text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wilson, John Cook

WILSON, JOHN COOK (1849-1915), English philosopher, was born at Nottingham June 6 1849. He was educated at Derby and at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1874 was elected to a fellowship at Oriel College. After graduating, he studied logic under Hermann Lotze at Göttingen. Returning to Oxford, he became well-known as a lecturer and in 1889 was appointed Wykeham professor of Logic. He died at Oxford Aug. 11 1915. Among his publications were Aristotelian Studies (1879, republished 1912); lectures on Axioms, on Plato's Timaeus (1889) and on the Traversing of Geometrical Figures (1905).


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/442

 very typical of his farsightedness into the practical utility of any known scientific fact. His ‘polar clock’ was another instance of this trait of his genius. When Brewster discovered that the plane of polarisation of the light from the sky is always 90° from the sun, Wheatstone devised a clock by which it was possible to tell the hour of the day by the light from the sky though the sun might be invisible.

It was by this skill in turning knowledge to practical account that Wheatstone gave to the electric telegraph the character which it now possesses. Though his inventions in other branches of science are as numerous as they are various, it is in connection with the electric telegraph that the name of Wheatstone will always live. He was not the ‘inventor’ of the electric telegraph. Indeed no one can lay claim to that title. Stephen Gray [q. v.] in 1727 suspended a wire seven hundred feet long on silk threads, and on applying an excited glass tube to one end electrification was observed at the other, but he did not send messages. Advances were made from that time by many men of science, who saw more or less clearly the great possibilities before them. Omitting the pioneer claims of Lomond, Sömmering, and others of the last century, the names connected with early development of the practical telegraph are Froment in France, Gauss, Weber, and Steinheil in Germany, Sir Francis Ronalds [q. v.] and Edward Davy [q. v.] in England, Morse and Vail in America. But to Wheatstone, with his coadjutor (Sir) William Fothergill Cooke [q. v.], is due the merit of having been the first to render it available for the public transmission of messages. In 1834, shortly after being appointed professor of experimental physics at King's College, London, Wheatstone began experimenting on rate of transmission of electricity along wires. For this purpose about half a mile of copper wire was insulated by suspension in the vaults under the college, and three interruptions of this circuit were made by three pairs of brass knobs with a small interval between them. One of these interruptions was in the middle point of the conductor, and the other two near the ends. A Leyden jar was discharged through the wire, and the interval of time between the occurrence of the sparks at the ends and the occurrence of the spark at the middle was measured by noting the displacement of the image of the middle spark in a mirror revolving at a known speed. It was calculated from results of this experiment that the velocity of an electric disturbance along a wire was about two hundred and fifty thousand miles per second, a result differing from the true speed of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second not very widely, considering the difficulties of observation in an experiment of this kind. From this research he passed on to the transmission of messages by electricity, and, in conjunction with Cooke, he elaborated the five-needle telegraph, and then the two-needle telegraph, the first that came into general use. Wheatstone's fertility of scientific resource led the partners on to many new developments—the letter-showing dial telegraph in 1840, the type-printing telegraph in 1841, and the magneto-electric dial telegraph, a subsequent extension of the same to type-embossing, and, lastly, the automatic transmitting and receiving instruments by which messages are sent with such great rapidity.

He was the first to appreciate the importance of reducing to a minimum the amount of work to be done by the current at the receiving station by diminishing as far as practicable the mass, and therefore the inertia, of the moving parts; this was beautifully exemplified in that marvel of ingenuity the magneto-electric letter-showing telegraph, commonly adopted for private telegraphic communication.

From 1837 Wheatstone appears to have devoted a good deal of time to submarine telegraphy, and in 1844 experiments were made in Swansea Bay, with the assistance of J. D. Llewellyn. Wheatstone also had a share in the perfecting of the magneto-electric machines which have culminated in the modern dynamo. In 1837 he devised a method of combining several armatures on one shaft so as to generate currents which were continuous instead of intermittent, and in 1867 he described to the Royal Society a method of making such machines self-exciting as to their magnetism by the use of a shunt circuit; the use of a main circuit for the same purpose had been described by Werner Siemens one month earlier, but the machine described by Wheatstone had been constructed for him by Mr. Stroh in the preceding summer. Wheatstone was also inventor of a system of electro-magnetic clocks for indicating time at any number of different places united on a circuit.

Among other accomplishments Wheatstone had an extraordinary facility in deciphering hieroglyphics and cipher despatches. He himself invented a cryptograph or secret despatch writer, which is supposed to be indecipherable. Wheatstone's miscellaneous inventions are too numerous to mention here in detail. They related, among other things, to electric chronographs, apparatus for making instruments record automatically;

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/443

 instruments for measuring electricity and electrical resistance, including the ‘rheostat.’ It was he who called attention to Christy's combination of wires, now commonly known as ‘Wheatstone's bridge,’ in which an electric balancing of the currents is obtained, and worked out its applications to electrical measurement. He was one of the first in this country to appreciate the importance of Ohm's simple law of the relation between electromotive force, resistance of conductors, and resulting current—the law which is today the foundation of all electrical engineering.

Wheatstone was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1836, a chevalier of the legion of honour in 1855, and a foreign associate of the Académie des Sciences in 1873. On 2 July 1862 he was created D.C.L. by the university of Oxford, and in 1864 LL.D. by the university of Cambridge. He moreover possessed some thirty-four distinctions or diplomas conferred upon him by various governments, universities, and learned societies. On 30 Jan. 1868 he was knighted.

Though nominally professor of natural philosophy at King's College, London, he seldom lectured after 1840, and indeed was an indifferent teacher. He suffered through life from an almost morbid timidity in presence of an audience. He died in Paris on 19 Oct. 1875, and was buried in the cemetery at Kensal Green. He was married, on 12 Feb. 1847, to Emma, daughter of J. West, and had a family of five children. He left his collection of books and instruments by will to King's College, London, where they are preserved in the Wheatstone Laboratory. A portrait, drawn in chalk by Samuel Laurence, is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Wheatstone contributed to numerous scientific journals and publications. All his published papers were collected in one volume and published in 1879 by the Physical Society of London.

[Obituary notice in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 1876, xxiv. pp. xvi–xxvii; Nature, 1876, xiii. 501, App. p. xxvii; Extracts from the Private Letters of the late Sir W. F. Cooke, 1895; Fahie's History of Electric Telegraphy, 1884; obituary notice, Telegraphic Journal, 15 Nov. 1875, iii. 252.]  WHEELER. [See also .]

WHEELER, DANIEL (1771–1840), quaker missionary, son of William Wheeler of Lower Grosvenor Street, London, by Sarah, his wife, was born there on 27 Nov. 1771. His father, a wine merchant, died when young Wheeler was about six. He lost his mother six years later, being then at a boarding school at Parson's Green. A situation was obtained for him on board a merchant ship trading to Oporto, but after two or three voyages he entered the royal navy as a midshipman, being then under fourteen. He was soon promoted to a flag-ship, but abandoned the sea after six years, and, having squandered all his pay, enlisted as a private soldier in a regiment ordered to Ireland. In a year or two he was drafted into one of the new regiments raised to fight the French, and sailed for Flanders to join the British army under command of the Duke of York. Later, obtaining a commission in a regiment destined for the West Indies, he sailed about September 1795 under Sir Ralph Abercromby [q. v.]

In 1796 Wheeler quitted the army, and settled at Handsworth Woodhouse, near Sheffield, with his elder sister, Barbara, who had married William Hoyland, a quaker (see Annual Monitor, 1831, p. 109). In two years he was received as a member of the society, and embarked in the seed trade in Sheffield. About 1809 he retired to a farm in the country, where he began to prepare himself for a future life of ministry. He was recognised a minister in 1816.

The emperor Alexander I of Russia having during a visit to England visited a Friend's farm, and desiring a manager of that persuasion for his establishment at Ochta, Wheeler in 1817 proceeded to St. Petersburg, saw the czar, and explained to him the leaning he had for two years felt towards Russia as a sphere of missionary labour. Returning to England, he wound up his affairs, and with implements, seeds, and cattle, in addition to his wife, family, and servants—in all twenty persons—left Hull for St. Petersburg on 22 June 1818.

Besides the tsar's farm, he was soon appointed to the management of an estate belonging to the dowager empress, consisting, like the other, chiefly of swamp. This, after being thoroughly drained, was divided into farms of thirty to a hundred acres each, which were let to peasants at moderate rents, a portion in each district being kept as a model farm. Over three thousand acres were in cultivation under Wheeler's own eye. The little quaker meeting he established was visited by William Allen (1770–1843) [q. v.], Stephen Grellett, and Thomas Shillitoe [q. v.], with whom Wheeler in 1825 returned to England for three months, attending Dublin and London yearly meetings. After his return he lost his good friend Alexander I.

About September 1828 Wheeler removed


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wilson, Woodrow

WILSON, WOODROW (1856-      ), twenty-eighth president of the United States, was born in Staunton, Va., Dec. 28 1856. He was baptized with the name of Thomas Woodrow Wilson. The Scotch strain predominated in his ancestry, for his paternal grandfather came from county Down, in Ulster, and his maternal grandfather, Thomas Woodrow, a graduate of Glasgow University, from Scotland. The stern Presbyterianism of his father, a minister of small means but marked capacity as a theologian, early influenced him and left an indelible mark upon his character. His early years were spent in Georgia and South Carolina, where he was deeply affected by the sufferings of the South during the reconstruction period. In 1875 he entered Princeton, graduating four years later. His record for scholarship in college was not remarkable, but he was prominent in debating and literary circles, and became student director of athletic sport. His most notable achievement was an article written in his senior year, and published in the International Review, which analyzed unfavourably the procedure of Congress and formed the basis of his more mature political principles. After studying law in the University of Virginia and following a brief attempt to practice in Atlanta, he decided to pursue his studies in government and history at Johns Hopkins University, where he received the degree of Ph.D. in 1886. His thesis, entitled Congressional Government and published in 1885, was a development of the attack upon Congressional methods, and because of its clear and felicitous expression has been reprinted many times. In that year he began his teaching career at Bryn Mawr College, where he was associate professor of History and Political Economy until 1888; after two years as professor of the same at Wesleyan, he entered the Princeton Faculty in 1890 as professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy. With slight changes in title he served in this capacity until 1902, when he became president of Princeton. As professor he rapidly achieved distinction. His lectures were remarkable for clarity of presentation and brilliancy of phrasing, and the same qualities characterized both his addresses and his published writings. His gift was for generalization rather than plodding scholarship, and after the publication of his thesis his happiest literary efforts were in essay form. They display keen critical capacity, but are not remarkable either for erudition or for striking creative power. As president of Princeton, Mr. Wilson devoted himself to serious reforms of the educational and social habits of the undergraduates. In the hope of elevating the standards of scholarship and of increasing the efficiency of instruction, he inaugurated in 1905 the “preceptorial system,” designed through small classes to bring teachers and students into the most intimate relationship. In his endeavours to democratize the social life of the university he met determined opposition. Further difficulties developed from a disagreement with the dean of the graduate College. Mr. Wilson's policies aroused warm conroversy among alumni, faculty, and undergraduates.

While at Princeton, both as professor and as president, Mr. Wilson displayed great interest in political questions of the day, and through his addresses and articles speedily won a national reputation. In Sept. 1910 he was tendered the Democratic nomination for governor of New Jersey. The offer coming at the moment when the prospects for success of his policy at Princeton seemed most discouraging, secured his ready acceptance. Resigning his academic position he entered upon an active electoral campaign which won him the support of progressive elements throughout the state, despite the fact that his candidacy had been inaugurated largely under the auspices of the conservative Col. George Harvey (afterwards U.S. ambassador to Great Britain) and the Democratic state boss, Senator James Smith. In Nov. he was elected by a plurality of 49,000 votes. He at once made it plain that he intended, regardless of the protests of machine leaders, to fulfil his liberal pledges and would assume the leadership of the party for this purpose. As governor he successfully carried through a series of reform measures. Of these the most significant were: a Direct Primaries Law, which, supplemented by an effective Corrupt Practices Act, did much to purify the political atmosphere of New Jersey; an Employers' Liability Act; the creation of a Public Utilities Commission; reform in municipal administration, making possible the adoption of the commission form of government. Elections to the State Senate and Assembly in 1911 gave the Republicans a majority in both Houses and the legislative output was curtailed. Nevertheless his final activities as governor were characterized by the impetus which he gave to the passage of a series of bills, known as the Seven Sisters, directed to the protection of the public from exploitation by trusts.

When in June 1912 the Democratic National Convention met at Baltimore to choose a candidate for President, Mr. Wilson's reputation as an effective reformer had brought his name prominently before the delegates. The convention was apparently controlled by conservative elements and there seemed little chance of the nomination of an anti-machine progressive. But as the struggle to secure the necessary two-thirds vote proceeded, with the conservative forces divided between Champ Clark, Harmon, and Underwood, Mr. W. J. Bryan, leader of the progressive elements threw his dominating influence in favour of Mr. Wilson. It proved decisive, and on the 46th ballot he was nominated, July 2 1912. In the campaign that followed he voiced popular discontent with the conservatism of the Republican administration, which he believed to have been too closely allied with the interests of “privileged big business.” His campaign speeches, characterized by a striking phraseology, won much applause, but were remarkable for their high moral tone rather than for originality of thought or policy. Like Roosevelt he demanded a national renaissance of ideals. In matters of immediate concern, such as the tariff, trust regulation, currency, the interests of labour, he insisted that the “rule of justice and right” must be set up. As regarded the future, in matters of conservation and trade, he asserted that great opportunities had been lost through the interlacing of privilege and private advantage with the framework of existing laws: “we must effect a great readjustment and get the forces of the whole people once more into play.” His radicalism was of a mild sort and he insisted that “we need no revolution, we need no excited change; we need only a new point of view and a new method and spirit of counsel.” The popular temper was responsive to such a tone, but success in large measure could hardly have come to him except for the division of Republican forces through the campaign of Theodore Roosevelt as Progressive candidate. In the Nov. election Mr. Wilson received 435 electoral votes as against 88 for Roosevelt and 8 for Taft; but his popular vote was a million less than that of his two chief opponents, and in only 14 states (all in the South) did he receive a clear majority.

Despite the fact that he was the choice of a minority of the whole people, Mr. Wilson's political position when he assumed office on March 4 1913 was one of remarkable strength. He was supported by a Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress, the Republicans were at loggerheads, and he might expect support from the Progressives for much of his reforming legislative programme. His Cabinet was not distinguished, but it contained certain elements of political and administrative strength, which proved advantageous for the moment, although later it was to become the mark for bitter criticism. The President soon made it plain that he was determined, as in his governorship of New Jersey, to exercise his personal influence and his position as head of the party to initiate and carry through the legislation he had advocated in his campaign. His ascendancy in Congress was soon established. After convoking both Houses in special session on April 7 1913, he delivered his first message in person, reviving the custom that had lapsed since the administration (1797) of the elder Adams. He intervened constantly during this and later sessions, to further the legislation in which he was especially interested.

The first important piece of legislation that resulted from the special session was the Underwood Tariff Act, which was passed in Sept. and signed by the President Oct. 3 1913. It provided for a notable downward revision and naturally met strong opposition from varied industrial interests. Such opposition was overcome largely through the personal efforts of Mr. Wilson, who appealed constantly to public sentiment, notably in an attack upon the activities of hostile lobbyists. The Tariff Act, in addition to lower duties and important administrative changes, introduced an income tax — long advocated by Democrats — which was destined in later developments to counterbalance the loss of revenue resulting from the lowering of the tariff; it weighed heavily upon the industrial interests of the North and increased the growing unpopularity of the President in that region. The Tariff Act was followed by a broad measure of currency reform, the Federal Reserve Act, signed Dec. 23 1913; it is generally regarded as the administration's second great legislative triumph. Mr. Wilson's purpose was to supplant the dictatorship of private banking institutions by a reorganization that should provide funds available to meet extraordinary demands and a currency that would expand and contract automatically. Early in 1914 the President called upon Congress to continue its labours of reform by the regulation of the trusts. After long debate and warm opposition, his appeal was answered by the passing of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Anti-trust Act. The latter, besides perfecting anti-trust legislation in several ways, met the demands of labour by declaring that labour was not a commodity, by prohibiting injunctions in labour disputes unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury, and by proclaiming that strikes and boycotts were not violations of Federal law. It further exempted labour associations from the anti-trust laws.

Mr. Wilson's policy of domestic social reform had thus been developed with surprising legislative success during the first year of his administration. His foreign policy was not so clear-cut and aroused little enthusiasm. It was characterized by an evident desire to concede the rights of other nations to the limit and to avoid any stressing of the power of the United States for the material advantage of its citizens. Definite steps were taken to prepare the Filipinos for self-government. Pressure was brought to bear upon the California state Government to mitigate the severity of its anti-Japanese legislation. The “dollar diplomacy” of the preceding administration was repudiated and American bankers effectively discouraged from participating in the international Chinese loans. As a result of the President's personal demand, Congress repealed the law exempting American coastwise shipping from Panama Canal tolls. Mr. Wilson, however, failed to secure the Senate's ratification of a treaty with Colombia, which contained a virtual apology on the part of the United States and an offer to pay $25,000,000 as reparation for the alleged grievances of Colombia in connexion with the establishment of Panama as an independent country. In the Caribbean, Mr. Wilson's policy differed in principle rather than practice from that of his predecessors; in Nicaragua and Haiti the customs were taken over by U.S. officials. By a treaty signed Sept. 16 1915, a virtual protectorate of Haiti was assumed; in Santo Domingo the precautionary visits of American cruisers were followed in the summer of 1916 by the landing of marines, and in Nov. of that year by the proclamation of a military government under American auspices.

Mr. Wilson's Mexican policy aroused heated criticism. Following the accession of Gen. Huerta to power and the President's failure to arrange a settlement providing for his elimination as dictator, Mr. Wilson resigned himself to what he called a policy of “watchful waiting.” Conditions in Mexico were anarchical, and intervention was strongly urged by both American and European commercial interests. To formal intervention the President was definitely opposed, but in April 1914 he was compelled to authorize the occupation of Vera Cruz in retaliation for affronts to American blue-jackets. The proffered mediation of Argentina, Brazil and Chile he gladly accepted, but the resulting protocol of Niagara Falls (June 24 1914) did not provide a basis for peace. Although Huerta fled from Mexico in July, the country continued to be torn by rival factions. American troops were withdrawn from Vera Cruz in Nov. 1914, but it was not until Oct. 1915 that the Government of Carranza was recognized by Mr. Wilson, in company with eight South and Central American Governments. Further complications ensued. The raid into American territory of Gen. Villa, March 9 1916, led Mr. Wilson to authorize a punitive expedition, which soon aroused the protests of Carranza. In May and June the President mobilized the National Guard and sent a force of about 100,000 to patrol the Mexican border. The crisis was tided over by a joint Mexican-American commission sitting at New London, Conn., which brought no definite settlement, but at least postponed hasty action on either side. In Jan. 1917, the last American troops were withdrawn from Mexican soil. The President's policy had not led to stable conditions in Mexico, and the sole advantage secured seemed to be the emphasis laid by the U.S. Government on the principle

that it would not take advantage of the misfortunes of a weak neighbour for its own selfish profit.

Foreign affairs after July 1914 were naturally dominated by the World War. President Wilson insisted upon a policy of strict neutrality. This he emphasized not merely by formal proclamation on Aug. 4, but by an address to the American people of Aug. 18, in which he adjured them, in view of the mixture of nationalities in the United States, to be impartial in thought as well as action. His offer of mediation, made on Aug. 5, remained without response, and further attempts at mediation in early autumn proved fruitless. His determination to remain absolutely aloof from European quarrels was underlined in several addresses, in which he insisted that the United States was in no way concerned, and was further emphasized by his opposition to any change in its military policy. America's vital interest in the struggle, however, soon became plain and resulted in diplomatic controversies with the belligerents. Great Britain's attempt to control indirect importation of goods into Germany, by an enlargement of contraband schedules and an extension of the doctrine of “continuous voyage” to conditional contraband, was vigorously opposed by President Wilson, who authorized Mr. Bryan, his Secretary of State, to protest in strong terms. A lengthy interchange of notes followed, which led to no settlement (see ). The diplomatic controversy with Germany proved more serious. The proclamation of a “war zone” about the British Isles, in which German submarines threatened to destroy enemy merchant vessels with consequent danger to the lives and property of neutrals, was met by a note of Feb. 10 1915, which warned Germany that she would be held to “strict accountability” for the lawless acts of submarine commanders. Mr. Wilson further attempted to find a compromise, based upon a relaxation of the British food blockade and an abandonment of the German submarine campaign. The effort failed and was followed by a series of submarine attacks, which culminated in the sinking of the “Lusitania,” May 7 1915, with the loss of over 100 American lives. The President, while he disappointed opinion in the eastern states by a speech in which he reaffirmed his pacific determination, stating that a man might be “too proud to fight,” at once set out to win from Germany a disavowal and a promise that merchant ships should not be torpedoed without warning and the saving of the lives of passengers. A lengthy exchange of notes ensued; the pacific Mr. Bryan, Secretary of State, regarding the President's language as too strong, resigned; on the other hand Mr. Wilson's patience with the evasions of the German Government and the continued sinkings by submarines led to bitter attacks upon the President's policy of conciliation, which was stigmatized as anaemic or even cowardly. Mr. Wilson succeeded, however, in securing from Germany a promise not to sink liners without warning (Sept. 1 1915), and continued his efforts to induce Germany to abandon the submarine campaign completely. He was hampered by an attempted revolt of Congressional leaders, who blurred the issue with Germany by introducing resolutions designed to prevent Americans from travelling upon belligerent ships. The President, through his personal influence, secured the defeat of these resolutions in Feb. 1916, insisting that he would not consent “to any abridgment of the rights of American citizens in any respect.” Shortly afterwards the issue with Germany was brought to a head by the sinking of the “Sussex,” March 24 1916. Mr. Wilson waited three weeks before sending a formal note of protest to Germany (April 19 1916) but couched it in the form of an ultimatum, stating that unless Germany should immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of submarine warfare, the United States would be compelled to sever diplomatic relations. The German answer, while attempting to make acceptance conditional upon Great Britain's relaxation of the blockade, was in effect a promise not to sink merchant ships without warning and without saving human lives. The submarine issue now seemed less critical.

The diplomatic victory thus apparently secured by Mr. Wilson was utilized in his behalf during the electoral campaign of 1916, in which he was inevitably the Democratic candidate. It enabled his supporters to declare that he had vindicated the rights of the United States successfully, and at the same time had “kept us out of war.” The slogan made a strong appeal, especially in the districts of the Middle West. The Republicans, on the other hand, who had nominated Charles E. Hughes, criticized the whole foreign policy of the President. They insisted that he had failed to take prompt action for the protection of American lives and honour, alike in his dealings with Germany and in his handling of the Mexican crisis. They characterized his domestic policy as demagogic, instancing the Clayton Act and the Adamson Act; the latter had been urged on Congress by Mr. Wilson to avert a railroad strike in Sept. 1916, and many citizens regarded it as an untimely surrender to labour threats. They also criticized his attitude on “preparedness,” to which the President had been opposed until the close of 1915, and ridiculed the cautious expansion of military and naval forces provided for in the National Defense Act of 1916. In the east and in most industrial centres of the middle west, Mr. Wilson was unpopular, but the election showed his strength in the farming districts west of the Mississippi and on the Pacific coast; in spite of Mr. Roosevelt's return to the Republican fold the President drew largely from the Progressives, and on election day received a slight electoral majority over Mr. Hughes (277 to 254) and a popular plurality of 9,129,606 to 8,538,221.

His re-election enabled Mr. Wilson to proceed with plans for peace proposals to the European belligerents. These he had been preparing since the early summer of 1916, and, regardless of the German peace balloon of Dec. 12 1916, he sent on Dec. 18 identical notes to the belligerents, asking them to state the terms upon which they would consider peace. Informed of the undercurrents of German military circles, he evidently feared that if the war continued, the United States would necessarily become involved; he also hoped that a clear definition of war aims would strengthen pacific elements in both belligerent camps. The German reply was evasive; that of the Allies refused to consider peace until Germany should offer “complete restitution, full reparation, and effectual guarantees.” The replies gave the President opportunity to expound what he had come to believe was the only sure basis of an enduring peace. This he did in a speech of Jan. 22 1917, in which he insisted that the peace must be organized by the major force of mankind, thus emphasizing the need of a League of Nations; that no nation should extend its policy over another nation; that no one Power should dominate the land or the sea. There must be a limitation of armaments. As a guarantee of future peace and justice, the ending of the existing war must not be the violation of the rights of one side or the other: it must be “a peace without victory.” Further efforts to secure a peaceful arrangement were frustrated by the determination of the German militarist clique to renew the submarine warfare, regardless of the effect on the United States. On Jan. 31, the German ambassador, von Bernstorff, delivered a note to this effect, and four days later the President handed him his papers. He still, however, avoided formal war with Germany, and on Feb. 26 asked for a resolution armed neutrality, which would permit the arming of American merchant ships for entrance into the barred sea zone. The resolution was blocked by a filibuster. Finally, in view of continued sinking of American ships, the President came to Congress on April 2 1917, and asked for a declaration that a state of warfare existed with Germany. The resolution was passed by the Senate on April 4, by the House on April 6.

President Wilson had always abhorred the exercise of force in international relations, and the war which he at last regarded as necessary was, in his mind, a war to ensure peace. Nevertheless he was determined that it should be waged efficiently and that the mistakes of previous wars should not be repeated. Those mistakes, he believed, had resulted chiefly from the intermixture of politics in military affairs, and from the decentralization of the American military machine. He opposed a coalition war cabinet, as leading to divided responsibility. Military policy was handed over to the military experts. He approved

the immediate development of the general staff as the centralizing military organ, and it was upon the recommendation of that body that he urged, against the wish of Congressional leaders, the Selective Service Act. On the advice of the general staff he appointed Gen. John J. Pershing commander of the expeditionary force to France, and, also following that advice, he refused to authorize a volunteer force under Mr. Roosevelt. Similarly the plans for the development of a large army in France were inaugurated and translated into fact by the military experts. As regards conduct of operations the President gave to Gen. Pershing complete authority, and permitted no interference by politicians. In the building of the new army, the President took no direct part, but he used his authority consistently to favour centralization under the general staff. He followed a similar policy in the mobilization of the industrial resources of the nation. He encouraged the centralizing efforts of the Council of National Defense and its committees, and sought always to secure for them executive rather than the merely advisory powers which they at first possessed. He urged the Lever Act, which in Aug. 1917 created a Food and a Fuel Administration, and advocated the taking over of the railroads by the Government in Dec. His policy of economic centralization was ultimately assisted by the many protests against his war policies which were made in the winter, and which centred round the demand for a non-partizan war cabinet or ministry of munitions; for his supporters were able to insist that the more effective handling of war problems demanded not new machinery but greater efficiency of the existing mechanism. The President asked for powers to cut through red tape and rearrange bureaus without reference to Congress. His demands were embodied in the Overman Act, which was passed in May 1918, and which enabled him to grant executive powers to the various boards that had been created. The War Industries Board, released from its dependence upon the Council of National Defense, at once became the centralizing organ of the economic activities of the country. In his war appointments Mr. Wilson disregarded party lines, a notable fact since in political appointments he always showed himself strictly a party man. Republicans such as Hoover, Stettinius, Goethals, Schwab, Vanderlip, were chosen because of their administrative qualities and regardless of political affiliations.

During the war President Wilson consistently developed his ideals of a new international system which should perpetuate peace and assure justice and security to every nation regardless of its material strength. He hoped thus not merely to construct a basis for just peace when the war should end, but to hasten the end of the war by appealing to the peoples of the enemy states against their Governments. The most notable of his speeches was that of Jan. 8 1918, in which he stated 14 points necessary to a just and lasting peace. This, with his later addresses, was ultimately accepted as the basis of the final settlement. Their effect in Germany and Austria-Hungary was not apparent until the military defeat of those empires, but his words acted continually as a corroding factor, weakening the enemy's determination to fight. When in the autumn of 1918 they faced military defeat, they turned to Mr. Wilson offering to accept his Fourteen Points as the basis of peace. The President's insistence upon justice as an essential to a lasting settlement had brought him great prestige in Allied countries, but the chiefs of the Allied Governments hesitated to accept the Fourteen Points in the fear that the material advantages of the victory might be thrown away. They yielded, however, to the persuasive diplomacy of Col. House, who represented the President at Paris, and it was on the understanding that the Fourteen Points (reservation made of “Freedom of the Seas” and inclusion of Germany's promise to make full reparation) should be the basis of the peace that the Armistice was granted to Germany. The President realized, however, that it would be difficult to translate his principles into the actual treaty. Aside from the opposition he might expect from selfish nationalistic interests among the Allies, he lacked unified support at home, where his political opponents called for a “strong peace” that would annihilate Germany; there was little enthusiasm for a League of Nations, which the President regarded as essential to a just and lasting settlement. Furthermore he had weakened his political position at home by a series of tactical mistakes. Of these, the most important was an appeal issued immediately before the Congressional election of Nov., in which Mr. Wilson asked the voters to cast their ballots for Democratic candidates, on the ground that a Republican Congress would divide the leadership at the moment of international crisis. Such an appeal would have been comprehensible if it had been made by a prime minister in a parliamentary country, but Wilson had proclaimed himself the leader of the nation and could not logically also play the rôle of party leader. The Republicans seemed to have some ground for complaining that although they had submerged partizan quarrels during the war, President Wilson was now attempting to capitalize the war and foreign affairs in order to win a partizan advantage. Many voters were antagonized by the appeal, and the elections went in favour of the Republicans. The President thus lost command of the Senate in the next Congress and its Foreign Relations Committee was to be controlled by his political and other opponents. Believing that his presence at the Peace Conference was necessary, if it was not to be dominated by old-style diplomatic practices, Mr. Wilson decided himself to go to Paris, and on Dec. 4 1918 sailed with the other members of the American Commission on the “George Washington.” He arrived at Brest on Dec. 13, and was received at Paris, in England, and at Rome with tremendous enthusiasm. For the moment he was the popular hero, both in Allied and enemy countries. But his prestige rested on a precarious footing, and must inevitably diminish when he came to oppose the national aspirations of any people. He was anxious, therefore, to strike off a quick general peace, leaving details for later settlement; but this proved impossible, and formal conversations at Paris began only in Jan. 1919. The President succeeded in winning an early victory when he persuaded the conference to accept the principle of the League of Nations as the basis of the peace, and when, on Feb. 14, he won unanimous approval of the preliminary draft of the covenant. On returning to the United States, however, he found Republican opposition to the league strongly manifested in the Senate, although he had the support of Mr. Taft's influence in that party and in the country. Public opinion seemed to be uninstructed and apathetic as to the President's policies. Going back to Paris in March, he was able to secure the insertion in the covenant of certain amendments required by American sentiment, and the approval by the conference of the final draft of the covenant. But he was confronted by the demands of the French, Italians and Japanese for territorial and economic concessions from the enemy, which he regarded as excessive. Long discussions followed, culminating in Mr. Wilson's acceptance of a portion of the Allied demands, notably the granting of Shantung to the Japanese, of much of the frontier line promised by the Treaty of London to Italy, and the exaction from Germany of what amounted to a blank cheque in the matter of reparations. Such concessions aroused the opposition of liberals in England and America, who insisted that the President had surrendered his principles. Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, acknowledging that certain aspects of the settlement were not ideal, believed that he had won his main contention in securing the League of Nations, which provided the mechanism for eradicating the vices contained in the treaties. In this belief he was supported by another liberal protagonist, Gen. Smuts. On June 29 1919, the day following the signing of the Versailles Treaty, the President sailed for America. His international prestige had suffered from his opposition to national claims, especially that of the Italians to Fiume and of the French to the left bank of the Rhine. Nevertheless, as the bitterness of the moment passed, the magnitude of his accomplishments at Paris became more generally recognized. When the veil of secrecy surrounding the negotiations was gradually lifted, it was seen that the belief that

he had been outmanœuvred by Lloyd George and Clemenceau was hardly justified by the facts. Lacking the negotiating ability of Lloyd George and the political experience of Clemenceau, he refused to enter the diplomatic lists with them, but by his manifest candour and sincerity early disarmed his opponents in argument. He said exactly what was in his mind, and was careful that his statements should be fortified by the documents and statistics furnished by his expert advisers.

The strain of the conference had told upon Mr. Wilson's physical and nervous strength. He was thus not well equipped to wage the struggle with his Republican opponents in the Senate which developed upon his presentation of the treaty. Had the President been willing to compromise and accept reservations to the covenant of the league, it is possible that the two-thirds necessary to ratification might have been secured. This course he refused to follow, and it soon became clear that the Foreign Relations Committee would not recommend ratification without serious reservations or amendments. In the hope of winning popular support, the President set forth upon a tour of the country and along the Pacific coast aroused enthusiasm in marked contrast to the coldness of the east. The effort, however, overtaxed his strength, and on Sept. 26 at Wichita, Kan., the President was compelled to give over his tour and return to Washington, where he suffered a complete nervous collapse. The exact nature of his illness was not made public and few realized how serious it would prove to be. Many, however, felt that in view of his inevitable abstention from active work, it would have been wiser for him to retire at least temporarily. As it was, his system had provided for no understudy and the administration was left without a leader. Entirely apart from the confusion thus caused in the conduct of the public business, Mr. Wilson's illness led directly to the defeat of the treaty. There was no one else capable either of leading the fight for ratification without reservations, or with sufficient authority to arrange a compromise. On Nov. 14 the Senate adopted reservations which Mr. Wilson declared would “nullify” (etc., etc.) the treaty; for this reason he urged the Democrats to refuse to vote for the ratifying resolution, which was accordingly defeated on Nov. 19 1919. During the succeeding weeks efforts were made to arrange a compromise. The Republican leaders agreed to soften the language of certain reservations, and the President intimated that he would accept a mild reservation on Article X. of the covenant, which had aroused the chief opposition. Neither side would yield enough, and when on March 19 1920, the final vote was taken on the ratifying resolution, which contained a strong reservation on Article X., Mr. Wilson again urged Democratic senators not to accept. The resolution thus failed of the necessary two-thirds by a margin of seven votes, 57-37. The President appealed to the autumn presidential election in 1920 as the decisive plebiscite. Although he had lost his former control of the party, and the Democratic presidential nominee at San Francisco was not his choice, the Wilsonian policies, including approval of the League of Nations, were inevitably the issue of the elections. In the electioneering campaign, however, the President himself could take no active part, for his physical collapse proved so serious as to confine him to the White House. For the overwhelming victory won by the Republicans, see (History). After his defeat Mr. Wilson kept close silence on public matters, and his annual message of Dec. 1920, while it sounded the note of national duty, made no reference to that which lay nearest his heart — the League of Nations. This silence, indeed, he preserved until the close of his administration, March 4 1921. In Dec. 1920 he had been awarded the Nobel Peace prize.

The failure of President Wilson to win the approval of the United States for his peace policies presents one of the most interesting problems of American history. He had led the country through the difficult period of a war unsurpassed in magnitude and culminating in complete victory; in the face of serious obstacles he had forced European statesmen to accept the major item in his programme; he returned home only to be repudiated by his own people. Personal and partizan factors unquestionably contributed to his defeat. In private intercourse Mr. Wilson displayed a personal magnetism, a breadth culture, and a genial cordiality that are amply attested by his intimates. But in public life he proved unable to capitalize such advantages, possibly because of natural shyness, possibly because physical delicacy restricted his social activities. Roosevelt's capacity for “mixing” with all political and human types he totally lacked. In the formation of his policies he isolated himself and was unable to establish close relations with Congressional leaders. This gave rise to the impression that the President disliked advice, was an ego-centric autocrat, and immediately dispensed with anyone who disagreed with him. Such criticism, by no means a novelty in the case of strong-willed presidents, was utilized by his political opponents and intensified his unpopularity in the industrial centres, especially of the east, an unpopularity which, except for a few months during the opening months of the war, was an outstanding factor in the political situation. Broadly speaking, the criticism does not seem to be fully justified. In matters of what he regarded as principle he was adamant, and he distrusted the judgment of those whose basic point of view was different from his own; but the evidence of those who worked with him, including that of Republican advisers at Paris, is almost unanimous to the effect that he was anxious to secure advice, was tolerant of opinions, and glad to delegate responsibility. The contrary belief was doubtless fostered by Mr. Wilson's inability to build up an efficient secretarial organization, and his incapacity, rather than unwillingness, to apportion effectively the details of administrative labour. His handling of war problems shows clearly his desire to delegate responsibility; once an appointment was made he refused to interfere and consistently protected his appointee from the importunities of politicians.

Political responsibility in general, he believed, should rest with the President. From conviction, rather than from egotism, he sought to emancipate the presidential office from the control of Congressional committees, a control which he earnestly deplored in his earliest writings. The President, he felt, should be the real leader of the nation, and not a mere executive superintendent. The Cabinet he looked on as an executive and not as a political council, and it was always strictly subordinated to his policies. So long as the Democrats held the majority in Congress he was able to translate such ideas into fact, and effectively disposed of all attempted Congressional revolts. This attitude naturally did not allay the political resentments which were inevitably aroused and which were intensified by Mr. Wilson's tendency to regard political opposition as tantamount to personal hostility; when the Democratic majority disappeared he faced uncompromising hostility. He was intensely impatient of partizan obstruction of his idealistic plans, and there is much of the Calvinist in his refusal to temporize or deviate from the path which he believed himself appointed to tread. While in matters of detail he showed at times some capacity for compromise, in matters of principle he displayed the unswerving determination characteristic of the prophet, a trait that is not always conducive to success in the exigencies of modern party warfare. Indeed it is as a prophet, rather than las a statesman that Mr. Wilson should be regarded. No one has preached more effectively the necessity of introducing a moral standard into international politics.

The following are the most important writings of President Wilson: Congressional Government, a Study in American Politics (1885); The State — Elements of Historical and Practical Politics (1889); Division and Reunion, 1829-1889 (1893); An Old Master and Other Political Essays (1893); Mere Literature and Other Essays (1893); George Washington (1896); A History of the American People (1902); Constitutional Government in the United States (1908); The New Freedom (1913); On Being Human (1916); International Ideals (1919). Personal and political biographies of President Wilson have been written by H. J. Ford, Woodrow Wilson: The Man and His Work (1916); by H. W. Harris, President Wilson: His Problems and His Policy (1917); by W. E. Dodd, Woodrow Wilson and His Work (1920); and by his private secretary, Joseph P. Tumulty, Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him (1921). All four are eulogistic, especially the last two named. General surveys of Wilson's foreign policy are to be found in E. E. Robinson and V. J. West's The Foreign

Policy of President Wilson, 1913-1917 (1917); and in Charles Seymour's Woodrow Wilson and the World War (1921). Editions of President Wilson's State papers have been made by Albert Shaw, President Wilson's State Papers and Addresses (1917); by J. B. Scott, President Wilson's Foreign Policy; and Messages, Addresses, Papers. (Author:Charles Seymour)


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/5


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/6


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/7


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/444

 to Shoosharry, on the edge of a huge bog, where he bored in vain for water, and where a visitor was almost unknown. His son William was now his assistant, and in 1830 he was able to visit England, and hold meetings in Yorkshire, Durham, Devonshire, Cornwall, Ireland, and the Scilly Isles. On returning to Shoosharry in July 1831 he found cholera rife in the district, but out of his five hundred employés none died. A year later he was allowed by an imperial ukase to resign his post in favour of his son.

To his monthly meeting at Doncaster on 23 Sept. 1832 he unfolded his mission of gospel visits to the Pacific Islands, New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania). While making his preparations Wheeler's wife (who had remained in Russia) died. Accompanied by his son Charles he set sail from the Thames on 13 Nov. 1833 in the Henry Freeling, a cutter of 101 tons, purchased and provisioned by private members of the Society of Friends. The ship arrived off Hobart Town on 10 Sept. 1834, and left in December, conveying James Blackhouse and George Washington Walker [q. v.] to Port Jackson and Norfolk Island on her way to Tahiti. During four or five months spent in that island Wheeler held many services, sometimes on board his ship, with the queen and the chiefs, the missionaries, English residents, and the crews of vessels in the harbour. Queen Pomare remitted the Henry Freeling's port dues because Wheeler's was ‘a visit of love, and not a trading voyage’ (Memoirs, p. 351). She again came to his meetings on the island of Eimeo.

Christmas day 1835 was spent in the Sandwich Islands, and the first quakers' meeting held there, attended by native chiefs, governor, and the queen. At Honolulu the Henry Freeling stayed some time, also at Rarotonga, the Friendly Islands, and Tongataboo. She made the Bay of Islands about a month before Christmas 1836, and on reaching Sydney in January 1837 was sold and the ship's company discharged. The ship's course was entirely without pre-arrangement, and directed from day to day by Wheeler's spiritual intimations. In a letter to a friend he illustrates his sense of divine protection by saying that he has been ashamed even in landing in canoes through the broken surf to use a life-belt which a friend had given him on leaving.

After leaving Hobart Town, he reached London on 1 May 1838. On returning his certificates to his quarterly meeting, Wheeler laid before them his wish to visit America. First visiting his surviving children at Shoosharry, he returned through Finland and Stockholm, and sailed from Liverpool in November 1838.

In America he attended a number of the yearly meetings, visited the place where Mary Dyer and the other quakers were executed, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and returned to England in October 1839, hastened by the illness of his son Charles, who died at St. Germains on his way south in the spring of the following year. Wheeler sailed for New York to complete his mission in May, but was taken ill at sea, and died soon after landing, on 12 June 1840. He was buried on the 15th in the Friends' burial-ground, Orchard Street, New York. On 13 June 1800 he married Jane, daughter of Thomas and Rachel Brady of Thorne, Yorkshire. By her he had four sons: William (d. 24 Nov. 1836), Joshua (d. 29 March 1841), Daniel (d. 1848), and Charles (d. 6 Feb. 1840). His elder daughter, Sarah (b. 1807), who afterwards married William Tanner of Bristol, survived him. Of his youngest daughter, Jane (died at Shoosharry on 15 July 1837), a short account was published in London and Bristol in 1841.

Wheeler's ‘Letters and Journals,’ edited by his son Charles, were published in four parts, 1835, 1836, 1838, and 1839, 8vo, and reprinted in one volume, London, 1839, 8vo. ‘Memoirs of the Life and Gospel Labours of Daniel Wheeler’ was issued by his son Daniel (London, 1842, 8vo; reprinted in the ‘Friends' Library,’ 1843, vol. vii.; abridged, London, 1852, 12mo, and reissued, Philadelphia, 1859, 12mo). It contains many letters and addresses written by him. A biographical tract, issued by the Friends' Tract Association, was translated into German, ‘Denkwürdigkeiten aus dem Leben,’ &c. (London, 1845, 12mo; 2nd edit. 1854). A pamphlet ‘Life’ was issued in 1868.

[Memoirs, Letters, and Journals; Smith's Catalogue, ii. 879; Memoirs of William Tanner, pp. 169–73; Life of William Allen, vol. i. chap. xi.; Biogr. Cat. of Friends, p. 701.]  WHEELER, HUGH MASSY (1789–1857), major-general in the Indian army, grandson of Frank Wheeler of Ballywire, co. Limerick, and son of Captain Hugh Wheeler of the East India Company's service, by Margaret, eldest daughter of Hugh, first lord Massy in the Irish peerage, was born at Ballywire on 30 June 1789. He was educated at Richmond, Surrey, and at Bath grammar school. He received a commission as ensign in 1803, and, joining the 24th Bengal native infantry in the following year, was employed with his regiment in the force under Lord


text:
Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/135

Rh Pope John X., Lambert, Archbishop of Milan, and nearly all the Lombard nobles, supported his claim, and he disembarked at Pisa in 926, and was crowned at Pavia. The crafty Hugh, fully estimating the influence of the clergy in the politics of Italy, affected the most profound zeal for religion, and flattered the clergy. John X., in Rome, was in a difficult position. Rome at the time was ruled by the infamous Marozia. John had been the favourite of Marozia's equally infamous mother Theodora. He had, in fact, been her paramour, and it was she who had advanced him from one bishopric to another, and had finally placed the tiara on his head. On the death of his mistress, John found himself engaged in a fierce contest for the mastery of Rome with Marozia and her lover, or husband, the Marquess Alberic, by whom she had a son of the same name, and another, by Pope Sergius it was rumoured, whom she afterwards elevated to the Papacy. John managed to drive the Marquess out of Rome, and he was assassinated in 925; whereupon Marozia married Guido, Duke of Tuscany, half-brother of Hugh of Provence. The Pope hoped, notwithstanding this connexion, by offering the prize of the Imperial crown, to secure Hugh's protection against his domestic tyrants. But he was disappointed. Marozia seized on the Pope, the former lover of her mother. His brother Peter was killed before his face, and John was thrown into prison, where, some months after, he died, either of anguish or, as was rumoured, smothered with a pillow.

Marozia did not venture at once to place her son on the Papal throne. A Leo VI. was Pope for some months, and a Stephen VII. for two years and one month. The son was still a mere boy, too young for

title: Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/135


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/445

 Lake against Delhi. He was promoted to be lieutenant on 5 April 1805 and captain on 1 Jan. 1818.

In December 1824 Wheeler was detached with two companies against the freebooter Diraj Singh. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 27 June 1835, and in December of the same year was posted to the 48th native infantry. He commanded the regiment in the Afghan campaign of 1838–9, at the storm and capture of Ghazni on 23 July 1839, and the occupation of Kabul on 6 Aug. following. He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette, 30 Oct. 1839), and made a companion of the order of the Bath, military division, on 20 Dec. 1839. In August 1840 Wheeler was sent against some insubordinate Waziris, near Kaja, some thirty miles from Jalalabad, fought a successful affair on the 19th, and reduced several forts, for which service he was highly commended by Sir Willoughby Cotton [q. v.], and mentioned in despatches (ib. 9 Jan. 1841). Wheeler accompanied Cotton in December 1840 to India, his regiment forming part of the escort to guard the ex-shah, Dost Muhammad, who had surrendered to Cotton. Wheeler was permitted to accept from the Shah Shuja-ul-Mulkh and to wear the insignia of the order of the Durani empire for his services in Afghanistan (ib. 26 Feb. 1842).

On 13 Dec. 1845 Wheeler was appointed to command the 2nd infantry brigade in the army of the Satlaj. He was severely wounded at Mudki on 18 Dec. Although still suffering from his wound he joined Sir Harry Smith near Ludiana on 26 Jan. 1846, with his brigade, composed of the 50th foot, the 48th native infantry, and the Sirmur battalion, and took a prominent part in the battle of Aliwal on 28 Jan. [see ]. In his despatch, dated 30 Jan. 1846, Sir Harry Smith says, ‘In Brigadier Wheeler, my second in command, I had a support I could rely on with every confidence, and most gallantly did he head his brigade.’ On 17 Feb. Wheeler crossed the Satlaj, and occupied the strong fort of Philor, and then advanced to the banks of the Beas. For his services in this campaign he received the medal with clasps for Mudki and Aliwal, and was made aide-de-camp to the queen with the rank of colonel in the army from 3 April 1846.

On 29 April Wheeler was appointed to command the Jalandhar Doab as a brigadier-general of the first class. On the outbreak of the second Sikh war he took the field in September, and on the 14th of the following month reduced the strong fort of Rangal Naga, for which he was congratulated by Lord Gough, who ascribed the success to ‘his soldier-like and judicious arrangements.’ He was appointed on 8 Nov. 1848 to command the ninth brigade of the fourth infantry division of the army of the Punjab. In the same month Lord Gough mentioned in despatches that he had tendered his hearty congratulations and thanks to Wheeler for the important services rendered by him in the reduction of Kalawala. Wheeler was again mentioned in despatches (30 Jan. 1849) for having, when in command of the Punjab division and the Jalandhar field force, assaulted and captured the heights of Dallah, in spite of many difficulties, in his operations against the Sikh leader, Ram Singh. On the termination of hostilities the governor-general commented in general orders on the great skill and success with which Wheeler had executed the duties committed to him. Wheeler received the medal, the thanks of both houses of parliament, and of the directors of the East India Company, and on 16 Aug. 1850 he was made a knight commander of the order of the Bath, military division.

He resumed his command of the Jalandhar Doab, was promoted to be major-general on 20 June 1854, and on 30 June 1856 was appointed to the command of the Cawnpore division. When, in May 1857, news reached him at Cawnpore of the revolt of native regiments at Mirat and Delhi, Wheeler does not appear to have appreciated the critical state of affairs. Believing that if he provided for the temporary safety of the Europeans and guarded against a rising in the city and bazaars, any mutinous sepoys would go off to Delhi, he selected a position, which he entrenched and furnished with supplies, outside the city, near the sepoy lines and at some distance from the river, where the hospital barracks afforded considerable accommodation. Sir Henry Lawrence sent him a small reinforcement from Lucknow, and, notwithstanding a caution from Lawrence to beware of his neighbour, the Raja Dundbu Panth of Bithur (afterwards known as the Nana), Wheeler obtained his services with two guns and three hundred men. They came in on 22 May, and took over the custody of the treasury at Nawabganj.

The European women, children, and non-combatants betook themselves to the entrenched position, and at the beginning of June Wheeler himself encamped there, and so confident was he that all would soon be well that on 1 June he wrote to Lord Canning that he had that day sent transport to bring up Europeans from Allahabad, ‘and in a few days—a very few days—I shall consider


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/8


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/9


text: Author:Charles Seymour

title: Author:Charles Seymour


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/10


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/11


text:
Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/136

2 the shameless woman to advance him to the Chair of S. Peter. But on the death of Stephen, Marozia again ruled alone in Rome; Guido, her husband, was dead, and she made her son Pope under the title of John XI. But Marozia was not satisfied with having been the wife, first of a Marquess, then of a Duke; the mistress of Pope Sergius, the mother of Pope John XI. She sent to offer her hand to Hugh of Provence, the new King of Italy. Hugh was not scrupulous in his amours, but there was an impediment in the way. She had been the wife of his half-brother. But the youthful Pope, the son of the wretched woman, was ready with a dispensation, and the marriage was celebrated in Rome.

Hugh set to work now to strike down, one after another, the nobles who had supported him, and had shaken down the throne of Rudolf, acting with unexampled perfidy and ingratitude. He did not even spare his half-brother, Lambert, who had succeeded Guido in the Duchy of Tuscany, for he plucked out his eyes. His high-handed and merciless conduct alarmed those who had not yet suffered. One day, Alberic, the son of Marozia, was commanded by King Hugh to serve him with water, at supper, so as to wash his hands. Performing his office awkwardly or reluctantly, the youth spilled the water, whereupon the King struck him in the face. Alberic was furious; he went forth and placed himself at the head of a conspiracy against his stepfather. The bells of Rome rang out, the people rushed into the streets, besieged the Castle of S. Angelo, and took it. Hugh had to fly and form a court at Pavia.

title: Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/136


text: Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/12


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/13

HEN the New World was disclosed to the Old, the belief of all civilized people was that the heathen had no rights which Christians ought to respect—that he and his country belonged of right to the strongest taker; and it became a curious article of a more curious faith that murder and robbery were efficient means for propagating the faith of Christ and magnifying the glory of God.

The Pope made short work of the whole matter, for he divided the new world east and west by a degree of longitude and made a present of one-half to the Spaniard and the other half to the Portuguese—"Ad majoram gloriam Dei"—to the greater glory of God. This process of simple division was not satisfactory to the fair-haired, blue-eyed race that dominated the island in the North Sea.

Love of enterprise, commercial daring, politics, religious conditions—all contributed to stimulate exploration and investigation. One Englishman spent his life searching for El Dorado—the land where gold abounded; a Spaniard spent his hunting the "Fons Vitæ"—the fountain of perpetual youth, the waters of which renew forever the waning forces of vitality. But while the Spaniard ransacked two continents for silver and gold, found them and ruined his posterity, the French, actuated by no nobler ideals, made settlements in North America, the main inspiration of which was the desire to possess the great fisheries on the north-eastern coast. The English, in the main, had higher aims, and wider, larger aspirations. Political conditions at home exasperated religious


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/14

4 differences, and the only hope of liberty seemed to be to transplant the old institutions of Britain—liberty of person, security of property, freedom of thought to the wilderness, and there secure them forever by the ancient safeguards devised by the experience, the wisdom and the courage of their ancestors—habeas corpus, trial by jury, representative self government. So, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, many gentlemen in England emigrated with their property and their servants to the forests of New England, then including the north continent from the lakes to the gulf. With them they carried the opinions of their time and generation. The possession of the heathen was lawful and laudable sport for Christian men, and they straightway put them to the sword, seized their lands, their wives and their children, and divided them and all prisoners taken in war as slaves of the conquerors. This was the universal rule among all the English except in Pennsylvania and in Maryland. In the first the influence of Penn, in the last that of the Jesuits, saved them from such crimes against humanity. But the necessities of the new society, the constant struggle with nature, the forest, the flood, the fire, all made involuntary and controlled labor exceedingly valuable, convenient, comfortable and necessary. And when to the captive Indians were added cargoes of savage, cannibal Africans, no man could deny that it was a Christian duty to civilize them and teach them to work. Therefore, involuntary servitude existed in all the English colonies from the very first, and it was not until the American revolution stirred up generalizings and theories about the rights of man, that the idea got abroad that slavery was wrong. In the New England States it had long ceased to be necessary, for population had increased and roads been constructed, so that society was able to protect itself. It was troublesome, annoying, unprofitable. Slaves of different races—Indian, white and negro—confused the social order, and it was best to get rid of them. But it was not as


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/15

Rh a moral question, but as an economical one, that it was dealt with.

So when the Constitution of the United States and the Union by, through and under it were framed, formed and organized, it was silent on the subject of slavery by name, but provided for its protection by requiring that persons held to service, escaping from one State to another, should be delivered and returned to their masters on demand. Without this provision no constitution could have been adopted and no union formed.

But the cotton-gin was invented, by which the cultivation of cotton became extremely profitable and slaves became valuable property. There was a great movement of capital and population to the cotton country, and the new States rapidly grew up and demanded admission into the Union. By the gradual abolition of slavery north of the Chesapeake the free States had been approaching control of the Senate of the United States, until the cotton-gin reversed the order, and it seemed as if the slave States would secure permanent control of the Union.

Then began an agitation in the North, superficially moral and religious, but really and substantially political; professedly to do away with the great crime of slavery, in fact to check and destroy the aggrandizement of the Southern power. The first clear issue between the forces was on the application of Missouri to be admitted as a State of the Union. Missouri was a slave State and her admission would destroy the equilibrium between the two systems in the Senate of the United States. So Missouri was kept out until a free State could be hitched to her and thus the balance of power preserved. This was in 1821. In divers ways the struggle between the powers exhibited itself. Congress for years had levied duties on imports, whereby Northern manufacturers were encouraged and protected. Northern manufacturers were enriched and the rest of the country taxed for their benefit. In 1831 a tariff law was passed which was resisted by


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/446

 Cawnpore safe—nay, that I may send aid to Lucknow if need be.’ On 3 June, Lawrence having expressed uneasiness, Wheeler sent two officers and fifty men to Lucknow.

Wheeler's selection of a defence post was injudicious, his defence works were weak, and supplies were altogether inadequate. His confidence in the native troops, who, from all accounts, entertained great respect for him, and his excessive anxiety not to alarm them in their disturbed condition by evincing suspicion of their loyalty, led him deliberately to reject the most suitable defence position. This was the magazine, a large walled enclosure, close to the river and the treasury, amply supplied with arms, ammunition and stores, where he could easily have held out until succour should arrive.

On the night of 4 June the outbreak commenced, the native cavalry joining the troops of the Nana at Nawabganj; the treasury was sacked, the public buildings set on fire, and the magazine, with its heavy guns, ammunition, and stores, was occupied by the rebels. On the following day the native infantry followed suit, and the mutineers, laden with spoil, were all on the way to Delhi, when the Nana persuaded them to return to Cawnpore to attack the Europeans. On the 6th the bombardment of Wheeler's position commenced. The heroic defence, the details of which are well given in Kaye's ‘History of the Sepoy War’ (vol. ii.) and in Trevelyan's ‘Cawnpore,’ lasted until 27 June. The daily casualties were large. Wheeler's son, who lay wounded in a room, where he was attended by his parents and sisters, had his head taken off by a round shot. Extreme heat, hunger, and thirst added to the horrors of the situation.

On 25 June the Nana offered terms of capitulation. Wheeler was unwilling to listen to any terms, but the probable fate, if the siege continued, of the large number of women and children still surviving was pressed upon him by officers who had distinguished themselves by their heroic conduct during the siege, and he reluctantly gave way. The remnant of the garrison, with the women and children, marched out on the morning of the 27th to proceed by river to Allahabad under a safe-conduct from the Nana. At the ghat where they embarked and in the boats on the river the first massacre took place, and Wheeler and his family were among the victims.

WHEELER, JAMES TALBOYS (1824–1897), historian of India, son of James Luff Wheeler (d. 1862), by his wife Anne Ophelia, daughter of [q. v.], was born at Oxford on 22 Dec. 1824. Educated at a private school, he started business as a publisher and bookseller, but with little success. Having gained, however, some credit, when still a young man, as a writer of handbooks for university students, and by a more elaborate work on the geography of Herodotus, he obtained during the Crimean war a supernumerary clerkship at the war office. In 1858 he went to India as editor of the ‘Madras Spectator,’ but gave up the profession of journalism on being appointed (4 Oct. 1858) professor of moral and mental philosophy in the Madras presidency college. In May 1860 he was employed by the Madras government to examine the old records; the results of his researches being a report, highly commended by the secretary of state, Sir Charles Wood, in a despatch dated 25 May 1861, and a ‘History of Madras in the Olden Time.’ On 26 Feb. 1862 he was appointed assistant secretary to the government of India in the foreign department, and removed to Calcutta, where, among other duties, he had charge of the foreign and, later, of the home offices when the secretaries were at Simla. Among the printed but unpublished volumes which he compiled under orders of government were a memorandum on the Scinde ameers, summaries of political affairs from 1864 to 1869, of Afghan affairs in the eighteenth and nineteen centuries, and of Persian affairs, a valuable report on Afghan-Turkestan, and a memorandum on the Wahabis, all of which have been freely used by official writers as well as by others who had access to confidential documents. His services were specially acknowledged by Lord Mayo in a minute dated 20 Feb. 1870. Early in that year he was transferred to Rangoon as secretary to the chief commissioner of British Burma. In that capacity in November 1870 he visited Mandalay and Bhamo, and had an interview with the king of Burma. In 1873 he obtained long furlough to England. Since his appointment to the foreign office his leisure had been devoted to the compilation of his excellent and sympathetic history of India,


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/16

6 South Carolina, and the issue of arms was only averted by the retreat of the Federal government, by concession and by compromise.

The king of England at the beginning of the seventeenth century claimed the proprietorship of the North American continent, which claim was disputed by the Spaniard in the South and the French in the North. New England was hemmed and bounded by New Spain, New France, and the ambition and the courage and enterprise of England were roused to the conquest of the new world. The spirit that had shattered the Grand Armada and won for commerce the freedom of the seas, was directed to new countries and new States to be founded in North America, where the institutions, the habits, the sentiment and the society of their ancestors were to be transplanted, cultivated and developed, as they had been a thousand years before from the forests of Germany to the shores of Britain. The leading nobility and gentry, sailors, soldiers, and merchants of England were aroused to this great enterprise. They formed the Virginia company and received a grant from the king of that part of North America unoccupied by French or Spaniards. The enterprise of settlement, transportation and support of colonies proved too much for the company, and its grant was taken away with its charter, and the crown resumed its rights. Then grants were made to individual proprietors. Noblemen and gentlemen about the court secured these great favors, which they hoped would be the foundation of fortune to their posterity, just as the grants of the Norman conqueror had founded great houses and families which had controlled England for six centuries. Among them was Sir George Calvert, a Yorkshire knight of moderate fortune, but of an old family, whose ancestors had filled important offices in the Low Countries under the kings of Spain, and high positions at the court of France. He, in association with Sir Francis Arundel of Wardvin (whose daughter, Lady Anne Arundel, his son Cœcilius married,


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/17

Rh applied for grants of land in the new country. Both died before the grant was prepared, and Cœcilius Calvert then procured to be framed a charter or grant, which was the wisest and most liberal in its terms of any issued up to that time to an English subject. The charter granted to him and his heirs forever the territory on the north of the Potomac, and extending from the Atlantic ocean to the first springs of the Potomac, and along the 4oth degree of north latitude from the Delaware river to the meridian of the first fountain of the Potomac river. Together with this great grant of land and water, about 13,000 square miles, the proprietary was vested with all the powers of the Bishop of Durham, who from the earliest times had exercised absolute dominion over the palatinate of Durham and such power of martial law as was necessary in tempestuous times to preserve society and protect the border. The charter provided for self-government by the freemen; it secured them all the rights of Englishmen, and laid the solid foundation of a happy, friendly, contented society. The proprietary, in his capacity of palatine, regulated social laws and behavior. The motto of the Calverts is "Fatti Maschii, Parole Foemine" Deeds are manly, words are womanly, or as it has always been rendered, "Courage and Chivalry." The standard of the proprietary was borne in battle by a grand standard-bearer, who was an officer of great dignity and authority. One was killed at the battle of the Severn, between the Cavaliers and Roundheads, in 1654, and his widow received a grant of land and was treated with great distinction by the proprietary.

But the controlling force of the colony was the spirit of Baltimore, who in his instructions to his governors insisted that there should be no broils about religion or politics. Every man should be secured in the right to his opinion. Free thought was guaranteed to every Marylander, and free speech as well, except so far as free speech infringed on the rights of his neighbors, when it was strictly suppressed. Therefore, in the very foundation of Maryland


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/18

8 was deeply laid the idea of toleration of different opinions among neighbors, of consideration for their feelings, and, as a logical consequence, of readiness at all times to help them, to protect them, and to assist them in all the struggles of life. There never was a more homogeneous, sentimental society than that planted on the Chesapeake. "One for all and all for one" was the animating spirit for generations.

While the northern settlements were torn and blood-drenched and fire-blasted by intolerance, when the flames of burning witches lighted New England, and the air echoed with the lash of whipped Baptists, no man was ever molested for his opinions in Maryland—while Marylanders controlled the palatinate. Several times during that stormy epoch, which cost a king his crown in England and the people their liberties, there had been struggles between the Cavalier and Roundhead parties in Maryland, in which the latter were successful as their friends and relatives in England had been. But in all that tension of feeling there was never but one issue of arms in which blood was spilled. Therefore Maryland grew and prospered without those bitter memories which in New England and in Virginia separated class from class and divided neighbor from neighbor. And whenever their neighbors on the south side of the Potomac were harassed by the savages on their borders, the Marylanders were prompt and generous in spending life, blood, and treasure in their defense. There never was an Indian war in Maryland. The policy of the palatine, so broad and generous and just, prevented quarrels with the natives, and they were always friendly with the Marylanders. There were bloody invasions from south of the great river, from the west and from the north, but no rising ever occurred of Maryland Indians. Generosity with justice was the fundamental rule of dealing with them, and this rule of right acts upon all who practice it, as well as upon those on whom it is practiced. Respect for the weak, regard for


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/19

Rh the truth, a willingness and a desire to help those who need help, become controlling principles of life, and selfishness is eradicated as much as it is possible for human nature to be changed.

Thus developed the Maryland character. Love of country and of friends, regard for truth and justice, toleration of differences of opinion, for five generations had been the directing influence of their lives. So when in 1774 news came that the people of Boston had been shot down in their streets by men in red coats, the people rose as one man. From Mills' Creek, whence Braddock had marched twenty years before to disaster and death, to St. Mary's, where free thought had been proclaimed first in all the world, the men of Maryland mustered in companies and battalions, and in two weeks the province was organized for defense. It raised money and provisions which it sent to Boston, and, inasmuch as the port of Boston was closed to trade, formed an association pledging the people of Maryland, men, women and children, never to use any imported goods until justice was done to Boston, just as ten years before it had refused to recognize the Stamp Act. When the farmers of New England met and drove the British regulars at Breed's Hill, the prompt response of Maryland was a battalion of riflemen which marched from Frederick to Boston, 550 miles, to reinforce their brethren. Maryland had no interest in this fight. She enjoyed a just and liberal government. Her people made their own laws, levied their own taxes and expended them for their own benefit, and there was no friction between them and the government. Their governor, Sir Robert Eden, was one of the most popular gentlemen in the province. But when the word went out that Boston needed assistance, every country committee, every court, every provincial assembly proclaimed with one voice, "The cause of Boston is the cause of all," and from that hour to the signature of the definite treaty of peace, Maryland never faltered in her support of the cause of her


text:
Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/20

10 friends and neighbors. She lavished her last man and her last dollar to sustain that cause. No British soldier ever trod the soil of Maryland except during the short march from the head of Elk to Brandywine. She was never invaded, she was never molested; but she was true to her friends. There were no Tories in Maryland. A loyalist regiment was formed on the eastern shore, but its elements were so inefficient and incongruous that it was at once removed to Nova Scotia, where it perished from the memory of man and left hardly a trace behind.

Such were the men who moulded, formed and developed the society which was to face the crisis and do the duty of the times of 1859-65. It is our duty to tell how they did it.

In all discussions Maryland was on the side of the Union. She had given Colonel Washington, of Virginia, to the continental army as its commander-in chief, by and through her deputy in Congress in 1775, Thomas Johnson. She had made the first move for the Union in 1785. She had supported Washington all through the war and in the subsequent struggles and differences about the articles of Confederation, the Constitution and the Union. When, therefore, a party arose in the North which inculcated hatred toward the South, Maryland abhorred the apostles of malice and ill-will and sympathized more closely with the minority and weaker party. "Fatti Maschii, Parole Foemine" was the controlling sentiment of the men whose ancestors had stood with Stirling at Long Island until they were destroyed and the American army saved; whose charge at Eutaw had saved Greene's army; whose dash at Cowpens had driven the British line; whose bayonets at Guilford had broken the solid front of the Grenadier Guards—these men all believed in standing by their friends, reckless of risk, regardless of consequences. "With my friend—right or wrong—with my friend" is the complement of the State motto, "Courage and Chivalry."


text:
Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/137

Rh It was in 936 that King Hugh marched into Provence to dislodge the Moors from the Grand Fraxinet, when a general conspiracy broke out in Northern Italy, headed by Berengar, Marquess of Ivrea. Hugh had despoiled his half-brother, Lambert, of the Duchy of Tuscany, and had given it to his own full brother Boso; but after awhile, becoming jealous of his power, he had dispossessed Boso. Berengar, Marquess of Ivrea, had married Willa, the daughter of Boso. Berengar had been at the court of Hugh, when that King had made a plan to seize and blind him. But he received timely warning from Lothair, King Hugh's son, and had fled. Finding discontent rife, he placed himself at the head of the Italian princes and nobles. After his abandonment of the Mountains of the Moors, and having come to terms with the Saracens, Hugh hastened into Italy, only to find that his cause was lost. Amidst general execration, he was forced to retire into Provence in 946, and there he died three years later, in the odour of sanctity. Thenceforth for awhile the Moors were left undisturbed, to continue their ravages, Berengar and his son even contracted alliance with them. But at last an effort was made to be rid of the incubus. And the person who was the motive force to set the Count of Provence in action was S. Majolus Majolus was born of wealthy parents about the year 908, near Riez, in Provence. But owing to an incursion of the Saracens the family estate was ruined, houses were burnt, crops destroyed, and the peasants killed or carried off as captives. Majolus took refuge in Macon with his uncle, who was bishop. Then he became a monk at Cluny. In 948 the abbot Aymard resigned,

title: Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/137


text:
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/447

 the first volume of which was published in 1867. Returning to India in 1876, he was employed to report on the records in the home and foreign departments at Calcutta; and, besides submitting reports on his investigations, compiled two volumes, which he was allowed to publish. He also prepared and published under the authority of government a ‘History of the Imperial Assemblage at Delhi.’ In 1891 he retired from the service. He died at Ramsgate on 13 Jan. 1897.

He married, on 15 Jan. 1852, Emily, daughter of Robert Roe, by whom he had three surviving sons—Stephen, Owen Edleston (late captain Leicestershire regiment), and Albert Fordyce; and one daughter, Edith.

He wrote, besides smaller text-books and articles in the ‘Calcutta Review,’ ‘Asiatic Quarterly,’ and other periodicals, the following: 1. ‘Analysis and Summary of Herodotus,’ 1848. 2. ‘Analysis and Summary of Old Testament History,’ 1849. 3. ‘Analysis and Summary of Thucydides,’ 1850. 4. ‘Analysis and Summary of New Testament History,’ 1852. 5. ‘Geography of Herodotus,’ 1854. 6. ‘Life and Travels of Herodotus,’ 1855. 7. ‘History of Madras in the Olden Time, 1639 to 1748: compiled from the Government Records,’ 1860–2, 3 vols. 8. ‘History of India,’ 1867–81, 4 vols. 9. ‘Summary of Affairs of the Government of India in the Foreign Department from 1864 to 1869,’ 1869. 10. ‘Early Records of British India,’ 1877. 11. ‘History of the Imperial Assemblage at Delhi,’ 1877. 12. ‘Summary of Affairs in Native States, 1818 to 1835,’ 1878. 13. ‘Summary of Affairs in Mahratta States, 1627 to 1858,’ 1878. 14. ‘Short History of India and the Frontier States,’ 1880. 15. ‘Tales from Indian History,’ 1882. 16. ‘India under British Rule,’ 1886.

[Times, 14 Jan. 1897; Indian official lists and private papers.]  WHEELER, JOHN (fl. 1601–1608), secretary of the Merchant Adventurers' Company, was probably born at Great Yarmouth. On the death of George Gilpin in 1602, he became a candidate for the post of councillor to the council of estate in the Low Countries. He may be identical with the John Wheeler who in 1615 was admitted to the East India Company, with liberty to venture 200l. in the joint stock. In 1601 he published ‘A Treatise of Commerce, wherein are shewed the Commodities arising from a well ordered and ruled Trade,’ London (4to; another edition, Middelburg, 1601, 4to). His work, which contains much historical information, is an elaborate defence of the policy of the Merchant Adventurers' Company against the objections of the Hanseatic merchants and other opponents. He also collected and digested ‘The Lawes, Customes, and Ordinances of the Fellowshippe of Merchantes Adventurers of the Realm of England’ (1608, Brit. Museum Addit. MS. 18913).

[State Papers, Dom. Elizabeth, cclxxxii. 68, cclxxxiii. 74, cclxxxv. 23, 48; Cal. State Papers, East Indies, China, and Japan, 1513–16, No. 999, East Indies and Persia, 1630–4, No. 60; Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, ii. 219–21; Schanz's Englische Handelspolitik, i. 333–5; Gross's Gild Merchant, i. 148, 149; Hewins's English Trade and Finance, p. xvi; Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce (Modern Times), pp. 119, 120.]  WHEELER, MAURICE (1648?–1727), divine and almanac-maker, born in 1647 or 1648, was son of Maurice Wheeler ‘plebeius,’ who in 1664 was living at St. Giles (Wimborne) in Dorset. On 1 April 1664 he entered as a batteler at New Inn Hall, Oxford, and took the degrees of B.A. on 17 Oct. 1667, and of M.A. on 5 July 1670. At the latter date he had recently been appointed chaplain at Christ Church, and in the same year he became rector of St. Ebbe's at Oxford. His celebrated almanac (see below) was published in 1673, and at about this time he must have married, for a monument at St. Ebbe's records the death of twin sons of the rector (Maurice and William) on 25 June 1680. Probably this loss determined him to leave Oxford, for we find him holding the rectory of Sibbertoft in Northamptonshire from 1680 till 1684, in which year, on 11 Sept., he was appointed master of the collegiate or cathedral school at Gloucester, a position he probably held till 1707–8, when he was made prebendary of Lincoln. In 1686 he established a library at the school. His other preferments were the rectory of Wappenham in Northamptonshire (17 May 1712–15) and the rectory of Thorp Mandeville in the same county (from 12 Nov. 1720 till his death in 1727). On 7 Oct. 1727 he was buried in his former parish church at Wappenham. Baker, in his ‘Northamptonshire’ (i. 722), states that he was tutor to William Wake [q. v.] (afterwards archbishop of Canterbury), no doubt while rector of St. Ebbe's.

In 1673 Wheeler published anonymously at the Sheldonian Press at Oxford ‘The Oxford Almanac for … 1673 … Calculated for the meridian of Oxford …,’ a small octavo, containing, besides the bare almanac, a Roman calendar, chronological


text:
Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/138

108 and appointed Majolus to succeed him. But the ex-abbot one day, whilst in the infirmary, fancied a bit of cheese, and screamed for it to be brought to him. No one paid attention to his angry and repeated yells, as the monks at the time were themselves dining. Aymard was so offended at this neglect that he deposed Majolus and resumed the headship of the establishment. But on his death Majolus was elected in his room. After a visit to Rome, Majolus was on his way back when a band of Saracen marauders took him. Seeing one of the Moors about to cleave the head of one of his companions whom they considered not likely to fetch a ransom, Majolus sprang forward and interposed his arm. He saved the life of his comrade, but long suffered from the wound. The Saracens forced the monks of Cluny to pay the heavy ransom of a thousand pounds of silver for their abbot.

Majolus had now suffered twice from these scourges of the South, and he preached a crusade against them in 972. It took him ten years, however, to rouse the Provençals to undertake the expulsion of the Moors, so cowed and despairing had they become. He was ably assisted by one Bavo, son of Adel fried, a noble of Nuglerium (Noyers, near Sistèron?), who had taken a vow to avenge the honour of his wife, who had been outraged by a Saracen. This man swore to exterminate every Moor who came within reach of his arm. Eventually he died at Voghera, on a pilgrimage to Rome to give thanks for victory over the Moors. William, Count of Provence, at the instigation of Majolus, took up arms against the Moors, and hemmed them into the chain of mountains that still bears their name, The campaign lasted through several years, till

title: Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/138


text:
Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/141

Rh finally the main stronghold, Le Grand Fraxinet, was taken. After this, one fort and then another fell, and the boats were captured and burnt. William did not massacre the infidels, but reduced them to servitude, and their descendants continued to live on in Provence in this condition. Romeo de Villeneuve, in his will, dated 1250, ordered his male and female Saracen slaves to be sold.

William of Provence had been aided by a Grimaldi from Genoa; he made his prisoners build the walls of Nice and cultivate the soil. To this day a quarter of Nice bears the name of lou canton dei sarraïs, for it was here that these people were interned. Grimaldi, for his services, was granted lands in the Chaine des Maures, and the Golf de Grimaud and the town of Grimaud take their name from him. The Grimaldi family comes first into notice covered with honour, as liberators of the Christian from plunderers and pirates. The Grimaldi of to-day at Monaco are known as living on the proceeds of the gaming tables of Monte Carlo, the plunderers of Christendom. Le Grand Fraxinet itself may be visited, but there remain few traces of the Saracen stronghold; some substructures and a cistern are all. It has been supposed and asserted that the natives of the town, in their cast of feature, in their dark eyes and hair, in the pose of their bodies, still proclaim their Moorish descent. No one who has been in Tunis or Algiers will corroborate this. In fact, the inhabitants are indistinguishable from other Provençals.

Cogolin and Grimaud are two little towns living upon, and smelling of, cork, at a very little distance apart. The Castle of Cogolin has been wholly destroyed, save

title: Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/141