockets, and round shot, which plowed through the Russians, and caused them great loss. They did not waver, however, and replied to the artillery manfully, their shot falling among the men as they lav, and carrying off legs and arms at every round. Lord Raglan at last became weary of this inactivity, and gave orders for the whole line to advance. Up rose these serried masses, rnd — passing through a fearful shower of round, case-shot and shell — they dashed into the Alma and ' floundered ' through its waters, which were literally torn DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 239 into foam by the deadly hail. At the other side of the river were a num- ber of vineyards, occupied by Russian riflemen. Three of the staif were here sh >t down ; but, led by Lord Raglan in person, they advanced, cheer- ing on the men. And now came the turning point of the battle, in which Lord Raglan, by his sagacity, probably secured the victory at a smaller sacrifice than would have been otherwise the case. He dashed over the bridge, followed by his staff*. From the road over it, under the Russian guns, he saw the state of the action. The British line, which he had or- dered to advance, was struggling through the river and up the heights in masses, firm indeed, but mowed down by the murderous fire of the batter- ies ; and by grape, round shot, shell, canister, case-shot, and musketry, from some of the guns in the central battery, and from an immense and compact mass of Russian infantry. Then commenced one of the most bloody and determined struggles in the annals of war. The 2d Division, led by Sir de Lacy Evans, crossed the stream on the right. Brigadier Pennefather (who was in the thickest of the fight, cheering on his men), again and again was checked, but never drew back in his onward progress, which was marked by a fierce roll of Minie musketry ; and Brigadier Adams bravely charged up the hill, and aided him in the battle. Sir George Brown, conspicuous on a gray horse, rode in front of his Light Division, urging them with voice and gesture. Meantime the Guards on the right of the Light Division, and the brigade of Highlanders, were storming the heights on the left. Suddenly a torna- do of round and grape rushed through from the terrible battery, and a roar of musketry from behind it thinned their front ranks by dozens. It was evident that the troops were just able to contend against the Russians, fa- vored as they were by a great position. At this very time an immense mass of Russian infantry were seen moving down towards the battery. They halted. It was the crisis of the day. Sharp, angular, and solid, they looked as if they were cut out of the solid rock. Lord Raglan saw the difficulties of the situation. He asked if it would be possible to get a couple of guns to bear on these masses. The reply was ' Yes ;' and an ar- tillery officer brought up two guns to fire on the Russian squares. The first shot missed, but the next, and the next, and the next, cut through the the ranks so cleanly, and so keenly, that a clear lane could be seen for a moment through the square. After a few rounds the columns of the square became broken, wavered to and fro, broke, and fled over the brow of the hill, leaving behind them six or seven distinct lines of dead, ly- ing as close as possible to each other, marking the passage of the fatal messengers. This act relieved the infantry of a deadly incubus, and they continued their magnificent and fearless progress up the hill. ' Highland- ers,' said Sir C. Campbell, ere they came to the charge, ' don't pull a trig- ger till you're within a yard of the Russians !' They charged, and well they obeyed their chieftain's wish ; Sir Colin had his horse shot under him ; but he was up immediately, and at the head of his men. But the Guards pressed on abreast, and claimed, with the 33d, the honor of capturing a cannon. The Second and Light Division crowned the heights. The French turned the guns on the hill against the flying masses, which the cavalry in vain tried to cover. A few faint struggles from the scattered infantry, a few rounds of cannon and musketry, and the enemy fled to the south-east, 240 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. leaving three Generals, three guns, 700 prisoners, and 4000 killed and wounded, behind them. The loss on the part of the British was 2000 killed, wounded, and miss- ing ; that of the French, about 1400. On the night after the battle the allied army bivouacked on the summit of the heights which they had so gloriously won ; the French Marshal pitching his tent on the very spot occupied by that of Prince Menschikoff the morning before. On the 23d the Allied armies left the Alma and proceeded to cross the Kats- cha ; on the 24th they crossed the Belbec, where it had been intended to effect the landing of the siege materiel with a view to an attack on the north side of Sevastopol. It was found, however, that the enemy had placed a fortified work so as to prevent the vessels and transports from approaching this river ; and it was determined to advance at once by a flank march round the east of Sebastopol, to cross the valley of the Tcher- naya, and seize Balaklava as the future basis of operations against the south side of the harbor at Sebastopol. The enemy did not hold Balaklava in any strength. After a few shots the little garrison surrendered, and as Sir E. Lyon's ship, the Agamemnon, reached the mouth of the harbor at the very time that the troops appeared on the heights, the British army was once more in full communication with the fleet. The march of the French army which followed in the track of the Brit- ish, was more prolonged and fatiguing. They did not reach the Tcherna- ya river until the 26th, having passed the previous night at Mackenzie's Farm. It was on this day that the French marshal, at length succumb- ing to his fatal malady, issued his last order of the day, in which he took leave formally of his troops, and resigned the command into the hands of General Canrobert. Having swept the enemy from their path by the bloody triumphs of the Alma, the next step of the Allies was to lay siege to Sebastopol. The bay of Balaklava, which now became the principal base of their op- erations, is a place admirably suited for the landing of stores and materiel. As a port it is the most perfect of its size in the world. The entrance is between perpendicular cliffs, rising eight hundred feet high on either hand, and is only wide enough to allow the passage of one ship at a time ; but once in you find yourself in a land-locked tideless haven, still as a moun- tain lake, three quarters of a mile in length, by two hundred and fifty yards Avide, and nowhere less than six fathoms deep, so that every square foot of its surface is available for ships of the greatest burden. The bay of Balaklava was instantly adopted as the new base of opera- tions of the British army, and never before did its waters mirror so many tall ships on their bosom. From fifty to a hundred war-ships and transports were constantly at anchor, landing the siege-guns, stores, and provisions of all kinds. The only access to Balaklava from the land side is at the inner end of the bay, through a breach in the surrounding hills, which gradually opens out into an extensive valley, about three miles long by about two broad ; it was in this valley that the serious part of the combat of the 25th October took place. Through this valley runs the road to the Tchernaya and Macken- zie's Farm, by which the Allies advanced to Balaklava, and which on the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 241 other side of the Tchernaya enters deep gorges in the mountains. On the side next the sea this valley is bounded by a line of hills stretching from Balaklava to Inkerman, and along the summit of which runs the road to Sebastopol. Another road in the opposite direction conducts to the valley of Baider, the most fertile district of the Crimea. The port of Balaklava having been found barely large enough for the landing of the British stores and guns, the French selected as their base of operations the three deep bays lying between Cape Chersonesus and Sebastopol bay. The country between Balaklava and Sebastopol, upon which the Allied army encamped, is a barren hilly steppe, destitute of wa- ter, and covered with no better herbage than thistles. The French took up their position next the sea ; the British inland, next the Tchernaya. The front of the besieging force extended in a continuous line from the mouth of the Tchernaya to the sea at Strelitska bay, forming nearly a sem- icircle around Sebastopol, at a distance of about two miles from the enemy's works. The position was found to be close enough, as the Russian guns were found to throw shells to the distance of four thousand yards. A most unfortunate delay took place in landing and bringing up the siege guns and stores of the Allies ; a delay which was improved to the utmost by the Russians, who kept large bands of citizens, and even women, as well as the garrison, at work in relays both night and day, in throwing up a vast exterior line of earthen redoubts and entrenchments, and in covering the front of their stone-works with earth. The force disposable for the defense of Sebastopol was nearly equal in number to the besieging army ; and as, from the nature of its position, the place could only be invested upon one side, supplies of all kinds could be conveyed into the town, and the Russian generals could either man the works with their whole forces, or direct incessant attacks against the flank and rear of the allies. Never did any army ever undertake so vast and perilous an enterprise as that in which the allied commanders found themselves engaged. Sebastopol is situated at the southern point of the Crimea, which puts out into the Black Sea, and is distant from Odessa, 192 miles ; from Varna, 295, and from Constantinople, 343. It is one of the most modern creations of the Czar, and stands, like an advanced post, near to Cape Chersonese — its site, until 1786, having been occupied by a few straggling huts. Catherine II, on her accession, perceived its natural advantages as a naval port, the first stone was laid in 1780, and from that period it has rapidly increased in strength and importance. On doubling the Cape, bordered with a vast chain of rocks and breakers, Sebastopol appears about six and a half miles to the east — a remarkable picture, on account of its white cliffs, and the amphitheatrical appearance of the town. The port of Sebastopol consists of a bay running in a south-easterly direction, about four miles long, and a mile wide at the entrance, dimin- ishing to 400 yards at the end, where the Tchernaya or Black River emp- ties itself. On the southern coast of this bay are the commercial, military, and careening harbors, the quarantine harbor being outside the entrance — all these taking a southerly direction, and having deep water. The military harbor is the largest, being about a mile and a half long by 400 yards wide, and is completely land-locked on every side. Here it is that 16* 242 AMEKICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. the Black Sea fleet is moored in the winter — the largest ships being able to lie with all their stores on board close to the quays. The small harbor, which contains the naval arsenal and docks, is on the eastern side of the military harbor, near the entrance. The port is defended to the south by six principal batteries and fortresses, each mounting from 50 to 190 guns ; and the north by four, having from 18 to 120 pieces each ; and besides these, there are many smaller batteries. The fortresses are built on the casemate principle, three of them having three tiers of guns, and a fourth two tiers. Fort St. Nicholas is the largest, and mounts about 190 guns. It is built of white limestone ; a fine, sound stone, which becomes hard, and is very durable, the same material being used for all the other forts. Between every two casemates are furnaces for heating shot red hot. The calibre of the guns is eight inches, capable of throwing shells or 68-pounds solid shot. There were in the military harbor of Sebastopol twelve line-of-battle ships, eight frigates, and seven corvettes, comprising the Black Sea fleet, independent of steamers. The town of Sebastopol is situated on the point of land between the commercial and military harbors, which rises gradually from the water's edge to an elevation of 200 feet, and contains 31,500 inhabitants. Inclu- ding the military and marines, the residents numbered 40,000. It is more than a mile in length, and its greatest width is about three-quarters of a mile — the streets entering the open steppe on the south. The streets are built in parallel lines from north to south, are intersected by others from east and west, and the houses, being of limestone, have a substantial ap- pearance. The public buildings are fine. The library erected by the Emperor, for the use of naval and military officers, is of Grecian architec- ture, and is elegantly fitted up internally. The books are principally con- fined to naval and military subjects and the sciences connected with them, history, and some light reading. The club-house is handsome externally, and comfortable within ; it contains a large ball-room, which is its most striking feature, and billiard-rooms, which appear to be the great centre of attraction ; but one looks in vain for reading rooms, filled with newspapers and journals. There are many good churches, and a fine landing-place of stone from the military harbor, approached on the side of the town, beneath an architrave supported by high columns. It also boasts an Italian opera-house. The eastern side of the town is so steep that the mastheads of the ships cannot be seen until one gets close to them. Very beautiful views are obtained from some parts of the place, and it is altogether agreeably situated. A military band plays every Thursday evening in the public gardens, at which time the fashionables assemble in great num- bers. As Sebastopol is held exclusively as a military and naval position, com- merce does not exist; the only articles imported by sea being those re- quired for materials of war, or as provisions for the inhabitants and garrison. On the eastern side of the military harbor, opposite to the town, is a line of buildings consisting of barracks, some store-houses, and a large naval hospital. The country around Sebastopol sinks gradually down, in a succession of ridges from the position occupied by the Allied army to the town ; but for nearly a third of a mile, immediately in front of the town, the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 243 ground is quite flat, the ridges there having been long ago leveled by the Russians in order to give no cover to an attacking force. We have said that there is a circuit of five or six hundred yards of level ground imme- diately around the town, and it was beyond this radius that the Russians threw up their new works, erecting strong redoubts on several elevated positions ; the Allies had to open their trenches at the distance of a mile from the body of the place, although within one hundred and twenty yards of the Russian batteries. The French were the first to break ground. At nine at night, on the 9th, the trenches were opened by one thousand six hundred workmen, divided into relief parties, and supported to defend the works. A land wind, and an almost entire absence of moonlight, favored the operations, and by breaking of day 1,014 yards in length were completed, without interruption from the enemy, of sufficient depth to cover the men. Next night the British broke ground ; but this time the garrison were on the alert, and kept up a very heavy but ineffectual fire. The British, who occupied much higher ground than the French, placed their batteries with great skill. The raised mounds or beds of earth, upon which the guns were placed, were erected precisely along the crest of the various ridges on which the batteries were planted, and, when finished, showed only the muzzle of the guns over the brow of the ridge, so as to present little to the direct fire of the enemy. The besiegers' batteries were now drawing near completion ; and the governor of Sebastopol had sent a request to Lord Raglan, that he would spare the inhabitants by not firing upon the civilian part of the city, to which he replied, that he would grant a safe-conduct to such of the in- habitants as were desirous of leaving, but would promise nothing as to his mode of attack, save that the buildings marked by the yellow flag should be respected as hospitals. Every means was adopted to keep up the spirits of the garrison, and balls even were given every other night. On the 17th of October the dreadful work began, and no one then pre- sent -will ever forget that memorable scene. The morning dawned slowly ; a thick fog hung over the town, and spread far up the heights. Towards six o'clock the mist began to disperse, and the rich clear October sun eve- ry instant made objects more and more visible. In the Allied lines, all the artillerymen were at their pieces, and as the iron muzzles of the guns became visible through the fog in the now un- masked embrasures, a scattering and fast-increasing fire was opened upon them from the Russian lines. Soon the Russian works, crowded with grey figures, could be seen below, with, in rear, the large handsome white houses and dockyards of Sebastopol itself. Slowly, like the drawing back of a huge curtain, the mist moved off seaward, a cool morning breeze sprang up, and the atmosphere became clear and bright. Around were the wide extending lines of the besiegers, sloping down from the elevated ridges held by the British to the low grounds on the coast occupied by the French. Facing them below was the continuous line of Russian intrench- ments of earthwork, interspersed with redoubts and stone towers, and loop- holed walls, with the line-of-battle ships showing their broadsides in the harbor ; and beyond all, the open sea, bearing on its bosom, like a dark belt, the immense armada of the Allied fleet. 244 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. At half-past six, the preconcerted signal of three shells went up, one afte/ another, from a French battery, and the next instant the whole Allied bat- teries opened simultaneously. On the side of the British, seventy-three, and of the French, fifty-three, in all one hundred and twenty-six guns, one-half of which were of the very heaviest calibre, launched their thun- ders on the side of the Allies ; while upwards of two hundred replied in one deafening roar from the Russian lines. Two long lines of belching flame and smoke appeared, and through the space between hurled a shower of shot and shell, while the earth shook with the thunders of the deadly volleys. Distinctly amidst the din could be heard the immense Lancaster guns, which here, for the first time, gave evidence of their tremendous powers. Their sharp report, heard among the other heavy guns, was like the crack of a rifle among muskets. But the most singular thing was the sound of their ball, which rushed through the air with the noise and regular beat precisely like the passage of a rapid railway train at close distance — a peculiarity which, at first, excited shouts of laughter from the men, who nicknamed it the express-train. The eifect of the shot was terrific ; from its deafening and peculiar noise, the ball could be distinctly traced by the ear to the spot where it struck, when stone or earth were seen to go down before it. The first few minutes' firing sufficed to show to each side, what neither had as yet accurately known, the actual strength of its opponents ; and it now appeared, that even in the extent of the earthwork batteries thrown up since the siege began, the Russians immensely surpassed their besieg- ers. Besides their stone forts, and a long line of intrenchments, guns of heavy calibre had been planted on every ridge and height ; and as fresh batteries were unmasked one after another, often in places totally unex- pected, the Allied generals were completely taken by surprise at the mag- nitude of the defenses. Opposite to the French lines, the main strength of the Russians lay in the Flag-staff batteries, erected upon a hill commanding the French works. They consisted of two tiers of intrenchments, each mounting about twenty- five gunsj the upper of which tier of cannon was unknown to the besieg- ers until it opened fire ; with several large mortars placed on the summit of the hill. And on ihe extreme right of the Russian lines was a ten-gun battery, most commandingly placed, so as to enfilade the French lines. In this quarter the Russians had not only a great advantage in point of position, but also their guns out-numbered those of the French, and it soon became evident that the French were fighting at a disadvantage, and were dreadfully galled in flank by the ten-gun battery. Suddenly, a little after nine o'clock, there came a loud explosion, — a dense cloud of smoke was seen hanging over one of the French batteries, and the Russians were observed on the parapets of their works cheering vigorously. The flank fire of the ten-gun battery had blown up one of the French magazines, killing or wounding about fifty men, and blowing the earthwork to atoms. The British batteries were more successful. The principal works op- posed to them were on their right front, the Round fort, a Martello tower, which had been faced up with earth. A battery of twenty heavy guns was planted on the top of this tower, and exterior earthwork intrenchments had been thrown up around it, mounted with artillery of heavy calibre. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. . 245 Next, nearly opposite the British centre, was the three-decker, the Twelve Apostles, placed across the harbor creek ; and facing their left was the Redan redoubt, carrying about forty cannon, likewise surrounded by in- trenchments armed with numerous guns. On the British side, the princi- pal redoubts were the Crown battery, of 27 guns, in the centre, fronting the Twelve Apostles, and the Green-Mound battery, opposite the Redan redoubt. At half-past three, a red-hot shot from the Russian three-decker, the Twelve Apostles, struck a powder wagon in the Crown battery, which ex- ploded, killing one or two men, but leaving the works of the battery unin- jured. The Russians cheered as before, imagining the same injury had been done, as previously to the French. But while they were still cheering, a shell from the Green Mound bat- tery lodged in the powder magazine of the Redan redoubt, and blew it up with a tremendous explosion. A white livid flame suddenly shot high into the air, followed by a report that made the very earth tremble in the Al- lied lines, and the next minute its garrison of hundreds, blown to atoms, were discovered strewing the ground to a distance around. ' In the midst of a dense volume of smoke and sparks,' says an eye-witness, ' which resembled a water-spout ascending to the clouds, were visible to the naked eye, arms, legs, trunks, and heads, of the Russian warriors, mingled with cannons, wheels, and every object of military warfare, and, indeed, every living thing it contained.' So powerful was the effect which this explosion produced on the morale of the besiegers, which had been somewhat depressed by the misfortunes of the day, that the enthusi- asm displayed was almost of a frantic nature. Both the English and French troops, as well as officers, doffed their caps, and threw them high into the air, at the same time giving a shout which might have been heard at Balaklava, a league off. The Russians, however, were nowise daunted, and resumed their fire with undiminished energy. While this terrific cannonade was going on by land, the Allied fleets were seen bearing down upon the strong forts which defend the mouth of the harbor. It had been arranged between the Admirals and Generals, that as soon as the attention of the Russians had been attracted to the landward attack, the fleets should move forward and take part in a gene- ral assault. The French took the Quarantine fort, and other works on the south side of the entrance to Sebastopol bay, and the British took Fort Constantine and the works on the north side. By half-past one o'clock, the action was fairly commenced, and the con joined roar from the guns of the fleet and in the forts, echoed by the thunders of the rival batteries on shore, baffled the imagination. Never before in the world's history was such a cannonade witnessed — even the tremendous cannonade of Leipsic and Trafalgar fades into insignificance before so gigantic a strife. The fleets advanced to the attack in two lines — the British from the north, the French from the south. Directly the vessels came within 2,000 yards, the forts opened fire, which the Allies never attempted to reply to until they took up their posi- tions. The cannonade of the French was terrific and continuous ; envel- oped in smoke, they kept up whole salvoes, which was terrific, the smoke being lit up by the volleys of flashes, and the roar of cannon continuous. The Turks followed the French in this sometimes in whole broadsides, 246 AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. again their fire rnnning continuously along the line. There was less of this with the English ships, whose style of firing appeared less awful, but more business-like. The Russians used red-hot shot, rockets, combustible shell, and bar-shot ; and the terrible effects of these soon made themselves apparent. The bar-shot cut the masts, spars, and rigging to pieces, and the rockets and red-hot shot raised conflagrations in many of the attacking vessels. The allied vessels met with but little success, and towards night stood out to sea, the Russians cheering vociferously, and redoubling their fire. Such were the incidents of this memorable opening day of the bombard- ment. On the 18th, the fleet did not renew the attack ; and as the French batteries were wholly silenced for the time, the enemy were enabled to concentrate a terrific fire upon the British trenches. During the previous day's firing, the Russians had discovered the weak points of their oppo- nents, as well as their own, and before morning, had erected, with sand- bags, batteries on new and commanding positions. During the night of the 18th, the French worked incessantly, repaired all their batteries, and again opened fire on the morning of the 19th. Still they were unfortunate. About eleven o'clock a shell from the Russian ten-gun battery once more blew up one of their magazines, killing most of the men in the battery, and dismounting most of the guns ; thus most of the French works were again silenced before two o'clock. The British lines kept up a hot fire throughout the whole day ; but though at times nearly one hundred shot and shell were thrown per minute, little or no effect was produced upon the Russian intrenchments. The en- emy were provided with a perfectly inexhaustible supply of all the mate- rials requisite for a desperate defense. The instant a shot or shell struck their works the hole was filled up with sand-bags ; so that the besieged built up as fast as the besiegers knocked down. The French had repaired their injuries during the night, but in order to fire with more destructive effect, advanced one strong battery about two hundred yards nearer the enemy. This new advanced battery not only enabled them to maintain their ground, but even to destroy and silence their inveterate assailant, the Russian ten-gun battery. During the 22d the cannonade from the French lines was incessant, and told with great effect ; but early in the day the British batteries received orders to fire only once in eight minutes — occasioned by a deficiency of ammunition. The Russians worked their guns with great energy and pre- cision, even under the hottest fire, standing to their pieces boldly as on the first day of the siege ; and they continued to repair each night the injury done to their works in the previous day. The loss of the Allies up to this point of the siege was about twelve hundred men. One feature in the memorable siege was the great use made of riflemen by the besieging force, and the extreme gallantry displayed by these men when at work. Every day parties of skirmishers went out from the Allied lines, and lay under cover among the loose large stones about one thousand yards in advance of the batteries, and within two hundred yards of the Russian de- fenses. This compelled the enemy to send out parties to dislodge them, and these, DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY. 247 as they advanced for that purpose across the open ground, became exposed to the fire both of the skirmishers and of the trenches, and usually suffer- ed severely. On one occasion a private in the British lines who had fired his last car- tridge, was crouching along the ground to join the nearest covering- party, when two Russians suddenly sprang from behind a rock, and seizing him by the collar, dragged him off towards Sebastopol. The Russian who escorted him on the left side held in his right hand hia own firelock, and in his left the captured Minie ; with a sudden spring the British soldier seized the Russian's firelock, shot its owner, clubbed his com- panion, and then, picking up his own Mini£, made off in safety to his own lines. Another of these fellows resolved to do more work on his own ac-. count, got away from his company, and crawled up close to a battery under shelter of a bridge. There he lay on his back, and loaded, turning over to fire ; until, after killing eleven men, a party of Russians rushed out and he took to his heels ; but a volley fired after him leveled him with the earth, and his body was subsequently picked up by his comrades riddled with balls. Probably 100,000 shot and shell a-day, exclusive of night-firing, was the average amount of projectiles discharged by both parties in the extra- ordinary siege. The darkness of the night was constantly interrupted by the bursting of shell or rockets. The passage of the shells through the air, thrown to an amazing height from the mortars, appeared like that of meteors. To the eye, the shell seems to rise and fall almost perpendicularly ; sometimes burning as it turns on its axis, and the fuse disappears in the rotation, with an interrupted pale light; sometimes with a steady light, not unlike the calm luminosity of a planet. As it travels it can be heard, amid the general stillness, ut- tering in the distance its peculiar sound, like the cry of the curlew. The blue light in a battery announces the starting of a rocket, which pursues its more horizontal course, followed by a fiery train, and rushes through the air with a loud whizzing noise that gives an idea of irresistible energy. So went on, day and night, ceaselessly, this unparalleled bombardment — a cataract of war, a Niagara of all dread sounds, whose ceaseless booming was heard for long miles around. Ship after ship, nearing the Crimean shores, heard from afar that dull, heavy sound, and all eyes were strained to catch sight of the dread scene, of that valley where the battle of Eu- rope was being fought, where the cannon were ever sounding, and 'the fire was not quenched.' While the operations were being carried on around the walls of Se- bastopol, events of, if possible, still greater importance were taking place a few miles off, upon the flanks and rear of the investing force. In truth, the Allies were as much besieged as besiegers. For about a fortnight after an affair at the Mackenzie's Farm, on the 25th of September, noth- ing had been seen of the enemy, who had retired towards Bakshi-serai to await reinforcements. Tt was towards the end of the first week of Octo- ber that the Russians began to assume the offensive. The Allies at first seem to have regarded their position as unassailable; but the enemy, thoroughly acquainted with every foot of the country, and consequently able to advance in the dark, soon showed them their mistake. AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA. At daybreak on the 6th, the Russians made an advance in fcrce, for the purpose of reconnoitering, from the Tchernaya into the valley or plain in rear of the heights occupied by the Allies ; and, after surprising, in the grey of the morning, a picket of the Fourth Dragoons, drew off again, having accomplished their object. During the following night, a most dar- ing reconnoissance was made, by a French officer and ten men, who, on their return to camp, reported that they had gone as far as the river Bel- bee, and had only seen the bivouac of the Russian troops who had made the reconnoissance the preceding day. In order to check further surprises from this quarter, parties of Zouaves and Foot Chasseurs were placed in ambuscade as outposts ; every evening at six o'clock four companies of them concealing themselves in a ravine through which the Russians would advance, and remaining there until daybreak next morning. The enemy, however, forsaking the line of attack by the road from Mac- kenzie's Farm, now began to appear among the mountains directly in rear of the Allied lines, and also close to Balaklava, advancing by a road from Kansara, through the hills, which was at first deemed by the Allied gener- als impracticable for artillery, and, consequently, along which no serious attack was anticipated. One day, however, a force of 2000 Russian cav- alry, and 8000 infantry, with nine or ten guns, made its appearance in this quarter, but withdrew without showing fight. As soon as it became evident that the principal attacks of the Russian relieving army would be directed against Balaklava, means were taken to put that place in a state of defense. One of the first, was to turn out the Greek and Russian inhabitants. The little bay, so narrow at its entrance that only one ship could get out at a time, was crowded with upwards of a hundred transports, in which, besides other stores, as well as in the build ings on shore, were large magazines of gunpowder ; and as it was reported that the Greek population, besides acting as spies, had actually concerted to aid the Russian attack by simultaneously setting fire to the town, Lord Raglan ordered every one of them to be ejected from the place. At the same time, a redoubt, armed with heavy guns and manned with 1200 ma- rines from the fleet, was constructed upon the summit of a conical hill, on the further side of the bay, about 1000 feet high, and commanding the coast road approaching Balaklava from the east. Other redoubts were so placed as to command the road from the Tchernaya, and also from Kamara, through the mountains. Balaklava does not fall within the natural line of defense for besieging Sebastopol. It is held as a separate post, three miles in advance of Sebas- topol heights, which form the main position of the besieging force. The British occupied a convex line of heights, stretching from the Tchernaya, near its mouth, to the sea-coast, midway between Cape Chersonese and Balaklava. On the north-east is a valley or plain, not level, but broken by little eminences, about three miles long by two in width. Towards the Tchernaya this valley is swallowed up in a mountain gorge and deep ravines, above which rise tier after tier of desolate whitish rocks. At its other ex- tremity the valley in a similar manner contracts into a gorge, through which the high road passes, leading down to Balaklava. On the crest of the Allied line of heights, overlooking this plain, the French had constructed very formidable intrenchments, mounted with a few guns and lined by Zouaves and artillerymen. Intersecting the plains, about two miles and a DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 249 half from Balaklava, is a series of conical heights, the highest and farth- est off of which joins the mountain range on the opposite side of the valley, while the nearest one was commanded by the French intrenchments. On these eminences earth-work redoubts had been constructed, each mounted with two or three pieces of heavy ship guns, and manned by 250 Turks. At the end of the plain next Balaklava, and stationed at the mouth of the gorge leading down to it, were the 93d Highlanders. In the plain, about ten miles from Balaklava, were picketed the cavalry, commanded in chief by the Earl of Lucan, consisting of the Light Brigade, 607 strong, and the Heavy Brigade, mustering 1000 sabres. Such was the position of the rearward forces of the Allies on the morn- ing of the 25th October, 1854, when the Russians, under General Liprandi, starting from Kamara about five o'clock, advanced to attack them. The cavalry pickets, riding in haste, soon brought intelligence of the attack to the Allied head-quarters, and measures were instantly taken to^ forward all the troops that could be spared from before Sebastopol to tlie menaced point. The Duke of Cambridge and Sir George Cathcart were ordered to ad- vance with the 1st and 4th divisions with all speed, while Bosquet's French division received similar orders from General Canrobert. Soon after eight o'clock, Lord Raglan and his staff turned out, and cantered towards the rear. The booming of artillery, the spattering roll of musketry, were heard rising from the valley, drowning the roar of the siege guns in front before Sebastopol. General Bosquet followed with his staff and a small escort of hussars at a gallop. From their position on the summit of the heights, forming the rear of the British position, and overlooking the plain of Balaklava, the Allied generals beheld the aspect of the combat. Im- mediately below, in the plain, the British cavalry, under Lord Lucan, were seen rapidly forming into glittering masses, while the 93d Highlanders, under Sir Colin Campbell, drew up in line in front of the gorge leading to Balaklava. The main body of the Russians was by this time visible about two and a half miles off, advancing up the narrow valley leading from the Yaeta pass. A mile in front of them were two batteries of light artillery, play- ing vigorously on the Turkish redoubts, and escorted by a cloud of moun- ted skirmishers, 'wheeling and whirling like autumn leaves before the wind;' following those were large, compact squares of cavalry; and in rear of all came solid masses of infantry, with twenty pieces of artillery