History for ready reference, Volume 4, Nicæa to Tunis

by J. N. Larned

{2539}
In 1290, when Pisa was in her greatest distress, Genoa
suddenly joined again in the attack on her ancient rival. She
sent an expedition under Conrad d'Oria which entered the
harbor of Pisa, pulled down its towers, its bridge and its
forts, and carried away the chain which locked the harbor
entrance. The latter trophy was only restored to Pisa in
recent years.
J. T. Bent,
Genoa,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book 1, chapter 12 (volume 1).
PISA: A. D. 1100-1111.
Participation in the first Crusades.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111.
PISA: A. D. 1135-1137.
Destruction of Amalfi.
See AMALFI.
PISA: 13th Century.
Commercial rivalry with Venice and Genoa at Constantinople.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1261-1453.
PISA: A. D. 1311-1313.
Welcome to the Emperor Henry VII.
Aid to his war against Florence.
See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.
PISA: A. D. 1313-1328.
Military successes under Uguccione della Faggiuola.
His tyranny and its overthrow.
Subjection to Castruccio Castracani and the deliverance.
See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.
PISA: A. D. 1341.
Defeat of the Florentines before Lucca.
Acquisition of that city.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1341-1343.
PISA: A. D. 1353-1364.
Dealings with the Free Companies.
War with Florence.
See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.
PISA: A. D. 1399-1406.
Betrayal to Visconti of Milan.
Sale to the Florentines.
Conquest by them and subsequent decline.
See ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406.
PISA: A. D. 1409.
The General Council of the Church.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417.
PISA: A. D. 1494-1509.
Delivered by the French.
The faithlessness of Charles VIII.
Thirteen years of struggle against Florence.
Final surrender.
"The Florentine conquest was the beginning of 90 years of
slavery for Pisa —a terrible slavery, heavy with exaggerated
imports, bitter with the tolerated plunder of private
Florentines, humiliating with continual espionage. … Pisa was
the Ireland of Florence, captive and yet unvanquished. … At
last a favourable chance was offered to the Pisans. … In the
autumn of 1494, the armies of Charles VIII. poured into Italy
[see ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496]. It had been the custom of the
Florentines, in times of war and danger, to call the heads of
every Pisan household into Florence, as hostages for the good
behaviour of their families and fellow citizens. But in the
autumn of 1494, Piero de' Medici who forgot everything, who
had forgotten to garrison his frontier, forgot to call the
Pisan hostages to Florence, although the French were steadily
advancing on Tuscany, and the Pisans eager to rebel. … The
French army and the hope of liberty entered the unhappy city
hand in hand [November 8, 1494]. … That night the Florentines
in Pisa—men in office, judges, merchants, and soldiers of the
garrison—were driven at the sword's point out of the
rebellious city. … Twenty-four hours after the entry of the
French, Pisa was a free republic, governed by a Gonfalonier,
six Priors, and a Balia of Ten, with a new militia of its own,
and, for the first time in eight and eighty years, a Pisan
garrison in the ancient citadel." All this was done with the
assent of the King of France and the promise of his
protection. But when he passed on to Florence, and was faced
there by the resolute Capponi, he signed a treaty in which he
promised to give back Pisa to Florence when he returned from
Naples. He returned from Naples the next summer (1495), hard
pressed and retreating from his recent triumphs, and halted
with his army at Pisa. There the tears and distress of the
friendly Pisans moved even his soldiers to cry out in
protestation against the surrender of the city to its former
bondage. Charles compromised by a new treaty with the
Florentines, again agreeing to deliver Pisa to them, but
stipulating that they should place their old rivals on equal
terms with themselves, in commerce and in civil rights. But
Entragues, the French governor whom Charles had left in
command at Pisa, with a small garrison, refused to carry out
the treaty. He assisted the Pisans in expelling a force with
which the Duke of Milan attempted to secure the city, and
then, on the 1st of January, 1496, he delivered the citadel
which he held into the hands of the Pisan signory. "During
thirteen years from this date the shifting fortunes, the
greeds and jealousies of the great Italian cities, fostered an
artificial liberty in Pisa. Thrown like a ball from Milan to
Venice, Venice to Maximilian, Max again to Venice, and thence
to Cæsar Borgia, the unhappy Republic described the whole
circle of desperate hope, agonized courage, misery, poverty,
cunning, and betrayal."
A. M. F. Robinson,
The End of the Middle Ages: The French at Pisa.
In 1509 the Pisans, reduced to the last extremity by the
obstinate siege which the Florentines had maintained, and sold
by the French and Spaniards, who took pay from Florence (see
VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509) for abandoning their cause, opened
their gates to the Florentine army.
H. E. Napier,
Florentine History,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 8, chapter 6 and book 9, chapters 1-10.
PISA: A. D. 1512.
The attempted convocation of a Council by Louis XII. of France.
See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.
----------PISA: End--------
PISISTRATIDÆ, The.
See ATHENS: B. C. 560-510.
PISTICS.
See GNOSTICS.
PIT RIVER INDIANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS, &c.
PITHECUSA.
The ancient name of the island of Ischia.
PITHOM, the store city.
See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.
PITT, William (Lord Chatham).
The administration of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1757-1760; 1760-1763;
and 1765-1768.
PITT, William (Lord Chatham).
The American Revolution.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (JANUARY-MARCH).
PITT, William (the Younger).
The Administration of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1783-1787, to 1801-1806.
PITTI PALACE, The building of the.
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1458-1469.
PITTSBURG LANDING, OR SHILOH, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE).
{2540}
----------PITTSBURGH: Start--------
PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1754.
Fort Duquesne built by the French.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.
PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1758.
Fort Duquesne abandoned by the French, occupied by the
English, and named in honor of Pitt.
See CANADA: A. D. 1758.
PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1763.
Siege of Fort Pitt by the Indians.
Bouquet's relieving expedition.
See PONTIAC'S WAR.
PITTSBURGH: A. D. 1794.
The Whiskey Insurrection.
See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1794.
----------PITTSBURGH: End--------
PIUS II., Pope, A. D. 1458-1464.
Pius III., Pope, 1503, September to October.
Pius IV., Pope, 1559-1565.
Pius V., Pope, 1566-1572.
Pius VI., Pope, 1775-1799.
Pius VII., Pope, 1800-1823.
Pius VIII., Pope, 1829-1830.
Pius IX., Pope, 1846-1878.
PIUTES, PAH UTES, &c.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.
PIZARRO, Francisco: Discovery and conquest of Peru.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1524-1528;
and PERU: A. D. 1528-1531, and 1531-1533.
PLACARDS OF CHARLES V., The.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555.
----------PLACENTIA: Start--------
PLACENTIA (modern Piacenza):
The Roman colony.
Its capture by the Gauls.
See ROME: B. C. 295-191.
PLACENTIA: B. C. 49.
Mutiny of Cæsar's Legions.
See ROME: B. C. 49.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 270.
Defeat of the Alemanni.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 270.
PLACENTIA: 14th Century.
Under the tyranny of the Visconti.
See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1513.
Conquest by Pope Julius II.
See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1515.
Restored to the duchy of Milan,
and with it to the king of France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1515-1518.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1521.
Retaken by the Pope.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1545-1592.
Union with Parma in the duchy created for the House of Farnese.
See PARMA: A. D. 1545-1592.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1725.
Reversion of the duchy pledged to the Infant of Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1735.
Restored to Austria.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1746.
Given up by the Spaniards.
See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1805.
The duchy declared a dependency of France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.
PLACENTIA: A. D. 1814.
The duchy conferred on Marie Louise,
the ex-empress of Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (MARCH-APRIL).
----------PLACENTIA: Start--------
PLACILLA, Battle of (1891).
See CHILE: A. D. 1885-1891.
PLACITUM.
PLAID.
See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.
----------PLAGUE: Start--------
PLAGUE.
PESTILENCE.
EPIDEMICS:
PLAGUE: B. C. 466-463. At Rome.
See ROME: B. C. 466-463.
PLAGUE: B. C. 431-429. At Athens.
See ATHENS: B. C. 430-429.
PLAGUE: B. C. 405-375.
Among the Carthaginians.
"Within the space of less than thirty years [from B. C. 405]
we read of four distinct epidemic distempers, each of
frightful severity, as having afflicted Carthage and her
armies in Sicily, without touching either Syracuse or the
Sicilian Greeks. Such epidemics were the most irresistible of
all enemies to the Carthaginians. … Upon what physical
conditions the frequent repetition of such a calamity
depended, together with the remarkable fact that it was
confined to Carthage and her armies—we know partially in
respect to the third of the four cases [when it was
attributable in some degree to the situation of the
Carthaginian camp on low, marshy ground, at a season when hot
days alternated with chill nights] but not at all in regard to
the others."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 83.
PLAGUE: A. D. 78-266.
Plague after the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Plagues of Orosius, Antoninus, and Cyprian.
"On the cessation of the eruption of Vesuvius, which began on
the 23d of August, A. D. 78, and which buried Herculaneum,
Stabiæ and Pompeii in ashes, there arose … a destructive
plague, which for many days in succession slew 10,000 men
daily." The plague of Orosius (so called because Orosius, who
wrote in the 5th century, described it most fully) began in
the year A. D. 125. It was attributed to immense masses of
grasshoppers which were swept by the winds, that year, from
Africa into the Mediterranean Sea, and which were cast back by
the waves to putrefy in heaps on the shore. "'In Numidia,
where at that time Micipsa was king, 800,000 men perished,
while in the region which lies most contiguous to the
sea-shore of Carthage and Utica, more than 200,000 are said to
have been cut down. In the city of Utica itself, 80,000
soldiers, who had been ordered here for the defence of all
Africa, were destroyed.' … The plague of Antoninus (A. D.
164-180) visited the whole Roman Empire, from its most eastern
to its extreme western boundaries, beginning at the former,
and spreading thence by means of the troops who returned from
putting down a rebellion in Syria. In the year 166 it broke
out for the first time in Rome, and returned again in the year
168. … The plague depopulated entire cities and districts, so
that forests sprung up in places before inhabited. … In its
last year it appears to have raged again with especial fury,
so that in Rome … 2,000 men often died in a single day. With
regard to the character of this plague, it has been considered
sometimes smallpox, sometimes petechial typhus, and again the
bubo-plague. The third so-called plague, that of Cyprian,
raged about A. D. 251-266. … For a long time 500 died a day in
Rome. … After its disappearance Italy was almost deserted. …
It has been assumed that this plague should be considered
either a true bubo-plague, or smallpox."
J. H. Baas,
Outlines of the History of Medicine,
pages 189-190.
"Niebuhr has expressed the opinion that 'the ancient world
never recovered from the blow inflicted upon it by the plague
which visited it in the reign of M. Aurelius.'"
O. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 68, footnote.
ALSO IN:
P. B. Watson,
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,
chapter 4.
{2541}
PLAGUE: A. D. 542-594.
During the reign of Justinian.
"The fatal disease which depopulated the earth in the time of
Justinian and his successors first appeared in the
neighbourhood of Pelusium, between the Serbonian bog and the
eastern channel of the Nile. From thence, tracing as it were a
double path, it spread to the east, over Syria, Persia, and
the Indies, and penetrated to the west, along the coast of
Africa, and over the continent of Europe. In the spring of the
second year, Constantinople, during three or four months, was
visited by the pestilence; and Procopius, who observed its
progress and symptoms with the eyes of a physician, has
emulated the skill and diligence of Thucydides in the
description of the plague of Athens. … The fever was often
accompanied with lethargy or delirium; the bodies of the sick
were covered with black pustules or carbuncles, the symptoms
of immediate death; and in the constitutions too feeble to
produce an eruption, the vomiting of blood was followed by a
mortification of the bowels. … Youth was the most perilous
season; and the female sex was less susceptible than the male.
… It was not till the end of a calamitous period of fifty-two
years [A. D. 542-594] that mankind recovered their health, or
the air resumed its pure and salubrious quality. … During
three months, five and at length ten thousand persons died
each day at Constantinople; … many cities of the east were
left vacant; … in several districts of Italy the harvest and
the vintage withered on the ground. The triple scourge of war,
pestilence, and famine, afflicted the subjects of Justinian;
and his reign is disgraced by a visible decrease of the human
species, which has never been repaired in some of the fairest
countries of the globe."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 43.
ALSO IN:
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 5, chapter 17.
J. B. Bury,
History of the Later Roman Empire,
book 4, chapter 6 (volume 1).
PLAGUE: 6-13th Centuries.
Spread of Small-pox.
"Nothing is known of the origin of small-pox; but it appears
to have come originally from the East, and to have been known
in China and Hindostan from time immemorial. … 'It seems to
have reached Constantinople by way of Egypt about the year
569.' From Constantinople it spread gradually over the whole
of Europe, reaching England about the middle of the 13th
century."
R. Rollo,
Epidemics, Plagues, and Fevers,
page 271.
PLAGUE: A. D. 744-748.
The world-wide pestilence.
"One great calamity in the age of Constantine [the Byzantine
emperor Constantine V., called Copronymus], appears to have
travelled over the whole habitable world; this was the great
pestilence, which made its appearance in the Byzantine empire
as early as 745. It had previously carried off a considerable
portion of the population of Syria, and the Caliph Yezid III.
perished of the disease in 744. From Syria it visited Egypt
and Africa, from whence it passed into Sicily. After making
great ravages in Sicily and Calabria, it spread to Greece; and
at last, in the year 747, it broke out with terrible violence
in Constantinople, then probably the most populous city in the
universe. It was supposed to have been introduced, and
dispersed through Christian countries, by the Venetian and
Greek ships employed in carrying on a contraband trade in
slaves with the Mohammedan nations, and it spread wherever
commerce extended. … This plague threatened to exterminate the
Hellenic race." After it had disappeared, at the end of a
year, "the capital required an immense influx of new
inhabitants. To fill up the void caused by the scourge,
Constantine induced many Greek families from the continent and
the islands to emigrate to Constantinople."
G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057,
book 1, chapter 1, section 3.
PLAGUE: A. D. 1348-1351.
The Black Death.
See BLACK DEATH;
also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1348-1349.
PLAGUE: A. D. 1360-1363.
The Children's Plague.
"The peace of Bretigni [England and France, A. D. 1360], like
the capture of Calais, was followed by a pestilence that
turned the national rejoicings into mourning. But the
'Children's Plague,' as it was called, from the fact that it
was most deadly to the young, was fortunately not a return of
the Black Death, and did not approach it in its effects. It
numbered, however, three prelates and the Duke of Lancaster
among its victims, and caused such anxiety in London that the
courts of law were adjourned from May to October. France felt
the scourge more severely. It ravaged the country for three
years, and was especially fatal at Paris and at Avignon. In
Ireland, where the pestilence lingered on into the next year,
and proved very deadly, it was mistaken for scrofula, a
circumstance which probably shows that it attacked the glands
and the throat."
C. H. Pearson,
English History in the 14th Century,
chapter 7.
PLAGUE: A. D. 1374.
The Dancing Mania.
"The effects of the Black Death had not yet subsided, and the
graves of millions of its victims were scarcely closed, when a
strange delusion arose in Germany. … It was a convulsion which
in the most extraordinary manner infuriated the human frame,
and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for more than
two centuries, since which time it has never reappeared. It
was called the dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account
of the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterized, and
which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild
dance, and screaming and foaming with fury, all the appearance
of persons possessed. It did not remain confined to particular
localities, but was propagated by the sight of the sufferers,
like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the
neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already
prepared for its reception by the prevailing opinions of the
times. So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and women
were seen at Aix-la–Chapelle who had come out of Germany, and
who, united by one common delusion, exhibited to the public
both in the streets and in the churches the following strange
spectacle. They formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to
have lost all control over their senses, continued dancing,
regardless of the by-standers, for hours together in wild
delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state
of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and
groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed
in cloths, bound tightly round their waists, upon which they
again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the
next attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on
account of the tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings,
but the by-standers frequently relieved patients in a less
artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts
affected.
{2542}
While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to
external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by
visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they
shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they
felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which
obliged them to leap so high. … Where the disease was
completely developed, the attack commenced with epileptic
convulsions. Those affected fell to the ground senseless,
panting and labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth,
and suddenly springing up began their dance amidst strange
contortions. Yet the malady doubtless made its appearance very
variously, and was modified by temporary or local
circumstances. … It was but a few months ere this demoniacal
disease had spread from Aix-Ia-Chapelle, where it appeared in
July, over the neighbouring Netherlands. In Liege, Utrecht,
Tongres, and many other towns of Belgium, the dancers appeared
with garlands in their hair, and their waists girt with
cloths, that they might, as soon as the paroxysm was over,
receive immediate relief on the attack of the tympany. This
bandage was, by the insertion of a stick, easily twisted
tight: many, however, obtained more relief from kicks and
blows, which they found numbers of persons ready to
administer. … A few months after this dancing malady had made
its appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne,
where the number of those possessed amounted to more than five
hundred, and about the same time at Metz, the streets of which
place are said to have been filled with eleven hundred
dancers. Peasants left their ploughs, mechanics their
workshops, housewives their domestic duties, to join the wild
revels, and this rich commercial city became the scene of the
most ruinous disorder. … The dancing mania of the year 1374
was, in fact, no new disease, but a phenomenon well known in
the middle ages, of which many wondrous stories were
traditionally current among the people."
J. F. C. Hecker,
Epidemics of the Middle Ages: The Dancing Mania,
chapter 1.
PLAGUE: A. D. 1485-1593.
The Sweating Sickness in England.
Plague, Small-pox and Grippe in Europe.
"For centuries no infection had visited England, which in
fearful rapidity and malignancy could be compared with the
'sudor Anglicus,' as it was at first called, from the notion
that its attacks were confined to Englishmen. People sitting
at dinner, in the full enjoyment of health and spirits, were
seized with it and died before the next morning. An open
window, accidental contact in the streets, children playing
before the door, a beggar knocking at the rich man's gate,
might disseminate the infection, and a whole family would be
decimated in a few hours without hope or remedy. Houses and
villages were deserted. … Dr. Caius, a physician who had
studied the disease under its various aspects, gives the
following account of its appearance: 'In the year of our Lord
God 1485, shortly after the 7th day of August, at which time
King Henry VII. arrived at Milford in Wales out of France, and
in the first year of his reign, there chanced a disease among
the people lasting the rest of that month and all September,
which for the sudden sharpness and unwont cruelness passed the
pestilence. For this commonly giveth in four, often seven,
sometime nine, sometime eleven and sometime fourteen days,
respite to whom it vexeth. But that immediately killed some in
opening their windows, some in playing with children in their
street doors, some in one hour, many in two, it destroyed. …
This disease, because it most did stand in sweating from the
beginning until the ending, was called here The Sweating
Sickness; and because it first began in England, it was named
in other countries The English Sweat.' From the same authority
we learn that it appeared in 1506, again in 1517 from July to
the middle of December, then in 1528. It commenced with a
fever, followed by strong internal struggles of nature,
causing sweat. … It was attended with sharp pains in the back,
shoulders and extremities, and then attacked the liver. … It
never entered Scotland. In Calais, Antwerp and Brabant it
generally singled out English residents and visitors. … In
consequence of the peculiarity of the disease in thus singling
out Englishmen, and those of a richer diet and more sanguine
temperament, various speculations were set afloat as to its
origin and its best mode of cure. Erasmus attributed it to bad
houses and bad ventilation, to the clay floors, the unchanged
and festering rushes with which the rooms were strewn, and the
putrid offal, bones and filth which reeked and rotted together
in the unswept and unwashed dining halls and chambers."
J. S. Brewer,
Reign of Henry VIII.,
volume 1, chapter 8.
See, also, SWEATING SICKNESS.
"In the middle of the 16th century the English sweating
sickness disappeared from the list of epidemic diseases. On
the other hand, the plague, during the whole 16th century,
prevailed more generally, and in places more fatally, than
ever before. … In 1500-1507 it raged in Germany, Italy, and
Holland, in 1528 in Upper Italy, 1534 in Southern France,
1562-1568 pretty generally throughout Europe. … The disease
prevailed again in 1591. It is characteristic of the
improvement in the art of observation of this century that the
plague was declared contagious and portable, and accordingly
measures of isolation and disinfection were put in force
against it, though without proving in any degree effectual.
With a view to disinfection, horn, gunpowder, arsenic with
sulphur or straw moistened with wine, etc., were burned in the
streets. … Small-pox (first observed or described in Germany
in 1493) and measles, whose specific nature was still unknown
to the physicians of the West, likewise appeared in the 16th
century. … The Grippe (influenza), for the first time
recognizable with certainty as such, showed itself in the year
1510, and spread over all Europe. A second epidemic, beginning
in 1557, was less widely extended. On the other hand, in 1580
and 1593 it became again pandemic, while in 1591 Germany alone
was visited."
J. H. Baas,
Outlines of the History of Medicine,
pages 438-439.
ALSO IN:
J. F. Hecker,
Epidemics of the Middle Ages.
PLAGUE: A. D. 1665.
In London.
See LONDON: A. D. 1665.
{2543}
PLAGUE: 18th Century.
The more serious epidemics.
"The bubo–plague, 'the disease of barbarism' and especially of
declining nations, in the 18th century still often reached the
north of Europe, though it maintained its chief focus and
head-quarters in the south-west [south-east?]. Thus from 1703
forward, as the result of the Russo-Swedish war, it spread
from Turkey to Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Prussia, so that in
1709, the coldest year of the 18th century, more than 300,000
human beings died in East Prussia in spite of the intense
cold, and in Dantzic alone more than 30,000. Obliquing to the
west, the plague reached Styria and Bohemia, and was carried
by a ship to Regensburg in 1714, but by means of strict
quarantine regulations was prevented from spreading to the
rest of Germany. A hurricane swept the disease, as it were,
out of all Europe. Yet six years later it appeared anew with
devastating force in southern France" and was recurrent at
intervals, in different parts of the continent, throughout the
century. "Epidemics of typhus fever … showed themselves at the
beginning of the century in small numbers, but disappeared
before the plague. … The first description of typhoid
fever—under the designation of 'Schleimfieber' (morbus
mucosus)—appeared in the 18th century. … Malaria in the last
century still gave rise to great epidemics. Of course all the
conditions of life favored its prevalence. … La Grippe
(influenza) appeared as a pandemic throughout almost all
Europe in the years 1709, 1729, 1732, 1742, and 1788; in
almost all America in 1732, 1737, 1751, 1772, 1781, and 1798;
throughout the eastern hemisphere in 1781, and in the entire
western hemisphere in 1761 and 1789; throughout Europe and
America in 1767. It prevailed as an epidemic in France in the
years 1737, 1775, and 1779; in England in 1758 and 1775, and
in Germany in 1800. … Diphtheria, which in the 17th century
had showed itself almost exclusively in Spain and Italy, was
observed during the 18th in all parts of the world. …
Small-pox had attained general diffusion. … Scarlet fever,
first observed in the 17th century, had already gained wide
diffusion. … Yellow fever, first recognized in the 16th
century, and mentioned occasionally in the 17th, appeared with
great frequency in the 18th century, but was mostly confined,
as at a later period, to America."
J. H. Baas,
Outlines of the History of Medicine,
pages 727-730.
PLAGUE: 19th Century.
The visitations of Asiatic Cholera.
Cholera "has its origin in Asia, where its ravages are as
great as those of yellow fever in America. It is endemic or
permanent in the Ganges delta, whence it generally spreads
every year over India. It was not known in Europe until the
beginning of the century; but since that time we have had six
successive visitations. … In 1817 there was a violent outbreak
of cholera at Jessore, India. Thence it spread to the Malay
Islands, and to Bourbon (1819); to China and Persia (1821); to
Russia in Europe, and especially to St. Petersburg and Moscow
(1830). In the following year it overran Poland, Germany, and
England [thence in 1832 to Ireland and America], and first
appeared in Paris on January 6, 1832. … In 1849, the cholera
pursued the same route. Coming overland from India through
Russia, it appeared in Paris on March 17, and lasted until
October. In 1853, cholera, again coming by this route, was
less fatal in Paris, although it lasted for a longer time—from
November, 1853, to December, 1854. The three last epidemics,
1865, 1873, and 1884, … came by the Mediterranean Sea."
E. L. Trouessart,
Microbes, Ferments and Moulds,
chapter 5, section 8.
A seventh visitation of cholera in Europe occurred in 1892.
Its route on this occasion was from the Punjab, through
Afghanistan and Persia into Russia and across the
Mediterranean to Southern France. Late in the summer the
epidemic appeared in various parts of Austria and Germany and
was frightfully virulent in the city of Hamburg. In England it
was confined by excellent regulations to narrow limits.
Crossing the Atlantic late in August, it was arrested at the
harbor of New York, by half-barbarous but effectual measures
of quarantine, and gained no footing in America.
Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia, 1892.
ALSO IN:
C. Macnamara,
History of Asiatic Cholera.
A. Stillé,
Cholera,
pages 15-31.
----------PLAGUE: End--------
PLAID.
PLACITUM.
See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.
PLAIN OR MARAIS, The Party of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.
See ABRAHAM, PLAINS OF.
PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1886.
PLANTAGENETS, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1154-1189;
and ANJOU; CREATION OF THE COUNTY.
PLASSEY, Battle of.
See INDIA: A. D. 1757.
----------PLATÆA: Start--------
PLATÆA.
Platæa, one of the cities of the Bœotian federation in ancient
Greece, under the headship of Thebes, was ill–used by the
latter and claimed and received the protection of Athens. This
provoked the deep-seated and enduring enmity of Thebes and
Bœotia in general towards Athens, while the alliance of the
Athenians and Platæans was lasting and faithful.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 31.
PLATÆA: B. C. 490.
Help to Athens at Marathon.
See GREECE: B. C. 490.
PLATÆA: B. C. 479.
Decisive overthrow of the Persians.
See GREECE: B. C. 479.
PLATÆA: B. C. 431.
Surprise of.
The first act in the Peloponnesian War (B. C. 431) was the
surprising of the city of Platæa, the one ally of Athens in
Bœotia, by a small force from her near neighbor and deadly
enemy, Thebes. The Thebans were admitted by treachery at night
and thought themselves in possession of the town. But the
Platæans rallied before daybreak and turned the tables upon
the foe. Not one of the Thebans escaped.
See GREECE: B. C. 432-431.
PLATÆA: B. C. 429-427.
Siege, capture, and destruction by the Peloponnesians.
See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.
PLATÆA: B. C. 335.
Restoration by Alexander.
See GREECE: B. C. 336-335.
----------PLATÆA: End--------
PLATE RIVER, Discovery of the.
See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1515-1557.
PLATE RIVER, Provinces of the.
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1806-1820.
PLATO, and the Schools of Athens.
See ACADEMY;
also EDUCATION, ANCIENT: GREEK.
PLATTSBURG, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (SEPTEMBER).
PLAUTIO-PAPIRIAN LAW, The.
See ROME: B. C. 90-88.
PLEASANT HILL, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).
----------PLEBEIANS: Start--------
{2544}
PLEBEIANS, OR PLEBS, Roman.
"We are now prepared to understand the origin of a distinct
body of people which grew up alongside of the patricians of
the Roman state during the latter part of the regal period and
after its close. These were the plebeians (plebs, 'the crowd,'
cf. 'pleo,' to fill) who dwelt in the Roman territory both
within and without the walls of the city. They did not belong
to the old clans which formed the three original tribes, nor
did they have any real or pretended kinship with them, nor,
for that matter, with one another, except within the ordinary
limits of nature. They were, at the outset, simply an
ill–assorted mass of residents, entirely outside of the
orderly arrangement which we have described. There were three
sources of this multitude:
I. When the city grew strong enough, it began to extend its
boundaries, and first at the expense of the cantons nearest
it, between the Tiber and the Anio. When Rome conquered a
canton, she destroyed the walls of its citadel. Its
inhabitants were sometimes permitted to occupy their villages
as before, and sometimes were removed to Rome. In either
case, Rome was henceforth to be their place of meeting and
refuge, and they themselves, instead of being reduced to the
condition of slaves, were attached to the state as
non-citizens.
II. The relation of guest-friendship so called, in ancient
times, could be entered into between individuals with their
families and descendants, and also between individuals and a
state, or between two states. Provision for such
guest–friendship was undoubtedly made in the treaties which
bound together Rome on the one side and the various
independent cities of its neighborhood on the other. … The
commercial advantages of Rome's situation attracted to it, in
the course of time, a great many men from the Latin cities in
the vicinity, who remained permanently settled there without
acquiring Roman citizenship.
III. A third constituent element of the 'plebs' was formed by
the clients ('the listeners,' 'cluere') [see CLIENTES]. … In
the beginning of the long struggle between the patricians and
plebeians, the clients are represented as having sided with
the former. … Afterward, when the lapse of time had weakened
their sense of dependence on their patrons, they became, as a
body, identified with the plebeians."
A. Tighe,
Development of the Roman Constitution,
chapter 3.
Originally having no political rights, the Roman plebeians
were forced to content themselves with the privilege they
enjoyed of engaging in trade at Rome and acquiring property of
their own. But as in time they grew to outnumber the
patricians, while they rivalled the latter in wealth, they
struggled with success for a share in the government and for
other rights of citizenship. In the end, political power
passed over to them entirely, and the Roman constitution
became almost purely democratic, before it perished in anarchy
and revolution, giving way to imperialism.
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
chapters 7, 8, 10, 35.
ALSO IN:
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on History of Rome,
book 4, chapter 2.
PLEBEIANS:
Secessions of the Plebs.
See SECESSIONS OF THE ROMAN PLEBS.
----------PLEBEIANS: End--------
PLEBISCITA.
Resolutions passed by the Roman plebeians in their Comitia
Tributa, or Assembly of the Tribes, were called "plebiscita."
See ROME: B. C. 472-471.
In modern France the term "plebiscite" has been applied to a
general vote of the people, taken upon some single question,
like that of the establishment of the Second Empire.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1851-1852;
also, REFERENDUM.
PLESWITZ, Armistice of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (MAY-AUGUST).
PLEVNA, Siege and capture of.
See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.
PLOW PATENT, The.
See MAINE: A. D. 1629-1631; and 1643-1677.
PLOWDEN'S COUNTY PALATINE.
See NEW ALBION.
PLUVIÔSE, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER)
THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.
PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts: A. D. 1605.
Visited by Champlain, and the harbor named Port St. Louis.
See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605.
PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts: A. D. 1620.
Landing of the Pilgrims.
Founding of the Colony.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620, and after.
PLYMOUTH, North Carolina: A. D. 1864.
Capture and recapture.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (APRIL-MAY: NORTH CAROLINA),
and (OCTOBER: NORTH CAROLINA).
----------PLYMOUTH COMPANY: Start--------
PLYMOUTH COMPANY:
Formation.
See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607;
and MAINE: A. D. 1607-1608.
PLYMOUTH COMPANY: A. D. 1615.
Unsuccessful undertakings with Captain John Smith.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1614-1615.
PLYMOUTH COMPANY: A. D. 1620.
Merged in the Council for New England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.
----------PLYMOUTH COMPANY: End--------
PLYMOUTH ROCK.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.
PNYX, The.
"The place of meeting [of the general assemblies of the people
in ancient Athens] in earlier times is stated to have been in
the market; in the historical period the people met there only
to vote on proposals of ostracism, at other times assembling
in the so-called Pnyx. As regards the position of this latter,
a point which quite recently has become a matter of
considerable dispute, the indications given by the ancient
authorities appear to settle this much at any rate with
certainty, that it was in the neighbourhood of the market, and
that of the streets running out of the market one led only
into the Pnyx."
G. F. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3.
"The Pnyx was an artificial platform on the north-eastern side
of one of the rocky heights which encircled Athens on the
west, and along the crest of which is still traced the ancient
enclosure of the Asty. In shape this platform differed only
from a circular sector of about 155 degrees, inasmuch as the
radii forming the angle were about 200 feet in length, while
the distance from the angle to the middle of the curve was
about 240 feet. On this latter side, or towards the Agora, the
platform was bounded by a wall of support, which is about
sixteen feet high in the middle or highest part, and is
composed of large blocks, of various sizes, and for the most
part quadrangular. In the opposite direction the platform was
bounded by a vertical excavation in the rock, which, in the
parts best preserved, is from twelve to fifteen feet high.
{2545}
The foot of this wall inclines towards the angle of the
sector, thereby showing that originally the entire platform
sloped towards this point as a centre, such being obviously
the construction most adapted to an assembly which stood or
sat to hear an orator placed in the angle. At this angle rose
the celebrated [bema], or pulpit, often called the rock. … It
was a quadrangular projection of the rock, eleven feet broad,
rising from a graduated basis. The summit is broken; its
present height is about twenty feet. On the right and left of
the orator there was an access to the summit of the bema by a
flight of steps, and from behind by two or three steps from an
inclosure, in which are several chambers cut in the rock,
which served doubtless for purposes connected with that of the
Pnyx itself. … The area of the platform was capable of
containing between seven and eight thousand persons, allowing
a square yard to each."
W. M. Leake,
Topography of Athens,
appendix 11.
ALSO IN:
G. F. Schömann,
The Assemblies of the Athenians,
pages 48-51.
See, also, AGORA.
POCKET BOROUGHS.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830.
PODESTAS.
"About the end of the 12th century a new and singular species
of magistracy was introduced into the Lombard cities. During
the tyranny of Frederic I. [Frederick Barbarossa] he had
appointed officers of his own, called podestas, instead of the
elective consuls. It is remarkable that this memorial of
despotic power should not have excited insuperable alarm and
disgust in the free republics. But, on the contrary, they
almost universally, after the peace of Constance, revived an
office which had been abrogated when they first rose in
rebellion against Frederic. From experience, as we must
presume, of the partiality which their domestic factions
carried into the administration of justice, it became a
general practice to elect, by the name of podesta, a citizen
of some neighbouring state as their general, their criminal
judge, and preserver of the peace. … The podesta was sometimes
chosen in a general assembly, sometimes by a select number of
citizens. His office was annual, though prolonged in peculiar
emergencies. He was invariably a man of noble family, even in
those cities which excluded their own nobility from any share
in the government. He received a fixed salary, and was
compelled to remain in the city after the expiration of his
office for the purpose of answering such charges as might be
adduced against his conduct. He could neither marry a native
of the city, nor have any relation resident within the
district, nor even, so great was their jealousy, eat or drink
in the house of any citizen. The authority of these foreign
magistrates was not by any means alike in all cities. In some
he seems to have superseded the consuls, and commanded the
armies in war. In others, as Milan and Florence, his authority
was merely judicial."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 69.
PODIEBRAD, George, King of Bohemia, A. D. 1458-1471.
POINT PLEASANT, Battle of.
See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.
POISSY, The Colloquy at.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563.
POITIERS:
Original names.
Limonum, a town of the Gauls, acquired later the name of
Pictavi, which has become in modern times Poitiers.
POITIERS:A. D. 1569.
Siege by the Huguenots.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.
POITIERS, Battle of.
A battle was fought September 19, 1356, near the city of
Poitiers, in France, by the English, under the "Black Prince,"
the famous son of Edward III., with the French commanded
personally by their king, John II. The advantage in numbers
was on the side of the French, but the position of the English
was in their favor, inasmuch as it gave little opportunity to
the cavalry of the French, which was their strongest arm. The
English archers won the day, as in so many other battles of
that age. The French were sorely beaten and their king was
taken prisoner.
Froissart,
Chronicles,
(translated by Johnes),
book 1, chapters 157-166.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360.
POITIERS, Edict of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1577-1578.
POITOU:
Origin of the name.
See PICTONES.
POITOU:
The rise of the Counts.
See TOULOUSE: 10-11th CENTURIES.
POITOU:
The Counts become Dukes of Aquitaine or Guienne.
See AQUITAINE: A. D. 884-1151.
POKANOKETS,
WAMPANOAGS, The.
See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636;
AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY;
NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675, 1675, 1676-1678.
POLA, Naval battle of (1379).
See VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379.
----------POLAND: Start--------
POLAND.
The Name.
"The word Pole is not older than the tenth century, and seems
to have been originally applied, not so much to the people as
to the region they inhabited; 'polska' in the Slavonic tongue
signifying a level field or plain."
S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
introduction.
POLAND:
The ancestors of the race.
See LYGIANS.
POLAND:
Beginnings of national existence.
"The Poles were a nation whose name does not occur in history
before the middle of the tenth century; and we owe to
Christianity the first intimations that we have regarding this
people. Mieczislaus [or Miceslaus] I., the first duke or
prince of the Poles of whom we possess any authentic accounts,
embraced Christianity (966) at the solicitation of his spouse,
Dambrowka, sister of Boleslaus II., duke of Bohemia. Shortly
after, the first bishopric in Poland, that of Posen, was
founded by Otho the Great. Christianity did not, however, tame
the ferocious habits of the Poles, who remained for a long
time without the least progress in mental cultivation. Their
government, as wretched as that of Bohemia, subjected the
great body of the nation to the most debasing servitude.
{2546}
The ancient sovereigns of Poland were hereditary. They ruled
most despotically, and with a rod of iron; and, although they
acknowledged themselves vassals and tributaries of the German
emperors, they repeatedly broke out into open rebellion,
asserted their absolute independence, and waged a successful
war against their masters. Boleslaus, son of Mieczislaus I.,
took advantage of the troubles which rose in Germany on the
death of Otho III., to possess himself of the Marches of
Lusatia and Budissin, or Bautzen, which the Emperor Henry II.
afterwards granted him as fiefs. This same prince, in despite
of the Germans, on the death of Henry II. (1025), assumed the
royal dignity. Mieczislaus II., son of Boleslaus, after having
cruelly ravaged the country situate between the Oder, the

Elbe, and the Saal, was compelled to abdicate the throne, and
also to restore those provinces which his father had wrested
from the Empire. The male descendants of Mieczislaus I.
reigned in Poland until the death of Casimir the Great (1370).
This dynasty of kings is known by the name of the Piasts, or
Piasses, so called from one Piast, alleged to have been its
founder."
W. Koch,
History of Revolutions in Europe,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
chapters 1-2.
POLAND: A. D. 1096.
The refuge of the Jews.
See JEWS: 11-17th CENTURIES.
POLAND: A. D. 1240-1241.
Mongol invasion.
See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.
POLAND: 13-14th Centuries.
Growing power and increasing dominion.
Encroachments on Russia.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.
POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572.
The union with Lithuania and the reign of the Jagellon dynasty.
Conquest of Prussia and its grant to Grandmaster Albert.
Casimir III., or Casimir the Great, the last Polish king of
the Piast line, ascended the throne in 1333. "Polish
historians celebrate the good deeds of this king for the
internal prosperity of Poland—his introduction of a legal
code, his just administration, his encouragement of learning,
and his munificence in founding churches, schools, and
hospitals. The great external question of his reign was that
of the relations of Poland to the two contiguous powers of
Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights of Prussia and the Baltic
provinces. On the one hand, Poland, as a Christian country,
had stronger ties of connexion with the Teutonic Knights than
with Lithuania. On the other hand, ties of race and tradition
connected Poland with Lithuania; and the ambitious policy of
the Teutonic Knights, who aimed at the extension of their rule
at the expense of Poland and Lithuania, and also jealously
shut out both countries from the Baltic coast, and so from the
advantages of commerce, tended to increase the sympathy
between the Poles and the Lithuanians. A happy solution was at
length given to this question. Casimir, dying in 1370, left no
issue but a daughter, named Hedvige; and the Crown of Poland
passed to his nephew Louis of Anjou, at that time also King of
Hungary.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.
Louis, occupied with the affairs of Hungary, neglected those
of Poland, and left it exposed to the attacks of the
Lithuanians. He became excessively unpopular among the Poles;
and, after his death in 1384, they proclaimed Hedvige Queen of
Poland. In 1386, a marriage was arranged between this princess
and Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania—Jagellon agreeing to be
baptized, and to establish Christianity among his hitherto
heathen subjects. Thus Poland and Lithuania were united; and a
new dynasty of Polish kings was founded, called the dynasty of
the Jagellons. The rule of this dynasty, under seven
successive kings (1386-1572) constitutes the flourishing epoch
of Polish history, to which at the present day the Poles look
fondly back when they would exalt the glory and greatness of
their country. … The effect of the union of Poland and
Lithuania was at once felt in Europe. The first Jagellon, who
on his baptism took the name of Uladislav II., and whom one
fancies as still a sort of rough half-heathen by the side of
the beautiful Polish Hedvige, spent his whole reign
(1386-1434) in consolidating the union and turning it to
account. He defended Lithuania against the Tartar hordes then
moving westward before the impulse of the conquering
Tamerlane. But his chief activity was against the Teutonic
Knights. … He engaged in a series of wars against the knights,
which ended in a great victory gained over them at Tannenburg
in 1410. By this victory the power of the knights was broken
for the time, and their territories placed at the mercy of the
Poles. During the reign of Uladislav III., the second of the
Jagellons (1434-1444), the knights remained submissive, and
that monarch was able to turn his arms, in conjunction with
the Hungarians, against a more formidable enemy—the Turks—then
beginning their invasions of Europe. Uladislav III. having
been slain in battle against the Turks at Varna, the Teutonic
Knights availed themselves of the confusion which followed, to
try to recover their power. By this time, however, their
Prussian subjects were tired of their rule; Dantzic, Elbing,
Thorn, and other towns, as well as the landed proprietors and
the clergy of various districts, formed a league against them;
and, on the accession of Casimir IV., the third of the
Jagellons, to the Polish throne (1447), all Western Prussia
revolted from the knights and placed itself under his
protection. A terrific war ensued, which was brought to a
close in 1466 by the peace of Thorn. By this notable treaty,
the independent sovereignty of the Teutonic order in the
countries they had held for two centuries was extinguished—the
whole of Western Prussia, with the city of Marienburg, and
other districts, being annexed to the Polish crown, with
guarantees for the preservation of their own forms of
administration; and the knights being allowed to retain
certain districts of Eastern Prussia, only as vassals of
Poland. Thus Poland was once more in possession of that
necessity of its existence as a great European state—a
seaboard on the Baltic. Exulting in an acquisition for which
they had so long struggled, the Poles are said to have danced
with joy as they looked on the blue waves and could call them
their own. Casimir IV., the hero of this important passage in
Polish history, died in 1492; and, though during the reigns of
his successors—John Albertus (1492-1501), and Alexander
(1501-1506)—the Polish territories suffered some diminution in
the direction of Russia, the fruits of the treaty of Thorn
were enjoyed in peace. In the reign of the sixth of the
Jagellonidæ, however—Sigismund I. (1506-1547)—the Teutonic
Knights made an attempt to throw off their allegiance to
Poland.
{2547}
The attempt was made in singular circumstances, and led to a
singular conclusion. The grand-master of the Teutonic order at
this time was Albert of Brandenburg …, a descendant [in the
Anspach branch] of that astute Hohenzollern family which in
1411 had possessed itself of the Marquisate of Brandenburg.
Albert, carrying out a scheme entertained by the preceding
grand-master, refused homage for the Prussian territories of
his order to the Polish king Sigismund, and even prepared to
win back what the order had lost by the treaty of Thorn.
Sigismund, who was uncle to Albert, defeated his schemes, and
proved the superiority of the Polish armies over the forces of
the once great but now effete order. Albert found it his best
policy to submit, and this he did in no ordinary fashion. The
Reformation was then in the first flush of its progress over
the Continent, and the Teutonic Order of Knights, long a
practical anachronism in Europe, was losing even the slight
support it still had in surrounding public opinion, as the new
doctrines changed men's ideas. What was more, the grand-master
himself imbibed Protestant opinions and was a disciple of
Luther and Melancthon. He resolved to bring down the fabric of
the order about his ears and construct for himself a secular
principality out of its ruins. Many of the knights shared or
were gained over to his views; so he married a princess, and
they took themselves wives—all becoming Protestants together,
with the exception of a few tough old knights who transferred
their chapter to Mergentheim in Würtemberg, where it remained,
a curious relic, till the time of Napoleon. The secularization
was formally completed at Cracow in April, 1525. There, in a
square before the royal palace, on a throne emblazoned with
the arms of Poland and Lithuania—a white eagle for the one,
and a mounted knight for the other—the Polish king Sigismund
received … the banner of the order, the knights standing by
and agreeing to the surrender. In return, Sigismund embraced
the late grand-master as Duke of Prussia, granting to him and
the knights the former possessions of the order, as secular
vassals of the Polish crown. The remainder of Sigismund's
reign was worthy of this beginning; and at no time was Poland
more flourishing than when his son, Sigismund II., the seventh
of the Jagellonidæ, succeeded him on the throne. During the
wise reign of this prince (1547-1572), whose tolerant policy
in the matter of the great religious controversy then
agitating Europe is not his least title to credit, Poland lost
nothing of her prosperity or her greatness; and one of its
last transactions was the consummation of the union between
the two nations of Poland and Lithuania by their formal
incorporation into one kingdom at the Diet of Lublin (July 1,
1569). But, alas for Poland, this seventh of the Jagellonidæ
was also the last, and, on his death in 1572, Poland entered
on that career of misery and decline, with the reminiscences
of which her name is now associated."
Poland: her History and Prospects
(Westminster Review, January, 1855).
ALSO IN:
H. Tuttle,
History of Prussia, to Frederick the Great,
chapter 4.
S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
book 1, chapter 3.
POLAND: A. D. 1439.
Election of Ladislaus III. to the throne of Hungary.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.
POLAND: A. D. 1471-1479.
War with Matthias of Hungary.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487.
POLAND: A. D. 1505-1588.
Enslavement of the peasantry.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: POLAND.
POLAND: A. D. 1573.
Election of Henry of Valois to the throne.
The Pacta Conventa.
On the election of Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, to the
Polish throne (see FRANCE: A. D. 1573-1576), he was required
to subscribe to a series of articles, known as the Pacta
Conventa (and sometimes called the Articles of Henry), which
were intended to be the basis of all future covenants between
the Poles and their elective sovereigns. The chief articles of
the Pacta Conventa were the following:
"1. That the king should not in the remotest degree attempt to
influence the senate in the choice of a successor; but should
leave inviolable to the Polish nobles the right of electing
one at his decease.
2. That he should not assume the title of 'master' and 'heir'
of the monarchy, as borne by all preceding kings.
3. That he should observe the treaty of peace made with the
dissidents.
4. That he should not declare war, or dispatch the nobles on
any expedition, without the previous sanction of the diet.
5. That he should not impose taxes or contributions of any
description.
6. That he should not have any authority to appoint
ambassadors to foreign courts.
7. That in case of different opinions prevailing among the
senators, he should espouse such only as were in accordance
with the laws, and clearly advantageous to the nation.
8. That he should be furnished with a permanent council, the
members of which (16 in number; viz. 4 bishops, 4 palatines,
and 8 castellans) should be changed every half year, and
should be selected by the ordinary diets.
9. That a general diet should be convoked every two years, or
oftener, if required.
10. That the duration of each diet should not exceed six
weeks.
11. That no dignities or benefices should be conferred on
other than natives.
12. That the king should neither marry nor divorce a wife
without the permission of the diet.
The violation of any one of these articles, even in spirit,
was to be considered by the Poles as absolving them from their
oaths of allegiance, and as empowering them to elect another
ruler."
S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
book 2, chapter 1.
POLAND: A. D. 1574-1590.
Disgraceful abandonment of the throne by Henry of Valois.
Election of Stephen Batory.
His successful wars with Russia, and his death.
Election of Sigismund III., of Sweden.
The worthless French prince, Henry of Valois, whom the Poles
had chosen to be their king, and whom they crowned at Cracow,
on the 21st of February, 1574, "soon sighed for the banks of
the Seine: amidst the ferocious people whose authority he was
constrained to recognize, and who despised him for his
imbecility, he had no hope of enjoyment. To escape their
factions, their mutinies, their studied insults, he shut
himself up within his palace, and, with the few countrymen
whom he had been permitted to retain near his person, he
abandoned himself to idleness and dissipation. … By the death
of his brother [Charles IX. king of France], who died on the
30th of May, 1574, he was become heir to the crown of the
Valois. His first object was to conceal the letters which
announced that event, and to flee before the Poles could have
any suspicion of his intention. The intelligence, however,
transpired through another channel.
{2548}
His senators advised him to convoke a diet, and, in conformity
with the laws, to solicit permission of a short absence while
he settled the affairs of his new heritage. Such permission
would willingly have been granted him, more willingly still
had he proposed an eternal separation; but he feared the
ambition of his brother the duke of Alençon, who secretly
aspired to the throne; and he resolved to depart without it.
He concealed his extraordinary purpose with great art," and
achieved a most contemptible success in carrying it
out,—stealing away from his kingdom like a thief, on the night
of the 18th of June. "Some letters found on a table in his
apartment attempted to account for his precipitate departure
by the urgency of the troubles in his hereditary kingdom; yet
he did not reach Lyons till the following year. In a diet
assembled at Warsaw, it was resolved that if the king did not
return by the 12th of May, 1575, the throne should be declared
vacant. Deputies were sent to acquaint him with the decree. …
After the expiration of the term, the interregnum was
proclaimed in the diet of Stenzyca, and a day appointed for a
new election. After the deposition of Henry [now become Henry
III. of France], no less than five foreign and two native
princes were proposed as candidates for the crown. The latter,
however, refused to divide the suffrages of the republic,
wisely preferring the privilege of electing kings to the
honour of being elected themselves. The primate, many of the
bishops, and several palatines, declared in favour of an
Austrian prince; but the greater portion of the diet
(assembled on the plains opposite to Warsaw) were for the
princess Anne, sister of Sigismund Augustus, whose hand they
resolved to confer on Stephen Batory, duke of Transylvania.
Accordingly, Stephen was proclaimed king by Zamoyski, starost
of Beltz, whose name was soon to prove famous in the annals of
Poland. On the other hand, Uchanski the primate nominated the
emperor Maximilian, who was proclaimed by the marshal of the
crown: this party, however, being too feeble to contend with
the great body of the equestrian order, despatched messengers
to hasten the arrival of the emperor; but Zamoyski acted with
still greater celerity. While his rival was busied about
certain conditions, which the party of the primate forced on
Maximilian, Batory arrived in Poland, married the princess,
subscribed to every thing required from him, and was solemnly
crowned. A civil war appeared inevitable, but the death of
Maximilian happily averted the disaster. … But though Poland
and Lithuania thus acknowledged the new king, Prussia, which
had espoused the interests of the Austrian, was less
tractable. The country, however, was speedily reduced to
submission, with the exception of Dantzic, which not only
refused to own him, but insisted on its recognition by the
diet as a free and independent republic. … Had the Dantzickers
sought no other glory than that of defending their city, had
they resolutely kept within their entrenchments, they might
have beheld the power of their king shattered against the
bulwarks below them; but the principles which moved them
pushed them on to temerity. … Their rashness cost them dear;
the loss of 8,000 men compelled them again to seek the shelter
of their walls, and annihilated their hope of ultimate
success. Fortunately they had to deal with a monarch of
extraordinary moderation. … Their submission [1577] disarmed
his resentment, and left him at liberty to march against other
enemies. During this struggle of Stephen with his rebellious
subjects, the Muscovites had laid waste Livonia. To punish
their audacity, and wrest from their grasp the conquests they
had made during the reign of his immediate predecessors, was
now his object. … Success every where accompanied him.
Polotsk, Sakol, Turowla, and many other places, submitted to
his arms. The investiture of the duchy (Polotsk, which the
Muscovites had reduced in the time of Sigismund I.) he
conferred on Gottard duke of Courland. On the approach of
winter he returned, to obtain more liberal supplies for the
ensuing campaign. Nothing can more strongly exhibit the
different characters of the Poles and Lithuanians than the
reception he met from each. At Wilna his splendid successes
procured him the most enthusiastic welcome; at Warsaw they
caused him to be received with sullen discontent. The Polish
nobles were less alive to the glory of their country than to
the preservation of their monstrous privileges, which, they
apprehended, might be endangered under so vigilant and able a
ruler. With the aid, however, of Zamoyski and some other
leading barons, he again wrung a few supplies from that most
jealous of bodies, a diet. … Stephen now directed his course
towards the province of Novogorod: neither the innumerable
marshes, nor the vast forests of these steppes, which had been
untrodden by soldier's foot since the days of Witold, could
stop his progress; he triumphed over every obstacle, and, with
amazing rapidity, reduced the chief fortified towns between
Livonia and that ancient mistress of the North. But his troops
were thinned by fatigue, and even victory; reinforcements were
peremptorily necessary; and though in an enfeebled state of
health, he again returned to collect them. … The succeeding
campaign promised to be equally glorious, when the tsar, by
adroitly insinuating his inclination to unite the Greek with
the Latin church, prevailed on the pope to interpose for
peace. To the wishes of the papal see the king was ever ready
to pay the utmost deference. The conditions were advantageous
to the republic. If she surrendered her recent conquests—which
she could not possibly have retained—she obtained an
acknowledgment of her rights of sovereignty over Livonia; and
Polotsk, with several surrounding fortresses, was annexed to
Lithuania." Stephen Batory died in 1586, having vainly advised
the diet to make the crown hereditary, and avert the ruin of
the nation. The interregnum which ensued afforded opportunity
for a fierce private war between the factions of the
Zborowskis and the Zamoyskis. Then followed a disputed
election of king, one party proclaiming the archduke
Maximilian of Austria, the other Sigismund, prince royal of
Sweden—a scion of the Jagellonic family—and both sides
resorting to arms. Maximilian was defeated and taken prisoner,
and only regained his freedom by relinquishing his claims to
the Polish crown.
S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
book 2, chapter 1.
{2549}
POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652.
Anarchy organized by the Nobles.
The extraordinary Constitution imposed by them on the country.
The Liberum Veto and its effects.
"On the death of the last Jagellon, 1573, at a time when
Bohemia and Hungary were deprived of the power of electing
their kings, when Sweden renounced this right in favour of its
monarchs, Poland renewed its privilege in its most
comprehensive form. At a time when European monarchs gradually
deprived the great feudal barons of all share in the
administration of the law, … the Polish nobles destroyed the
last vestiges of the royal prerogative. … In the year 1578 the
kings lost the right of bestowing the patent of nobility,
which was made over to the diet. The kings had no share in the
legislation, as the laws were made in every interregnum. As
soon as the throne became vacant by the death of a king, and
before the diet appointed a successor, the nobles of the
provinces assembled to examine into the administration of the
late king and his senate. Any law that was not approved of
could be repealed and new arrangements proposed, which became
law if the votes of the diet were unanimous. This unanimity
was most easily obtained when a law threatened the individual
or when the royal prerogative was to be decreased. … The king
had no share in the administration, and even the most urgent
circumstances did not justify his acting without the
co-operation of the senate [which consisted of 17 archbishops
and bishops, 33 palatines or woiwodes—'war-leaders'—who were
governors of provinces or palatinates, and 85 castellans, who
were originally commanders in the royal cities and fortresses,
but who had become, like the woiwodes, quite independent of
the king]. The senate deprived the king of the power of making
peace or war. … If there was a hostile invasion, war became a
matter of course, but it was carried on, on their own account,
by the palatines most nearly concerned, and often without the
assistance of the king. … Bribery, intrigue and party spirit
were the only means of influence that could be employed by a
king, who was excluded from the administration, who was
without domains, without private property or settled revenue,
who was surrounded by officers he could not depose and by
judges who could be deposed, and who was, in short, without
real power of any sort. The senate itself was deprived of its
power, and the representatives of the nobles seized upon the
highest authority. … They alone held the public offices and
the highest ecclesiastical benefices. They filled the seats of
the judges exclusively, and enjoyed perfect immunity from
taxes, duties, &c. … Another great evil from which the
republic suffered was the abuse of the liberum veto, which,
dangerous as it was in itself, had become law in 1652." This
gave the power of veto to every single voice in the assemblies
of the nobles, or in the meetings of the deputies who
represented them. Nothing could be adopted without entire
unanimity; and yet deputies to the diet were allowed no
discretion. "They received definite instructions as to the
demands they were to bring forward and the concessions they
were to make. … One step only was wanting before unanimity of
votes became an impossibility, and anarchy was completely
organized. This step was taken when individual palatines
enjoined their deputies to oppose every discussion at the
diet, till their own proposals had been heard and acceded to.
Before long, several deputies received the same instructions,
and thus the diet was in fact dissolved before it was opened.
Other deputies refused to consent to any proposals, if those
of their own province were not accepted; so that the veto of
one deputy in a single transaction could bring about the
dissolution of the entire diet, and the exercise of the royal
authority was thus suspended for two years [since the diet
could only be held every other year, to last no longer than a
fortnight, and to sit during daylight, only]. … No law could
be passed, nothing could be resolved upon. The army received
no pay. Provinces were desolated by enemies, and none came to
their aid. Justice was delayed, the coinage was debased; in
short, Poland ceased for the next two years to exist as a
state. Every time that a rupture occurred in the diet it was
looked on as a national calamity. The curse of posterity was
invoked on that deputy who had occasioned it, and on his
family. In order to save themselves from popular fury, these
deputies were accustomed to hand in their protest in writing,
and then to wander about, unknown and without rest, cursed by
the nation."
Count Moltke,
Poland: an Historical Sketch,
chapter 3.
"It was not till 1652 … that this principle of equality, or
the free consent of every individual Pole of the privileged
class to every act done in the name of the nation, reached its
last logical excess. In that year, the king John Casimir
having embroiled himself with Sweden, a deputy in the Diet was
bold enough to use the right which by theory belonged to him,
and by his single veto, not only arrest the preparations for a
war with Sweden, but also quash all the proceedings of the
Diet. Such was the first case of the exercise of that liberum
veto of which we hear so much in subsequent Polish history,
and which is certainly the greatest curiosity, in the shape of
a political institution, with which the records of any nation
present us. From that time every Pole walked over the earth a
conscious incarnation of a power such as no mortal man out of
Poland possessed—that of putting a spoke into the whole
legislative machinery of his country, and bringing it to a
dead lock by his own single obstinacy; and, though the
exercise of the power was a different thing from its
possession, yet every now and then a man was found with nerve
enough to put it in practice. … There were, of course, various
remedies for this among an inventive people. One, and the most
obvious and most frequent, was to knock the vetoist down and
throttle him; another, in cases where he had a party at his
back, was to bring soldiers round the Diet and coerce it into
unanimity. There was also the device of what were called
confederations; that is, associations of the nobles
independent of the Diet, adopting decrees with the sanction of
the king, and imposing them by force on the country. These
confederations acquired a kind of legal existence in the
intervals between the Diets."
Poland: her History and Prospects
(Westminster Review, January, 1855).
POLAND: A. D. 1586-1629.
Election of Sigismund of Sweden to the throne.
His succession to the Swedish crown and his deposition.
His claims and the consequent war.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES(SWEDEN): A. D. 1523-1604;
and 1611-1629.
{2550}
POLAND: A. D. 1590-1648.
Reigns of Sigismund III. and Ladislaus IV.
Wars with the Muscovites, the Turks and the Swedes.
Domestic discord in the kingdom.
"The new king, who was elected out of respect for the memory
of the house of Jaguello (being the son of the sister of
Sigismond Augustus), was not the kind of monarch Poland at
that time required. … He was too indolent to take the reins of
government into his own hands, but placed them in those of the
Jesuits and his German favourites. Not only did he thereby
lose the affections of his people, but he also lost the crown
of Sweden, to which, at his father's death, he was the
rightful heir. This throne was wrested from him by his uncle
Charles, the brother of the late king.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1523-1604.
This usurpation by Charles was the cause of a war between
Sweden and Poland, which, although conducted with great skill
by the illustrious generals Zamoyski and Chodkiewicz,
terminated disastrously for Poland, for, after this war, a
part of Livonia remained in the hands of the Swedes." During
the troubled state of affairs at Moscow which followed the
death, in 1584, of Ivan the Terrible, Sigismond interfered and
sent an army which took possession of the Russian capital and
remained in occupation of it for some time.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682.
"As a consequence … the Muscovites offered the throne of the
Czar to Ladislas, the eldest son of the King of Poland, on
condition that he would change his religion and become a
member of 'the Orthodox Church.' Sigismond III., who was a
zealous Catholic, and under the influence of the Jesuits,
wishing rather to convert the Muscovites to the Catholic
Church, would not permit Ladislas to change his faith—refused
the throne of the Czar for his son. … By the peace concluded
at Moscow, 1619, the fortress of Smolenski and a considerable
part of Muscovy remained in the hands of the Poles. …
Sigismond III., whose reign was so disastrous to Poland, kept
up intimate relations with the house of Austria. The Emperor
invited him to take part with him … in what is historically
termed 'the Thirty Years' War.' Sigismond complied with this
request, and sent the Emperor of Austria some of his Cossack
regiments. … Whilst the Emperor was on the one hand engaged in
'the Thirty Years' War,' he was on the other embroiled with
Turkey. The Sultan, in revenge for the aid which the Poles had
afforded the Austrians, entered Moldavia with a considerable
force. Sigismond III. sent his able general Zolkiewski against
the Turks, but as the Polish army was much smaller than that
of the Turks, it was defeated on the battlefield of Cecora
[1621], in Moldavia, [its] general killed, and many of his
soldiers taken prisoners. After this unfortunate campaign …
the Sultan Osman, at the head of 300,000 Mussulmans, confident
in the number and valour of his army, marched towards the
frontier of Poland with the intention of subjugating the
entire kingdom. At this alarming news a Diet was convoked in
all haste, at which it was determined that there should be a
'levée en masse,' in order to drive away the terrible
Mussulman scourge. But before this levée en masse could be
organized, the Hetman Chodkiewicz, who had succeeded
Zolkiewski as commander-in-chief, crossed the river Dniester
with 35,000 soldiers and 30,000 Cossacks, camped under the
walls of the fortress of Chocim [or Kotzim, or Khotzim, or
Choczim] and there awaited the enemy, to whom, on his
appearance, he gave battle [September 28, 1622], and,
notwithstanding the disproportion of the two armies, the Turks
were utterly routed. The Moslems left on the battlefield,
besides the dead, guns, tents, and provisions. … After this
brilliant victory a peace was concluded with Turkey; and I
think I am justified in saying that, by this victory, the
whole of Western Europe was saved from Mussulman invasion. …
The successful Polish general unhappily did not long survive
his brilliant victory. … While these events were taking place
in the southern provinces, Gustavus Adolphus, who had
succeeded to the throne of Sweden, marched into the northern
province of Livonia, where there were no Polish troops to
resist him (all having been sent against the Turks), and took
possession of this Polish province.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1611-1629.
Gustavus Adolphus, however, proposed to restore it to Poland
on condition that Sigismond III. would renounce all claim to
the crown of Sweden, to which the Polish sovereign was the
rightful heir. But in this matter, as in all previous ones,
the Polish king acted with the same obstinacy, and the same
disregard for the interests of the kingdom. He would not
accept the terms offered by Gustavus Adolphus, and by his
refusal Poland lost the entire province of Livonia with the
exception of the city of Dynabourg." Sigismond III. died in
1632, and his eldest son, Ladislas IV., "was immediately
elected King of Poland, a proceeding which spared the kingdom
all the miseries attendant on an interregnum. In 1633, after
the successful campaign against the Muscovites, in which the
important fortified city of Smolensk, as well as other
territory, was taken, a treaty advantageous to Poland was
concluded. Soon afterwards, through the intervention of
England and France, another treaty was made between Poland and
Sweden by which the King of Sweden restored to Poland a part
of Prussia which had been annexed by Sweden. Thus the reign of
Ladislas IV, commenced auspiciously with regard to external
matters. … Unhappily the bitter quarrels of the nobles were
incessant; their only unanimity consisted in trying to foil
the good intentions of their kings." Ladislas IV. died in
1648, and was succeeded by his brother, John Casimir, who had
entered the Order of the Jesuits some years before, and had
been made a cardinal by the Pope, but who was now absolved
from his vows and permitted to marry.
K. Wolski,
Poland,
lectures 11-12.
POLAND: A. D. 1610-1612.
Intervention in Russia.
Occupation of and expulsion from Moscow.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682.
POLAND: A. D. 1648-1654.
The great revolt of the Cossacks.
Their allegiance transferred to the Russian Czar.
Since 1320, the Cossacks of the Ukraine had acknowledged
allegiance, first, to the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and
afterwards to the king of Poland on the two crowns becoming
united in the Jagellon family [see COSSACKS]. They had long
been treated by the Poles with harshness and insolence, and in
the time of the hetman Bogdan Khmelnitski, who had personally
suffered grievous wrongs at the hands of the Poles, they were
ripe for revolt (1648). "His standard was joined by hordes of
Tatars from Bessarabia and the struggle partook to a large
extent of the nature of a holy war, as the Cossacks and
Malo-Russians generally were of the Greek faith, and their
violence was directed against the Roman Catholics and Jews.
{2551}
It would be useless to encumber our pages with the details of
the brutal massacres inflicted by the infuriated peasants in
this jacquerie; unfortunately their atrocities had been
provoked by the cruelties of their masters. Bogdan succeeded
in taking Lemberg, and became master of all the palatinate,
with the exception of Zamosc, a fortress into which the Polish
authorities retreated. On the election of John Casimir as king
of Poland, he at once opened negotiations with the successful
Cossack, and matters were about to be arranged peacefully.
Khmelnitski accepted the 'bulava' of a hetman which was
offered him by the king. The Cossacks demanded the restoration
of their ancient privileges, the removal of the detested
Union—as the attempt to amalgamate the Greek and Latin
Churches was called—the banishment of the Jesuits from the
Ukraine, and the expulsion of the Jews, with other conditions.
They were rejected, however, as impossible, and Prince
Wisniowiecki, taking advantage of the security into which the
Cossacks were lulled, fell upon them treacherously and
defeated them with great slaughter. All compromise now seemed
hopeless, but the desertion of his Tatar allies made Bogdan
again listen to terms at Zborow. The peace, however, was of
short duration, and on the 28th of June, 1651, at the battle
of Beresteczko in Galicia, the hosts of Bogdan were defeated
with great slaughter. After this engagement Bogdan saw that he
had no chance of withstanding the Poles by his own resources,
and accordingly sent an embassy to Moscow in 1652, offering to
transfer himself and his confederates to the allegiance of the
Tsar. The negotiations were protracted for some time, and were
concluded at Pereiaslavl, when Bogdan and seventeen,
Malo-Russian regiments took the oath to Buturlin, the Tsar's
commissioner. Quite recently a monument has been erected to
the Cossack chief at Kiev, but he seems, to say the least, to
have been a man of doubtful honesty. Since this time the
Cossacks have formed an integral part of the Russian Empire."
W. R. Morfill,
The Story of Russia,
chapter 6.
ALSO IN:
Count H. Krasinski,
The Cossacks of the Ukraine,
chapter 1.
POLAND: A. D. 1652.
First exercise of the Liberum Veto.
See POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652.
POLAND: A. D. 1656-1657.
Rapid and ephemeral conquest by Charles X. of Sweden.
Loss of the Feudal overlordship of Prussia.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697;
and BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688.
POLAND: A. D. 1668-1696.
Abdication of John Casimir.
War with the Turks.
Election and reign of John Sobieski.
"In 1668, John Casimir, whose disposition had always been that
of a monk rather than that of a king, resigned his throne, and
retired to France, where he died as Abbe de St. Germain in
1672. He left the kingdom shorn of a considerable part of its
ancient dominions; for, besides that portion of it which had
been annexed to Muscovy, Poland sustained another loss in this
reign by the erection of the Polish dependency of Brandenburg
[Prussia] into an independent state—the germ of the present
Prussian kingdom. For two years after the abdication of John
Casimir, the country was in a state of turmoil and confusion,
caused partly by the recent calamities, and partly by
intrigues regarding the succession; but in 1670, a powerful
faction of the inferior nobles secured the election of Michael
Wisniowiecki, an amiable but silly young man. His election
gave rise to great dissatisfaction among the Polish grandees;
and it is probable that a civil war would have broken out, had
not the Poles been called upon to use all their energies
against their old enemies the Turks. Crossing the
south-eastern frontier of Poland with an immense army, these
formidable foes swept all before them. Polish valour, even
when commanded by the greatest of Polish geniuses, was unable
to check their progress; and in 1672 a dishonourable treaty
was concluded, by which Poland ceded to Turkey a section of
her territories, and engaged to pay to the sultan an annual
tribute of 22,000 ducats. No sooner was this ignominious
treaty concluded, than the Polish nobles became ashamed of it;
and it was resolved to break the peace, and challenge Turkey
once more to a decisive death-grapple. Luckily, at this moment
Wisniowiecki died; and on the 20th of April 1674, the Polish
diet elected, as his successor, John Sobieski—a name
illustrious in the history of Poland. … He was of a noble
family, his father being castellan of Cracow, and the
proprietor of princely estates; and his mother being descended
from Zalkiewski, one of the most celebrated generals that
Poland had produced. … In the year 1660, he was one of the
commanders of the Polish army sent to repel the Russians, who
were ravaging the eastern provinces of the kingdom. A great
victory which he gained at Slobadyssa over the Muscovite
general Sheremetoff, established his military reputation, and
from that time the name of Sobieski was known over all Eastern
Europe. His fame increased during the six years which
followed, till he outshone all his contemporaries. He was
created by his sovereign, John Casimir, first the
Grand-marshal, and afterwards the Grand-hetman of the kingdom;
the first being the highest civil, and the second the highest
military, dignity in Poland, and the two having never before
been held in conjunction by the same individual. These
dignities, having once been conferred on Sobieski, could not
be revoked; for, by the Polish constitution, the king, though
he had the power, to confer honours, was not permitted to
resume them. … When John Casimir abdicated the throne,
Sobieski, retaining his office of Grand-hetman under his
successor, the feeble Wisniowiecki, was commander-in-chief of
the Polish forces against the Turks. In the campaigns of 1671
and 1672, his successes against this powerful enemy were
almost miraculous. But all his exertions were insufficient, in
the existing condition of the republic, to deliver it from the
terror of the impetuous Mussulmans. In 1672, as we have
already informed our readers, a disgraceful truce was
concluded between the Polish diet and the sultan. … When …
Sobieski, as Grand-hetman, advised the immediate rupture of
the dishonourable treaty with the Turks, [the] approval was
unanimous and enthusiastic. Raising an army of 30,000 men, not
without difficulty, Sobieski marched against the Turks. He
laid siege to the fortress of Kotzim, garrisoned by a strong
Turkish force, and hitherto deemed impregnable. The fortress
was taken; the provinces of Moldavia and Walachia yielded; the
Turks hastily retreated across the Danube; and 'Europe thanked
God for the most signal success which, for three centuries,
Christendom had gained over the Infidel.'
{2552}
While the Poles were preparing to follow up their victory,
intelligence reached the camp that Wisniowiecki was dead. He
had died of a surfeit of apples sent him from Danzig. The army
returned home, to be present at the assembling of the diet for
the election of the new sovereign. The diet had already met
when Sobieski, and those of the Polish nobles who had been
with him, reached Warsaw. The electors were divided respecting
the claims of two candidates, both foreigners—Charles of
Lorraine, who was supported by Austria; and Philip of Neuburg,
who was supported by Louis XIV. of France. Many of the Polish
nobility had become so corrupt, that foreign gold and foreign
influence ruled the diet. In this case, the Austrian candidate
seemed to be most favourably received; but, as the diet was
engaged in the discussion, Sobieski entered, and taking his
place in the diet, proposed the Prince of Condé. A stormy
discussion ensued, in the midst of which the cry of 'Let a
Pole rule over Poland,' was raised by one of the nobles, who
further proposed that John Sobieski should be elected. The
proposition went with the humour of the assembly, and
Sobieski, under the title of John III., was proclaimed king of
Poland (1674). Sobieski accepted the proffered honour, and
immediately set about improving the national affairs, founding
an institution for the education of Polish nobles, and
increasing the army. … After several battles of lesser moment
with his Turkish foes, Sobieski prepared for a grand effort;
but before he could mature his plans, the Pasha of Damascus
appeared with an army of 300,000 men on the Polish frontier,
and threatened the national subjugation. With the small force
he could immediately collect, amounting to not more than
10,000 soldiers, Sobieski opposed this enormous force, taking
up his position in two small villages on the banks of the
Dniester, where he withstood a bombardment of 20 days. Food
and ammunition had failed, but still the Poles held out.
Gathering the balls and shells which the enemy threw within
their entrenchments, they thrust them into their own cannons
and mortars, and dashed them back against the faces of the
Turks, who surrounded them on all sides at the distance of a
musket–shot. The besiegers were surprised, and slackened their
fire. At length, early in the morning of the 14th of October
1676, they saw the Poles issue slowly out of their
entrenchments in order of battle, and apparently confident of
victory. A superstitious fear came over them at such a strange
sight. No ordinary mortal, they thought, could dare such a
thing; and the Tartars cried out that it was useless to fight
against the wizard king. The pasha himself was superior to the
fears of his men; but knowing that succours were approaching
from Poland, he offered an honourable peace, which was
accepted, and Sobieski returned home in triumph. Seven years
of peace followed. These were spent by Sobieski in performing
his ordinary duties as king of Poland—duties which the
constant jealousies and discords of the nobles rendered by no
means easy. … It was almost a relief to the hero when, in
1683, a threatened invasion of Christendom by the Turks called
him again to the field. … After completely clearing Austria of
the Turks, Sobieski returned to Poland, again to be harassed
with political and domestic annoyances.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1668-1683.
… Clogged and confined by an absurd system of government, to
which the nobles tenaciously clung, his genius was prevented
from employing itself with effect upon great national objects.
He died suddenly on Corpus Christi Day, in the year 1696; and
'with him,' says the historian, 'the glory of Poland descended
to the tomb.' On the death of Sobieski, the crown of Poland
was disposed of to the highest bidder. The competitors were
James Sobieski, the son of John; the Prince of Conti; the
Elector of Bavaria; and Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony.
The last was the successful candidate, having bought over one
half of the Polish nobility, and terrified the other half by
the approach of his Saxon troops. He had just succeeded to the
electorate of Saxony, and was already celebrated as one of the
strongest and most handsome men in Europe. Augustus
entertained a great ambition to be a conqueror, and the
particular province which he wished to annex to Poland was
Livonia, on the Baltic—a province which had originally
belonged to the Teutonic Knights, for which the Swedes, Poles,
and Russians had long contended; but which had now, for nearly
a century, been in the possession of Sweden."
History of Poland
(Chambers's Miscellany, number 29 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
A. T. Palmer,
Life of John Sobieski.
POLAND: A. D. 1683.
Sobieski's deliverance of Vienna from the Turks.
See HUNGARY; A. D. 1668-1683.
POLAND: A. D. 1684-1696.
War of the Holy League against the Turks.
See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.
POLAND: A. D. 1696-1698.
Disputed Election of a King.
The crown gained by Augustus of Saxony.
On the death of Sobieski, Louis XIV., of France, put forward
the Prince of Conti as a candidate for the vacant Polish
throne. "The Emperor, the Pope, the Jesuits and Russia united
in supporting the Elector Augustus of Saxony. The Elector had
just abjured, in view of the throne of Poland, and the Pope
found it quite natural to recompense the hereditary chief of
the Lutheran party for having reëntered the Roman Church. The
Jesuits, who were only too powerful in Poland, feared the
Jansenist relations of Conti. As to the young Czar Peter, he
wished to have Poland remain his ally, his instrument against
the Turk and the Swede, and feared lest the French spirit
should come to reorganize that country. He had chosen his
candidate wisely: the Saxon king was to begin the ruin of
Poland! The financial distress of France did not permit the
necessary sacrifices, in an affair wherein money was to play
an important part, to be made in time. The Elector of Saxony,
on the contrary, exhausted his States to purchase partisans
and soldiers. The Prince de Conti had, nevertheless, the
majority, and was proclaimed King at Warsaw, June 27, 1697;
but the minority proclaimed and called the Elector, who
hastened with Saxon troops, and was consecrated King of Poland
at Cracow (September 15). Conti, retarded by an English fleet
that had obstructed his passage, did not arrive by sea till
September 26 at Dantzic, which refused to receive him. The
prince took with him neither troops nor money. The Elector had
had, on the contrary, all the time necessary to organize his
resources. The Russians were threatening Lithuania. Conti,
abandoned by a great part of his adherents, abandoned the
undertaking, and returned to France in the month of November.
… In the following year Augustus of Saxony was recognized as
King of Poland by all Europe, even by France."
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 4.
{2553}
POLAND: A. D. 1699.
The Peace of Carlowitz with the Sultan.
See HUNGARY:. A. D. 1683-1699.
POLAND: A. D. 1700.
Aggressive league with Russia and Denmark
against Charles XII. of Sweden.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1697-1700.
POLAND: A. D. 1701-1707.
Subjugation by Charles XII. of Sweden.
Deposition of Augustus from the throne.
Election of Stanislaus Leczinski.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1701-1707.
POLAND: A. D. 1709.
Restoration of Augustus to the throne.
Expulsion of Stanislaus Leczinski.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1707-1718.
POLAND: A. D. 1720.
Peace with Sweden.
Recognition of Augustus.
Stanislaus allowed to call himself king.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1719-1721.
POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733.
The election to the throne a European question.
France against Russia, Austria and Prussia.
Triumph of the three powers.
The crown renewed to the House of Saxony.
"It became clear that before long a struggle would take place
for the Crown of Poland, in which the powers of Europe must
interest themselves very closely. Two parties will compete for
that uneasy throne: on the one side will stand the northern
powers, supporting the claims of the House of Saxony, which
was endeavouring to make the Crown hereditary and to restrict
it to the Saxon line; on the other side we shall find France
alone, desiring to retain the old elective system, and to
place on the throne some prince, who, much beholden to her,
should cherish French influences, and form a centre of
resistance against the dominance of the northern powers.
England stands neutral: the other powers are indifferent or
exhausted. With a view to the coming difficulty, Russia,
Austria, and Prussia, made a secret agreement in 1732, by
which they bound themselves to resist all French influences in
Poland. With this pact begins that system of nursing and
interferences with which the three powers pushed the 'sick man
of the North' to its ruin; it is the first stage towards the
Partition-treaties. Early in 1733 Augustus II of Poland died:
the Poles dreading these powerful neighbours, and drawn, as
ever, by a subtle sympathy towards France, at once took steps
to resist dictation, declared that they would elect none but a
native prince, sent envoys to demand French help, and summoned
Stanislaus Leczinski to Warsaw. Leczinski had been the protege
of Charles XII, who had set him on the Polish throne in 1704;
with the fall of the great Swede the little Pole also fell
(1712); after some vicissitudes he quietly settled at
Weissenburg, whence his daughter Marie went to ascend the
throne of France as spouse of Louis XV (1725). Now in 1733 the
national party in Poland re-elected him their king, by a vast
majority of votes: there was, however, an Austro-Russian
faction among the nobles, and these, supported by strong
armies of Germans and Russians, nominated Augustus III of
Saxony to the throne: he had promised the Empress Anne to cede
Courland to Russia, and Charles VI he had won over by
acknowledging the Pragmatic Sanction. War thus became
inevitable: the French majority had no strength with which to
maintain their candidate against the forces of Russia and
Austria; and France, instead of affording Stanislaus effective
support at Warsaw, declared war against Austria. The luckless
King was obliged to escape from Warsaw, and took refuge in
Danzig, expecting French help: all that came was a single ship
and 1,500 men, who, landing at the mouth of the Vistula, tried
in vain to break the Russian lines. Their aid thus proving
vain, Danzig capitulated, and Stanislaus, a broken refugee,
found his way, with many adventures, back to France; Poland
submitted to Augustus III."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 6, chapter 2 (volume 3).
POLAND: A. D. 1763-1773.
The First Partition and the events which led to it.
The respective shares of Russia, Austria and Prussia.
"In 1762, Catherine II. ascended the throne of Russia.
Everybody knows what ambition filled the mind of this woman;
how she longed to bring two quarters of the globe under her
rule, or under her influence; and how, above all, she was bent
on playing a great part in the affairs of Western Europe.
Poland lay between Europe and her empire; she was bound,
therefore, to get a firm footing in Poland. … On the death of
Augustus III., therefore, she would permit no foreign prince
to mount the throne of Poland, but selected a native Polish
nobleman, from the numerous class of Russian hirelings, and
cast her eye upon a nephew of the Czartoriskys, Stanislaus
Poniatowsky, a former lover of her own. Above all things she
desired to perpetuate the chronic anarchy of Poland, so as to
ensure the weakness of that kingdom. … A further desire in
Catherine's mind arose from her own peculiar position in
Russia at that time. She had deposed her Imperial Consort,
deprived her son of the succession, and ascended the throne
without the shadow of a title. During the first years of her
reign, therefore, her situation was extremely critical." She
desired to render herself popular, and "she could find nothing
more in accordance with the disposition of the Russians … than
the protection of the Greek Catholics in Poland. Incredible as
it may seem, the frantic fanaticism of the Polish rulers had
begun, in the preceding twenty or thirty years, to limit and
partially to destroy, by harsh enactments, the ancient rights
of the Nonconformists. … In the year 1763 a complaint was
addressed to Catherine by Konisky, the Greek Bishop of
Mohilev, that 150 parishes of his diocese had been forcibly
Romanised by the Polish authorities. The Empress resolved to
recover for the dissenters in Poland at least some of their
ancient rights, and thus secure their eternal devotion to
herself, and inspire the Russian people with grateful
enthusiasm. At this time, however, King Augustus III. was
attacked by his last illness. A new king must soon be elected
at Warsaw, upon which occasion all the European Powers would
make their voices heard. Catherine, therefore, in the spring
of 1763, first sounded the Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin, in
order, if possible, to gain common ground and their support
for her diplomatic action.
{2554}
The reception which her overtures met with at the two courts

was such as to influence the next ten years of the history of
Poland and Europe. … At Vienna, ever since Peter III. had
renounced the Austrian alliance, a very unfavourable feeling
towards Russia prevailed. … The result was that Austria came
to no definite resolution, but returned a sullen and evasive
reply. It was far otherwise with Frederick II. of Prussia.
That energetic and clear-sighted statesman had his faults, but
indecision had never been one of them. He agreed with
Catherine in desiring that Poland should remain weak. On the
other hand, he failed not to perceive that an excessive growth
of Russia, and an abiding Russian occupation of Poland, might
seriously threaten him. Nevertheless, he did not waver a
moment. … He needed a powerful ally. … Russia alone was left,
and he unhesitatingly seized her offered hand. … It was
proposed to him that six articles should be signed, with
certain secret provisions, by which were secured the election
of a native for the throne of Poland, the maintenance of the
Liberum Veto (i. e., of the anarchy of the nobles), and the
support of the Nonconformists; while it was determined to
prevent in Sweden all constitutional reforms. Frederick, who
was called upon to protect the West Prussian Lutherans, just
as the aid of Catherine had been sought by the Greek Bishop of
Mohilev, made no objection. After the death of King Augustus
III. of Poland, in October, 1763, Frederick signed the above
treaty, April 11th, 1764. This understanding between the two
Northern Powers caused no small degree of excitement at
Vienna. It was immediately feared that Prussia and Russia
would at once seize on Polish provinces. … This anxiety,
however, was altogether premature. No one at St. Petersburg
wished for a partition of Poland, but for increased influence
over the entire Polish realm, Frederick II., for his part, did
not aim at any territorial extension, but would abandon Poland
for the time to Russia, that he might secure peace for his
country by a Russian alliance. … Meanwhile, matters in Poland
proceeded according to the wishes of Catherine. Her path was
opened to her by the Poles themselves. It was at the call of
the Czartoriskys a Russian army corps of 10,000 men entered the country,
occupied Warsaw, and put down the opposing party. It was under
the same protection that Stanislaus Poniatowsky was
unanimously elected King, on September 1st, 1764. But the
Czartoriskys were too clever. They intended, after having
become masters of Poland by the help of Russia, to reform the
constitution, to establish a regular administration, to
strengthen the Crown, and finally to bow the Russians out of
the kingdom." The Czartoriskys were soon at issue with the
Russian envoy, who commanded the support of all their
political opponents, together with that of all the religious
Nonconformists, both in the Greek Church and among the
Protestants. The King, too, went over to the latter, bought by
a Russian subsidy. But this Russian confederation was speedily
broken up, when the question of granting civil equality to the
Nonconformists came up for settlement. The Russians carried
the measure through by force and the act embodying it was
signed March 5, 1768. "It was just here that the conflagration
arose which first brought fearful evils upon the country
itself, and then threatened all Europe with incalculable
dangers. At Bar, in Podolia, two courageous men, Pulawski and
Krasinski, who were deeply revolted at the concession of civil
rights to heretics, set on foot a new Confederation to wage a
holy war for the unity and purity of the Church. … The Roman
Catholic population of every district joined the
Confederation. … A terrible war began in the southern
provinces. … The war on both sides was carried on with savage
cruelty; prisoners were tortured to death; neither person nor
property was spared. Other complications soon arose. … When …
the Russians, in eager pursuit of a defeated band of
Confederates, crossed the Turkish frontier, and the little
town of Balta was burnt during an obstinate fight, … the
Sultan, in an unexpected access [excess?] of fury, declared
war against Russia in October, 1768, because, as he stated in
his manifesto, he could no longer endure the wrong done to
Poland.
See TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774.
Thus, by a sudden turn of affairs, this Polish question had
become a European question of the first importance; and no one
felt the change more deeply than King Frederick II. He knew
Catherine well enough to be sure that she would not end the
war now begun with Turkey, without some material gain to
herself. It was equally plain that Austria would never leave
to Russia territorial conquests of any great extent in Turkey.
… The slightest occurrence might divide all Europe into two
hostile camps; and Germany would, as usual, from her central
position, have to suffer the worst evils of a general war.
Frederick II. was thrown into the greatest anxiety by this
danger, and he meditated continually how to prevent the
outbreak of war. The main question in his mind was how to
prevent a breach between Austria and Russia. Catherine wanted
to gain more territory, while Austria could not allow her to
make any conquests in Turkey. Frederick was led to inquire
whether greater compliance might not be shown at Vienna, if
Catherine, instead of a Turkish, were to take a Polish
province, and were also to agree, on her part, to an
annexation of Polish territory by Austria?" When this
scheme—put forward as one originating with Count Lynar, a
Saxon diplomatist—was broached at St. Petersburg, it met with
no encouragement; but subsequently the same plan took shape in
the mind of the young Emperor Joseph II., and he persuaded his
mother, Maria Theresa, to consent to it. Negotiations to that
end were opened with the Russian court. "After the foregoing
proceedings, it was easy for Russia and Prussia to come to a
speedy agreement. On February 17, 1772, a treaty was signed
allotting West Prussia to the King, and the Polish territories
east of the Dneiper and Duna to the Empress. The case of
Austria was a more difficult one. … The treaty of partition
was not signed by the three Powers until August, 1772. … The
Prussian and Austrian troops now entered Poland on every side,
simultaneously with the Russians. The bands of the
Confederates, which had hitherto kept the Russians on the
alert, now dispersed without further attempt at resistance. As
soon as external tranquillity had been restored, a Diet was
convened, in order at once to legalise the cession of the
provinces to the three Powers by a formal compact, and to
regulate the constitutional questions which had been unsettled
since the revolt of the Confederation of Bar.
{2555}
It took some time to arrive at this result, and many a bold
speech was uttered by the Poles; but it is sad to think that
the real object of every discussion was the fixing the amount
of donations and pensions which the individual senators and
deputies were to receive from the Powers for their votes.
Hereupon the act of cession was unanimously passed. … The
Liberum Veto, the anarchy of the nobles, and the impotence of
the Sovereign, were continued."
H. von Sybel,
The First Partition of Poland
(Fortnightly Review, July, 1874, volume 22).
"One's clear belief … is of two things: First, that, as
everybody admits, Friedrich had no real hand in starting the
notion of Partitioning Poland;—but that he grasped at it with
eagerness as the one way of saving Europe from War: Second,
what has been much less noticed, that, under any other hand,
it would have led Europe to War; and that to Friedrich is due
the fact that it got effected without such accompaniment.
Friedrich's share of Territory is counted to be in all, 9,465
English square miles; Austria's, 62,500; Russia's, 87,500,
between nine and ten times the amount of Friedrich's,—which
latter, however, as an anciently Teutonic Country, and as
filling-up the always dangerous gap between his Ost-Preussen
and him, has, under Prussian administration, proved much the
most valuable of the Three; and, next to Silesia, is
Friedrich's most important acquisition. September 13th, 1772,
it was at last entered upon,—through such waste-weltering
confusions, and on terms never yet unquestionable. Consent of
Polish Diet was not had for a year more; but that is worth
little record."
T. Carlyle,
History of Frederick the Great,
book 21, chapter 4 (volume 6).
ALSO IN:
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter. 119 (volume 3).

EASTERN EUROPE IN 1768 A. D.
SHOWING SUBSEQUENT CHANGES DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
PARTITION OF POLAND ETC.
HOHENZOLLERN (PRUSSIA).
HABSBURG(AUSTRIA).
RUSSIAN.
POLISH.
TURKISH.
VENETIAN.
THE TERRITORY WON BEFORE THE CLOSE OF THE
CENTURY BY THE THREE POWERS PRUSSIA.
AUSTRIA AND RUSSIA SHOWN IN BORDER
LINES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE COLORS.]

CENTRAL EUROPE
AT THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO (1797).
AUSTRIAN
PRUSSIAN
RUSSIAN
FRENCH
SWEDISH
DANISH
PAPAL STATES
ECCLESIASTICAL STATES OF THE EMPIRE.
THE BOUNDARY OF THE EMPIRE SHOWN BY THE HEAVY RED LINE.
POLAND: A. D. 1791-1792.
The reformed Constitution of 1791
and its Russian strangulation.
"After the first Partition of Poland was completed in 1776,
that devoted country was suffered for sixteen years to enjoy
an interval of more undisturbed tranquillity than it had known
for a century. Russian armies ceased to vex it. The
dispositions of other foreign powers became more favourable.
Frederic II now entered on that spotless and honourable
portion of his reign, in which he made a just war for the
defence of the integrity of Bavaria, and of the independence
of Germany. … Attempts were not wanting to seduce him into new
enterprises against Poland. … As soon as Frederic returned to
counsels worthy of himself, he became unfit for the purposes
of the Empress, who, in 1780, refused to renew her alliance
with him, and found a more suitable instrument of her designs
in the restless character, and shallow understanding, of
Joseph II, whose unprincipled ambition was now released from
the restraint which his mother's scruples had imposed on it. …
Other powers now adopted a policy, of which the influence was
favourable to the Poles. Prussia, as she receded from Russia,
became gradually connected with England, Holland, and Sweden;
and her honest policy in the care of Bavaria placed her at the
head of all the independent members of the Germanic
Confederacy. Turkey declared war against Russia; and the
Austrian Government was disturbed by the discontent and
revolts which the precipitate innovations of Joseph had
excited in various provinces of the monarchy. A formidable
combination against the power of Russia was in process of time
formed. … In the treaty between Prussia and the Porte,
concluded at Constantinople in January, 1790, the contracting
parties bound themselves to endeavour to obtain from Austria
the restitution of those Polish provinces to which she had
given the name of Galicia. During the progress of these
auspicious changes, the Polish nation began to entertain the
hope that they might at length be suffered to reform their
institutions, to provide for their own quiet and safety, and
to adopt that policy which might one day enable them to resume
their ancient station among European nations. From 1778 to
1788, no great measures had been adopted; but no tumults
disturbed the country: reasonable opinions made some progress,
and a national spirit was slowly reviving. The nobility
patiently listened to plans for the establishment of a
productive revenue and a regular army; a disposition to
renounce their dangerous right of electing a king made
perceptible advances; and the fatal law of unanimity had been
so branded as an instrument of Russian policy, that in the
Diets of these ten years no nuncio was found bold enough to
employ his negative. … In the midst of these excellent
symptoms of public sense and temper, a Diet assembled at
Warsaw in October 1788, from whom the restoration of the
republic was hoped, and by whom it would have been
accomplished, if their prudent and honest measures had not
been defeated by one of the blackest acts of treachery
recorded in the annals of mankind. … The Diet applied itself
with the utmost diligence and caution to reform the State.
They watched the progress of popular opinion, and proposed no
reformation till the public seemed ripe for its reception." On
the 3d of May, 1791, a new Constitution, which had been
outlined and discussed in the greater part of its provisions,
during most of the previous two years, was reported to the
Diet. That body had been doubled, a few months before, by the
election of new representatives from every Dietine, who united
with the older members, in accordance with a law framed for
the occasion. By this double Diet, the new Constitution was
adopted on the day of its presentation, with only twelve
dissentient voices. "Never were debates and votes more free:
these men, the most hateful of apostates, were neither
attacked, nor threatened, nor insulted." The new Constitution
"confirmed the rights of the Established Church, together with
religious liberty, as dictated by the charity which religion
inculcates and inspires. It established an hereditary monarchy
in the Electoral House of Saxony; reserving to the nation the
right of choosing a new race of Kings, in case of the
extinction of that family. The executive power was vested in
the King, whose ministers were responsible for its exercise.
The Legislature was divided into two Houses, the Senate and
the House of Nuncios, with respect to whom the ancient
constitutional language and forms were preserved. The
necessity of unanimity [the Liberum Veto] was taken away, and,
with it, those dangerous remedies of Confederation and
Confederate Diets which it had rendered necessary.
{2556}
Each considerable town received new rights, with a restoration
of all their ancient privileges. The burgesses recovered the
right of electing their own magistrates. … All the offices of
the State, the law, the church, and the army, were thrown open
to them. The larger towns were empowered to send deputies to
the Diet, with a right to vote on all local and commercial
subjects, and to speak on all questions whatsoever. An these
deputies became noble, as did every officer of the rank of
captain, and every lawyer who filled the humblest office of
magistracy, and every burgess who acquired a property in land
paying £5 of yearly taxes. … Industry was perfectly
unfettered. … Numerous paths to nobility were thus thrown
open. Every art was employed to make the ascent easy. … Having
thus communicated political privileges to hitherto disregarded
freemen, … the constitution extended to all serfs the full
protection of law, which before was enjoyed by those of the
Royal demesnes; and it facilitated and encouraged voluntary
manumission. … The storm which demolished this noble edifice
came from abroad. … The remaining part of the year 1791 passed
in quiet, but not without apprehension. On the 9th of January,
1792, Catharine concluded a peace with Turkey at Jassy; and,
being thus delivered from all foreign enemies, began once more
to manifest intentions of interfering in the affairs of
Poland. … A small number of Polish nobles furnished her with
that very slender pretext with which she was always content.
Their chiefs were Rzewuski … and Felix Potocki. … These
unnatural apostates deserted their long-suffering country at
the moment when, for the first time, hope dawned on her. …
They were received by Catharine with the honours due from her
to the betrayers of their country. On the 12th of May, 1792,
they formed a Confederation at Targowitz. On the 18th, the
Russian minister at Warsaw declared that the Empress, 'called
on by many distinguished Poles who had confederated against
the pretended constitution of 1791, would, in virtue of her
guarantee, march an army into Poland to restore the liberties
of the Republic.'" The hope, meantime, of help from Prussia,
which had been pledged to Poland by a treaty of alliance in
March, 1790, was speedily and cruelly deceived. "Assured of
the connivance of Prussia, Catharine now poured an immense
army into Poland, along the whole line of frontier, from the
Baltic to the neighbourhood of the Euxine. The spirit of the
Polish nation was unbroken. … A series of brilliant actions
[especially at Polonna and Dubienka] occupied the summer of
1792, in which the Polish army [under Poniatowski and
Kosciusko], alternately victorious and vanquished, gave equal
proofs of unavailing gallantry. Meantime Stanislaus … on the
4th of July published a proclamation declaring that he would
not survive his country. But, on the 22d of the same month …
[he] declared his accession to the Confederation of Targowitz;
and thus threw the legal authority of the republic into the
hands of that band of conspirators. The gallant army, over
whom the Diet had intrusted their unworthy King with absolute
authority, were now compelled, by his treacherous orders, to
lay down their arms. … Such was the unhappy state of Poland
during the remainder of the year 1792," while the Empress of
Russia and the King of Prussia were secretly arranging the
terms of a new Treaty of Partition.
Sir J. Mackintosh,
Account of the Partition of Poland
(Edinburgh Review, November, 1822;
reprinted in Miscellaneous Works).
ALSO IN:
H. Von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 2, chapters 1 and 6,
book 4, chapter 1, and book 6 (volumes 1-2).
A. Gielgud,
The Centenary of the Polish Constitution
(Westminster Review, volume 135, page 547).
F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 1, chapter 2, section 4.
See, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1791-1792.
POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796.
The Second and Third Partitions.
Extinction of Polish nationality.
"The Polish patriots, remaining in ignorance of the treaty of
partition, were unconscious of half their misfortunes. The
King of Prussia in his turn crossed the western frontier
[January, 1793], announcing in his manifesto that the troubles
of Poland compromised the safety of his own States, that
Dantzig had sent corn to the French revolutionaries, and that
Great Poland was infested by Jacobin clubs, whose intrigues
were rendered doubly dangerous by the continuation of the war
with France. The King of Prussia affected to see Jacobins
whenever it was his interest to find them. The part of each of
the powers was marked out in advance. Russia was to have the
eastern provinces, with a population of 3,000,000, as far as a
line drawn from the eastern frontier of Courland, which,
passing Pinsk, ended in Gallicia, and included Borissof,
Minsk, Sloutsk, Volhynia, Podolia, and Little Russia. Prussia
had the long-coveted cities of Thorn and Dantzig, as well as
Great Poland, Posen, Gnezen, Kalisch, and Czenstochovo. If
Russia still only annexed Russian or Lithuanian territory,
Prussia for the second time cut Poland to the quick, and
another million and a half of Slavs passed under the yoke of
the Germans. It was not enough to despoil Poland, now reduced
to a territory less extensive than that occupied by Russia; it
was necessary that she should consent to the spoliation—that
she should legalise the partition. A diet was convoked at
Grodno, under the pressure of the Russian bayonets," and by
bribery as well as by coercion, after long resistance, the
desired treaty of cession was obtained. "The Polish troops who
were encamped on the provinces ceded to the Empress, received
orders to swear allegiance to her; the army that remained to
the republic consisted only of 15,000 men." Meantime,
Kosciuszko, who had won reputation in the war of the American
Revolution, and enhanced it in the brief Polish struggle of
1792, was organizing throughout Poland a great revolt,
directing the work from Dresden, to which city he had retired.
"The order to disband the army hastened the explosion.
Madalinski refused to allow the brigade that he commanded to
be disarmed, crossed the Bug, threw himself on the Prussian
Provinces, and then fell back on Cracow. At his approach, this
city, the second in Poland, the capital of the ancient kings,
rose and expelled the Russian garrison. Kosciuszko hastened to
the scene of action, and put forth the 'act of insurrection,'
in which the hateful conduct of the co-partitioners was
branded, and the population called to arms. Five thousand
scythes were made for the peasants, the voluntary offerings of
patriots were collected, and those of obstinate and lukewarm
people were extracted by force." On the 17th of April, 1794,
the inhabitants of Warsaw rose and expelled the Russian
troops, who left behind, on retreating, 4,000 killed and
wounded, 2,000 prisoners, and 12 cannon.
{2557}
"A provisional government installed itself at Warsaw, and sent
a courier to Kosciuszko." But Russian, Prussian and Austrian
armies were fast closing in upon the ill-armed and outnumbered
patriots. The Prussians took Cracow; the Russians mastered
Wilna; the Austrians entered Lublin; and Kosciuszko, forced to
give battle to the Russians, at Macciowice, October 10, was
beaten, and, half dead from many wounds, was left a prisoner
in the hands of his enemies. Then the victorious Russian army,
under Souvorof, made haste to Warsaw and carried the suburb of
Praga by storm. "The dead numbered 12,000; the prisoners only
one." Warsaw, in terror, surrendered, and Poland, as an
independent state, was extinguished. "The third treaty of
partition, forced on the Empress by the importunity of
Prussia, and in which Austria also took part, was put in
execution [1705-1706]. Russia took the rest of Lithuania as
far as the Niemen (Wilna, Grodno, Kovno, Novogrodek, Slonim),
and the rest of Volhynia to the Bug (Vladimir, Loutsk, and
Kremenetz). … Besides the Russian territory, Russia also
annexed the old Lithuania of the Jagellons, and finally
acquired Courland and Samogitia. Prussia had all Eastern
Poland, with Warsaw; Austria had Cracow, Sandomir, Lublin, and
Chelm."
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
volume 2, chapter 10.
ALSO IN:
R. N. Bain,
The Second Partition of Poland
(English Historical Review, April, 1801).
H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 7, chapter 5,
book 9, chapter 3 (volume 3);
and book 10, chapters 2-4 (volume 4).
See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
POLAND: A. D. 1806.
False hopes of national restoration raised by Napoleon.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER); and 1806-1807.
POLAND: A. D. 1807.
Prussian provinces formed into the grand duchy of Warsaw,
and given to the king of Saxony.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).
POLAND: A. D. 1809.
Cession of part of Bohemia, Cracow, and western Galicia,
by Austria, to the grand duchy of Warsaw.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).
POLAND: A. D. 1812.
Fresh attempt to re-establish the kingdom,
not encouraged by Napoleon.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
POLAND: A. D. 1814-1815.
The Polish question in the Congress of Vienna.
The grand duchy of Warsaw given to Russia.
Constitution granted by the Czar.
See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.
POLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.
Rising against the Russian oppressor.
Courageous struggle for independence.
Early victories and final defeat.
Barbarity of the conqueror.
"Poland, like Belgium and the Romagna, had felt the
invigorating influence of the Revolution of July [in France].
The partition of Poland had been accomplished in a dark period
of the preceding century. It was almost universally regarded
in Western Europe as a mistake and a crime. It was a mistake
to have removed the barrier which separated Russia from the
West; it was a crime to have sacrificed a free and brave
people to the ambition of a relentless autocrat. … The cause
of freedom was identified with the cause of Poland, 'and
freedom shrieked' when Poland's champion 'fell.' The
statesmen, however, who parcelled out Europe amongst the
victorious autocrats in 1815 were incapable of appreciating
the feelings which had inspired the Scotch poet. Castlereagh,
indeed, endeavoured to make terms for Poland. But he did not
lay much stress on his demands. He contented himself with
obtaining the forms of constitutional government for the
Poles. Poland, constituted a kingdom, whose crown was to pass
by hereditary succession to the Emperors of Russia, was to be
governed by a resident Viceroy, assisted by a Polish Diet.
Constantine, who had abdicated the crown of Russia in his
brother's favour, was Viceroy of Poland. … He was residing at
Warsaw when the news of the glorious days of July reached
Poland. The Poles were naturally affected by the tidings of a
revolution which had expelled autocracy from France.
Kosciusko—the hero of 1794—was their favourite patriot. The
cadets at the Military School in Warsaw, excited at the news,
drank to his memory. Constantine thought that young men who
dared to drink to Kosciusko deserved to be flogged. The
cadets, learning his decision, determined on resisting it.
Their determination precipitated a revolution which, perhaps,
under any circumstances, would have occurred. Every
circumstance which could justify revolt existed in Poland. The
Constitution provided for the regular assembly of the Diet:
the Diet had not been assembled for five years. The
Constitution declared that taxes should not be imposed on the
Poles without the consent of their representatives: for
fifteen years no budget had been submitted to the Diet. The
Constitution provided for the personal liberty of every Pole:
the Grand Duke seized and imprisoned the wretched Poles at his
pleasure. The Constitution had given Poland a representative
government; and Constantine, in defiance of it, had played the
part of an autocrat. The threat of punishment, which
Constantine pronounced against the military cadets, merely
lighted the torch which was already prepared. Eighteen young
men, armed to the teeth, entered the Grand Duke's palace and
forced their way into his apartments. Constantine had just
time to escape by a back staircase. His flight saved his life.
… The insurrection, commenced in the Archduke's palace, soon
spread. Some of the Polish regiments passed over to the
insurgents. Constantine, who displayed little courage or
ability, withdrew from the city; and, on the morning of the
30th of November [1830], the Poles were in complete possession
of Warsaw. They persuaded Chlopicki, a general who had served
with distinction under Suchet in Spain, to place himself at
their head. … Raised to the first position in the State, his
warmest counsellors urged him to attack the few thousand men
whom Constantine still commanded. Chlopicki preferred
negotiating with the Russians. The negotiation, of course,
failed. … Chlopicki—his own well-intentioned effort having
failed—resigned his office; and his fellow countrymen invested
Radziwil with the command of their army, and placed Adam
Czartoryski at the head of the Government. In the meanwhile
Nicholas was steadily preparing for the contest which was
before him. Diebitsch, who had brought the campaign of 1820 to
a victorious conclusion, was entrusted with the command of the
Russian army. … Three great military roads converge from the
east upon Warsaw.
{2558}
The most northerly of these enters Poland at Kovno, crosses
the Narew, a tributary of the Bug, at Ostrolenka, and runs
down the right bank of the first of these rivers; the central
road crosses the Bug at Brzesc and proceeds almost due west
upon Warsaw; the most southerly of the three enters Poland
from the Austrian frontier, crosses the Vistula at Gora, and
proceeds along its west bank to the capital. Diebitsch decided
on advancing by all three routes on Warsaw. … Diebitsch, on
the 20th of February, 1831, attacked the Poles; on the 25th he
renewed the attack. The battle on the 20th raged round the
village of Grochow; it raged on the 25th round the village of
Praga. Fought with extreme obstinacy, neither side was able to
claim any decided advantage. The Russians could boast that the
Poles had withdrawn across the Vistula. The Poles could
declare that their retreat had been conducted at leisure, and
that the Russians were unable or unwilling to renew the
attack. Diebitsch himself, seriously alarmed at the situation
into which he had fallen, remained for a month in inaction at
Grochow. Before the month was over Radziwil, who had proved
unequal to the duties of his post, was superseded in the
command of the Polish army by Skrzynecki. On the 30th of
March, Skrzynecki crossed the Vistula at Praga, and attacked
the division of the Russian army which occupied the forest of
Waver, near Grochow. The attack was made in the middle of the
night. The Russians were totally defeated; they experienced a
loss of 5,000 in killed and wounded, and 6,000 prisoners.
Crippled by this disaster, Diebitsch fell back before the
Polish army. Encouraged by his success, Skrzynecki pressed
forward in pursuit. The great central road by which Warsaw is
approached crosses the Kostczyn, a tributary of the Bug, near
the little village of Iganie, about half-way between Russia
and Warsaw. Eleven days after the victory of the 30th of March
the Russians were again attacked by the Poles at Iganie. The
Poles won a second victory. The Russians, disheartened at a
succession of reverses, scattered before the attack; and the
cause of Poland seemed to have been already won by the
gallantry of her children and the skill of their generals.
Diebitsch, however, defeated at Grochow and Iganie, was not
destroyed. … Foregoing his original intention of advancing by
three roads on Warsaw, he determined to concentrate his right
on the northern road at Ostrolenka, his left, on the direct
road at Siedlice. It was open to Skrzynecki to renew the
attack, where Diebitsch expected it, and throw himself on the
defeated remnants of the Russian army at Siedlice. Instead of
doing so he took advantage of his central situation to cross
the Bug and throw himself upon the Russian right at
Ostrolenka. … Skrzynecki had reason to hope that he might
obtain a complete success before Diebitsch could by any
possibility march to the rescue. He failed. Diebitsch
succeeded in concentrating his entire force before the
destruction of his right wing had been consummated. On the
26th of May, Skrzynecki found himself opposed to the whole
Russian army. Throughout the whole of that day the Polish
levies gallantly struggled for the victory. When evening came
they remained masters of the field which had been the scene of
the contest. A negative victory of this character, however,
was not the object of the great movement upon the Russian
right. The Polish general, his army weakened by heavy losses,
resolved on retiring upon Warsaw. Offensive operations were
over: the defensive campaign had begun. Victory with the Poles
had, in fact, proved as fatal as defeat. The Russians, relying
upon their almost illimitable resources, could afford to lose
two men for every one whom Poland could spare. … It happened,
too, that a more fatal enemy than even war fell upon Poland in
the hour of her necessity. The cholera, which had been rapidly
advancing through Russia during 1830, broke out in the Russian
army in the spring of 1831. The prisoners taken at Iganie
communicated the seeds of infection to the Polish troops. Both
armies suffered severely from the disease; but the effects of
it were much more serious to the cause of Poland than to the
cause of Russia. … A fortnight after the battle of Ostrolenka,
Diebitsch, who had advanced his head-quarters to Pultusk,
succumbed to the malady. In the same week Constantine, the
Viceroy of Poland, and his Polish wife, also died. … Diebitsch
was at once succeeded in the command by Paskievitsch, an
officer who had gained distinction in Asia Minor. … On the 7th
of July, Paskievitsch crossed the Vistula at Plock, and
threatened Warsaw from the rear. … Slowly and steadily he
advanced against the capital. On the 6th of September he
attacked the devoted city. Inch by inch the Russians made
their way over the earthworks which had been constructed in
its defence. On the evening of the 7th the town was at their
mercy; on the 8th it capitulated. … The news of its fall
reached Paris on the 15th of September. The news of Waterloo
had not created so much consternation in the French capital.
Business was suspended; the theatres were closed. The cause of
Poland was in every mind, the name of Poland on every tongue.
… On the 26th of February, 1832, Nicholas, promulgated a new
organic statute for the government of Poland, which he had the
insolence to claim for Russia by the right of conquest of
1815. A draft of the statute reached Western Europe in the
spring of 1832. About the same time stories were received of
the treatment which the Russians were systematically applying
to the ill-fated country. Her schools were closed; her
national libraries and public collections removed; the
children of the Poles were carried into Russia; their fathers
Were swept into the Russian army; whole families accused of
participation in the rebellion were marched into the interior
of the empire; columns of Poles, it was stated, could be seen
on the Russian roads linked man to man by bars of iron; and
little children, unable to bear the fatigues of a long
journey, were included among them; the dead bodies of those
who had perished on the way could be seen on the sides of the
Russian roads. The wail of their wretched mothers—"Oh, that
the Czar could be drowned in our tears!'—resounded throughout
Europe."
S. Walpole,
History of England,
chapter 16 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
J. Hordynski,
History of the late Polish Revolution.
A. Rambaud,
History of Russia,
volume 2, chapter 14.
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1815-52,
chapter 26.
POLAND: A. D. 1846.
Insurrection in Galicia suppressed.
Extinction of the republic of Cracow.
Its annexation to Austria.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846.
{2559}
POLAND: A. D. 1860-1864.
The last insurrection.
"In 1860 broke out the last great Polish insurrection, in all
respects a very ill–advised attempt. On the 29th of November
of that year, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the
revolution of 1830, national manifestations, taking a
religious form, took place in the Warsaw churches. … On the
25th of February, 1861, on the anniversary of the battle of
Grochow, the Agricultural Society of that city, presided over
by Count Zamojski, held a meeting for the purpose of
presenting a petition to the Emperor to grant a constitution.
Although the Tsar did not concede this demand, he decreed by
an ukase of the 26th of March a council of state for the
kingdom, elective councils in each government, and municipal
councils in Warsaw and the chief cities. Moreover, the Polish
language was to be adopted in all the schools of the kingdom.
… On the 8th of April the people appeared in crowds in front
of the castle of the Viceroy, and when they refused to
disperse, were fired upon by the soldiers. About 200 persons
were killed in this unfortunate affair, and many more wounded.
The viceroyalty of Count Lambert was not successful in
conciliating the people; he was succeeded by Count Lüders, who
was reactionary in his policy. An attempt was made in June,
1862, on the life of the Count in the Saxon Garden (Saksonski
Sad), and he was soon afterwards recalled; his place being
taken by the Grand Duke Constantine, who was chiefly guided by
the Marquis Wielopolski, an unpopular but able man. Two
attempts were made upon the life of the Grand Duke, the latter
of which was nearly successful; the life of Wielopolski was
also several times in danger. … On the night of June 15, 1863,
a secret conscription was held, and the persons considered to
be most hostile to the Government were taken in their beds and
forcibly enlisted. Out of a population of 180,000 the number
thus seized at Warsaw was 2,000; soon after this the
insurrection broke out. Its proceedings were directed by a
secret committee, styled Rzad (Government), and were as
mysterious as the movements of the celebrated Fehmgerichte.
The Poles fought under enormous difficulties. Most of the
bands consisted of undisciplined men, unfamiliar with military
tactics, and they had to contend with well–organised troops.
Few of them had muskets; the generality were armed only with
pikes, scythes, and sticks. … The bands of the insurgents were
chiefly composed of priests, the smaller landowners, lower
officials, and peasants who had no land, but those peasants
who possessed any land refused to join. Many showed but a
languid patriotism on account of the oppressive laws relating
to the poorer classes, formerly in vigour in Poland, of which
the tradition was still strong. The war was only guerilla
fighting, in which the dense forests surrounding the towns
were of great assistance to the insurgents. The secret
emissaries of the revolutionary Government were called
stiletcziki, from the daggers which they carried. They
succeeded in killing many persons who had made themselves
obnoxious to the national party. … No quarter was given to the
chiefs of the insurgents; when captured they were shot or
hanged. … When the Grand Duke Constantine resigned the
viceroyalty at Warsaw he was succeeded by Count Berg. … By
May, 1864, the insurrection was suppressed, but it had cost
Poland dear. All its old privileges were now taken away;
henceforth all teaching, both in the universities and schools,
must be in the Russian language. Russia was triumphant, and
paid no attention to the demands of the three Great Powers,
England, France, and Austria. Prussia had long been silently
and successfully carrying on her plan for the Germanisation of
Posen, and on the 8th of February, 1863, she had concluded a
convention with Russia with a view of putting a stop to the
insurrection. Her method throughout has been more drastic; she
has slowly eliminated or weakened the Polish element,
carefully avoiding any of those reprisals which would cause a
European scandal."
W. R. Morfill,
The Story of Poland,
chapter 12.
POLAND: A. D. 1868.
Complete incorporation with Russia.
By an imperial ukase, February 23, 1868, the government of
Poland was absolutely incorporated with that of Russia.
----------POLAND: End--------
POLAR STAR, The Order of the.
A Swedish order of knighthood, the date of the founding of
which is uncertain.
POLEMARCH.
See GREECE: FROM THE DORIAN MIGRATION TO B. C. 683.
POLETÆ.
POLETERIUM.
"Every thing which the state (Athens) sold, or leased;
revenues, real property, mines, confiscated estates, in which
is to be included also the property of public debtors, who
were in arrear after the last term of respite, and the bodies
of the aliens under the protection of the state, who had not
paid the sum required for protection, and of foreigners who
had been guilty of assuming the rights of citizenship, or of
the crime called apostasion; all these, I say, together with
the making of contracts for the public works, at least in
certain cases and periods, were under the charge of the ten
poletæ, although not always without the coöperation of other
boards of officers. Each of the tribes appointed one of the
members of this branch of the government, and their sessions
were held in the edifice called the Poleterium."
A. Boeckh,
Public Economy of Athens (Lamb's translation),
book 2, chapter 3.
POLITIQUES, The Party of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1573-1576.
POLK, James K.:
Presidential election and administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AM.:A. D. 1844, to 1848.
POLKOS, The.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847.
POLLENTIA, Battle of.
See GOTHS: A. D. 400-403.
POLLICES.
See FOOT, THE ROMAN.
POLO, Marco, The travels of.
"This celebrated personage was not, in the strict sense of the
word, a traveller. He was one of those professional
politicians of the Middle Ages who are familiar to the student
of Italian history. The son of a travelling Venetian merchant,
who had already passed many years in Tartary, and been
regarded with welcome and consideration by the Grand Khan
himself, he was taken at an early age to the Grand Khan's
court, and apprenticed, as it were, to the Grand Khan's
service. The young adventurer possessed in a high degree that
subtlety and versatility which opinion attributes to his
nation. Profiting by his opportunities, he soon succeeded in
transmuting himself into a Tartar.
{2560}
He adopted the Tartar dress, studied the Tartar manners, and
mastered the four languages spoken in the Grand Khan's
dominions. Kublai appears first to have employed him as a
secretary, and then to have sent him on confidential missions:
and during a service of seventeen years Marco was engaged in
this way, in journeys by land and sea, in every part of the
Grand Khan's empire and dependencies. More than this, he
travelled on his own account, everywhere, it would appear,
recording his notes and observations, partly for his own use,
and partly for the information or entertainment of his master.
These notes and observations were given to the world of Europe
under the following circumstances. After a residence of
seventeen years, Marco obtained permission to revisit Venice,
accompanied by his father and uncle. Not long after his
return, he was taken in a sea-fight with the Genoese, and
committed to prison. To relieve the ennui of his confinement,
he procured his rough notes from Venice, and dictated to a
fellow–prisoner the narrative which passes under his name.
This narrative soon became known to the world: and from its
publication may be dated that intense and active interest in
the East which has gone on steadily increasing ever since. The
rank and dignified character of this famous adventurer, the
romance of his career, the wealth which he amassed, the extent
of his observations, the long series of years they had
occupied, the strange and striking facts which he reported,
and the completeness and perspicuity of his narrative,
combined to produce a marked effect on the Italian world.
Marco Polo was the true predecessor of Columbus. From an early
time we find direct evidence of his influence on the process
of exploration. … Wherever the Italian captains went, the fame
of the great Venetian's explorations was noised abroad: and,
as we shall presently see, the Italian captains were the chief
directors of navigation and discovery in every seaport of
Western Europe. The work dictated by Marco Polo to his
fellow-captive, though based upon his travels both in form and
matter, is no mere journal or narrative of adventure. A brief
account of his career in the East is indeed prefixed, and the
route over which he carries his reader is substantially that
chronologically followed by himself; for he takes his reader
successively overland to China, by way of the Black Sea,
Armenia, and Tartary, backwards and forwards by land and sea,
throughout the vast dominions of the Grand Khan, and finally
homeward by the Indian Ocean, touching by the way at most of
those famous countries which bordered thereon. Yet the book is
no book of travels. It is rather a Handbook to the East for
the use of other European travellers, and was clearly compiled
as such and nothing more. Perhaps no compiler has ever laid
down a clearer or more practical plan, adopted a more
judicious selection of facts, or relieved it by a more
attractive embroidery of historical anecdote. … It is not here
to the purpose to dwell on his notices of Armenia, Turcomania,
and Persia: his descriptions of the cities of Bagdad, Ormus,
Tabriz, and many others, or to follow him to Kashmir,
Kashghar, and Samarkhand, and across the steppes of Tartary.
The main interest of Marco Polo lies in his description of the
Grand Khan's Empire, and of those wide-spread shores, all
washed by the Indian Ocean, which from Zanzibar to Japan went
by the general name of India. … The Pope alone, among European
potentates of the 15th century, could be ranked as approaching
in state and dignity to the Tartar sovereign of China. For any
fair parallel, recourse must be had to the Great Basileus of
Persia: and in the eyes of his Venetian secretary the Grand
Khan appeared much as Darius or Cyrus may have appeared to the
Greek adventurers who crowded his court, and competed for the
favour of a mighty barbarian whom they at once flattered and
despised."
E. J. Payne,
History of the New World,
book 1.
ALSO IN:
The Book of Ser Marco Polo;
edited by Colonel H. Yule.
T. W. Knox,
Travels of Marco Polo for Boys and Girls.
G. M. Towle,
Marco Polo.
See, also, CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294.
POLONNA, Battle of (1792).
See POLAND: A. D. 1791-1792.
POLYNESIANS, The.
See MALAYAN RACE.
POLYPOTAMIA, The proposed State of.
See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1784.
POMERANIANS, The.
"Adam of Bremen first mentions these Pomeranians [east of the
Oder], and he mentions them as Slavonians, the Oder being
their boundary to the West. On the east they were conterminous
with the Prussians. Their name is Slavonic, 'po'='on' and
'more'='sea,'='coastmen.' All their antiquities and traditions
are equally so; in other words there is neither evidence, nor
shadow of evidence, of their ever having dispossessed an older
Germanic population. Nor are they wholly extinct at the
present moment. On the promontories which project into the
Gulf of Dantzig we find the Slavonic Kassub, Cassubitæ, or
Kaszeb. Their language approaches the Polish."
R. G. Latham,
The Germania of Tacitus, Prolegomena,
section 7.
POMERIUM, The Roman.
"The pomerium was a hallowed space, along the whole circuit of
the city, behind the wall, where the city auspices were taken,
over which the augurs had full right, and which could never be
moved without their first consulting the will of the gods. The
pomerium which encircled the Palatine appears to have been the
space between the wall and the foot of the hill."
H. M. Westropp,
Early and Imperial Rome,
page 40.
POMPADOUR, Madame de, Ascendancy of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1723-1774.
POMPÆ.
The solemn processions of the ancient Athenians, on which they
expended great sums of money, were so called.
A. Boeckh,
Public Economy of Athens,
book 2, chapter 12.
POMPEII.
"Pompeii was a maritime city at the mouth of the river Sarnus,
the most sheltered recess of the Neapolitan Crater. Its origin
was lost in antiquity, and the tradition that it was founded
by Hercules, together with the other spot [Herculaneum] which
bore the name of the demigod, was derived perhaps from the
warm springs with which the region abounded. The Greek
plantations on the Campanian coast had been overrun by the
Oscans and Samnites; nevertheless the graceful features of
Grecian civilization were still everywhere conspicuous, and
though Pompeii received a Latin name, and though Sulla,
Augustus, and Nero had successively endowed it with Roman
colonists, it retained the manners and to a great extent the
language of the settlers from beyond the sea."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 60.
{2561}
Pompeii, and the neighboring city of Herculaneum, were
overwhelmed by a volcanic eruption from Mount Vesuvius, on the
23rd of August, A. D. 79. They were buried, but did not
perish; they were death-stricken, but not destroyed; and by
excavations, which began at Pompeii A. D. 1748, they have been
extensively uncovered, and made to exhibit to modern times the
very privacies and secrets of life in a Roman city of the age
of Titus.
Pliny the Younger, Letters,
book 6, epistles 16 and 20.
ALSO IN:
T. H. Dyer,
Pompeii.
POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM, Exhumed Libraries of.
See LIBRARIES, ANCIENT: HERCULANEUM.
POMPEIUS, the Great, and the first Triumvirate.
See ROME: B. C. 78-68, to B. C. 48;
and ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47.
PONCAS,
PONKAS,
PUNCAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY,
and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.
----------PONDICHERRY: Start--------
PONDICHERRY: A. D. 1674-1697.
Founded by the French.
Taken by the Dutch.
Restored to France.
See INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743.
PONDICHERRY: A. D. 1746.
Siege by the English.
See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.
PONDICHERRY: A. D. 1761.
Capture by the English.
See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.
----------PONDICHERRY: End--------
PONIATOWSKY, Stanislaus Augustus,
King of Poland, A. D. 1764-1795.
PONKAS.
See PONCAS.
PONS ÆLII.
A Roman bridge and military station on the Tyne, where
Newcastle is now situated.
H. M. Scarth,
Roman Britain,
chapter 8.
PONS SUBLICIUS, The.
See SUBLICIAN BRIDGE.
PONT ACHIN, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).
PONTCHARRA, Battle of (1591).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1591-1593.
PONTE NUOVO, Battle of (1769).
See CORSICA: A. D. 1729-1769.
PONTIAC'S WAR (A. D. 1763-1764).
"With the conquest of Canada and the expulsion of France as a
military power from the continent, the English colonists were
abounding in loyalty to the mother country, were exultant in
the expectation of peace, and in the assurance of immunity
from Indian wars in the future; for it did not seem possible
that, with the loose system of organization and government
common to the Indians, they could plan and execute a general
campaign without the co–operation of the French as leaders.
This feeling of security among the English settlements was of
short duration. A general discontent pervaded all the Indian
tribes from the frontier settlements to the Mississippi, and
from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The extent of this
disquietude was not suspected, and hence no attempt was made
to gain the goodwill of the Indians. There were many real
causes for this discontent. The French had been politic and
sagacious in their intercourse with the Indian. They gained
his friendship by treating him with respect and justice. They
came to him with presents, and, as a rule, dealt with him
fairly in trade. They came with missionaries, unarmed, heroic,
self-denying men. … Many Frenchmen married Indian wives, dwelt
with the native tribes, and adopted their customs. To the
average Englishman, on the other hand, Indians were disgusting
objects; he would show them no respect, nor treat them with
justice except under compulsion. … The French had shown little
disposition to make permanent settlements; but the English,
when they appeared, came to stay, and they occupied large
tracts of the best land for agricultural purposes. The French
hunters and traders, who were widely dispersed among the
native tribes, kept the Indians in a state of disquietude by
misrepresenting the English, exaggerating their faults, and
making the prediction that the French would soon recapture
Canada and expel the English from the Western territories.
Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas [see CANADA: A. D. 1760],
was the Indian who had the motive, the ambition, and capacity
for organization which enabled him to concentrate and use all
these elements of discontent for his own malignant and selfish
purposes. After the defeat of the French, be professed for a
time to be friendly with the English, expecting that, under
the acknowledged supremacy of Great Britain, he would be
recognized as a mighty Indian prince, and be assigned to rule
over his own, and perhaps a confederacy of other tribes.
Finding that the English government had no use for him, he was
indignant, and he devoted all the energies of his vigorous
mind to a secret conspiracy of uniting the tribes west of the
Alleghanies to engage in a general war against the English
settlements ['The tribes thus banded together against the
English comprised, with a few unimportant exceptions, the
whole Algonquin stock, to whom were united the Wyandots, the
Senecas, and several tribes of the lower Mississippi. The
Senecas were the only members of the Iroquois confederacy who
joined in the league, the rest being kept quiet by the
influence of Sir William Johnson.'
F. Parkman,
Conspiracy of Pontiac,
volume 1, page 187.
… His scheme was to make a simultaneous attack on all the
Western posts in the month of May, 1763; and each attack was
assigned to the neighboring tribes. His summer home was on a
small island at the entrance of Lake St. Clair; and being near
Detroit, he was to conduct in person the capture of that fort.
On the 6th of May, 1763, Major Gladwin, in command at Detroit,
had warning from an Indian girl that the next day an attempt
would be made to capture the fort by treachery. When Pontiac,
on the appointed morning, accompanied by 60 of his chiefs,
with short guns concealed under their blankets, appeared at
the fort, and, as usual, asked for admission, he was startled
at seeing the whole garrison under arms, and that his scheme
of treachery had miscarried. For two months the savages
assailed the fort, and the sleepless garrison gallantly
defended it, when they were relieved by the arrival of a
schooner from Fort Niagara, with 60 men, provisions, and
ammunition. Fort Pitt, on the present site of Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania, was in command of Captain Ecuyer, another
trained soldier, who had been warned of the Indian conspiracy
by Major Gladwin in a letter written May 5th. Captain Ecuyer,
having a garrison of 330 soldiers and backwoodsmen,
immediately made every preparation for defence. On May 27th, a
party of Indians appeared at the fort under the pretence of
wishing to trade, and were treated as spies.
{2562}
Active operations against Fort Pitt were postponed until the
smaller forts had been taken. Fort Sandusky was captured May
16th; Fort St. Joseph (on the St. Joseph River, Michigan), May
25th; Fort Ouatanon (now Lafayette, Indiana), May 31st; Fort
Michillimaekinac (now Mackinaw, Michigan), June 2d; Fort
Presqu' Isle (now Erie, Pennsylvania), June 17th; Fort Le Bœuf
(Erie County, Pennsylvania), June 18th; Fort Venango (Venango
County, Pennsylvania), June 18th; and the posts at Carlisle
and Bedford, Pennsylvania, on the same day. No garrison except
that at Presqu' Is]e had warning of danger. The same method of
capture was adopted in each instance. A small party of Indians
came to the fort with the pretence of friendship, and were
admitted. Others soon joined them, when the visitors rose upon
the small garrisons, butchered them, or took them captive. At
Presqu' Isle the Indians laid siege to the fort for two days,
when they set it on fire. At Venango no one of the garrison
survived to give an account of the capture. On June 22d, a
large body of Indians surrounded Fort Pitt and opened fire on
all sides, but were easily repulsed. … The Indians departed
next day and did not return until July 26th," when they laid
siege to the fort for five days and nights, with more loss to
themselves than to the garrison. They "then disappeared, in
order to intercept the expedition of Colonel Bouquet, which
was approaching from the east with a convoy of provisions for
the relief of Fort Pitt. It was fortunate for the country that
there was an officer stationed at Philadelphia who fully
understood the meaning of the alarming reports which were
coming in from the Western posts. Colonel Henry Bouquet was a
gallant Swiss officer who had been trained in war from his
youth, and whose personal accomplishments gave an additional
charm to his bravery and heroic energy. He had served seven
years in fighting American Indians, and was more cunning than
they in the practice of their own artifices. General Amherst,
the commander-in–chief, was slow in appreciating the
importance and extent of the Western conspiracy; yet he did
good service in directing Colonel Bouquet to organize an
expedition for the relief of Fort Pitt. The promptness and
energy with which this duty was performed, under the most
embarrassing conditions, make the expedition one of the most
brilliant episodes in American warfare. The only troops
available for the service were about 500 regulars recently
arrived from the siege of Havana, broken in health." At Bushy
Run, 25 miles east of Fort Pitt, Bouquet fought a desperate
battle with the savages, and defeated them by the stratagem of
a pretended retreat, which drew them into an ambuscade. Fort
Pitt was then reached in safety. "On the 29th of July Detroit
was reinforced by 280 men under Captain Dalzell, who in June
had left Fort Niagara in 22 barges, with several cannon and a
supply of provisions and ammunition. The day after his
arrival, Captain Dalzell proposed, with 250 men, to make a
night attack on Pontiac's camp and capture him. Major Gladwin
discouraged the attempt, but finally, against his judgment,
consented. Some Canadians obtained the secret and carried it
to Pontiac, who waylaid the party in an ambuscade [at a place
called Bloody Bridge ever since]. Twenty of the English were
killed and 39 wounded. Among the killed was Captain Dalzell
himself. Pontiac could make no use of this success, as the
fort was strongly garrisoned and well supplied. … Elsewhere
there was nothing to encourage him." His confederation begun
to break, and in November he was forced to raise the siege of
Detroit. "There was quietness on the frontiers during the
winter of 1763-64. In the spring of 1764 scattered war parties
were again ravaging the borders. Colonel Bouquet was
recruiting in Pennsylvania, and preparing an outfit for his
march into the valley of the Ohio. In June, Colonel
Bradstreet, with a force of 1,200 men, was sent up the great
lakes," where he made an absurd and unauthorized treaty with
some of the Ohio Indians. He arrived at Detroit on the 26th of
August. "Pontiac had departed, and sent messages of defiance
from the banks of the Maumee." Colonel Bouquet had experienced
great difficulty in raising troops and supplies and it was not
until September, 1764, that he again reached Fort Pitt. But
before two months passed he had brought the Delawares and
Shawanees to submission and had delivered some 200 white
captives from their hands. Meantime, Sir William Johnson, in
conjunction with Bradstreet, had held conferences with a great
council of 2,000 warriors at Fort Niagara, representing
Iroquois, Ottawas, Ojibways, Wyandots and others, and had
concluded several treaties of peace. By one of these, with the
Senecas, a strip of land four miles wide on each side of
Niagara River, from Erie to Ontario, was ceded to the British
government. "The Pontiac War, so far as battles and campaigns
were concerned, was ended; but Pontiac was still at large and
as untamed as ever. His last hope was the Illinois country,
where the foot of an English soldier had never trod;" and
there he schemed and plotted without avail until 1765. In 1769
he was assassinated, near St. Louis.
W. F. Poole,
The West, 1763-1783
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 6, chapter 9).
ALSO IN:
F. Parkman,
Conspiracy of Pontiac.
S. Farmer,
History of Detroit and Michigan,
chapter 38.
Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition.
A. Henry,
Travels and Adventures in Canada,
part 1, chapters 9-23.
W. L. Stone,
Life and Times of Sir William Johnson,
volume 2, chapters 9-12.
J. R. Brodhead,
Documents Relative to Colonial History New York,
volume 7.
PONTIFEX MAXIMUS.
PONTIFICES, Roman.
See AUGURS.
PONTIFF, The Roman.
The Pope is often alluded to as the Roman Pontiff, the term
implying an analogy between his office and that of the
Pontifex Maximus of the ancient Romans.
PONTIFICAL INDICTIONS.
See INDICTIONS.
PONTUS.
See MITHRIDATIC WARS.
PONTUS EUXINUS,
EUXINUS PONTUS.
The Black Sea, as named by the Greeks.
PONZA, Naval Battle of (1435).
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
POOR LAWS, The English.
"It has been often said and often denied that the monasteries
supplied the want which the poor law, two generations after
the dissolution of these bodies, enforced. That the
monasteries were renowned for their almsgiving is certain. The
duty of aiding the needy was universal. Themselves the
creatures of charity, they could not deny to others that on
which they subsisted. …
{2563}
It is possible that these institutions created the mendicancy
which they relieved, but it cannot be doubted that they
assisted much which needed their help. The guilds which

existed in the towns were also found in the country villages.
… They were convenient instruments for charity before the
establishment of a poor law, and they employed no
inconsiderable part of their revenues, collected from
subscriptions and from lands and tenements, in relieving the
indigent and treating poor strangers hospitably. … Before the
dissolution of the monasteries, but when this issue was fairly
in view, in 1536, an attempt was made to secure some legal
provision for destitution. The Act of this year provides that
the authorities in the cities and boroughs should collect alms
on Sundays and holy days, that the ministers should on all
occasions, public and private, stir up the people to
contribute to a common fund, that the custom of giving doles
by private persons should be forbidden under penalty, and that
the church-wardens should distribute the alms when collected.
The Act, however, is strictly limited to free gifts, and the
obligations of monasteries, almshouses, hospitals, and
brotherhoods are expressly maintained. … There was a
considerable party in England which was willing enough to see
the monasteries destroyed, root and branch, and one of the
most obvious means by which this result could be attained
would be to allege that all which could be needed for the
relief of destitution would be derived from the voluntary
offerings of those who contributed so handsomely to the
maintenance of indolent and dissolute friars. The public was
reconciled to the Dissolution by the promise made that the
monastic estates should not be converted to the king's private
use, but be devoted towards the maintenance of a military
force, and that therefore no more demands should be made on
the nation for subsidies and aids. Similarly when the guild
lands and chantry lands were confiscated at the beginning of
Edward's reign, a promise was made that the estates of these
foundations should be devoted to good and proper uses, for
erecting grammar schools, for the further augmentation of the
universities, and the better provision for the poor and needy.
They were swept into the hands of Seymour and Somerset, of the
Dudleys and Cecils, and the rest of the crew who surrounded
the throne of Edward. It cannot, therefore, I think, be
doubted that this violent change of ownership, apart from any
considerations of previous practice in these several
institutions, must have aggravated whatever evils already
existed. … The guardians of Edward attempted, in a savage
statute passed in the first year of his reign, to restrain
pauperism and vagabondage by reducing the landless and
destitute poor to slavery, by branding them, and making them
work in chains. The Act, however, only endured for two years.
In the last year of Edward's reign two collectors were to be
appointed in every parish, who were to wait on every person of
substance and inquire what sums he will give weekly to the
relief of the poor. The promises are to be entered in a book,
and the collectors were authorized to employ the poor in such
work as they could perform, paying them from the fund. Those
who refused to aid were to be first exhorted by the ministers
and church wardens, and if they continued obstinate were to be
denounced to the bishop, who is to remonstrate with such
uncharitable folk. … In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign (5,
cap. 3) the unwilling giver, after being exhorted by the
bishop, is to be bound to appear before the justices, in
quarter sessions, where, if he be still obdurate to
exhortation, the justices are empowered to tax him in a weekly
sum, and commit him to prison till he pays. … There was only a
step from the process under which a reluctant subscriber to
the poor law was assessed by the justices and imprisoned on
refusal, to the assessment of all property under the
celebrated Act of 43 Elizabeth [1601], cap. 3. The law had
provided for the regular appointment of assessors for the levy
of rates, for supplying work to the able-bodied, for giving
relief to the infirm and old, and for binding apprentices. It
now consolidates the experience of the whole reign, defines
the kind of property on which the rate is to be levied,
prescribes the manner in which the assessors shall be
appointed, and inflicts penalties on parties who infringe its
provisions. It is singular that the Act was only temporary. It
was, by the last clause, only to continue to the end of the
next session of parliament. It was, however, renewed, and
finally made perpetual by 16 Car. I., cap. 4. The economical
history of labour in England is henceforward intimately
associated with this remarkable Act. … The Act was to be
tentative, indeed, but in its general principles it lasted
till 1835. … The effect of poor law relief on the wages of
labour was to keep them hopelessly low, to hinder a rise even
under the most urgent circumstances."
J. E. Thorold Rogers,
Six Centuries of Work and Wages,
chapter 15 (volume 2).
"In February 1834 was published perhaps the most remarkable
and startling document to be found in the whole range of
English, perhaps, indeed, of all, social history. It was the
Report upon the administration and practical operation of the
Poor Laws by the Commissioners who had been appointed to
investigate the subject. … It was their rare good fortune not
only to lay bare the existence of abuses and trace them to
their roots, but also to propound and enforce the remedies by
which they might be cured."
T. W. Fowle,
The Poor Law,
chapter 4.
"The poor-rate had become public spoil. The ignorant believed
it an inexhaustible fund which belonged to them. To obtain
their share, the brutal bullied the administrators, the
profligate exhibited their bastards which must be fed, the
idle folded their arms and waited till they got it; ignorant
boys and girls married upon it; poachers, thieves, and
prostitutes extorted it by intimidation; country justices
lavished it for popularity, and guardians for convenience.
This was the way the fund went. As for whence it arose—it
came, more and more every year, out of the capital of the
shopkeeper and the farmer, and the diminishing resources of
the country gentleman. … Instead of the proper number of
labourers to till his lands—labourers paid by himself—the
farmer was compelled to take double the number, whose wages
were paid partly out of the rates; and these men, being
employed by compulsion on him, were beyond his control—worked
or not as they chose —let down the quality of his land, and
disabled him from employing the better men who would have
toiled hard for independence. These better men sank down among
the worse; the rate-paying cottager, after a vain struggle,
went to the pay-table to seek relief; the modest girl might
starve, while her bolder neighbour received 1s. 6d. per week
for every illegitimate child.
{2564}
Industry, probity, purity, prudence– all heart and spirit—the
whole soul of goodness —were melting down into depravity and
social ruin, like snow under the foul internal fires which
precede the earthquake. There were clergymen in the
commission, as well as politicians and economists; and they
took these things to heart, and laboured diligently to frame
suggestions for a measure which should heal and recreate the
moral spirit as well as the economical condition of society in
England. To thoughtful observers it is clear that the … grave
aristocratic error … of confounding in one all ranks below a
certain level of wealth was at the bottom of much poor-law
abuse, as it has been of the opposition to its amendment. …
Except the distinction between sovereign and subject, there is
no social difference in England so wide as that between the
independent labourer and the pauper; and it is equally
ignorant, immoral, and impolitic to confound the two. This
truth was so apparent to the commissioners, and they conveyed
it so fully to the framers of the new poor-law, that it forms
the very foundation of the measure. … Enlightened by a
prodigious accumulation of evidence, the commissioners offered
their suggestions to government; and a bill to amend the
poor-law was prepared and proposed to the consideration of
parliament early in 1834. … If one main object of the reform
was to encourage industry, it was clearly desirable to remove
the impediments to the circulation of labour. Settlement by
hiring and service was to exist no longer; labour could freely
enter any parish where it was wanted, and leave it for another
parish which might, in its turn, want hands. In observance of
the great principle that the independent labourer was not to
be sacrificed to the pauper, all administration of relief to
the able-bodied at their own homes was to be discontinued as
soon as possible; and the allowance system was put an end to
entirely. … Henceforth, the indigent must come into the
workhouse for relief, if he must have it. … The able-bodied
should work—should do a certain amount of work for every meal.
They might go out after the expiration of twenty-four hours;
but while in the house they must work. The men, women, and
children must be separated; and the able-bodied and infirm. …
In order to a complete and economical classification in the
workhouses, and for other obvious reasons, the new act
provided for unions of parishes. … To afford the necessary
control over such a system … a central board was
indispensable, by whose orders, and through whose
assistant-commissioners, everything was to be arranged, and to
whom all appeals were to be directed. … Of the changes
proposed by the new law, none was more important to morals
than that which threw the charge of the maintenance of
illegitimate children upon the mother. … The decrease of
illegitimate births was what many called wonderful, but only
what the framers of the law had anticipated from the removal
of direct pecuniary inducement to profligacy, and from the
awakening of proper care in parents of daughters, and of
reflection in the women themselves. … On the 14th of August
1834, the royal assent was given to the Poor–law Amendment
Act, amidst prognostications of utter failure from the timid,
and some misgivings among those who were most confident of the
absolute necessity of the measure. … Before two years were
out, wages were rising and rates were falling in the whole
series of country parishes; farmers were employing more
labourers; surplus labour was absorbed; bullying paupers were
transformed into steady working-men; the decrease of
illegitimate births, chargeable to the parish, throughout
England, was nearly 10,000, or nearly 13 per cent.; … and,
finally, the rates, which had risen nearly a million in their
annual amount during the five years before the poor-law
commission was issued, sank down, in the course of the five
years after it, from being upwards of seven millions to very
little above four."
H. Martineau,
A History of the Thirty Years Peace,
book 4, chapter 7 (volume 2).
In 1838 the Act was extended to Ireland, and in 1845 to
Scotland.
T. W. Fowle,
The Poor Law,
chapter 4.
"The new Poor Law was passed by Parliament in 1834; and the
oversight of its administration was placed in the hands of a
special board of commissioners, then known as the Central Poor
Law Board. This board, which was not represented in
Parliament, was continued until 1847. In that year it was
reconstructed and placed under the presidency of a minister
with a seat in the House of Commons—a reconstruction putting
it on a political level with the Home Office and the other
important Government Departments at Whitehall. The Department
was henceforward known as the Poor Law Board, and continued to
be so named until 1871, when there was another reconstruction.
This time the Poor Law Board took over from the Home Office
various duties in respect of municipal government and public
health, and from the Privy Council the oversight of the
administration of the vaccination laws and other powers, and
its title was changed to that of the Local Government Board.
Since then hardly a session of Parliament has passed in which
its duties and responsibilities have not been added to, until
at the present time the Local Government Board is more
directly in touch with the people of England and Wales than
any other Government Department. There is not a village in the
land which its inspectors do not visit or to which the
official communications of the Board are not addressed."
E. Porritt,
The Englishman at Home,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
Sir G. Nicholls,
History of the English Poor-Law.
F. Peek,
Social Wreckage.
POOR MEN OF LYONS.
POOR MEN OF LOMBARDY.
See WALDENSES.
POOR PRIESTS OF LOLLARDY, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414.
POPE, General John.
Capture of New Madrid and Island Number Ten.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (MARCH-APRIL: ON THE .MISSISSIPPI).
Command of the Army of the Mississippi.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (APRIL-MAY: TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI).
Virginia campaign.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JULY-AUGUST: VIRGINIA);
(AUGUST: VIRGINIA);
and (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: VIRGINIA).
POPE, The.
See PAPACY.
POPHAM COLONY, The.
See MAINE: A. D. 1607-1608.
POPISH PLOT, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1678-1679.
POPOL VUH, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: QUICHES.
{2565}
POPOLOCAS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CHONTALS.
POPULARES.
See OPTIMATES.
PORNOCRACY AT ROME.
See ROME: A. D. 903-964.
PORT GIBSON, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
PORT HUDSON, Siege and capture of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
PORT JACKSON: A. D. 1770-1788.
The discovery.
The naming.
The first settlement.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1601-1800.
PORT MAHON.
See MINORCA.
PORT PHILLIP DISTRICT.
See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1800-1840, and 1839-1855.
PORT REPUBLIC, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).
----------PORT ROYAL: Start--------
PORT ROYAL,
The Jansenists: A. D. 1602-1660.
The monastery under Mère Angelique
and the hermits of the Port Royal Valley.
Their acceptance of the doctrines of Jansenius.
Their conflict with the Jesuits.
"The monastery of Port Royal … was founded in the beginning of
the 13th century, in the reign of Philip Augustus; and a later
tradition claimed this magnificent monarch as the author of
its foundation and of its name. … But this is the story of a
time when, as it has been said, 'royal founders were in
fashion.' More truly, the name is considered to be derived
from the general designation of the fief or district in which
the valley lies, Porrois—which, again, is supposed to be a
corruption of Porra or Borra, meaning a marshy and woody
hollow. The valley of Port Royal presents to this day the same
natural features which attracted the eye of the devout
solitary in the seventeenth century. … It lies about eighteen
miles west of Paris, and seven or eight from Versailles, on
the road to Chevreuse. … The monastery was founded, not by
Philip Augustus, but by Matthieu, first Lord of Marli, a
younger son of the noble house of Montmorency. Having formed
the design of accompanying the crusade proclaimed by Innocent
III. to the Holy Land, he left at the disposal of his wife,
Mathilde de Garlande, and his kinsman, the Bishop of Paris, a
sum of money to devote to some pious work in his absence. They
agreed to apply it to the erection of a monastery for nuns in
this secluded valley, that had already acquired a reputation
for sanctity in connection with the old chapel dedicated to
St. Lawrence, which attracted large numbers of worshippers.
The foundations of the church and monastery were laid in 1204.
They were designed by the same architect who built the
Cathedral of Amiens, and ere long the graceful and beautiful
structures were seen rising in the wilderness. The nuns
belonged to the Cistercian order. Their dress was white
woollen, with a black veil; but afterwards they adopted as
their distinctive badge a large scarlet cross on their white
scapulary, as the symbol of the 'Institute of the Holy
Sacrament.' The abbey underwent the usual history of such
institutions. Distinguished at first by the strictness of its
discipline and the piety of its inmates, it became gradually
corrupted with increasing wealth, till, in the end of the
sixteenth century, it had grown notorious for gross and
scandalous abuses. … But at length its revival arose out of
one of the most obvious abuses connected with it. The
patronage of the institution, like that of others, had been
distributed without any regard to the fitness of the
occupants, even to girls of immature age. In this manner the
abbey of Port Royal accidentally fell to the lot of one who
was destined by her ardent piety to breathe a new life into
it, and by her indomitable and lofty genius to give it an
undying reputation. Jacqueline Marie Arnauld—better known by
her official name, La Mère Angélique—was appointed abbess of
Port Royal when she was only eight years of age. She was
descended from a distinguished family belonging originally to
the old noblesse of Provence, but which had migrated to
Auvergne and settled there. Of vigorous healthiness, both
mental and physical, the Arnaulds had already acquired a
merited position and name in the annals of France. In the
beginning of the sixteenth century it found its way to Paris
in the person of Antoine Arnauld, Seigneur de la Mothe, the
grandfather of the heroine of Port Royal. … Antoine Arnauld
married the youthful daughter of M. Marion, the
Avocat-general. … The couple had twenty children, and felt, as
may be imagined, the pressure of providing for so many. Out of
this pressure came the remarkable lot of two of the daughters.
The benefices of the Church were a fruitful field of
provision, and the avocat-general, the maternal grandfather of
the children, had large ecclesiastical influence. The result
was the appointment not only of one daughter to the abbey of
Port Royal, but also of a younger sister, Agnes, only six
years of age, to the abbey of St Cyr, about six miles distant
from Port Royal. … At the age of eleven, in the year 1602,
Angélique was installed Abbess of Port Royal. Her sister took
the veil at the age of seven. … The remarkable story of
Angélique's conversion by the preaching of a Capucin friar in
1608, her strange contest with her parents which followed, the
strengthening impulses in different directions which her
religious life received, first from the famous St Francis de
Sales, and finally, and especially, from the no less
remarkable Abbé de St Cyran, all belong to the history of Port
Royal."
J. Tulloch,
Pascal,
chapter 4.
"The numbers at the Port Royal had increased to eighty, and
the situation was so unhealthy that there were many deaths. In
1626 they moved to Paris, and the abbey in the fields remained
for many years deserted. M. Zamet, a pious but not a great
man, for a while had the spiritual charge of the Port Royal,
but in 1634 the abbé of St. Cyran became its director. To his
influence is due the position it took in the coming conflict
of Jansenism, and the effects of his teachings can be seen in
the sisters, and in most of the illustrious recluses who
attached themselves to the monastery. St. Cyran had been an
early associate of Jansenius, whose writings became such a
fire-brand in the Church. As young men they devoted the most
of five years to an intense study of St. Augustine. It is said
Jansenius read all of his works ten times, and thirty times
his treatises against the Pelagians. The two students resolved
to attempt a reformation in the belief of the Church, which
they thought was falling away from many of the tenets of the
father.
{2566}
Jansenius was presently made bishop of Ypres by the Spanish as
a reward for a political tract, but he pursued his studies in
his new bishopric. … In 1640, the Augustinus appeared, in
which the bishop of Ypres sought, by a full reproduction of
the doctrines of St. Augustine, to bring the Church back from
the errors of the Pelagians to the pure and severe tenets of
the great father. The doctrine of grace, the very corner–stone
of the Christian faith, was that which Jansenius labored to
revive. Saint Augustine had taught that, before the fall of
our first parents, man, being in astute of innocence, could of
his own free will do works acceptable to God; but after that
his nature was so corrupted, that no good thing could proceed
from it, save only as divine grace worked upon him. This grace
God gave as He saw fit, working under his eternal decrees, and
man, except as predestined and elected to its sovereign help,
could accomplish no righteous act, and must incur God's just
wrath. But the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians had departed from
this doctrine, and attributed a capacity to please God, to
man's free will and the deeds proceeding from it—a belief
which could but foster his carnal pride and hasten his
damnation. The Jesuits were always desirous to teach religion
so that it could most easily be accepted, and they had
inclined to semi-Pelagian doctrines, rather than to the
difficult truths of St. Augustine. Yet no one questioned his
authority. The dispute was as to the exact interpretation of
his writings. Jansenius claimed to have nothing in his great
book save the very word of Augustine, or its legitimate
result. The Jesuits replied that his writings contained
neither the doctrine of Augustine nor the truth of God. They
appealed to the Pope for the condemnation of these heresies.
Jansenius had died before the publication of his book, but his
followers, who were soon named after him, endeavored to defend
his works from censure. … It was not until 1653 that the
influence of the Jesuits succeeded in obtaining the
condemnation of the offending book. In that year, Innocent X.
issued a bull, by which he condemned as heretical five
propositions contained in the Augustinus. … The members of the
Port Royal adopted the Jansenist cause. Saint Cyran had been a
fellow worker with Jansenius, and he welcomed the Augustinus
as a book to revive and purify the faith of the Church. … The
rigid predestinarianism of Jansen had a natural attraction for
the stern zeal of the Port Royal. The religion of the convent
and of those connected with it bordered on asceticism. They
lived in the constant awe of God, seeking little communion
with the world, and offering to it little compromise. … An
intense and rigorous religious life adopts an intense and
rigorous belief. The Jansenists resembled the English and
American Puritans. They shared their Calvinistic tenets and
their strict morality. A Jansenist, said the Jesuits, is a
Calvinist saying mass. No accusation was more resented by
those of the Jansenist party. They sought no alliance with the
Protestants. Saint Cyran and Arnauld wrote prolifically
against the Calvinists. They were certainly separated from the
latter by their strong devotion to two usages of the Catholic
Church which were especially objectionable to Protestants—the
mass and the confessional. … In 1647, Mother Angelique with
some of the sisters returned to Port Royal in the Fields. The
convent at Paris continued in close relations with it, but the
abbey in the fields was to exhibit the most important phases
of devotional life. Before the return of the sisters, this
desolate spot had begun to be the refuge for many eminent men,
whose careers became identified with the fate of the abbey.
'We saw arrive,' writes one of them, 'from diverse provinces,
men of different professions, who, like mariners that had
suffered shipwreck, came to seck the Port.' M. le Maitre, a
nephew of Mother Angelique, a lawyer of much prominence, a
counsellor of state, a favorite of the chancellor and renowned
for his eloquent harangues, abandoned present prosperity and
future eminence, and in 1638 built a little house, near the
monastery, and became the first of those who might be called
the hermits of the Port Royal. Not taking orders, nor becoming
a member of any religious body, he sought a life of lonely
devotion in this barren place. … Others gradually followed,
until there grew up a community, small in numbers, but strong
in influence, united in study, in penance, in constant praise
and worship. Though held together by no formal vows, few of
those who put hand to the plough turned back from the work.
They left their beloved retreat only when expelled by force,
and with infinite regret. The monastery itself had become
dilapidated. It was surrounded by stagnant waters, and the
woods near by were full of snakes. But the recluses found
religious joy amid this desolation. … As their numbers
increased they did much, however, to improve the desolate
retreat they had chosen. … Some of the recluses cultivated the
ground. Others even made shoes, and the Jesuits dubbed them
the cobblers. They found occupation not only in such labors
and in solitary meditation, but in the more useful work of
giving the young an education that was sound in learning and
grounded in piety. The schools of the Port Royal had a
troubled existence of about fifteen years. Though they rarely
had over fifty pupils, yet in this brief period they left
their mark. Racine, Tillemont, and many others of fruitful
scholarship and piety were among the pupils who were watched
and trained by the grave anchorites with a tender and
fostering care. … The judicious teachers of the Port Royal
taught reading in French, and in many ways did much to improve
the methods of French instruction and scholarship. The
children were thoroughly trained also in Greek and Latin, in
logic and mathematics. Their teachers published admirable
manuals for practical study in many branches. 'They sought,'
says one, 'to render study more agreeable than play or games.'
The jealousy of the Jesuits, who were well aware of the
advantages of controlling the education of the young, at last
obtained the order for the final dispersion of these little
schools, and in 1660 they were closed for ever. Besides these
manuals for teaching, the literature of the Port Royal
comprised many controversial works, chief among them the
forty-two volumes of Arnauld. It furnished also a translation
of the Bible by Saci, which, though far from possessing the
merits of the English version of King James, is one of the
best of the many French translations. But the works of Blaise
Pascal were the great productions of the Port Royal, as he
himself was its chief glory. The famous Provincial Letters
originated from the controversy over Jansenism, though they
soon turned from doctrinal questions to an attack on the
morality of the Jesuits that permanently injured the influence
of that body."
J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin,
chapter 20 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
M. A. Schimmelpenninck,
Select Memoirs of Port Royal.
{2567}
PORT ROYAL: A. D. 1702-1715.
Renewed persecution.
Suppression and destruction of the Monastery.
The odious Bull Unigenitus, and its tyrannical enforcement.
"The Jesuits had been for some time at a low ebb, in the
beginning of the 18th century, the Cardinal de Noailles,
Archbishop of Paris, then ruling the King through Madame de
Maintenon, and himself submitting to the direction of Bossuet.
The imprudence of the Jansenists, their indefatigable spirit
of dispute, restored to their enemies the opportunity to
retrieve their position. In 1702, forty Sorbonne doctors
resuscitated the celebrated question of fact concerning the
five propositions of Jansenius, and maintained that, in the
presence of the decisions of the Church on points of fact and
not of dogma, a respectful silence sufficed without internal
acquiescence. Some other propositions of a Jansenistic
tendency accompanied this leading question. Bossuet hastened
to interfere to stifle the matter, and to induce the doctors
to retract. … Thirty-nine doctors retracted out of forty. The
King forbade the publication thenceforth of anything
concerning these matters, but, in his own name, and that of
Philip V. [of Spain, his grandson], entreated Pope Clement XI.
to renew the constitutions of his predecessors against
Jansenism. … Clement XI. responded to the King's wishes by a
Bull which fell in the midst of the assembly of the clergy in
1705. Cardinal de Noailles, who presided, made reservations
against the infallibility of the Church in affairs of fact.
The assembly, animated with a Gallican spirit, accepted the
Bull, but established that the constitutions of the Popes bind
the whole Church only when they have been accepted by the
bodies of the pastors,' and that this acceptance on the part
of the bishops is made 'by way of judgment.' The court of Rome
was greatly offended that the bishops should claim to 'judge'
after it, and this gave rise to long negotiations: the King
induced the bishops to offer to the Pope extenuating
explanations. The Jesuits, however, regained the ascendency at
Versailles, and prepared against Cardinal de Noailles a
formidable engine of war." The Cardinal had given his
approval, some years before, to a work—"Moral Reflections on
the New Testament"—published by Father Quesnel, who
afterwards became a prominent Jansenist. The Jesuits now
procured the condemnation of this work, by the congregation of
the Index, and a decree from the Pope prohibiting it. "This
was a rude assault on Cardinal de Noailles. The decree,
however, was not received in France, through a question of
form, or rather, perhaps, because the King was then
dissatisfied with the Pope, on account of the concessions of
Clement XI. to the House of Austria. The Jansenists gained
nothing thereby. At this very moment, a terrible blow was
about to fall on the dearest and most legitimate object of
their veneration." The nuns of Port-Royal of the Fields having
refused to subscribe to the papal constitution of 1705, the
Pope had subjected them to the Abbess of Port-Royal of Paris,
"who did not share their Augustinian faith (1708). They
resisted. Meanwhile, Father La Chaise [the King's confessor]
died, and Le Tellier succeeded him. The affair was carried to
the most extreme violence. Cardinal de Noailles, a man of pure
soul and feeble character, was persuaded, in order to prove
that he was not a Jansenist, to cruelty, despite himself,
towards the rebellious nuns. They were torn from their
monastery and dispersed through different convents (November,
1709). The illustrious abbey of Port-Royal, hallowed, even in
the eyes of unbelievers, by the name of so many great men, by
the memory of so much virtue, was utterly demolished, by the
order of the lieutenant of police, D'Argenson. Two years
after, as if it were designed to exile even the shades that
haunted the valley, the dead of Port-Royal were exhumed, and
their remains transferred to a village cemetery (at Magny).
Noailles, while he entered into this persecution, took the
same course, nevertheless, as the nuns of Port-Royal, by
refusing to retract the approbation which he had given to the
'Moral Reflections.' Le Tellier caused him to be denounced to
the King. … The King prohibited Quesnel's book by a decree in
council (November 11, 1711), and demanded of the Pope a new
condemnation of this book, in a form that could be received in
France. The reply of Clement XI. was delayed until September
8, 1713; this was the celebrated Unigenitus Bull, the work of
Le Tellier far more than of the Pope, and which, instead of
the general terms of the Bull of 1708, expressly condemned 101
propositions extracted from the 'Moral Reflections.' … The
Bull dared condemn the very words of St. Augustine and of St.
Paul himself; there were propositions, on other matters than
grace, the condemnation of which was and should have been
scandalous, and seemed veritably the triumph of Jesuitism over
Christianity; for example, those concerning the necessity of
the love of God. It had dared to condemn this: 'There is no
God, there is no religion, where there is not charity.' This
was giving the pontifical sanction to the Jesuitical theories
most contrary to the general spirit of Christian theology. It
was the same with the maxims relative to the Holy Scriptures.
The Pope had anathematized the following propositions: 'The
reading of the Holy Scriptures is for all. Christians should
keep the Sabbath-day holy by reading the Scriptures; it is
dangerous to deprive them of these.' And also this: 'The fear
of unjust excommunication should not prevent us from doing our
duty.' This was overturning all political Gallicanism." The
acceptance of the Bull was strongly but vainly resisted. The
King and the King's malignant confessor spared no exercise of
their unbridled power to compel submission to it. "It was
endeavored to stifle by terror public opinion contrary to the
Bull: exiles, imprisonments, were multiplied from day to day."
And still, when Louis XIV. died, on the 1st day of September,
1715, the struggle was not at an end.
H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 2, chapter 6.
{2568}
"It is now time that I should say something of the infamous
bull Unigenitus, which by the unsurpassed audacity and
scheming of Father Le Tellier and his friends was forced upon
the Pope and the world. I need not enter into a very lengthy
account of the celebrated Papal decree which has made so many
martyrs, depopulated our schools, introduced ignorance,
fanaticism, and misrule, rewarded vice, thrown the whole
community into the greatest confusion, caused disorder
everywhere, and established the most arbitrary and the most
barbarous inquisition; evils which have doubled within the
last thirty years. I will content myself with a word or two,
and will not blacken further the pages of my Memoirs. … It is
enough to say that the new bull condemned in set terms the
doctrines of St. Paul, … and also those of St. Augustin, and
of other fathers; doctrines which have always been adopted by
the Popes, by the Councils, and by the Church itself. The
bull, as soon as published, met with a violent opposition in
Rome from the cardinals there, who went by sixes, by eights,
and by tens, to complain of it to the Pope. … He protested …
that the publication had been made without his knowledge, and
put off the cardinals with compliments, excuses, and tears,
which last he could always command. The constitution had the
same fate in France as in Rome. The cry against it was
universal."
Duke of Saint Simon,
Memoirs (abridged translation by St. John),
volume 3, chapter 6.
"Jansenism … laid hold upon all ecclesiastical bodies with
very few exceptions, it predominated altogether in theological
literature; all public schools that were not immediately under
the Jesuits, or, as in Spain, under the Inquisition, held
Jansenist opinions, at least so far as the majority of their
theologians were concerned. In Rome itself this teaching was
strongly represented amongst the cardinals." Fenelon declared
"that nobody knew—now that the controversy and the
condemnations had gone on for sixty years—in what the
erroneous doctrine exactly consisted; for the Roman court
stuck fast to the principle of giving no definition of what
ought to be believed, so that the same doctrine which it
apparently rejected in one form, was unhesitatingly accepted
at Rome itself when expressed in other though synonymous
terms. … The same thing which under one name was condemned,
was under another, as the teaching of the Thomists or
Augustinians, declared to be perfectly orthodox. … Just
because nobody could tell in what sense such propositions as
those taken from the works of Jansenius or Quesnel were to be
rejected, did they become valuable; for the whole question was
turned into one of blind obedience and submission, without
previous investigation. The Jesuit D'Aubenton, who as
Tellier's agent in Rome had undertaken to procure that the
passages selected from Quesnel's book should be condemned,
repeatedly informed his employer that at Rome everything
turned upon the papal infallibility; to get this passed whilst
the king was ready to impose, by force of arms, upon the
bishops and clergy the unquestioning acceptance of the papal
constitution, was the only object."
J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
W. H. Jarvis,
History of the Church of France,
volume 2, chapters 5-7.
F. Rocquain,
The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution,
chapter 1.
----------PORT ROYAL: End--------
----------PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: Start--------
PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1603-1613.
Settled by the French, and destroyed by the English.
See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605; 1606-1608; and 1610-1613.
PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1690.
Taken by an expedition from Massachusetts.
See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.
PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1691.
Recovered by the French.
See CANADA: A. D. 1692-1697.
PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: A. D. 1710.
Final conquest by the English and
change of name to Annapolis Royal.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710.
----------PORT ROYAL, Nova Scotia: End--------
PORT ROYAL EXPEDITION, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA-GEORGIA).
PORTCHESTER, Origin of.
See PORTUS MAGNUS.
PORTE, The Sublime.
See SUBLIME PORTE;
also PHARAOH.
PORTEOUS RIOT, The.
See EDINBURGH: A. D. 1736.
PORTER, Admiral David D.:
Capture of New Orleans.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
Second attempt against Vicksburg.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (DECEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).
PORTICO, The Athenian, Suppression of.
See ATHENS: A. D. 529.
PORTLAND MINISTRY, The.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1806-1812.
PORTO NOVO, Battle of (1781).
See INDIA: A. D. 1780-1783.
PORTO RICO: Discovery by Columbus (1493).
See AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496.
PORTO VENERE, Naval Battle of (1494).
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.
PORTOBELLO: A. D. 1668.
Capture by the Buccaneers.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1639-1700.
PORTOBELLO: A. D. 1740.
Capture by Admiral Vernon.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.
PORTOLONGO, or Sapienza, Battle of (1354).
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.
----------PORTUGAL: Start--------
PORTUGAL:
Early history.
Mistaken identification with ancient Lusitania.
Roman, Gothic, Moorish and Spanish conquests.
The county of Henry of Burgundy.
"The early history of the country, which took the name of
Portugal from the county which formed the nucleus of the
future kingdom, is identical with that of the rest of the
Iberian peninsula, but deserves some slight notice because of
an old misconception, immortalized in the title of the famous
epic of Camoens, and not yet entirely eradicated even from
modern ideas. Portugal, like the rest of the peninsula, was
originally inhabited by men of the prehistoric ages. … There
seems to be no doubt that the Celts, the first Aryan
immigrants, were preceded by a non-Aryan race, which is called
by different writers the Iberian or Euskaldunac nation, but
this earlier race speedily amalgamated with the Celts, and out
of the two together were formed the five tribes inhabiting the
Iberian peninsula, which Strabo names as the Cantabrians, the
Vasconians, the Asturians, the Gallicians and the Lusitanians.
It is Strabo, also, who mentions the existence of Greek
colonies at the mouth of the Tagus, Douro, and Minho, and it
is curious to note that the old name of Lisbon, Olisipo, was
from the earliest times identified with that of the hero of
the Odyssey, and was interpreted to mean the city of Ulysses.
…
{2569}
The Carthaginians, though they had colonies all over the
peninsula, established their rule mainly over the south and
east of it, having their capital at Carthagena or Nova
Carthago, and seem to have neglected the more barbarous
northern and western provinces. It was for this reason that
the Romans found far more difficulty in subduing these latter
provinces. … In 189 B. C. Lucius Æmilius Paullus defeated the
Lusitanians, and in 185 B. C. Gaius Calpurnius forced his way
across the Tagus. There is no need here to discuss the gradual
conquest by the Romans of that part of the peninsula which
includes the modern kingdom of Portugal, but it is necessary
to speak of the gallant shepherd Viriathus, who sustained a
stubborn war against the Romans from 149 B. C. until he was
assassinated in 139 B. C., because he has been generally
claimed as the first national hero of Portugal. This claim has
been based upon the assumed identification of the modern
Portugal with the ancient Lusitania [see LUSITANIA, an
identification which has spread its roots deep in Portuguese
literature, and has until recently been generally accepted. …
The Celtic tribe of Lusitanians dwelt, according to Strabo, in
the districts north of the Tagus, while the Lusitania of the
Latin historians of the Republic undoubtedly lay to the south
of that river, though it was not used as the name of a
province until the time of Augustus, when the old division of
the peninsula into Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior was
superseded by the division into Betica, Tarraconensis, and
Lusitania. Neither in this division, nor in the division of
the peninsula into the five provinces of Tarraconensis,
Carthaginensis, Betica, Lusitania, and Gallicia, under
Hadrian, was the province called Lusitania coterminous with
the modern kingdom of Portugal. Under each division the name
was given to a district south of the Tagus. … It is important
to grasp the result of this misconception, for it emphasizes
the fact that the history of Portugal for many centuries is
merged in that of the rest of the Iberian peninsula, and
explains why it is unnecessary to study the wars of the
Lusitanians with the Roman Republic, as is often done in
histories of Portugal. Like the rest of the peninsula Portugal
was thoroughly Latinized in the days of the Roman Empire;
Roman 'coloniæ', and 'municipia' were established in places
suited for trade, such as Lisbon and Oporto. … Peaceful
existence under the sway of Rome continued until the beginning
of the 5th century, when the Goths first forced their way
across the Pyrenees. …
See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 410-419.
The Visigothic Empire left but slight traces in Portugal." The
Mohammedan conquest by the Arab-Moors, which began early in
the 8th century, extended to Portugal, and for a general
account of the struggle in the peninsula between Christians
and Moslems during several succeeding centuries the reader is
referred to SPAIN: A. D. 711-713, and after. "In 997 Bermudo
II., king of Gallicia, won back the first portion of modern
Portugal from the Moors by seizing Oporto and occupying the
province now known as the Entre Minho e Douro. … In 1055
Ferdinand 'the Great,' king of Leon, Castile, and Gallicia,
invaded the Beira; in 1057 he took Lamego and Viseu; and in
1064 Coimbra, where he died in the following year. He arranged
for the government of his conquests in the only way possible
under the feudal system, by forming them into a county,
extending to the Mondego, with Coimbra as its capital. The
first count of Coimbra was Sesnando, a recreant Arab vizir,
who had advised Ferdinand to invade his district and had
assisted in its easy conquest. … But though Sesnando's county
of Coimbra was the great frontier county of Gallicia, and the
most important conquest of Ferdinand 'the Great,' it was not
thence that the kingdom which was to develop out of his
dominions was to take its name. Among the counties of Gallicia
was one called the 'comitatus Portucalensis,' because it
contained within its boundaries the famous city at the mouth
of the Douro, known in Roman and Greek times as the Portus
Cale, and in modern days as Oporto, or 'The Port.' This county
of Oporto or Portugal was the one destined to give its name to
the future kingdom, and was held at the time of Ferdinand's
death by Nuno Mendes, the founder of one of the most famous
families in Portuguese history. Ferdinand 'the Great' was
succeeded in his three kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and
Gallicia, by his three sons, Sancho, Alfonso, and Garcia, the
last of whom received the two counties of Coimbra and Oporto
as fiefs of Gallicia, and maintained Nuno Mendes and Sesnando
as his feudatories." Wars between the three sons ensued, as
the result of which "the second of them, Alfonso of Leon,
eventually united all his father's kingdoms in 1073, as
Alfonso VI." This Alfonso was now called upon to encounter a
new impulse of Mohammedan aggression, under a new dynasty,
that of the Almoravides
See ALMORAVIDES.
"The new dynasty collected great Moslem armies, and in 1086
Yusuf Ibn Teshfin routed Alfonso utterly at the battle of
Zalaca, and reconquered the peninsula up to the Ebro. …
Alfonso tried to compensate for this defeat and his loss of
territory in the east of his dominions by conquests in the
west, and in 1093 he advanced to the Tagus and took Santarem
and Lisbon, and made Sueiro Mendes, count of the new district.
But these conquests he did not hold for long. … In 1093 Seyr,
the general of the Almoravide caliph Yusuf, took Evora from
the Emir of Badajoz; in 1094 he took Badajoz itself, and
killed the emir; and retaking Lisbon and Santarem forced his
way up to the Mondego. To resist this revival of the
Mohammedan power, Alfonso summoned the chivalry of Christendom
to his aid. Among the knights who joined his army eager to win
their spurs, and win dominions for themselves, were Count
Raymond of Toulouse and Count Henry of Burgundy. To the
former, Alfonso gave his legitimate daughter, Urraca, and
Gallicia; to the latter, his illegitimate daughter Theresa,
and the counties of Oporto and Coimbra, with the title of
Count of Portugal. The history of Portugal now becomes
distinct from that of the rest of the peninsula, and it is
from the year 1095 that the history of Portugal commences. The
son of Henry of Burgundy was the great monarch Affonso
Henriques, the hero of his country and the founder of a great
dynasty."
H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapter 1.
{2570}
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.
The county made independent and raised to the rank of a kingdom.
Completion of conquests from the Moors.
Limits of the kingdom established.
Count Henry of Burgundy waged war for seven years with his
Moorish neighbors; then went crusading to Palestine for two
years. On his return in 1105 he made common cause with his
brother-in-law and brother-adventurer, Count Raymond of
Gallicia, against the suspected intention of King Alfonso to
declare his bastard, half-Moorish son, Sancho, the heir to his
dominions. "This peaceful arrangement had no result, owing to
the death of Count Raymond in 1107, followed by that of young
Sancho at the battle of Uclés with the Moors, in 1108, and
finally by the death of Alfonso VI. himself in 1109. The
king's death brought about the catastrophe. He left all his
dominions to his legitimate daughter, Urraca, with the result
that there was five years of fierce fighting between Henry of
Burgundy, Alfonso Raimundes, the son of Count Raymond, Alfonso
I. of Aragon, and Queen Urraca. … While they fought with each
other the Mohammedans advanced. … On May 1, 1114, Count Henry
died, … leaving his wife Theresa as regent during the minority
of his son Affonso Henriques, who was but three years old.
Theresa, who made the ancient city of Guimaraens her capital,
devoted all her energies to building up her son's dominions
into an independent state; and under her rule, while the
Christian states of Spain were torn by internecine war, the
Portuguese began to recognize Portugal as their country, and
to cease from calling themselves Gallicians. This distinction
between Portugal and Gallicia was the first step towards the
formation of a national spirit, which grew into a desire for
national independence." The regency of Theresa, during which
she was engaged in many contests, with her half-sister Urraca
and others, ended in 1128. In the later years of it she
provoked great discontent by her infatuation with a lover to
whom she was passionately devoted. In the end, her son headed
a revolt which expelled her from Portugal. The son, Affonso
Henriques, assumed the reins of government at the age of
seventeen years. In 1130 he began a series of wars with
Alfonso VII. of Castile, the aim of which was to establish the
independence of Portugal. These wars were ended in 1140 by an
agreement, "in consonance with the ideas of the times, to
refer the great question of Portuguese Independence to a
chivalrous contest. In a great tournament, known as the
Tourney of Valdevez, the Portuguese knights were entirely
successful over those of Castile, and in consequence of their
victory Affonso Henriques assumed the title of King of
Portugal. This is the turning-point of Portuguese history, and
it is a curious fact that the independence of Portugal from
Gallicia was achieved by victory in a tournament and not in
war. Up to 1136, Affonso Henriques had styled himself Infante,
in imitation of the title borne by his mother; from 1136 to
1140 he styled himself Principe, and in 1140 he first took the
title of King." A little before this time, on the 25th of
July, 1139, Affonso had defeated the Moors in a famous and
much magnified battle—namely that of Orik or Ourique—"which,
until modern investigators examined the facts, has been
considered to have laid the foundations of the independence of
Portugal. Chroniclers, two centuries after the battle,
solemnly asserted that five kings were defeated on this
occasion, that 200,000 Mohammedans were slain, and that after
the victory the Portuguese soldiers raised Affonso on their
shields and hailed him as king. This story is absolutely
without authority from contemporary chronicles, and is quite
as much a fiction as the Cortes of Lamego, which has been
invented as sitting in 1143 and passing the constitutional
laws on which Vertot and other writers have expended so much
eloquence. … It was not until the modern school of historians
arose in Portugal, which examined documents and did not take
the statements of their predecessors on trust, that it was
clearly pointed out that Affonso Henriques won his crown by
his long struggle with his Christian cousin, and not by his
exploits against the Moors."
H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapters 2-3.
"The long reign of Affonso I., an almost uninterrupted period
of war, is the most brilliant epoch in the history of the
Portuguese conquests. Lisbon, which had already under its
Moorish masters become the chief city of the west, was taken
in 1147, and became at once the capital of the new kingdom.
The Tagus itself was soon passed. Large portions of the modern
Estremadura and Alemtejo were permanently annexed. The distant
provinces of Algarve and Andalucia were overrun; and even
Seville trembled at the successes of the Portuguese. It was in
vain that Moorish vessels sailed from Africa to chastise the
presumption of their Christian foes; their ships were routed
off Lisbon by the vessels of Affonso; their armies were
crushed by a victory at Santarem [1184], the last, and perhaps
the most glorious of the many triumphs of the King. … Every
conquest saw the apportionment of lands to be held by military
tenure among the conquerors; and the Church, which was here
essentially a militant one, received not only an endowment for
its religion but a reward for its sword. The Orders of St.
Michael and of Avis [St. Benedict of Avis] which were founded
had a religious as well as a military aspect. Their members
were to be distinguished by their piety not less than by their
courage, and were to emulate the older brotherhoods of
Jerusalem and of Castile. … Sancho I. [who succeeded his
father Affonso in 1185], though not adverse to military fame,
endeavoured to repair his country's wounds; and his reign, the
complement of that of Affonso, was one of development rather
than of conquest. … The surname of El Povoador, the Founder,
is the indication of his greatest work. New towns and villages
arose, new wealth and strength were given to the rising

country. Affonso II. [1211] continued what Sancho had begun;
and the enactment of laws, humane and wise, are a testimony of
progress, and an honourable distinction to his reign." But
Affonso II. provoked the hostility of an arrogant and too
powerful clergy, and drew upon himself a sentence of
excommunication from Rome. "The divisions and the weakness
which were caused by the contest between the royal and
ecclesiastical authority brought misery upon the kingdom. The
reign of Sancho II. [who succeeded to the throne in 1223] was
more fatally influenced by them even than that of his father.
… The now familiar terrors of excommunication and interdict
were followed [1245] by a sentence of deposition from Innocent
IV.; and Sancho, weak in character, and powerless before a
hostile priesthood and a disaffected people, retired to end
his days in a cloister of Castile. The successor to Sancho was
Affonso III.
{2571}
He had intrigued for his brother's crown; he had received the
support of the priesthood, and he had promised them their
reward in the extension of their privileges"; but his
administration of the government was wise and popular. He died
in 1279. "The first period of the history of Portugal is now
closed. Up to this time, each reign, disturbed and enfeebled
though it may have been, had added something to the extent of
the country. But now the last conquest from the Moors had been
won. On the south, the impassable barrier of the ocean; on the
east, the dominions of Castile, confined the kingdom. … The
crusading days were over. … The reign of Denis, who ruled from
1279 to 1325, is at once the parallel to that of Affonso I. in
its duration and importance, the contrast to it in being a
period of internal progress instead of foreign conquest. …
That Denis should have been able to accomplish as much as he
did, was the wonder even of his own age. … Successive reigns
still found the country progressing."
C. F. Johnstone,
Historical Abstracts,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
E. McMurdo,
History of Portugal,
volume 1, books 1-4,
and volume 2, book 1.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1383-1385.
The founding of the new dynasty, of the House of Avis.
"The legitimate descent of the kings of Portugal from Count
Henry, of the house of Burgundy, terminated with Ferdinand
(the son of Peter I.) … in 1383. After wasting the resources
of his people in the vain support of his claims to the crown
of Castile, exposing Lisbon to a siege, and the whole country
to devastation, this monarch gave his youthful daughter in
marriage to the natural enemy of Portugal, John I., at that
time the reigning king of Castile. … It was agreed between the
contracting parties that the male issue of this connection
should succeed to the Portuguese sceptre, and, that failing,
that it should devolve into the hands of the Castilian
monarch. Fortunately, however, the career of this Spanish
tyrant was short, and no issue was left of Beatrix, for whom
the crown of Portugal could be claimed; and therefore all the
just pretensions of the Spaniard ceased. The marriage had
scarcely been concluded, when Ferdinand died. It had been
provided by the laws of the constitution, that in a case of
emergency, such as now occurred, the election of a new
sovereign should immediately take place. The legal heir to the
crown, Don Juan [the late king's brother], the son of Pedro
and Ignes de Castro, whose marriage had been solemnly
recognised by an assembly of the states, was a prisoner at
this time in the hands of his rival, the king of Castile. The
necessity of having a head to the government appointed without
delay, opened the road to the throne for John, surnamed the
Bastard, the natural son of Don Pedro, by Donna Theresa
Lorenzo, a Galician lady. Availing himself of the natural
aversion by which the Portuguese were influenced against the
Castilians, he seized the regency from the hands of the
queen-dowager, … successfully defended Lisbon, and forced the
Spaniards to retire into Spain after their memorable defeat on
the plain of Aljubarota. … This battle … completely
established the independence of the Portuguese monarchy. John
was, in consequence, unanimously elected King by the Cortes,
assembled at Coimbra in 1385. … In aid of his natural talents
John I. had received an excellent education from his father,
and during his reign exhibited proofs of being a profound
politician, as well as a skilful general. … He became the
founder of a new dynasty of kings, called the house of 'Avis,'
from his having been grand master of that noble order. The
enterprises, however, of the great Prince Henry, a son of
John I., form a distinguishing feature of this reign."
W. M. Kinsey,
Portugal Illustrated,
pages 34-35.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1415-1460.
The taking of Ceuta.
The exploring expeditions of Prince Henry the Navigator
down the African coast.
"King John [the First] had married an English wife, Philippa
Plantagenet—a grand-daughter of our King Edward III.,
thoroughly English, too, on her mother's side, and not without
a dash of Scottish blood, for her great-great-grandmother was
a Comyn of Broghan. King John of Portugal was married to his
English wife for twenty-eight years, they had five noble sons
and a daughter (who was Duchess of Burgundy and mother of
Charles the Bold); and English habits and usages were adopted
at the Portuguese Court. We first meet with Prince Henry and
his brothers, Edward and Peter, at the bed-side of their
English mother. The king had determined to attack Ceuta, the
most important seaport on the Moorish coast; and the three
young princes were to receive knighthood if they bore
themselves manfully, and if the place was taken. Edward, the
eldest, was twenty-four, Peter twenty-three, and Henry just
twenty-one. He was born on March 4th, 1394. There were two
other brothers, John and Ferdinand, but they were still too
young to bear arms. Their mother had caused three swords to be
made with which they were to be girt as knights; and the great
fleet was being assembled at Lisbon. But the Queen was taken
ill, and soon there was no hope. Husband and sons gathered
round her death-bed. When very near her end she asked: 'How is
the wind?' she was told that it was northerly. 'Then,' she
said, 'You will all sail for Ceuta on the feast of St. James.'
A few minutes afterwards she died, and husband and sons sailed
for Ceuta on St. James's day, the 25th of July, 1415,
according to her word. … Ceuta was taken after a desperate
fight. It was a memorable event, for the town never again
passed into the hands of the Moors unto this day. … From the
time of this Ceuta expedition Prince Henry set his mind
steadfastly on the discovery of Guinea and on the promotion of
commercial enterprise. During his stay at Ceuta he collected
much information respecting the African coast. … His first
objects were to know what was beyond the farthest cape
hitherto reached on the coast of Africa, to open commercial
relations with the people, and to extend the Christian faith.
Prince Henry had the capacity for taking trouble. He undertook
the task, and he never turned aside from it until he died. To
be close to his work he came to live on the promontory of
Sagres, near Cape St. Vincent, and not far from the seaport of
Lagos. He was twenty-four years old when he came to live at
this secluded spot, in December, 1418; and he died there in
his sixty-seventh year. … He established a school at Sagres
for the cultivation of map-drawing and the science of
navigation. At great expense he procured the services of
Mestre Jacome from Majorca, a man very learned in the art of
navigation, as it was then understood, and he erected an
observatory. …
{2572}
My readers will remember that during the time of the Crusades
a great order of knighthood was established, called the
Templars, which became very rich and powerful, and held vast
estates in most of the countries of Europe. At last the kings
became jealous of their prosperity and, in the days of our
Edward II. and of the French Philip IV., their wealth was
confiscated, and the order of Knights Templars was abolished
in all countries except Portugal. But King Dionysius of
Portugal refused either to rob the knights or to abolish the
order. In the year 1319 he reformed the order, and changed the
name, calling it the Order of Christ, and he encircled the
white cross of the Templars with a red cross as the future
badge of the knights. They retained their great estates.
Prince Henry was appointed, by his father, Grand Master of the
Order of Christ in the year 1419. He could imagine no nobler
nor more worthy employment for the large revenues of the Order
than the extension of geographical discovery. Thus were the
funds for his costly expeditions supplied by the Order of
Chivalry of which he was Grand Master. When Prince Henry first
began to send forth expeditions along the coast of Africa, the
farthest point to the southward that had been sighted was Cape
Bojador. The discovery of the extreme southern point of
Africa, and of a way thence to India, was looked upon then
exactly as the discovery of the North Pole is now. Fools asked
what was the use of it. Half-hearted men said it was
impossible. Officials said it was impractical. Nevertheless,
Prince Henry said that it could be done, and that, moreover it
should be done. … In 1434 he considered that the time had come
to round Cape Bojador. He selected for the command of the
expedition an esquire of his household named Gil Eannes, who
was accompanied by John Diaz, an experienced seaman of a
seafaring family at Lagos, many of whose members became
explorers. Prince Henry told them that the current which they
feared so much was strongest at a distance of about three to
five miles from the land. He ordered them, therefore, to stand
out boldly to sea. 'It was a place before terrible to all
men,' but the Prince told them that they must win fame and
honour by following his instructions. They did so, rounded the
Cape, and landed on the other side. There they set up a wooden
cross as a sign of their discovery. … The Prince now equipped
a larger vessel than had yet been sent out, called a varinel,
propelled by oars as well as sails. Many were the eager
volunteers among the courtiers at Sagres. Prince Henry's
cup-bearer, named Alfonso Gonsalves Baldaya, was selected to
command the expedition, and Gil Eannes—he who first doubled
Cape Bojador—went with it in a smaller vessel. … They sailed
in the year 1436, and, having rounded Cape Bojador without any
hesitation, they proceeded southward along the coast for 120
miles, until they reached an estuary called by them Rio
d'Ouro. … During the five following years Prince Henry was
much engaged in State affairs. The disastrous expedition to
Tangiers took place, and the imprisonment of his young brother
Ferdinand by the Moors, whose noble resignation under cruel
insults and sufferings until he died at Fez, won for him the
title of the 'Constant Prince.' But in 1441 Prince Henry was
able to resume the despatch of vessels of discovery. In that
year he gave the command of a small ship to his master of the
wardrobe, Antam Gonsalves. … He [Gonsalves] was followed in
the same year by Nuno Tristram. … Tristram discovered a
headland which, from its whiteness, he named Cape Blanco. …
The next discovery was that of the island of Arguin, south of
Cape Blanco, which was first visited in 1443 by Nuño Tristram
in command of a caravel. … The next voyage of discovery was
one of great importance, because it passed the country of the
Moors, and, for the first time, entered the land of the
Negroes. Dinis Diaz, who was selected for this enterprise by
the Prince, sailed in 1446 with the resolution of beating all
his predecessors. He passed the mouth of the river Senegal,
and was surprised at finding that the people on the north bank
were Moors, while to the south they were all blacks; of a
tribe called Jaloffs. Diaz went as far as a point which he
called Cabo Verde. In the following years several expeditions,
under Lanzarote and others, went to Arguin and the Senegal;
until, in 1455, an important voyage under Prince Henry's
patronage was undertaken by a young Venetian named Alvise
(Luigi) Cadamosto. … They sailed on March 22, 1455, and went
first to Porto Santo and Madeira. From the Canary Islands they
made sail for Cape Blanco, boldly stretching across the
intervening sea and being for some time quite out of sight of
land. Cadamosto had a good deal of intercourse with the
Negroes to the south of the Senegal, and eventually reached
the mouth of the Gambia whence he set out on his homeward
voyage. The actual extent of the discoveries made during the
life of Prince Henry was from Cape Bojador to beyond the mouth
of the Gambia. But this was only a small part of the great
service he performed, not only for his own country, but for
the whole civilised world. He organised discovery, trained up
a generation of able explorers, so that from his time progress
was continuous and unceasing. … Prince Henry, who was to be
known to all future generations as 'the Navigator,' died at
the age of sixty-six at Sagres, on Thursday, the 13th of
November, 1460."
C. R. Markham,
The Sea Fathers,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
R. H. Major,
Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, the Navigator.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498.
The Pope's gift of title to African discoveries.
Slow southward progress of exploration.
The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope.
Vasco da Gama's voyage.
"In order to secure his triumphs, Prince Henry procured a bull
from Pope Eugenius IV., which guaranteed to the Portuguese all
their discoveries between Cape Nun, in Morocco, and India.
None of his commanders approached within six or eight degrees
of the equator. … By the year 1472, St. Thomas, Annobon, and
Prince's Islands were added to the Portuguese discoveries, and
occupied by colonists; and at length the equator was crossed.
Fernando Po having given his name to an island in the Bight of
Biafra, acquired possession of 500 leagues of equatorial
coast, whence the King of Portugal took the title of Lord of
Guinea. The subsequent divisions of this territory into the
Grain Coast, named from the cochineal thence obtained, and
long thought to be the seed of a plant, Gold Coast, Ivory
Coast, and Slave Coast, indicate by their names the nature of
the products of those lands, and the kind of traffic.
{2573}
Under King John II., after an inactive period of eight or ten
years, Diego Cam (1484) pushed forward fearlessly to latitude
22° south, erecting at intervals on the shore, pillars of
stone, which asserted the rights of his sovereign to the
newly-found land. For the first time, perhaps, in history, men
had now sailed under a new firmament. They lost sight of a
part of the old celestial constellations, and were awe-struck
with the splendours of the Southern Cross, and hosts of new
stars. Each successive commander aimed at outdoing the deeds
of his predecessor. Imaginary perils, which had frightened
former sailors, spurred the Portuguese to greater daring.
Bartholomew Diaz, in 1486, was sent in command of an
expedition of three ships, with directions to sail till he
reached the southernmost headland of Africa. Creeping on from
cape to cape, he passed the furthest point touched by Diego
Cam, and reached about 29° south latitude. Here driven out of
his course by rough weather, he was dismayed on again making
land to find the coast trending northward. He had doubled the
Cape without knowing it, and only found it out on returning,
disheartened by the results of his voyage. Raising the banner
of St. Philip on the shore of Table Bay, Diaz named the
headland the Cape of Tempests, which the king, with the
passage to India in mind, changed to that of the Cape of Good
Hope. By a curious coincidence, in the same year Covillan [see
ABYSSINIA: 15-19TH CENTURIES] … learnt the fact that the Cape
of Good Hope, the Lion of the Sea, or the Head of Africa,
could be reached across the Indian Ocean."
J. Yeats,
Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce,
part 2, chapter 4.
"Pedro de Covilho had sent word to King John II., from Cairo,
by two Jews, Rabbi Abraham and Rabbi Joseph, that there was a
south cape of Africa which could be doubled. They brought with
them an Arabic map of the African coast. … Covilho had learned
from the Arabian mariners, who were perfectly familiar with
the east coast, that they had frequently been at the south of
Africa, and that there was no difficulty in passing round the
continent that way. … Vasco de Gama set sail July 9, 1497,
with three ships and 160 men, having with him the Arab map.
King John had employed his Jewish physicians, Roderigo and
Joseph, to devise what help they could from the stars. They
applied the astrolabe to marine use, and constructed tables.
These were the same doctors who had told him that Columbus
would certainly succeed in reaching India, and advised him to
send out a secret expedition in anticipation, which was
actually done, though it failed through want of resolution in
its captain. Encountering the usual difficulties, tempestuous
weather and a mutinous crew, who conspired to put him to
death, De Gama succeeded, November 20, in doubling the Cape.
On March 1 he met seven small Arab vessels, and was surprised
to find that they used the compass, quadrants, sea-charts, and
'had divers maritime mysteries not short of the Portugals.'
With joy he soon after recovered sight of the northern stars,
for so long unseen. He now bore away to the north-east, and on
May 19, 1498, reached Calicut, on the Malabar coast. The
consequences of this voyage were to the last degree important.
The commercial arrangements of Europe were completely
dislocated; Venice was deprived of her mercantile supremacy
[see VENICE: 15-17TH CENTURIES]; the hatred of Genoa was
gratified; prosperity left the Italian towns; Egypt, hitherto
supposed to possess a pre-eminent advantage as offering the
best avenue to India, suddenly lost her position; the
commercial monopolies so long in the hands of the European
Jews were broken down. The discovery of America and passage of
the Cape were the first steps of that prodigious maritime
development soon exhibited by Western Europe. And since
commercial prosperity is forthwith followed by the production
of men and concentration of wealth, and, moreover, implies an
energetic intellectual condition, it appeared before long that
the three centres of population, of wealth, of intellect, were
shifting westwardly. The front of Europe was suddenly changed;
the British Islands, hitherto in a sequestered and eccentric
position, were all at once put in the van of the new
movement."
J. W. Draper,
History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,
chapter 19.
ALSO IN:
G. Correa,
The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama
(Hakluyt Society, 1869).
J. Fiske,
The Discovery of America,
chapter 4 (volume l).
G. M. Towle,
Voyages and Adventures of Vasco da Gama.
See, also, SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1474-1476.
Interference in Castile.
Defeat at Toro.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1368-1479.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1490.
Alliance with Castile and Aragon in the conquest of Granada.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1476-1492.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1493.
The Pope's division of discoveries in the New World.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1493.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1494.
The Treaty of Tordesillas.
Amended partition of the New World with Spain.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1494.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1495.
Persecution and expulsion of Jews.
See JEWS: 8-15TH CENTURIES.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1498-1580.
Trade and settlements in the East Indies.
See INDIA; A. D. 1498-1580.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1500-1504.
Discovery, exploration and first settlement of Brazil.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1500-1514; and 1503-1504.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1501.
Early enterprise in the Newfoundland fisheries.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1510-1549.
Colonization of Brazil.
See BRAZIL: A. D. 1510-1661.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1524.
Disputes with Spain in the division of the New World.
The Congress at Badajos.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1579-1580.
Disastrous invasion of Morocco by Sebastian.
His death in battle.
Disputed succession to the throne.
The claim of Philip II. of Spain established by force of arms.
"Under a long succession of Kings who placed their glory in
promoting the commerce of their subjects and extending their
discoveries through the remotest regions of the globe,
Portugal had attained a degree of importance among the
surrounding nations, from which the narrow limits of the
kingdom, and the neighbourhood of the Spanish monarchy, seemed
for ever to exclude her. … John III., the last of those great
monarchs under whose auspices the boundaries of the known
world had been enlarged, was succeeded in the throne of
Portugal [1557] by his grandson Sebastian, a child of only
three years old.
{2574}
As the royal infant advanced to manhood, his subjects might,
without flattery, admire his sprightly wit, his manly form,
his daring spirit, and his superior address, in all the
accomplishments of a martial age. But the hopes which these
splendid qualities inspired were clouded by an intemperate
thirst of fame. … He had early cherished the frantic project
of transporting a royal army to India, and of rivalling the
exploits of Alexander; but from this design he was diverted,
not by the difficulties that opposed it, nor by the
remonstrances of his counsellors, but by the distractions of
Africa, which promised to his ambition a nearer and fairer
harvest of glory. On the death of Abdalla, King of Morocco,
his son, Muley Mahomet, had seized upon the crown, in contempt
to an established law of succession, that the kingdom should
devolve to the brother of the deceased monarch. A civil war
ensued, and Mahomet, defeated in several battles, was
compelled to leave his uncle Muley Moluc, a prince of great
abilities and virtues, in possession of the throne." Mahomet
escaped to Lisbon, and Sebastian espoused his cause. He
invaded Morocco [see MAROCCO: THE ARAB CONQUEST AND SINCE]
with a force partly supplied by his uncle, Philip II.; of
Spain, and partly by the Prince of Orange, engaged the Moors
rashly in battle (the battle of Alcazar, or the Three Kings,
1579), and perished on the field, his army being mostly
destroyed or made captive. "An aged and feeble priest was the
immediate heir to the unfortunate Sebastian; and the Cardinal
Henry, the great uncle to the late monarch, ascended the
vacant throne." He enjoyed his royal dignity little more than
a twelvemonth, dying in 1580, leaving the crown in dispute
among a crowd of claimants.
History of Spain,
chapter 22 (volume 2).
"The candidates were seven in number: the duchess of Braganza,
the king of Spain, the duke of Savoy, Don Antonio, prior of
Crato, the duke of Parma, Catherine of Medicis, and the
sovereign pontiff. The four first were grand-children of
Emanuel the Great, father of Henry. The duchess of Braganza
was daughter of Prince Edward, Emanuel's second son; Philip
was the son of the Empress Isabella, his eldest daughter; the
duke of Savoy, of Beatrix, his younger daughter; and Don
Antonio was a natural son of Lewis, who was a younger son of
Emanuel, and brother to the present king [cardinal Henry]. The
duke of Parma was great–grandson of Emanuel, by a daughter of
the above-mentioned Prince Edward. The Queen-mother of France
founded her claim on her supposed descent from Alphonso III.,
who died about 300 years before the present period; and the
Pope pretended that Portugal was feudatory to the see of Rome,
and belonged to him, since the male heirs in the direct line
were extinct." The other candidates held small chances against
the power and convenient neighborhood of Philip of Spain.
"Philip's agents at the court of Lisbon allowed that if the
duchess of Braganza's father had been alive, his title would
have been indisputable; but they maintained that, since he had
died without attaining possession of the throne, nothing but
the degree of consanguinity to Emanuel ought to be regarded;
and that, as the duchess and he were equal in that respect,
the preference was due to a male before a female. And they
farther insisted, that the law which excludes strangers from
inheriting the crown was not applicable to him, since Portugal
had formerly belonged to the kings of Castile." Promptly on
the death of the cardinal-king Henry, the Spanish king sent an
army of 35,000 men, under the famous duke of Alva, and a large
fleet under the Marquis of Santa Croce, to take possession of
what he claimed as his inheritance. Two battles sufficed for
the subjugation of Portugal:—one fought on the Alcantara,
August 25, 1580, and the other a little later on the Douro.
The kingdom submitted, but with bitter feelings, which the
conduct of Alva and his troops had intensified at every step
of their advance. "The colonies in America, Africa, and the
Indies, which belonged to the crown of Portugal, quickly
followed the example of the mother country; nor did Philip
find employment for his arms in any part of the Portuguese
dominions but the Azores," which, supported by the French,
were not subdued until the following year.
R. Watson,
History of the Reign of Philip II.,
book 16.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1594-1602.
Beginning of the rivalry of the Dutch in East India trade.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1620.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1624-1661.
War with the Dutch.
Loss and recovery of parts of Brazil.
See BRAZIL: A. D. 1510-1661.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1637-1668.
Crisis of discontent with the Spanish rule.
A successful revolution.
National independence recovered.
The House of Braganza placed on the throne.
"A spirit of dissatisfaction had long been growing amongst the
Portugueze. Their colonies were neglected; a great part of
Brazil, and a yet larger portion of their Indian empire, had
fallen into the hands of the Dutch; Ormus, and their other
possessions in the Persian Gulph, had been conquered by the
Persians; their intercourse with their remaining colonies was
harassed and intercepted; their commerce with the independent
Indian states, with China and with Japan, was here injured and
there partially destroyed, by the enterprising merchants and
mariners of Holland; whilst at home the privileges secured to
them as the price of their submission, were hourly, if not
flagrantly, violated by their Spanish masters. The illegal
imposition of a new tax by the king's sole authority, in 1637,
had provoked a partial revolt in the southern provinces, where
the duke of Braganza, grandson of Catherine [whose right to
the throne was forcibly put aside by Philip II. of Spain in
1580,—see, PORTUGAL: A. D. 1579-1580], was proclaimed king. He
refused the proffered dignity, and assisted in quelling the
rebellion. He was thanked by Philip and at once recompensed,
and, as it was hoped, ensnared, by an appointment to be
general–in-chief of Portugal. But the flame was smothered, not
extinguished. … The vice-queen, Margaret, duchess-dowager of
Mantua, a daughter of Philip II.'s youngest daughter,
Catherine, saw the gathering tempest, and forewarned the court
of Madrid of the impending danger. Her information was
treated, like herself, with contempt by Olivarez. One measure,
however, he took, probably in consequence; and that one
finally decided the hesitating conspirators to delay no
longer. He ordered a large body of troops to be raised in
Portugal, the nobles to arm their vassals, and all, under the
conduct of the duke of Braganza, to hasten into Spain, in
order to attend the king, who was about to march in person
against the rebellious Catalans.
{2575}
Olivarez hoped thus at once to overwhelm Catalonia and
Roussillon, and to take from Portugal the power of revolting,
by securing the intended leader, and draining the country of
the warlike portion of its population. The nobles perceived
the object of this command, and resolved to avoid compliance
by precipitating their measures. Upon the 12th of October,
1640, they assembled to the number of 40 at the house of Don
Antonio d' Almeida. At this meeting they determined to recover
their independence, and dispatched Don Pedro de Mendoza as
their deputy, to offer the crown and their allegiance to the
duke of Braganza, who had remained quietly upon his principal
estate at Villa Viçosa. The duke hesitated, alarmed, perhaps,
at the importance of the irrevocable step he was called upon
to take. But his high-spirited duchess, a daughter of the
Spanish duke of Medina-Sidonia, observing to him, that a
wretched and dishonourable death certainly awaited him at
Madrid; at Lisbon, as certainly glory, whether in life or
death, decided his acceptance. Partisans were gained on all
sides, especially in the municipality of Lisbon; and the
secret was faithfully kept, for several weeks, by at least 500
persons of both sexes, and all ranks. During this interval,
the duke of Braganza remained at Villa Viçosa, lest his
appearance at Lisbon should excite suspicion; and it seems
that, however clearly the vice-queen had perceived the
threatening aspect of affairs, neither she nor her ministers
entertained any apprehension of the plot actually organized.
The 1st of December was the day appointed for the
insurrection. Early in the morning the conspirators approached
the palace in four well-armed bands," and easily mastered the
guard. From the windows of the palace they "proclaimed liberty
and John IV." to a great concourse of people who had speedily
assembled. Finding Vasconcellos, the obnoxious secretary to
'the vice–queen, hidden in a closet, they slew him and flung
his body into the street. The vice-queen, seeing herself
helpless, submitted to the popular will and signed mandates
addressed to the Spanish governors and other officers
commanding castles and fortifications in Portugal, requiring
their surrender. "The archbishop of Lisbon was next appointed
royal-lieutenant. He immediately dispatched intelligence of
the event to the new king, and sent messengers to every part
of Portugal with orders for the proclamation of John IV., and
the seizure of all Spaniards. … Obedience was prompt and
general. … John was crowned on the 15th of December, and
immediately abolished the heavy taxes imposed by the king of
Spain, declaring that, for his own private expenses, he
required nothing beyond his patrimonial estates. He summoned
the Cortes to assemble in January, when the three estates of
the kingdom solemnly confirmed his proclamation as king, or
'acclamation,' as the Portugueze term it. … In the islands, in
the African settlements, with the single exception of Ceuta,
which adhered to Spain, and in what remained of Brazil and
India, King John was proclaimed, the moment intelligence of
the revolution arrived, the Spaniards scarcely any where
attempting to resist. … In Europe, the new king was readily
acknowledged by all the states at war with the house of
Austria." The first attempts made by the Spanish court to
regain its lost authority in Portugal took chiefly the form of
base conspiracies for the assassination of the new king. War
ensued, but the "languid and desultory hostilities produced
little effect beyond harassing the frontiers. Portugal was
weak, and thought only of self-defence; Spain was chiefly
intent upon chastizing the Catalans." The war was prolonged,
in fact, until 1668, when it was terminated by a treaty which
recognized the independence of Portugal, but ceded Ceuta to
Spain. The only considerable battles of the long war were
those of Estremos, or Ameixal, in 1663, and Villa Viçosa,
1665, in which the Portuguese were victors, and which were
practically decisive of the war.
M. M. Busk,
History of Spain and Portugal,
book 2, chapters 10-12.
ALSO IN:
J. Dunlap,
Memoirs of Spain, 1621-1700,
volume 1, chapter 12.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1702.
Joins the Grand Alliance against France and Spain.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1703.
The Methuen Treaty with England.
Portugal joined the Grand Alliance against France and Spain,
in the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1703, and entered at
that time into an important treaty with England. This is known
as the Methuen Treaty—"called after the name of the ambassador
who negotiated it—and that treaty, and its effect upon the
commerce of England and the habits of her people lasted
through five generations, even to the present time. The wines
of Portugal were to be admitted upon the payment of a duty 33½
per cent. less than the duty paid upon French wines; and the
woolen cloths of England, which had been prohibited in
Portugal for twenty years, were to be admitted upon terms of
proportionate advantage. Up to that time the Claret of France
had been the beverage of the wine-drinkers of England. From
1703 Port established itself as what Defoe calls 'our general
draught.' In all commercial negotiations with France the
Methuen Treaty stood in the way; for the preferential duty was
continued till 1831. France invariably pursued a system of
retaliation. It was a point of patriotism for the Englishman
to hold firm to his Port."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 5, chapter 17.
See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1713.
Possessions in South America confirmed.
See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1757-1759.
Expulsion of the Jesuits and suppression of the order.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1757-1773.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1793.
Joined in the coalition against Revolutionary France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807.
Napoleon's designs against the kingdom.
His delusive treaty for its partition with Spain.
French invasion and flight of the royal family to Brazil.
"One of the first steps taken by Napoleon, after his return to
Paris, … [after the Peace of Tilsit-see GERMANY: A. D. 1807
(JUNE-JULY)] was, in the month of August, to order the French
and Spanish ambassadors conjointly, to declare to the
prince–regent of Portugal, that he must concur in the
continental system, viz. shut his ports against English
commerce, confiscate all English property, and imprison all
English subjects to be found within his dominions, or they
were instructed immediately to leave Lisbon.
{2576}
The prince and his ministers dared not openly resist the
French emperor's will, even whilst the wiser part of the
cabinet were convinced that the very existence of the country
depended upon British commerce. In this extremity, and relying
upon the friendly forbearance of England, they strove to
pursue a middle course. Don John professed his readiness to
exclude British ships of all descriptions from his ports, but
declared that his religious principles would not allow him to
seize the subjects and property of a friendly state in the
midst of peace, and that prudence forbade his offending
England until a Portugueze squadron, then at sea, should have
returned safely home. … Napoleon punished this imperfect
obedience, by seizing all Portugueze vessels in ports under
his control, and ordering the French and Spanish legations to
leave Lisbon. The Portugueze ambassadors were, at the same
time, dismissed from Paris and Madrid. A French army was, by
this time, assembled near the foot of the Pyrenees, bearing
the singular title of army of observation of the Gironde; and
General Junot … was appointed to its command. … Spain was
endeavouring to share in the spoil, not to protect the victim.
A treaty, the shameless iniquity of which can be paralleled
only by the treaties between Austria, Russia, and Prussia for
the partition of Poland, had been signed at Fontainebleau, on
the 27th of October. … By this treaty Charles surrendered to
Napoleon his infant grandson's kingdom of Etruria (King Louis
I. had been dead some years), over which he had no right
whatever, and bargained to receive for him in its stead the
small northern provinces of Portugal, Entre Minho e Douro and
Tras os Montes, under the name of the kingdom of Northern
Lusitania, which kingdom the young monarch was to hold in
vassalage of the crown of Spain. The much larger southern
provinces, Alemtejo and Algarve, were to constitute the
principality of the Algarves, for Godoy, under a similar
tenure. And the middle provinces were to be occupied by
Napoleon until a general peace, when, in exchange for
Gibraltar, Trinidad, and any other Spanish possession
conquered by England, they might be restored to the family of
Braganza, upon like terms of dependence. The Portugueze
colonies were to be equally divided between France and Spain.
In execution of this nefarious treaty, 10,000 Spanish troops
were to seize upon the northern, and 6,000 upon the southern
state. … On the 18th of October, Junot, in obedience to his
master's orders, crossed the Pyrenees, and, being kindly
received by the Spaniards, began his march towards the
Portugueze frontiers, whilst the Spanish troops were equally
put in motion towards their respective destinations. … The
object of so much haste was, to secure the persons of the
royal family, whose removal to Brazil had not only been talked
of from the beginning of these hostile discussions, but was
now in preparation, and matter of public notoriety. … The
reckless haste enjoined by the emperor, and which cost almost
as many lives as a pitched battle, was very near attaining its
end. … The resolution to abandon the contest being adopted,
the prince and his ministers took every measure requisite to
prevent a useless effusion of blood. A regency, consisting of
five persons, the marquess of Abrantes being president, was
appointed to conduct the government, and negotiate with Junot.
On the 26th a proclamation was put forth, explaining to the
people that, as Napoleon's enmity was rather to the sovereign
than the nation, the prince-regent, in order to avert the
calamities of war from his faithful subjects, would transfer
the seat of government to Brazil, till the existing troubles
should subside, and strictly charging the Portugueze, more
especially the Lisbonians, to receive the French as friends.
On the 27th the whole royal family proceeded to Belem, to
embark for flight, on the spot whence, about three centuries
back, Vasco de Gama had sailed upon his glorious enterprise. …
The ships set sail and crossed the bar, almost as the French
advance guard was entering Lisbon. Sir Sidney Smith escorted
the royal family, with four men-of-war, safely to Rio Janeiro,
the capital of Brazil, leaving the remainder of his squadron
to blockade the mouth of the Tagus."
M. M. Busk,
History of Spain and Portugal,
book 4, chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 1, chapter 7.
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1800-1815,
chapter 52.
H. Martineau,
History of England, 1800-1815,
book 2, chapter 1.
R. Southey,
History of the Peninsular War,
chapter 2 (volume l).
See, also, BRAZIL: A. D. 1808-1822.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1808.
Rising against the French.
Arrival of British forces.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1808.
Wellington's first campaign in the Peninsula.
The Convention of Cintra.
French evacuation of Portugal.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1809 (February-December).
Wellington's retreat and fresh advance.
The French checked.
Passage of the Douro.
Battle of Talavera.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY);
and (AUGUST-DECEMBER).
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1809-1812.
Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras.
French invasion and retreat.
English advance into Spain.
See SPAIN: A.D. 1809-1810 (OCTOBER-SEPTEMBER);
and 1810-1812.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1814.
End of the Peninsular War.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1820-1824.
Revolution and Absolutist reaction.
Separation and independence of Brazil.
"Ever since 1807 Portugal had not known a court. On the first
threat of French invasion the Regent had emigrated to the
Brazils, and he had since lived and ruled entirely in the
great Transatlantic colony. The ordinary conditions of other
countries had been reversed. Portugal had virtually become a
dependency of her own colony. The absence of the court was a
sore trial to the pride of the Portuguese. An absent court had
few supporters. It happened, too, that its ablest defender had
lately left the country. … In April 1820 [Marshal] Beresford
sailed for the Brazils. He did not return till the following
October; and the revolution had been completed before his
return. On the 24th of August the troops at Oporto determined
on establishing a constitutional government, and appointed a
provisional Junta with this object. The Regency which
conducted the affairs of the country at Lisbon denounced the
movement as a nefarious conspiracy. But, however nefarious the
conspiracy might be, the defection of the army was so general
that resistance became impossible. On the 1st of September the
Regency issued a proclamation promising to convene the Cortes.
{2577}
The promise, however, did not stop the progress of the
insurrection. The Junta which had been constituted at Oporto
marched at the head of the troops upon Lisbon. The troops at
Lisbon and in the south of Portugal threw off their
allegiance, and established a Junta of their own. The Junta at
Lisbon were, for the moment, in favour of milder measures than
the Junta of Oporto. But the advocates of the more extreme
course won their ends. The Oporto troops, surrounding the two
Juntas, which had been blended together, compelled them to
adopt the Spanish constitution; in other words, to sanction
the election of one deputy to the Cortes for every 30,000
persons inhabiting the country. … When the revolution of 1820
had occurred John VI., King of Portugal, was quietly ruling in
his transatlantic dominions of Brazil. Portugal had been
governed for thirteen years from Rio de Janeiro; and the
absence of the Court from Lisbon had offended the Portuguese
and prepared them for change. After the mischief had been done
John VI. was persuaded to return to his native country,
leaving his eldest son, Dom Pedro, Regent of Brazil in his
absence. Before setting out on his journey he gave the prince
public instructions for his guidance, which practically made
Brazil independent of Portugal; and he added private
directions to the prince, in case any emergency should arise
which should make it impracticable to preserve Brazil for
Portugal, to place the crown on his own head, and thus save
the great Transatlantic territory for the House of Braganza.
Leaving these parting injunctions with his son, John VI.
returned to the old kingdom which he had deserted nearly
fourteen years before. He reached Lisbon, and found the
Constitutionalists in undisputed possession of power. He found
also that the action of the Constitutionalists in Portugal was
calculated to induce Brazil to throw off the authority of the
mother country. The Cortes in Portugal insisted on the
suppression of the supreme tribunals in Brazil, on the
establishment of Provincial Juntas, and on the return of the
Regent to Portugal. The Brazilians declined to adopt measures
which they considered ruinous to their dignity, and persuaded
the Regent to disobey the orders of the Cortes. A small body
of Portuguese troops quartered in Brazil endeavoured to
overawe the prince, but proved powerless to do so. In May 1822
the prince was persuaded to declare himself Perpetual Defender
of the Brazils. In the following September the Brazilians
induced him to raise their country to the dignity of an
empire, and to declare himself its constitutional emperor. The
news that the Brazilians had declared themselves an
independent empire reached Europe at a critical period.
Monarchs and diplomatists were busily deliberating at Verona
on the affairs of Spain and of the Spanish colonies. No one,
however, could avoid comparing the position of Portugal and
Brazil with that of Spain and her dependencies. … The evident
determination of France to interfere in Spain created anxiety
in Portugal. The Portuguese Cortes apprehended that the
logical consequence of French interference in the one country
was French interference in the other. … The position of a
French army on the Spanish frontier roused the dormant spirits
of the Portuguese Absolutists. In February 1823 a vast
insurrection against the Constitution broke out in Northern
Portugal. The insurgents, who in the first instance obtained
considerable success, were with difficulty defeated. But the
revolt had been hardly quelled before the Absolutists
recovered their flagging spirits. Every step taken by the Duc
d' Angoulême in his progress from the Bidassoa to Madrid [see
SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827] raised their hopes of ultimate
success. The king's second son, the notorious Dom Miguel, fled
from his father's palace and threw in his lot with the
insurgents. For a moment the king stood firm and denounced his
son's proceedings. But the reaction which had set in was too
strong to be resisted. The Cortes was closed, a new Ministry
appointed, and autocracy re-established in Portugal. The
re-establishment of autocracy in Portugal marked the
commencement of a series of intrigues in which this country
[England] was deeply interested. One party in the new
Government, with M. de Palmella at its head, was disposed to
incline to moderate measures and to listen to the advice which
it received from the British Ministry and from the British
Ambassador, Sir Edward Thornton. Another party, of which M. de
Subsérra was the representative, was in favour of an intimate
union with France, and ready to listen to the contrary
counsels of M. de Neuville, the French Minister at Lisbon. M.
de Palmella, despairing of founding a settled form of
government amidst the disorders which surrounded him on every
side, applied to the British Ministry for troops to give
stability to the Administration. The demand arrived in London
in July 1823. … The demand for troops was refused, but a
British squadron was sent to the Tagus, with a view of
affording the King of Portugal the moral support of the
British nation and a secure asylum in the event of any danger
to his person. Many months elapsed before the King of Portugal
had occasion to avail himself of the possible asylum which was
thus afforded to him. … The evident leanings of M. de Palmella
towards moderate measures, however, alarmed the Portuguese
Absolutists. Ever since the revolution of 1823 Dom Miguel had
held the command of the army; and, on the night of the 29th of
April, 1824, the prince suddenly ordered the arrest of the
leading personages of the Government, and, under the pretext
of suppressing an alleged conspiracy of Freemasons, called on
the army to liberate their king, and to complete the triumph
of the previous year. For nine days the king was a mere puppet
in the hands of his son, and Dom Miguel was virtually master
of Lisbon. On the 9th of May the king was persuaded by the
foreign ministers in his capital to resume his authority; to
retire on board the 'Windsor Castle,' a British man-of-war; to
dismiss Dom Miguel from his command, and to order his
attendance upon him. The prince, 'stricken with a sudden
futuity,' obeyed his father's commands, and was prevailed upon
to go into voluntary exile. The revolution of 1824 terminated
with his departure, and Portugal again enjoyed comparative
tranquillity."
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 9 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapter 18.
See, also, BRAZIL: A.D. 1808-1822.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1822.
The independence of Brazil proclaimed and established.
See BRAZIL: A. D. 1808-1822.
{2578}
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1824-1889.
Return of John VI. to Brazil.
Abdication of the Portuguese throne by Dom Pedro,
after granting a constitution.
Usurpation of Dom Miguel.
Civil war and factious conflicts.
Establishment of Parliamentary government, and Peace.
"At the close of 1824 the king returned to Brazil to spend his
last days in peace. On reaching Rio de Janeiro, he recognized
Dom Pedro as Emperor of Brazil, and on the 6th of March, 1826,
John VI. died in the country of his choice. By his will, John
VI. left the regency of Portugal to his daughter Isabel Maria,
to the disgust of Dom Miguel, who had fully expected in spite
of his conduct that Portugal would be in some manner
bequeathed to him, and that Dom Pedro would be satisfied with
the government of Brazil. The next twenty-five years are the
saddest in the whole history of Portugal. The establishment of
the system of parliamentary government, which now exists, was
a long and difficult task. … The keynote of the whole series
of disturbances is to be found in the pernicious influence of
the army. … The army was disproportionately large for the size
and revenue of the country; there was no foreign or colonial
war to occupy its energies, and the soldiers would not return
to the plough nor the officers retire into private life. The
English Cabinet at this juncture determined to maintain peace
and order, and in 1826, a division of 5,000 men was sent under
the command of Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton to
garrison the chief towns. The accession of Pedro IV. to the
throne was hailed with joy in Portugal, though looked on with
suspicion in Brazil. He justified his reputation by drawing up
a charter, containing the bases for a moderate parliamentary
government of the English type, which he sent over to
Portugal, by the English diplomatist, Lord Stuart de Rothesay.
Then to please his Brazilian subjects, he abdicated the throne
of Portugal in favour of his daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria,
a child of seven years old, on condition that on attaining a
suitable age she should marry her uncle, Dom Miguel, who was
to swear to observe the new constitution. The Charter of 1826
was thankfully received by the moderate parliamentary party;
Clinton's division was withdrawn; Palmella remained prime
minister; and in the following year, 1827, Dom Pedro destroyed
the effect of his wise measures by appointing Dom Miguel to be
regent of Portugal in the name of the little queen. Dom Miguel
was an ambitious prince, who believed that he ought to be king
of Portugal; he was extremely popular with the old nobility,
the clergy, and the army, with all who disliked liberal ideas,
and with the beggars and the poor who were under the influence
of the mendicant orders. He was declared Regent in July, 1827,
and in May, 1828, he summoned a Cortes of the ancient type,
such as had not met since 1697, which under the presidency of
the Bishop of Viseu offered him the throne of Portugal. He
accepted, and immediately exiled all the leaders of the
parliamentary, or, as it is usually called, the Chartist,
party, headed by Palmella, Saldanha, Villa Flor, and Sampaio.
They naturally fled to England, where the young queen was
stopping on her way to be educated at the court of Vienna, and
found popular opinion strongly in their favour. But the Duke
of Wellington and his Tory Cabinet refused to countenance or
assist them. … Meanwhile the reign of Dom Miguel had become a
Reign of Terror; arrests and executions were frequent;
thousands were deported to Africa, and in 1830 it was
estimated that 40,000 persons were in prison for political
offences. He ruled in absolute contempt of all law, and at
different times English, French, and American fleets entered
the Tagus to demand reparation for damage done to commerce, or
for the illegal arrest of foreigners. The result of this
conduct was that the country was hopelessly ruined, and the
chartist and radical parties, who respectively advocated the
Charter of 1826 and the Constitution of 1822, agreed to sink
their differences, and to oppose the bigoted tyrant. … Dom
Pedro, who had devoted his life to the cause of parliamentary
government, resigned his crown in 1831 [see BRAZIL: A. D.
1825-1865] to his infant son, and left Brazil to head the
movement for his daughter's cause. … In July, 1832, the
ex-emperor with an army of 7,500 men arrived at Oporto, where
he was enthusiastically welcomed, and Dom Miguel then laid
siege to the city. European opinion was divided between the
two parties; partisans of freedom and of constitutional
government called the Miguelites 'slaves of a tyrant,' while
lovers of absolutism, alluding to the loans raised by the
ex-emperor, used to speak of the 'stock-jobbing Pedroites.'
The siege was long and protracted." The Miguelites finally
sustained several heavy defeats, both on land and at sea, and
Lisbon was triumphantly entered by the Chartists in July,
1833. "The year 1834 was one of unbroken success for the
Chartists. England and France recognized Maria da Gloria as
Queen of Portugal, and the ministry of Queen Isabella of
Spain, knowing Dom Miguel to be a Carlist, sent two Spanish
armies under Generals Rodil and Serrano to the help of Dom
Pedro. … Finally the combined Spanish and Portuguese armies

surrounded the remnant of the Miguelites at Evora Monte, and
on the 26th of May, 1834, Dom Miguel surrendered. By the
Convention of Evora Monte, Dom Miguel abandoned his claim to
the throne of Portugal, and in consideration of a pension of
£15,000 a year promised never again to set foot in the
kingdom. … Dom Pedro, who had throughout the struggle been the
heart and soul of his daughter's party, had thus the pleasure
of seeing the country at peace, and a regular parliamentary
system in operation, but he did not long survive, for on the
24th of September, 1834, he died at Queluz near Lisbon, of an
illness brought on by his great labours and fatigues, leaving
a name, which deserves all honour from Portuguese and
Brazilians alike. Queen Maria da Gloria was only fifteen, when
she thus lost the advantage of her father's wise counsel and
steady help, yet it might have been expected that her reign
would be calm and prosperous. But neither the queen, the
nobility, nor the people, understood the principles of
parliamentary government. … The whole reign was one of violent
party struggles, for they hardly deserve to be called civil
wars, so little did they involve, which present a striking
contrast to the peaceable constitutional government that at
present prevails. … In 1852 the Charter was revised to suit
all parties; direct voting, one of the chief claims of the
radicals, was allowed, and the era of civil war came to an
end.
{2579}
Maria da Gloria did not long survive this peaceful settlement,
for she died on the 15th of November, 1853, and her husband
the King-Consort, Ferdinand II, assumed the regency until his
eldest son Pedro V. should come of age. The era of peaceful
parliamentary government, which succeeded the stormy reign of
Maria II., has been one of material prosperity for Portugal. …
The whole country, and especially the city of Lisbon, was
during this reign, on account of the neglect of all sanitary
precautions, ravaged by cholera and yellow fever, and it was
in the midst of one of these outbreaks, on the 11th of
November, 1861, that Pedro V., who had refused to leave his
pestilence-stricken capital, died of cholera, and was followed
to the grave by two of his younger brothers, Dom Ferdinand and
Dom John. At the time of Pedro's death, his next brother and
heir, Dom Luis, was travelling on the continent, and his
father, Ferdinand II., who long survived Queen Maria da Gloria
… assumed the regency until his return; soon after which King
Luis married Maria Pia, younger daughter of Victor Emmanuel,
king of Italy. … The reign of King Luis was prosperous and
peaceful, and the news of his death on October 9, 1889, was
received with general regret. … Luis I. was succeeded on the
throne by his elder son, Dom Carlos, or Charles I., a young
man of twenty-six, who married in 1886, the Princess Marie
Amélie de Bourbon, the eldest daughter of the Comte de Paris.
His accession was immediately followed by the revolution of
the 15th of November, 1889, in Brazil, by which his great
uncle, Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, was dethroned and a
republican government established in that country."
H. M. Stephens,
The Story of Portugal,
chapter 18.
See BRAZIL: A. D. 1889-1891.
ALSO IN:
W. Bollaert,
Wars of Succession in Portugal and Spain,
volume 1.
PORTUGAL: A. D. 1884-1889.
Territorial claims in Africa.
The Berlin Conference.
See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1891.
----------PORTUGAL: End--------
PORTUS AUGUSTI AND PORTUS TRAJANI.
See OSTIA.
PORTUS CALE.
The ancient name of
Oporto, whence came, also, the name of Portugal.
See PORTUGAL: EARLY HISTORY.
PORTUS ITIUS.
The port on the French coast from which Cæsar sailed on both
his expeditions to Britain. Boulogne, Ambleteuse, Witsand and
Calais have all contended for the honor of representing it in
modern geography; but the serious question seems to be between
Boulogne and Witsand, or Wissant.
T. Lewin,
Invasion of Britain.
ALSO IN:
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 4, appendix 1.
Napoleon III.,
History of Cæsar,
book 3, chapter 7.
PORTUS LEMANIS.
An important Roman port in Britain, at the place which still
preserves its name—Lymne.
T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon,
chapter 5.
PORTUS MAGNUS.
An important Roman port in Britain, the massive walls of which
are still seen at Porchester (or Portchester).
T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon,
chapter 5.
POST.
POSTAGE.
POST–OFFICE.
"The little that is known of the post-system of the [Roman]
empire is summed up in a few words in Becker's 'Handbuch,'
iii. i. 304: 'The institution of Augustus, which became the
basis of the later System known to us from the writings of the
Jurists, consisted of a military service which forwarded
official despatches from station to station by couriers,
called in the earlier imperial period speculatories. (Liv.
xxxi. 24.; Suet. Calig. 44.; Tac. Hist. ii. 73.) Personal
conveyance was confined (as in the time of the republic) to
officials: for this purpose the mutationes (posts) and
mansiones (night quarters) were assigned, and even palatia
erected at the latter for the use of governors and the emperor
himself. Private individuals could take advantage of these
state posts within the provinces by a special license
(diploma) of the governor, and at a later period of the
emperor only.' Under the republic senators and high personages
could obtain the posts for their private use, as a matter of
privilege."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapter 34 (volume 4), foot-note.
"According to Professor Friedländer in his interesting work,
'Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschiehte Roms,' great progress
was made by the Romans, in the fourth and fifth centuries, in
their method of postal communication. Their excellent roads
enabled them to establish rapid mule and horse posts as well
as carts, and it is even stated that special 'postal ships'
(Post schiffe) were kept in readiness at the principal
sea-ports. These advanced postal arrangements, like many other
traces of Roman civilization, survived longest in Gaul; but
even there the barbarism of the people, and the constant wars
in which they were engaged, gradually extinguished, first the
necessity, and then, as a natural consequence, the means of
postal communication, until we find, at a much later period,
all European countries alike, for lack of any organized
system, making use of pilgrims, friars, pedlars, and others,
to convey their correspondence from one place to another. The
first attempt of any importance, to rescue postal
communication from the well-nigh hopeless condition into which
it had for centuries fallen, was made in Germany in 1380, by
the order of Teutonic Knights, who established properly
equipped post-messengers for home and international service.
An improvement and extension of this plan was carried out by
Francis von Thaxis in the year 1516, when a postal line from
Brussels to Vienna, via Kreuznach, was established. It is true
that, shortly before this, there is some record of Louis XI.
of France having started, for State postal purposes, what were
termed cavaliers du roy; but these were only allowed to be
used for private purposes by privileged individuals, part of
whose privilege, by the way, consisted in paying to Louis an
enormous fee. It is to Francis von Thaxis that must be
accorded the title of the first postal reformer. So eager was
his interest in the work he had undertaken, that, in order to
gain the right of territorial transit through several of the
small states of Germany where his plans were strongly opposed,
he actually agreed for a time to carry the people's letters
free of charge, an instance of generosity, for a parallel of
which we look in vain in the history of the Post Office. The
mantle of this reformer seems, strangely enough, to have
fallen in turn upon many of his descendants, who not only in
Germany, but also in Spain, Austria, Holland, and other
countries, obtained concessions for carrying on the useful
work started by Francis von Thaxis.
{2580}
One of the Thaxis family, at a later date, was created a
prince of Germany, and took the name of Thurm und Taxis; and
from him is descended the princely line bearing that name
which flourishes at the present day. Another member of the
family was created a grandee of Spain, and has the honor of
being immortalized by Schiller in his 'Don Carlos.' The first
establishment of an organized system of postal communication
in England is wrapt in some obscurity. During the reign of
John post-messengers were, for the first time, employed by the
king; these messengers were called nuncii; and in the time of
Henry I. these nuncii were also found in the service of some
of the barons. In Henry III.'s reign they had so far become a
recognized institution of the State that they were clothed in
the royal livery. Mr. Lewins, in his interesting work, 'Her
Majesty's Mails,' states that several private letters are
still in existence, dating back as far as the reign of Edward
II., which bear the appearance of having been carried by the
nuncii of that period, with 'Haste, post haste!' written
across them. … Edward IV., towards the end of the fifteenth
century, during the time that he was engaged in war with
Scotland, had the stations for postal relays placed within a
few miles of each other all the way from London to the royal
camp, and by this means managed to get his despatches carried
nearly a hundred miles a day. … No improvement is recorded in
the postal service in this country from the period last
referred to until the reign of Henry VIII. This king, we are
told, appointed a 'master of the posts,' in the person of Sir
Brian Tuke, who really seems to have made great efforts to
exercise a proper control over the horse-posts, and to bring
some sort of organization to bear on his department. Poor
Tuke, however, was not rewarded with much success. … James I.
established a regular post for inland letters, and Charles I.,
recognizing, no doubt, the financial importance of the Post
Office, declared it in 1637, by royal proclamation, to be
State property. It was, however, during the Protectorate,
twenty years later, that the first act of Parliament relating
to the formation of a State Post Office was passed. This
statute was entitled, 'An Act for the settling of the postage
of England, Scotland, and Ireland.' … The first trace which
can be found of a regular tariff of postal charges is in the
reign of Charles I., and even regarded by the light of to-day
these charges cannot be held to be exorbitant; for example, a
single letter from London, for any distance under eighty
miles, was charged twopence; fourpence up to one hundred and
forty miles; sixpence for any greater distance in England, and
eightpence to all parts of Scotland."
Postal Communication, Past and Present
(National Review; copied in Littell's Living Age,
July 30, 1887).
"A penny post was established in London, in 1683, two years
before the death of Charles II., for the conveyance of letters
and parcels within the City, by Robert Murray, an upholsterer
by trade, who, like a great many others, was dissatisfied with
the Government, which, in its anxiety to provide for the
postal requirements of the country, had entirely neglected the
City and suburbs. The post, established by Murray at a vast
expense, was ultimately handed over to a William Docwray,
whose name is now well known in the annals of Post Office
history. The arrangements of the new penny post were simple,
and certainly liberal enough. All letters or parcels not
exceeding a pound weight, or any sum of money not exceeding
£10 in value, or parcel not worth more than £10, could be
conveyed at a cost of one penny; or within a radius of ten
miles from a given centre, for the charge of twopence. Several
district offices were opened in various parts of London, and
receiving houses were freely established in all the leading
thoroughfares. … The deliveries in the City were from six to
eight daily, while from three to four were found sufficient to
supply the wants of the suburbs. The public appreciated and
supported the new venture, and it soon became a great
commercial success, useful to the citizens, and profitable to
the proprietor. No sooner, however, did a knowledge of this
fact reach the ears of those in authority over the General
Post Office, than the Duke of York, acting under instructions,
and by virtue of the settlement made to him, objected to its
being continued, on the ground that it was an invasion of his
legal rights. … The authorities … applied to the court of
King's Bench, wherein it was decided that the new or so-called
penny post was an infraction of the privileges of the
authorities of the General Post Office, and the royal
interest, and that consequently it, with all its organization,
profits, and advantages, should be handed over to, and remain
the property of, the royal establishment. … Post-paid
envelopes were in use in France in the time of Louis XIV.
Pelisson states that they originated in 1653 with M. de
Velayer, who established, under royal authority, a private
penny-post in Paris. He placed boxes at the corners of the
principal streets to receive the letters, which were obliged
to be enclosed in these envelopes. They were suggested to the
Government by Mr. Charles Whiting in 1830, and the eminent
publisher, the late Mr. Charles Knight, also proposed stamped
covers for papers. Dr. T. E. Gray, of the British Museum,
claimed the credit of suggesting that letters should be
prepaid by the use of stamps as early as 1834."
W. Tegg,
Posts and Telegraphs,
pages 21-23 and 100-101.
"On the morning of the 10th of January, 1840, the people of
the United Kingdom rose in the possession of a new power—the
power of sending by the post a letter not weighing more than
half an ounce upon the prepayment of one penny, and this
without any regard to the distance which the letter had to
travel. … To the sagacity and the perseverance of one man, the
author of this system, the high praise is due, not so much
that he triumphed over the petty jealousies and selfish fears
of the post-office authorities, but that he established his
own convictions against the doubts of some of the ablest and
most conscientious leaders of public opinion. … Mr. Rowland
Hill in 1837 published his plan of a cheap and uniform
postage. A Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in
1837, which, continued its inquiries throughout the session of
1838, and arrived at the conviction that 'the mode recommended
of charging and collecting postage, in a pamphlet published by
Mr. Rowland Hill,' was feasible, and deserving of a trial
under legislative sanction. … Lord Ashburton, although an
advocate of Post-office Reform, held that the reduction to a
penny would wholly destroy the revenue. Lord Lowther, the
Postmaster-General, thought twopence the smallest rate that
would cover the expenses.
{2581}
Colonel Maberly, the secretary to the post office, considered
Mr. Hill's plan a most preposterous one, and maintained that
if the rates were to be reduced to a penny, the revenue would
not recover itself for forty or fifty years. … Public opinion,
however, had been brought so strongly to bear in favour of a
penny rate, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Spring
Rice, on the 5th of July, 1839, proposed a resolution, 'that
it is expedient to reduce the postage on letters to one
uniform rate of a penny postage, according to a certain amount
of weight to be determined—that the parliamentary privilege
of franking should be abolished, and that official franking be
strictly limited—the House pledging itself to make good any
deficiency that may occur in the revenue from such reduction
of the postage.' A Bill was accordingly passed to this effect
in the House of Commons, its operation being limited in its
duration to one year, and the Treasury retaining the power of
fixing the rates at first, although the ultimate reduction was
to be to one penny. This experimental measure reduced all
rates above fourpence to that sum, leaving those below
fourpence unaltered. With this complication of charge the
experiment could not have a fair trial, and accordingly on the
10th of January, 1840, the uniform half-ounce rate became by
order of the Treasury one penny. … In 1840 the number of
letters sent through the post had more than doubled, and the
legislature had little hesitation in making the Act of 1839
permanent, instead of its duration being limited to the year
which would expire in October. A stamped envelope, printed
upon a peculiar paper, and bearing an elaborate design, was
originally chosen as the mode of rendering prepayment
convenient to the sender of a letter. A simpler plan soon
superseded this attempt to enlist the Fine Arts in a plain
business operation. The plan of prepaying letters by affixing
a stamp bearing the head of the ruler of the country, came
into use here in May, 1840 [see, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1840].
The habit of prepayment by postage stamps has now become so
universal throughout the world, that in 1861 the system was
established in eighty different countries or colonies."
C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 24.
The first postal system in the American colonies was privately
established in New England in 1676, by John Heyward, under
authority from the General Court of the colony of
Massachusetts. "In 1683 the government of Penn established a
postal system for the Colony of Pennsylvania. In 1700 Colonel
J. Hamilton organized 'his postal establishment for British
America' including all the English colonies, but soon after
disposed of his right to the English crown. In 1710 the
English Parliament established by law the first governmental
postal system with the general office at New York, which
continued until in 1776 the Continental Congress adopted and
set in action the postal system proposed by Franklin, who was
appointed the first Postmaster General. The first law of the
Federal Congress continued this system in operation as
sufficient for the public wants, but the postal service was
not finally settled until the act of 1792. This law (1792)
fixed a tariff which with unimportant changes remained in
force until the adoption of the system of Uniform Postage in
the United States. Single, double and triple letters were
charged 8, 16 and 24 cents respectively when sent to other
countries, and four cents plus the internal postage when
arriving from foreign countries. The internal postage between
offices in the United States was 6, 8, 10, 15, 17, 20, 22 and
25 cents for distances of 30, 60, 100, 150, 200, 250, 350, or
400 miles respectively for single letters, and double, triple,
etc., this for double, triple, etc. letters. A single letter
was defined by the law to be a single sheet or piece of paper,
a double letter, two sheets or pieces of paper, etc. … The
earliest letters which we have seen, consist of single sheets
of paper folded and addressed upon the sheet. An envelope
would have subjected them to double postage."
J. K. Tiffany,
History of the Postage Stamps,
introduction.
By an act of March 3, 1845, the postage rates in the United
States were reduced to two—namely, 5 cents for 300 miles or
under, and 10 cents for longer distances. Six years later
(March 3, 1851) the minimum rate for half an ounce became 3
cents (if prepaid) with the distance covered by it extended to
3,000 miles; if not prepaid, 5 cents. For distances beyond
3,000 miles, these rates were doubled. In 1856 prepayment was
made compulsory; and by an act signed March 3, 1863, the 3
cent rate for half–ounce letters was extended to all distances
in the United States.
J. Rees,
Footprints of a Letter-Carrier,
page 264.
In 1883 the rate in the United States was reduced to 2 cents
for all distances, on letters not exceeding half an ounce. In
1885 the weight of a letter transmissible for 2 cents was
increased to one ounce. The use of postage stamps was first
introduced in the United States under an act of Congress
passed in March, 1847. Stamped envelopes were first provided
in 1853. The first issue of postal cards was on the 1st of
May, 1873, under an act approved June 8, 1872. The registry
system was adopted July 1, 1855. Free delivery of letters in
the larger cities was first undertaken on the 1st of July
1863.
D. M. Dickinson,
Progress and the Post
(North American Review, October, 1889).
ALSO IN:
Annual Report of the Postmaster-General
of the United States, 1893,
pages 543-558
(Description of all Postage Stamps and
Postal Cards issued).
POSTAL MONEY-ORDER SYSTEM, The.
The postal money-order system, though said to be older in
practical existence, was regularly instituted and organized in
England, in its present form, in 1859. It was adopted in the
United States five years later, going into operation in
November, 1864.
D. M. Dickinson,
Progress and the Post
(North American Review, October, 1889).
ALSO IN:
Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia, 1887,
page 687.
POSTAL SAVINGS BANKS.
Postal savings banks were first brought into operation in
England in 1861. "One shilling is the smallest sum that can be
deposited. The Government has, however, … issued blank forms
with spaces for twelve penny postage-stamps, and will receive
one of these forms with twelve stamps affixed as a deposit.
This plan was suggested by the desire to encourage habits of
saving among children, and by the success of penny banks in
connection with schools and mechanics' institutes. No one can
deposit more than £30 in one year, or have to his credit more
than £150 exclusive of interest. When the principal and
interest together amount to £200, interest ceases until the
amount has been reduced below £200.
{2582}
Interest at two and a half per cent is paid, beginning the
first of the month following the deposit and stopping the last
of the month preceding the withdrawal, but no interest is paid
on any sum less than a pound or not a multiple of a pound. The
interest is added to the principal on the 31st of December of
each year. … The English colonies … have established postal
savings-banks of a similar character. … The Canadian system …
went into operation in 1868. … Influenced by the success of
the English system of postal savings-banks, the governments on
the Continent of Europe have now nearly all made similar
provisions for the investment of the surplus earnings of the
people. The Italian system … went into operation February 20,
1876. … In France the proposal to establish postal
savings-banks was frequently discussed, but not adopted until
March 1881, although the ordinary savings-banks had for
several years been allowed to use the post-offices as places
for the receipt and repayment of deposits. … The Austrian
postal savings-banks were first opened January 12, 1883. … The
Belgian system has been [1885] in successful operation for
more than fifteen years; that of the Netherlands was
established some three years ago; while Sweden has just
followed her neighbors, Denmark and Norway, in establishing
similar institutions. In 1871 Postmaster-General Creswel
recommended the establishment of postal savings depositories
in connection with the United States post-offices, and two
years later he discussed the subject very fully in his annual
report. Several of his successors have renewed his
recommendation;" but no action has been taken by Congress.
D. B. King,
Postal Savings-Banks
(Popular Science Monthly, December, 1885).
POSTAL TELEGRAPH, The.
"The States of the continent of Europe were the first to
appreciate the advantages of governmental control of the
telegraph. … From the beginning they assumed the erection and
management of the telegraph lines. It may be said that in
taking control of the telegraphs the monarchical governments
of the Old World were actuated as much by the desire to use
them for the maintenance of authority as by the advantages
which they offered for the service of the people. To a certain
extent this is doubtless true, but it is none the less true
that the people have reaped the most solid benefits, and that
the tendency has been rather to liberalize government than to
maintain arbitrary power. … The greatest progress and the best
management have alike been shown in those countries where the
forms of government are most liberal, as in Switzerland and
Belgium. … In Great Britain the telegraph was at first
controlled by private parties. … In July, 1868, an act was
passed 'to enable Her Majesty's Postmaster-General to acquire,
work, and maintain electric telegraphs.' … The rate for
messages was fixed throughout the kingdom at one shilling for
twenty words, excluding the address and signature. This rate
covered delivery within one mile of the office of address, or
within its postal delivery." The lines of the existing
telegraph companies were purchased on terms which were
commonly held to be exorbitant, and Parliament, changing its
original intention, conferred on the post-office department a
monopoly of the telegraphs. Thus "the British postal telegraph
was from the first handicapped by an enormous interest charge,
and to some extent by the odium which always attaches to a
legal monopoly. But notwithstanding the exorbitant price paid
for the telegraph, the investment has not proved an
unprofitable one."
N. P. Hill,
Speech in the Senate of the United States,
January 14, 1884, on a Bill to Establish Postal Telegraphs,
("Speeches and Papers," pages 200-215).
POSTAL UNION, The.
The Postal Union, which now embraces most of the civilized and
semi-civilized countries of the world, was formed originally
by a congress of delegates, representing the principal
governments of Europe, and the United States of America, which
assembled at Berne, Switzerland, in September, 1874. A treaty
was concluded at that time, which established uniform rates of
postage (25 centimes, or 5 cents, on half-ounce letters),
between the countries becoming parties to it, and opening the
opportunity for other states to join in the same arrangement.
From year to year since, the Postal Union has been widened by
the accession of new signatories to the treaty, until very few
regions of the globe where any postal system exists lie now
outside of it. The late accessions to the Postal Union have
been North Borneo, the German East African Protectorate, and
the British Australasian Colonies, in 1801; Natal and
Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1802; the South African Republic
(Transvaal) in 1803. By the action of an international postal
congress, held at Vienna, in 1801, a kind of international
clearing-house for the Postal Union was established at Berne,
Switzerland, and the settlement of accounts between its
members has been greatly facilitated thereby.
POSTUMIAN ROAD.
One of the great roads of the ancient Romans. It led from
Genoa to Aquileia, by way of Placentia, Cremona and Verona.
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 4, chapter 11.
POTESTAS.
The civil power with which a Roman magistrate was invested was
technically termed potestas.
W. Ramsay,
Manual of Roman Antiquity.,
chapter 5.
POTESTAS TRIBUNITIA, The.
The powers and prerogatives of the ancient tribunitian office,
without the office itself, being conferred upon Augustus and
his successors, became the most important element, perhaps, of
the finally compacted sovereignty of the Roman emperors.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 30.
POTIDÆA, Siege of.
The city of Potidæa, a Corinthian colony founded on the long
peninsula of Pallene which projects from the Macedonian coast,
but which had become subject to Athens, revolted from the
latter B. C. 432, and was assisted by the Corinthians. This
was among the quarrels which led up to the Peloponnesian War.
The Athenians reduced the city and expelled the inhabitants
after a siege of three years.
Thucydides,
History,
books 1-2.
See, also, GREECE: B. C. 432;
and ATHENS: B. C. 430-429.
POTOMAC, Army of the:
Its creation and its campaigns.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1861 (JULY-NOVEMBER); 1862 (MARCH-JULY), and after.
POTOSI, The Spanish province of.
Modern Bolivia.
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.
{2583}
POTTAWATOMIES.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, AND OJIBWAS.
POUNDAGE.
See TUNNAGE AND POUNDAGE.
POWHATANS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: POWHATAN CONFEDERACY.
POYNING'S ACTS.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1494.
PRÆFECTS.
PREFECTS.
PRÉFÊTS.
See ROME: B. C. 31-A. D. 14;
and PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.
PRÆMUNIRE, Statute of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1306-1393.
PRÆNESTE, Sulla's capture of.
Præneste, the ancient city of the Latins, held against Sulla,
in the first civil war, by young Marius, was surrendered after
the battle at the Colline Gate of Rome. Sulla ordered the male
inhabitants to be put to the sword and gave up the town to his
soldiers for pillage.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 7, chapter 19.
PRÆNOMEN.
NOMEN.
COGNOMEN.
See GENS.
PRÆTOR.
See ROME: B. C. 366.
----------PRÆTORIANS: Start--------
PRÆTORIAN GUARDS.
PRÆTORIANS.
"The commander–in-chief of a Roman army was attended by a
select detachment, which, under the name of 'Cohors
Praetoria,' remained closely attached to his person in the
field, ready to execute his orders, and to guard him from any
sudden attack. … Augustus, following his usual line of policy,
retained the ancient name of 'Praetoriae Cohortes,' while he
entirely changed their character. He levied in Etruria,
Umbria, ancient Latium, and the old Colonies, nine or ten
Cohorts, consisting of a thousand men each, on whom he
bestowed double pay and superior privileges. These formed a
permanent corps, who acted as the Imperial Life Guards, ready
to overawe the Senate, and to suppress any sudden popular
commotion."
W. Ramsay,
Manual of Roman Antiquity,
chapter 12.
The Prætorian Guard had been quartered, during the reign of
Augustus, and during the early years of the reign of Tiberius,
in small barracks at various points throughout the city, or in
the neighboring towns. Sejanus, the intriguing favorite of
Tiberius, being commander of the formidable corps, established
it in one great permanent camp, "beyond the north-eastern
angle of the city, and between the roads which sprang from the
Viminal and Colline gates." This was done A. D. 23.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 45.
See, also, ROME: A. D. 14-37.
PRÆTORIANS: A. D. 41.
Their elevation of Claudius to the throne.
See ROME: A. D. 41.
PRÆTORIANS: A. D. 193.
Murder of Pertinax and sale of the empire.
See ROME: A. D. 192-284.
PRÆTORIANS: A. D. 193.
Reconstitution by Severus.
Severus, whose first act on reaching Rome had been to disarm
and disband the insolent Guard which murdered Pertinax and
sold the empire to Julianus, had no thought of dispensing with
the institution. There was soon in existence a new
organization of Prætorians, increased to four times the
ancient number and picked from all the legions of the
frontiers.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 5.
PRÆTORIANS: A. D. 238.
Murder of Balbinus and Pupienus.
See ROME: A. D. 192-284.
PRÆTORIANS: A. D. 312.
Abolition by Constantine.
"By the prudent measures of Diocletian, the numbers of the
Prætorians were insensibly reduced, their privileges
abolished, and their place supplied by two faithful legions of
Illyricum, who, under the new titles of Jovians and
Herculians, were appointed to perform the service of the
imperial guards. … They were old corps stationed at Illyricum;
and, according to the ancient establishment, they each
consisted of 6,000 men. They had acquired much reputation by
the use of the plumbatæ, or darts loaded with lead."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 13, with foot-note.
Restored and augmented by Maxentius, during his brief reign,
the Prætorians were finally abolished and their fortified camp
destroyed, by Constantine, after his victory in the civil war
of A. D. 312.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 13.
----------PRÆTORIANS: End--------
PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.
"As the government degenerated into military despotism, the
Prætorian præfect, who in his origin had been a simple captain
of the guards, was placed not only at the head of the army,
but of the finances, and even of the law. In every department
of administration he represented the person, and exercised the
authority, of the emperor. The first præfect who enjoyed and
abused this immense power was Plautianus, the favourite
minister of Severus. … They [the Prætorian præfects) were
deprived by Constantine of all military command as soon as
they had ceased to lead into the field, under their immediate
orders, the flower of the Roman troops; and at length, by a
singular revolution, the captains of the guards were
transformed into the civil magistrates of the provinces.
According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian,
the four princes had each their Prætorian præfect; and, after
the monarchy was once more united in the person of
Constantine, he still continued to create the same number of
four præfects, and intrusted to their care the same provinces
which they already administered.
1. The Præfect of the East stretched his ample jurisdiction"
from the Nile to the Phasis and from Thrace to Persia.
"2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia, and
Greece, acknowledged the authority of the Præfect of
Illyricum.
3. The power of the Præfect of Italy" extended to the Danube,
and over the islands of the Mediterranean and part of Africa.
"4. The Præfect of the Gauls comprehended under that plural
denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and Spain, and …
to the foot of Mount Atlas.
… Rome and Constantinople were alone excepted from the
jurisdiction of the Prætorian præfects. … A perfect equality
was established between the dignity of the two municipal, and
that of the four Prætorian præfects."
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 5 and 17.
See, also, ROME: B. C. 31-A. D. 14.
PRÆTORIUM, The.
"In the very early days of Rome, before even Consuls had a
being, the two chief magistrates of the republic bore the
title of Praetors. Some remembrance of this fact lingering in
the speech of the people gave always to the term Prætorium
(the Praetor's house) a peculiar majesty, and caused it to be
used as the equivalent of palace. So in the well-known
passages of the New Testament, the palace of Pilate the
Governor at Jerusalem, of Herod the King at Caesarea, of Nero
the Emperor at Rome, are all called the Praetorium. From the
palace the troops who surrounded the person of the Emperor
took their well-known name, 'the Praetorian Guard.'"
T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).
{2584}
PRAGA, Battle of (1831).
See POLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.
----------PRAGMATIC SANCTION: Start--------
PRAGMATIC SANCTION.
"No two words convey less distinct meaning to English ears
than those which form this title: nor are we at all prepared
to furnish an equivalent. Perhaps 'a well considered
Ordinance' may in some degree represent them: i. e. an
Ordinance which has been fully discussed by men practised in
State Affairs. But we are very far from either recommending or
being satisfied with such a substitute. The title was used in
the Lower [the Byzantine] Empire, and Ducange ad v. describes
'Pragmaticum Rescriptum seu Pragmatica Sanctio' to be that
which 'ad hibitâ diligente causæ cognitione, ex omnium
Procerum consensu in modum sententiæ lecto, a Principe
conceditur.'"
E. Smedley,
History of France,
part 1, chapter 15, footnote.
"Pragmatic Sanction being, in the Imperial Chancery and some
others, the received title for Ordinances of a very
irrevocable nature, which a sovereign makes, in affairs that
belong wholly to himself, or what he reckons his own rights."
T. Carlyle,
History of Frederick II.,
book 5, chapter 2.
"This word [pragmatic] is derived from the Greek 'pragma,'
which means 'a rule.'"
E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, epoch 2, book 1, chapter 5, foot-note.
The following are the more noted ordinances which have borne
this name.
PRAGMATIC SANCTION: A. D. 1220 and 1232.
Of the Emperor Frederick II.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272.
PRAGMATIC SANCTION:A. D. 1268 (?).
Of St. Louis.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1268.
PRAGMATIC SANCTION: A. D. 1438.
Of Charles VII. of France, and its abrogation.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1438; and 1515-1518.
PRAGMATIC SANCTION:A. D. 1547.
Of the Emperor Charles V. for the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1547.
PRAGMATIC SANCTION: A. D. 1718.
Of the Emperor Charles VI.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738; and 1740 (OCTOBER).
----------PRAGMATIC SANCTION: End--------
----------PRAGUE: Start--------
PRAGUE: A. D. 1348-1409.
The University and the German secession.
See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY;
and BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415.
PRAGUE: A. D. 1620.
Battle of the White Mountain.
Abandonment of crown and capital by Frederick.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1620.
PRAGUE: A. D. 1631.
Occupied and plundered by the Saxons.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.
PRAGUE: A. D. 1648.
Surprise and capture of the Kleinsite by the Swedes.
Siege of the older part of the city.
The end of the Thirty Years War.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648.
PRAGUE: A. D. 1741.
Taken by the French, Saxons and Bavarians.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).
PRAGUE: A. D. 1742.
The French blockaded in the city.
Retreat of Belleisle.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1742 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
PRAGUE: A. D. 1744.
Won and lost by Frederick the Great.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744; and 1744-1745.
PRAGUE: A. D. 1757.
Battle.
Prussian victory
Siege.
Relief by Count Daun.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (APRIL-JUNE).
PRAGUE: A. D. 1848.
Bombardment by the Austrians.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.
----------PRAGUE: End--------
PRAGUE, Congress of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (MAY-AUGUST).
PRAGUE,
Treaty of (1634).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.
Treaty of (1866).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.
PRAGUERIE.
The commotions produced by John Huss, at Prague, in the
beginning of the 15th century, gave the name Praguerie, at
that period, to all sorts of popular disturbances.
PRAIRIAL, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER)
THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.
PRAIRIAL FIRST, The insurrection of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (APRIL).
PRAIRIAL TWENTY-SECOND, Law of the.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (JUNE-JULY).
PRAIRIE GROVE, Battle of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).
PRAKRITA.
See SANSKRIT
PRATO, The horrible sack of (1512).
See FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569.
PRECIANI, The.
See AQUITAINE: THE ANCIENT TRIBES.
PRECIEUSES.
See RAMBOUILLET, HÔTEL DE.
PRECIOUS METALS, Production of.
See MONEY AND BANKING: 16-17TH CENTURIES, and 1848-1893.
PREFECTS.
PRÉFÊTS.
PRÆFECTS.
See ROME: B. C. 31-A. D. 14;
and PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.
PREMIER.
PRIME MINISTER.
See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.
PREMISLAUS, King of Poland, A. D. 1289-1296.
PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER.
This was the most important branch of the Regular Canons of
St. Augustine, founded by St. Norbert, a German nobleman, who
died in 1134. It took its name from Pre-montre, in Picardy,
where the first house was established.
E. L. Cutts,
Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. Alzog,
Manual of Universal Church History,
section 243 (volume 2).
See AUSTIN CANONS.
PRESBURG, OR PRESSBURG, Peace of (1805).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.
----------PRESBYTERIANS: Start--------
PRESBYTERIANS, English,
in the Civil War.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY),
and (JULY-SEPTEMBER); 1646 (MARCH);
1647 (APRIL-AUGUST); (AUGUST-DECEMBER); 1648.
PRESBYTERIANS:
At the Restoration.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1658-1660; 1661; and 1662-1665.
PRESBYTERIANS:
In Colonial Massachusetts.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1646-1651.
PRESBYTERIANS:
Scotch-Irish.
See SCOTCH-IRISH.
PRESBYTERIANS:
Scottish.
See CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.
----------PRESBYTERIANS: End--------
PRESCOTT, Colonel William, and the battle of Bunker Hill.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (JUNE).
{2585}
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
"The executive power shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America. He shall hold his office during the
term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President,
chosen for the same term, be elected as follows: Each State
shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may
direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of
Senators and Representatives to which the State may be
entitled in the Congress [and these electors, meeting in their
respective States, shall vote for President and
Vice-President, transmitting certified lists of their votes to
the President of the Senate of the United States, who shall
count them in the presence of the two Houses of Congress; and
if no person is elected President by a majority of all the
votes cast, then the House of Representatives shall elect a
President from the three persons who received the highest
numbers of the votes cast by the electors, the representation
from each State having one vote in such election]. … No person
except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United
States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall
be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any
person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained
to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a
resident within the United States. … The President shall be
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States,
and of the militia of the several States, when called into the
actual service of the United States; he may require the
opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the
executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties
of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant
reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States,
except in cases of impeachment. He shall have power, by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties,
provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he
shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and
consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers
of the United States whose appointments are not herein
otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law;
but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such
inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone,
in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. The
President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may
happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting
commissions which shall expire at the end of their next
session. He shall from time to time give to the Congress
information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and
expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both
houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between
them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn
them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive
ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care
that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all
the officers of the United States. The President,
Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States,
shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and
conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and
misdemeanors."
Constitution of the United States,
article 2, and article 12 of amendments.
The provisions of the Constitution regarding the Presidential
succession, in case of the death or resignation of both
President and Vice-President, are: 'In case of the removal of
the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or
inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said
office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President, and the
Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death,
resignation, or inability both of the President and
Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as
President, and such officer shall act accordingly until the
disability be removed or a President shall be elected.'
(Article II, Section 6.)
In pursuance of the power thus granted to it in the last half
of this section, Congress in 1792 passed an act declaring that
in case of the death, resignation, etc., of both the President
and Vice-President, the succession should be first to the
President of the Senate and then to the Speaker of the House.
This order was changed by the act of 1886, which provided that
the succession to the presidency should be as follows:
1. President.
2. Vice-President.
3. Secretary of State.
4. Secretary of the Treasury.
5. Secretary of War.
6. Attorney General.
7. Postmaster General.
8. Secretary of the Navy.
9. Secretary of the Interior.
In all cases the remainder of the four-years' term shall be
served out. This act also regulated the counting of the votes
of the electors by Congress, and the determination of who were
legally chosen electors.
Statutes of the United States passed at 1st Session
of 49th Congress, page 1.
ALSO IN:
E. Stanwood,
History of Presidential Elections,
chapter 27.
J. Story,
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,
book 3, chapters 36-37 (volume 3).
The Federalist,
numbers 66-76.
J. Bryce,
The American Commonwealth,
chapters 5-8 (volume 1).
PRESIDIO.
See TEXAS: A. D. 1819-1835
PRESS, The.
See PRINTING.
PRESSBURG, or
PRESBURG, Treaty of (1805).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1800.
PRESS-GANG.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812.
PRESTER JOHN, The Kingdom of.
"About the middle of the eleventh century stories began to be
circulated in Europe as to a Christian nation of north-eastern
Asia, whose sovereign was at the same time king and priest,
and was known by the name of Prester John. Amid the mass of
fables with which the subject is encumbered, it would seem to
be certain that, in the very beginning of the century, the
Khan of the Keraït, a tribe whose chief seat was at Karakorum,
between Lake Baikal and the northern frontier of China, was
converted to Nestorian Christianity—it is said, through the
appearance of a saint to him when he had lost his way in
hunting. By means of conversation with Christian merchants, he
acquired some elementary knowledge of the faith, and, on the
application of Ebed-Jesu, metropolitan of Maru, to the
Nestorian patriarch Gregory, clergy were sent, who baptized
the king and his subjects, to the number of 200,000. Ebed-Jesu
consulted the patriarch how the fasts were to be kept, since
the country did not afford any corn, or anything but flesh and
milk; and the answer was, that, if no other Lenten provisions
were to be had, milk should be the only diet for seasons of
abstinence. The earliest western notice of this nation is
given by Otho of Freising, from the relation of an Armenian
bishop who visited the court of pope Eugenius III. This report