History for ready reference, Volume 5, Tunnage to Zyp and Supplement - J. N. Larned

such a consequence I believe thorough and radical remedial
legislation should be promptly passed. I therefore beg the
Congress to give the subject immediate attention. In my
opinion the Secretary of the Treasury should be authorized to
issue bonds of the Government for the purpose of procuring and
maintaining a sufficient gold reserve and the redemption and
cancellation of the United States legal-tender notes and the
Treasury notes issued for the purchase of silver under the law
of July 14, 1890. We should be relieved from the humiliating
process of issuing bonds to procure gold to be immediately and
repeatedly drawn out on these obligations for purposes not
related to the benefit of our Government or our people.
{3588}
The principal and interest of these bonds should be payable on
their face in gold, because they should be sold only for gold or
its representative, and because there would now probably be
difficulty in favorably disposing of bonds not containing this
stipulation. … The Secretary of the Treasury might well be
permitted, at his discretion, to receive on the sale of bonds
the legal-tender and Treasury notes to be retired, and, of
course, when they are thus retired or redeemed in gold they
should be canceled. These bonds under existing laws could be
deposited by national banks as security for circulation; and
such banks should be allowed to issue circulation up to the
face value of these or any other bonds so deposited, except
bonds outstanding bearing only 2 per cent interest, and which
sell in the market at less than par. National banks should not
be allowed to take out circulating notes of a less
denomination than $10, and when such as are now outstanding
reach the Treasury, except for redemption and retirement, they
should be canceled and notes of the denomination of $10 and
upward issued in their stead. Silver certificates of the
denomination of $10 and upward should be replaced by
certificates of denominations under $10. As a constant means
for the maintenance of a reasonable supply of gold in the
Treasury our duties on imports should be paid in gold,
allowing all other dues to the Government to be paid in any
other form of money. I believe all the provisions I have
suggested should be embodied in our laws if we are to enjoy a
complete reinstatement of a sound financial condition." The
President's recommendations were not acted upon. The silver
interest in Congress defeated all measures introduced for the
purpose and left the situation unchanged. The Government was
forced to a new issue of bonds under the old act, for the
replenishing of its gold reserve.
----------UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: End--------
UNITED STATES BANK.
See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1791-1816, 1817-1833;
and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1833-1836.
UNITED STATES CHRISTIAN COMMISSION.
See SANITARY COMMISSION.
UNITED STATES CONGRESS.
See CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL.
See BRAZIL: A. D. 1889-1891.
UNITED STATES OF COLOMBIA.
See COLOMBIAN STATES.
UNITED STATES PRESIDENT.
See PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
UNITED STATES SANITARY COMMISSION.
See SANITARY COMMISSION.
UNITED STATES SENATE.
See SENATE, THE AMERICAN.
UNIVERSITIES.
See EDUCATION;
also VERMONT, VIRGINIA and WISCONSIN UNIVERSITIES,
and (in SUPPLEMENT) BROWN, MINNESOTA, and TULANE.
UNIVERSITY EXTENSION.
See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS &c.;
A. D. 1873-1889, and 1887-1892.
UNKIAR-SKELESSI, Treaty of (1833).
See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.
UNSTRUTT, Battle of the (1075).
See SAXONY: A. D. 1073-1075.
UPCHURCH POTTERY.
The Upchurch marshes, on the Medway, above Sheerness, were the
site of extensive potteries in the time of the Roman
occupation of Britain, and remains of the ware manufactured
are abundant in the neighborhood.
Thomas Wright,
The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon,
chapter 8.
UPPER HOUSE.
See LORDS, BRITISH HOUSE OF.
UPSALA, Battle of (1520).
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1397-1527.
UPSAROKAS, OR CROWS, The.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.
UR OF THE CHALDEES.
"The Ur Kasdim, i. e. 'Ur of the Chaldæans' in the Hebrew
Scriptures, is the modern Mug-heir, southeast of Babylon; on
clay-tablets discovered in the ruins of this place we find
cuneiform symbols, which are to be read as Uru."
M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 2, chapter 1.
URARDA
ARARAT.
See ALARODIANS.
URBAN II., Pope, A. D. 1088-1099.
Urban III., Pope, 1185-1187.
Urban IV., Pope, 1261-1264.
Urban V., Pope, 1362-1370.
Urban VI., Pope, 1378-1389.
Urban VII., Pope, 1590, September 15 to September 27.
Urban VIII., Pope, 1623-1644.
URBARIUM, of Maria Theresa, The.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1849-1859.
URBINO: Annexation to the States of the Church (1631).
See PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.
URGENDJ, Destruction by the Mongols.
See KHUAREZM: A. D. 1220.
URICONIUM,
VIROCONIUM.
An important Roman town in Britain, extensive remains of which
have been unearthed at modern Wroxeter. It was the station of
the 14th legion.
J. C. Anderson,
The Roman city of Uriconium.
Uriconium was totally destroyed by the West Saxons in 583. "A
British poet in verses still left to us sings piteously the
death-song of Uriconium, 'the white town in the valley,' the
town of white stones gleaming among the green woodlands."
J. R. Green,
The Making of England,
chapter 5.
URRACA,
Queen of Castile and Leon, A. D. 1109-1126.
URSINI, The.
See ROME: 13-14TH CENTURIES.
URSULINES, The.
The origin of the order of the Ursulines "is ascribed to
Angela di Brescia, about the year 1537, though the Saint from
whom it received its name, Ursula Benincasa, a native of
Naples, was born ten years afterwards. … The duties of those
holy sisters were the purest within the circle of human
benevolence—to minister to the sick, to relieve the poor, to
console the miserable, to pray with the penitent. These
charitable offices they undertook to execute without the bond
of any community, without the obligation of any monastic vow,
without any separation from society, any renouncement of their
domestic duties and virtues."
G. Waddington,
History of the Church,
chapter 19, section 6.
----------URUGUAY: Start--------
URUGUAY:
The name.
"The Uruguay is called so after a bird, the Uru, which is
found in the woods on its banks, and the term Uruguay
signifies the country of the Uru."
T. J. Hutchinson,
The Parana,
page 44.
URUGUAY: A. D. 1714-1777.
The settlement.
The contest for, between Spain and Portugal.
Relinquishment by the latter.
Inclusion in the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres.
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.
{3589}
URUGUAY: A. D. 1826-1828.
The subject of war between Brazil and the Argentine Republic.
Independence established and recognized.
See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1819-1874.
----------URUGUAY: End--------
USCOCKS, The.
"During the reign of Ferdinand [Emperor, 1558-1564], several
bodies of Christians, quitting the provinces which had been
recently conquered by the Turks, obtained from the Austrian
sovereigns a refuge at Clissa, in Dalmatia, under the
condition of forming themselves into a frontier militia
continually in arms against the infidels, and, from their
emigration, received the name of Uscocks, which, in the
language of the country, signifies wanderers. They fulfilled
the purpose of their establishment; and, being at length
expelled by the Turks, received a new asylum at Senga, a
ruined fortress in Croatia, on the coast of the Adriatic
gulph. Here, their numbers increasing by the accession of
Italian banditti and other marauders, they were rendered more
formidable than before; for they no longer confined their
predatory incursions to the land, but became pirates by sea. …
Their audacity increasing with success and plunder, they
pillaged, without distinction, the vessels of all the nations
who traded in the Adriatic." They were attacked by the Turks
and the Venetians, and the latter, at length, in the early
part of the 17th century, forced the Duke of Styria, who had
protected the freebooters, to allow their stronghold at Segna
to be demolished. "The Uscocks, being transplanted to
Carlstadt, soon lost their name and distinction."
W. Coxe,
History of the House of Austria,
chapter 42 (volume 2).
USDIÆ, The.
See IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
USES, The Statute of.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1535, and 1557.
USHANT, Naval battle off (1794).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).
USIPETES AND TENCTHERI, Cæsar's overthrow of the.
The Usipetes and Tenctheri, two German tribes, whose home was
on the lower course of the Rhine, north and south of the
Lippe, being hard pressed by the Suevi, crossed the Rhine, B.
C. 55, and began to spread themselves along the Valley of the
Meuse. Cæsar marched against them with great promptitude,
refused to parley with them, accused them of treacherous
attempts to gain time, and was himself charged with wicked
treachery, in seizing their chiefs who met him with pacific
propositions. It is certain, at all events, that he was able
to attack them when they were deprived of leaders, and to
slaughter them with so little resistance that not one Roman
soldier was killed. Those who escaped the sword were driven
into the Rhine (probably at its point of junction with the
Moselle) and almost the entire mass of 180,000 are said to
have perished. The remnant took refuge with the Sicambri or
Sigambri, on the farther shore of the Rhine. Cæsar demanded
the surrender of them, and, when refused, he caused his
engineers to bridge the river in ten days, led his army across
it and laid waste the country of the Sigambri. This was the
first crossing of the Rhine by the Romans. The Suevi offered
battle to the Roman invaders, but Cæsar prudently returned,
and destroyed the bridge.
Cæsar,
Gallic Wars,
book 4, chapters 1-19.
ALSO IN:
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 10 (volume 1).
----------UTAH: Start--------
UTAH: A. D. 1847.
Migration of Mormons from Nauvoo and their settlement on the
Great Salt Lake.
See MORMONISM: A. D. 1846-1848.
UTAH: A. D. 1848.
Acquisition from Mexico.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1848.
UTAH: A. D. 1849-1850.
The proposed State of Deseret.
Organization of the Territory of Utah.
Its name.
"Until the year 1849 the Mormons were entirely under the
control of their ecclesiastical leaders, regarding the
presidency not only as their spiritual head, but as the source
of law in temporal matters. … There was already in their midst
a small percentage of gentile citizens, gathered … from nearly
all the civilized nations of the earth. … Not infrequently
litigation arose among the gentiles, or between Mormon and
gentile; and though strict justice may have been done by the
bishops, it was difficult for the latter to believe that such
was the case. … Thus it became advisable to establish for the
benefit of all some judicial authority that could not be
questioned by any, whether members of the church or not, and
this authority must be one that, being recognized by the
government of the United States, would have the support of its
laws and the shield of its protection. Further than this, if
the Mormons neglected to establish such government, the
incoming gentiles would do so ere long. Early in 1849,
therefore, a convention was summoned of 'the inhabitants of
that portion of Upper California lying east of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains,' and on the 4th of March assembled at Salt
Lake City. A committee was appointed to draught a
constitution, under which the people might govern themselves
until congress should otherwise provide by law. A few days
later the constitution was adopted, and a provisional
government organized, under the name of the State of Deseret.
An immense tract of country was claimed, extending from
latitude 33° to the border of Oregon, and from the Rocky
Mountains to the Sierra Nevada, together with a section of the
territory now included in southern California, and the strip
of coast lying between Lower California and 118° 30' of west
longitude. The seat of government was to be at Salt Lake
City." In July Almon W. Babbitt was elected delegate to
Congress, and that body was petitioned to admit the
provisionally organized State into the Union. The delegate and
his petition met with a cool reception at Washington; but in
September, 1850, Congress passed an act organizing the
Territory of Utah, and Brigham Young was appointed Governor.
"The act to establish a territorial government for Utah placed
the southern boundary at the 37th parallel, the section
between that limit and the 33d parallel being included in the
Territory of New Mexico [organized at the same time], with the
exception of the part transferred to California, by which
State Utah was to be bounded on the west. On the north, Oregon
was to remain as the boundary, and on the east the Rocky
Mountains." "The word Utah originated with the people
inhabiting that region. Early in the 17th century, when New
Mexico was first much talked of by the Spaniards, the
principal nations of frequent mention as inhabiting the
several sides of the locality about that time occupied were
the Navajos, the Yutas, the Apaches, and the Comanches. Of the
Utah nation, which belongs to the Shoshone family, there were
many tribes. … The early orthography of the word Utah is
varied." "Yuta" "was a common spelling by the early
Spaniards, and might be called the proper one. Later we have
'Youta,' 'Eutaw,' 'Utaw,' and 'Utah.'"
H. H. Bancroft,
History of the Pacific States,
volume 21 (Utah), chapter 17, and foot-note, page 34.
See, also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.
{3590}
UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.
The Mormon Rebellion.
"To this would-be 'State of Deseret' President Fillmore had
assigned Brigham Young, the spiritual head of the church, as
territorial governor; and by 1857, when a Democratic President
showed the disposition to apply the usual temporal rule of
rotation to the office, Young was rebellious, and the whole
Mormon population, refusing allegiance to anyone but their
consecrated head, began to drill and gird on their armor for
resistance. Judges of the territorial courts had to flee for
their lives; justice, which had long been tampered with to
absolve church members from punishment, was deprived of
process. It was charged that the Mormon hierarchy had leagued
with Indian tribes to impel them to atrocities against the
Gentile inhabitants, while their own Danites, or destroying
angels, were secretly set apart and bound by horrid oath to
pillage and murder such as made themselves obnoxious to the
theocracy. … President Buchanan appointed as the new governor
of Utah Alfred Cumming, a man combining courage with
discretion, and filled the judicial and other vacancies which
existed. To protect those new officers and aid them in
discharging their functions, he ordered a detachment of
regulars to accompany them to the Salt Lake region. The need
of this was soon apparent. Early in September, 1857, a part of
the troops left Fort Laramie, and on the 15th of the same
month Brigham Young, parading audaciously the commission he
still held from the United States, forbade all armed forces
from entering the territory, and called upon his people to
defend themselves against the 'armed mercenary mob' of
invaders. His legislature, meeting later, sustained him in his
bitter diatribe against the 'profane, drunken, and corrupt
officials,' which a Washington administration was trying to
force upon Utah territory at the point of the bayonet. A
Mormon force had meanwhile advanced to impede the approach of
our regulars, capturing and burning three supply trains of
wagons laden with tents and provisions, stampeding the horses,
and so crippling Fort Bridger, which was distant some twelve
days' march from Salt Lake city, as to deprive our army, on
its arrival, of a proper winter's shelter after its long and
fatiguing march, and compel General Johnston, who commanded
this important post, to despatch part of his forces upon a
dreary and hazardous expedition to New Mexico for further
supplies. Johnston's despatches in October showed the
President that unless a large force was quickly sent out, a
long conflict would be inevitable. Buchanan and his Secretary
of War asked from the present Congress ten new regiments, of
which five might be used to bring the Mormons to subjection.
But the Lecompton controversy was raging; and the use of
Federal troops to put down the free-State movement in Kansas
had caused such mistrust and irritation that none but the
President's unshaken supporters felt inclined to place more
troops at his disposal. The bill for an army increase was
lost, though both Houses passed a measure authorizing the
President to accept for the Utah disturbances two regiments of
volunteers. The volunteers were not called out; but Buchanan
mustered a military force out of the regulars strong enough to
overawe and overpower Utah's rebellious inhabitants. Two peace
commissioners also bore to Utah a proclamation from the
President, dated April 6th, which offered free pardon, except
to those who persisted still in disloyal resistance. Governor
Cumming, upon his arrival, made a like announcement. These
conciliatory efforts, backed by an irresistible show of
military strength, brought the Mormons to a speedy
acknowledgment of allegiance. They fought not a battle, but
manifested a purpose to burn their houses and make a new and
peaceable retreat into the wilderness. From this purpose,
after some conferences, they were at length dissuaded; and it
was agreed in June between the Mormon leaders and our
commissioners that the United States soldiery should be kept
out of sight as much as possible while Utah remained tranquil.
On the last day of the same month the new governor,
accompanied by Brigham Young, came back to Salt Lake city to
assume functions which were fully recognized. A few days
earlier, and before the Mormons had begun to return to their
homes, General Johnston and his troops, leaving Fort Bridger,
reached the desolate city, marched through its streets, and,
crossing its river Jordan, encamped on the opposite bank.
While abandoning all further effort at violent resistance, the
Mormons still clung to the hope of being left to govern
themselves and preserve their institutions against the world's
contaminating touch, by gaining the indispensable condition of
practical isolation and independence. To this Congress in its
next winter's session they renewed the former petitions they
had presented for immediate admission to the Union as the
'State of Deseret.' And should this request be denied, they
prayed that the organic act of the territory might be so
amended as to give the inhabitants the right to choose their
own governor, judges, and other officers. All this Congress
quietly ignored; and in military circles it was still
generally believed that, for all this outward show of loyal
acquiescence, the Mormons felt at heart no more affection for
the United States than for any foreign nation; that the only
rule they really recognized was that of their religion and the
will of their hierarchy; and that force must still be used to
compel them. Such views were entertained by General Albert
Sidney Johnston, the military commander at Utah, destined to
later distinction in the art of war. But Cumming, the
governor, who had the temporizing instincts of a civilian,
thought differently. The two came into collision when Mormons
were brought to trial in the courts for a slaughter of
emigrants in 1857, known as the Mountain Meadow massacre.
[This was the massacre, by Indians and Mormons, of a party of
136 emigrants, from Arkansas and Missouri, who were passing
through Utah to California; it occurred in September, 1857, in
a valley called the Mountain Meadows, about 300 miles south of
Salt Lake city; only 17 young children were saved from the
slaughter.] At the request of the Federal judge, Johnston
furnished a military detachment to guard the prisoners; and
when Cumming, the governor, interposed because of the angry
remonstrance of the people, Johnston would not remove them.
Buchanan, being appealed to, sustained the governor's
authority."
J. Schouler,
History of the United States,
chapter 22 (volume 5).
ALSO IN:
H. H. Bancroft,
History of the Pacific States,
volume 21, chapters 18-21.
W. P. Johnston,
Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston,
chapter 13.
Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse,
Tell it All,
chapter 23.
Report of United States Secretary of the Interior,
36th Congress, 1st session,
Senate Ex. Doc., number 42 (volume 11).
{3591}
UTAH: A. D. 1882-1893.
The Edmunds Act and its enforcement.
Abandonment of Polygamy by the Mormons.
Proclamation of Amnesty for past offenses against the law.
In March, 1882, an Act of Congress (known as the Edmunds Act)
was passed for the purpose of making efficient the law against
polygamy in the territories, which had stood among the
statutes of the United States for twenty years, without power
on the part of the federal courts or officials in Utah to
enforce it, as against Mormon juries. Besides repeating the
penalties prescribed In the Act of 1862, the Act of 1882
provides, in its eighth section, that "no polygamist,
bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman,
and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as
aforesaid in this section, in any Territory or other place
over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction,
shall be entitled to vote at any election held in any such
Territory or other place, or be eligible for election or
appointment to or be entitled to hold any office or place of
public trust, honor, or emolument in, under, or for any such
Territory or place, or under the United States." The ninth and
last section is as follows: "Section 9. That all the
registration and election offices of every description in the
Territory of Utah are hereby declared vacant, and each and
every duty relating to the registration of voters, the conduct
of elections, the receiving or rejection of votes, and the
canvassing and returning of the same, and the issuing of
certificates or other evidence of election, in said Territory,
shall, until other provisions be made by the legislative
assembly of said Territory, as is hereinafter by this section
provided, be performed, under the existing laws of the United
States and said Territory, by proper persons, who shall be
appointed to execute such offices and perform such duties by a
Board of five persons, to be appointed by the President, by
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, not more than
three of whom shall be members of one political party, and a
majority of whom shall be a quorum. The members of said Board
so appointed by the President shall each receive a salary at
the rate of three thousand dollars per annum, and shall
continue in office until the legislative assembly of said
Territory shall make provision for filling said offices as
herein authorized. The Secretary of the Territory shall be the
secretary of said Board and keep a journal of its proceedings,
and attest the action of said Board under this section. The
canvass and return of all the votes at elections in said
Territory for members of the legislative assembly thereof
shall also be returned to said Board, which shall canvass all
such returns and issue certificates of election for those
persons who, being eligible for such election, shall appear to
have been lawfully elected, which certificates shall be the
only evidence of the right of such persons to sit in such
assembly: Provided, That said Board of five persons shall not
exclude any person otherwise eligible to vote from the polls
on account of any opinion such person may entertain on the
subject of bigamy or polygamy, nor shall they refuse to count
any such vote on account of the opinion of the person casting
it on the subject of bigamy or polygamy, but each house of
such assembly, after its organization, shall have power to
decide upon the elections and qualifications of its members.
And at or after the first meeting of said legislative assembly
whose members shall have been elected and returned according
to the provisions of this act, said legislative assembly may
make such laws, conformable to the organic act of said
Territory, and not inconsistent with other laws of the United
States, as it shall deem proper concerning the filling of the
offices in said Territory declared vacant by this act."—The
following Proclamation, issued by the President of the United
States on the 4th day of January, 1893, may be looked upon as
the sequel and consequence of the legislation recorded above:
"Whereas Congress, by a statute approved March 22, 1882, and
by statutes in furtherance and amendment thereof, defined the
crimes of bigamy, polygamy, and unlawful cohabitation in the
Territories and other places within the exclusive jurisdiction
of the United States and prescribed a penalty for such crimes;
and Whereas, on or about the 6th day of October, 1890, the
Church of the Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon
Church, through its president, issued a manifesto proclaiming
the purpose of said church no longer to sanction the practice
of polygamous marriages and calling upon all members and
adherents of said church to obey the laws of the United States
in reference to said subject-matter; and Whereas it is
represented that since the date of said declaration the
members and adherents of said church have generally obeyed
said laws and have abstained from plural marriages and
polygamous cohabitation; and Whereas, by a petition dated
December 19, 1891, the officials of said church, pledging the
membership thereof to a faithful obedience to the laws against
plural marriage and unlawful cohabitation, have applied to me
to grant amnesty for past offenses against said laws, which
request a very large number of influential non-Mormons,
residing in the Territories, have also strongly urged; and
Whereas, the Utah Commission, in their report bearing date
September 15, 1892, recommended that said petition be granted
and said amnesty proclaimed, under proper conditions as to the
future observance of the law, with a view to the encouragement
of those now disposed to become law abiding citizens; and
Whereas, during the past two years such amnesty has been
granted to individual applicants in a very large number of
cases, conditioned upon the faithful observance of the laws of
the United States against unlawful cohabitation; and there are
now pending many more such applications: Now therefore, I,
Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, by virtue
of the power in me vested, do hereby declare and grant a full
amnesty and pardon to all persons liable to the penalties of
said act by reason of unlawful cohabitation under the color of
polygamous or plural marriage, who have since November 1, 1890,
abstained from such unlawful cohabitation; but upon the
express condition that they shall in the future faithfully
obey the laws of the United States hereinbefore named, and not
otherwise. Those who shall fail to avail themselves of the
clemency hereby offered will be vigorously prosecuted. In
witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of
Washington this 4th day of January, in the year of our Lord
1893, and of the Independence of the United States the 117th.
Benjamin Harrison."
{3592}
UTAH: A. D. 1894-1895.
Provision for admission to the Union as a State.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1894-1895.
----------UTAH: End--------
UTAHS, UTES, PIUTES, etc.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.
----------UTICA: Start--------
UTICA:
Origin.
"The most ancient Phœnician colonies were Utica, nearly on the
northern-most point of the coast of Africa, and in the same
gulf (now known as the gulf of Tunis) as Carthage, over
against Cape Lilybæum in Sicily,—and Gades, or Gadeira, on
the south-western coast of Spain; a town which, founded
perhaps near one thousand years before the Christian era, has
maintained a continuous prosperity, and a name (Cadiz)
substantially unaltered, longer than any town in Europe. How
well the site of Utica was suited to the circumstances of
Phœnician colonists may be inferred from the fact that
Carthage was afterwards established in the same gulf and near
to the same spot, and that both the two cities reached a high
pitch of prosperity."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 18.
[Transcriber's note: The meaning of the phrase
'…name (Cadiz)…' appears to be ambiguous.
"The site of … Utica is … about 30 km from Tunis and 30 km
from Bizerte and near … Zhana, … Ghar El Melh, … El Alia,
… Metline."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utica%2C_Tunisia]
UTICA:
Relations to Carthage.
See CARTHAGE, THE DOMINION OF.
UTICA:
Curio's defeat.
Curio, the legate or lieutenant sent first by Cæsar to Africa
(B. C. 49), to attack the Pompeian forces in that quarter,
undertook with two legions to reduce the city of Utica, which
had became the capital of the Roman Province. Juba, king of
Numidia, who was personally hostile to both Curio and Cæsar,
came to the assistance of the Pompeians and forced Curio to
withdraw from its besieging lines into the neighboring
Cornelian camp, which was a famous military entrenchment left
by Scipio Africanus. There he might have waited in safety for
re-enforcements; but the wily Numidian tempted him out by a
feigned retreat and then overwhelmed him. Curio and most of
his men were slain.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 16.
ALSO IN:
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapter 7.
UTICA:
Last stand of the opponents of Cæsar.
See ROME: B. C. 47-46.
----------UTICA: End--------
UTRAQUISTS, The.
See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1419-1434.
----------UTRECHT: Start--------
UTRECHT:
The Episcopal Principality.
"At the last ford of the Rhine a hamlet had in Roman times
been built, possibly a fort also. Nothing is preserved
regarding it but the name, which, in the mutations of
language, passed from Ultrajectum into Utrecht. Towards the
conclusion of the 7th century, Clement Willebrod, an English
priest, who had been educated at the monastery of Ripon,
coming as a missionary into those parts, succeeded, with the
aid of eleven of his fellow-countrymen, in winning over the
Frisian people to the Christian faith. He fixed his abode at
Utrecht, of which he was afterwards appointed bishop; and
gifts of land, at the time of little worth, were made to his
successors by Pepin and Charlemagne. Such was the commencement
of the temporal grandeur of the prince-bishops, whose dynasty
attained to a power little less than sovereign during the
middle ages. … With ready access to the sea, and not without
an early disposition towards these pursuits which their
kinsmen of the Rhineland towns were beginning to follow, the
inhabitants of Utrecht soon became good sailors and good
weavers, and their city throve apace. Enriched by successive
grants of privileges and lands, the bishops of Utrecht
gradually became powerful feudal lords."
W. T. McCullagh,
Industrial History of Free Nations,
chapter 8 (volume 2).
UTRECHT: A. D. 1456.
The bishopric grasped by the House of Burgundy.
"Utrecht was still a separate state, governed by its sovereign
bishop, who was elected by the votes of the chapter, subject
to the approval of the Pope. On the vacancy which occurred
towards the end of the year 1455, the choice of the canons
fell upon Gisbert van Brederode, who had previously been
archdeacon of the cathedral, and was held in general esteem
amongst the people as well as the clergy. The Duke of Burgundy
coveted so rich a prize, rather for its political importance,
however, … than for any direct or immediate gain." The Duke
appealed to Rome; Gisbert was put back into his archdeaconry,
with an annuity for life, and David, a natural son of Duke
Philip, was made bishop. "Thus the foundation was laid for the
permanent union of Utrecht to the other provinces, although
its final accomplishment was destined to be deferred yet many
years."
W. T. McCullagh,
Industrial History of Free Nations,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
UTRECHT: A. D. 1576.
The Spanish Fury.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.
UTRECHT: A. D. 1579.
The Union of the Seven Provinces.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.
UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.
The Treaties which ended the War of the Spanish Succession,
forming the Peace of Utrecht and the Treaty of Rastadt.
The long War of the Spanish Succession was brought to a close
(except as between Germany and France) by negotiations at
Utrecht, which resulted in the concluding of a number of
treaties between the several powers concerned, constituting
collectively what is known as the Peace of Utrecht.
Negotiations to this end were begun by England and France
early in 1711, and preliminaries were settled between them and
signed in October of that year. This action of the English
compelled the other allies to consent to a general conference,
which opened at Utrecht January 20, 1712. The discussion of
terms lasted more than a year, while the war went on. Between
Germany and France the war still continued and it was at
Rastadt (March, 1714), not Utrecht, that the last named powers
came to their agreement of peace. The several treaties
concluded at Utrecht were most of them signed on the 31st day
of March. O. S., or April 11, N. S., in the year 1713, "by the
plenipotentiaries of France, England, Portugal, Prussia,
Savoy, and the United Provinces; the emperor resolving to
continue the war, and the king of Spain refusing to sign the
stipulations until a principality should be provided in the
Low Countries for the princess Ursini, the favourite of his
queen {3593}
The chief articles of this memorable pacification were to the
following purport: It was stipulated that, … Philip, now
established on the Spanish throne; should renounce all right
to the crown of France; that the dukes of Berry and Orleans,
the next heirs to the French monarchy after the infant
dauphin, should in like manner renounce all right to the crown
of Spain, in the event of their accession to the French
throne; that, on the death of Philip, and in default of his
male issue, the succession of Spain and the Indies should be
secured to the duke of Savoy; that the island of Sicily should
be instantly ceded by his Catholic majesty to the same prince,
with the title of king; that France should also cede to him
the valleys of Pragelas, Oulx, Sezanne, Bardonache, and
Château-Dauphin, with the forts of Exilles and Fenestrelles,
and restore to him the duchy of Savoy and the county of Nice;
and that the full property and sovereignty of both banks and
the navigation of the Marañan, or river of Amazons, in South
America, should belong to the king of Portugal. It was
declared that the king of Prussia should receive Spanish
Guelderland, with the sovereignty of Neufchâtel and Valengin,
in exchange for the principality of Orange and the lordship of
Châlons, and that his regal title should be acknowledged; that
the Rhine should form the boundary of the German empire on the
side of France; and that all fortifications, beyond that
river, claimed by France, or in the possession of his most
Christian majesty, should either be relinquished to the
emperor or destroyed; that the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of
Milan, and the Spanish territories on the Tuscan shore, should
be ceded to the house of Austria; that the sovereignty of the
Spanish Netherlands should likewise be secured to that family;
but that the elector of Bavaria (to whom they had been granted
by Philip) should retain such places as were still in his
possession, until he should be reinstated in all his German
dominions, except the Upper Palatinate, and also be put in
possession of the island of Sardinia, with the title of king:
that Luxemburg, Namur, and Charleroy should be given to the
states-general as a barrier, together with Mons, Menin,
Tournay, and other places; and that Lisle, Aire, Bethune, and
St. Venant, should be restored to France. It was agreed that
the French monarch should acknowledge the title of queen Anne,
and the eventual succession of the family of Hanover to the
British throne; that the fortifications of Dunkirk (the cause
of much jealousy to England, and raised at vast expense to
France) should be demolished, and the harbour filled up; that
the island of St. Christopher (which had long been possessed
jointly by the French and English, but from which the French
had been expelled in 1702) should be subject to this country
[England]; that Hudson's Bay and Straits (where the French had
founded a settlement, but without dispossessing the English,
and carried on a rival trade during the war), the town of
Placentia, and other districts of the island of Newfoundland
(where the French had been suffered to establish themselves,
through the negligence of government), and the long-disputed
province of Nova Scotia (into which the French had early
intruded, out of which they had been frequently driven, and
which had been finally conquered by an army from New England
in 1710), should be considered as the dependencies of the
British crown: that Minorca and the fortress of Gibraltar
(conquered from Spain) should remain in the possession of
Great Britain; and that the Assiento, or contract for
furnishing the Spanish colonies in South America with negroes,
should belong to the subjects of Great Britain for the term of
thirty years. That these conditions, especially on the part of
Great Britain, were very inadequate to the success and expense
of the war, will be allowed by every intelligent man, whose
understanding is not warped by political prejudices. … The
other confederates had greater cause to be satisfied, and the
emperor [Charles VI.] as much as any of them; yet was he
obstinate in refusing to sign the general pacification, though
two months were allowed him to deliberate on the terms. But he
had soon reason to repent his rashness in resolving to
continue the war alone. … The imperial army on the Rhine,
commanded by prince Eugene, was not in a condition to face the
French under Villars, who successively took Worms, Spire,
Keiserlautern, and the important fortress of Landau. He forced
the passage of the Rhine … and reduced Freyburg, the capital
of the Breisgau. Unwilling to prosecute a disastrous war, the
emperor began seriously to think of peace; and conferences,
which afterward terminated in a pacific treaty, were opened
between prince Eugene and Villars, at Ranstadt. The terms of
this treaty, concluded on the 6th of March (N. S.) 1714 [but
ratified at Baden the next September, and sometimes called the
Treaty of Baden], were less favourable to the emperor than
those which had been offered at Utrecht. The king of France
retained Landau, which he had before proposed to cede, with
several fortresses behind the Rhine, which he had agreed to
demolish [but restored Freiburg]. He procured the full
re-establishment of the electors of Bavaria and Cologne in
their dominions and dignities; the former prince consenting to
relinquish Sardinia to the emperor, in return for the Upper
Palatinate. … The principal articles in regard to Italy and
the Low Countries were the same with those settled at Utrecht.
Relaxing in his obstinacy, the king of Spain also acceded to
the general pacification."
W. Russell,
History of Modern Europe,
part 2, letter 23 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
J. W. Gerard,
The Peace of Utrecht,
chapters 24-29.
T. Macknight,
Life of Bolingbroke,
chapters 8-9.
G. W. Cooke,
Memoirs of Bolingbroke,
volume 1, chapter 13.
W. Coxe,
Memoirs of Marlborough,
chapters 108-110.
J. C. Collins,
Bolingbroke,
section 1.
A. Hassall,
Life of Bolingbroke,
chapter 3.
See, also,
ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713;
SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776;
CANADA: A. D.1711-1713;
and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713.
----------UTRECHT: End--------
UTRECHT SCHOOL OF ST. MARTIN.
See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: NETHERLANDS.
UXBRIDGE, Attempted Treaty of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).
UXELLODUNUM, Siege of.
See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.
UXMAL, Ruins of.
See MEXICO: ANCIENT, THE MAYA AND NAHUA PEOPLES.
UZES, The.
See PATCHINAKS.
{3594}
V.
VACALUS, The.
The ancient name of the river Waal.
VACCÆI, The.
One of the tribes of the Celtiberians in ancient Spain.
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 4, chapter 1.
VACCINATION, The discovery of.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18TH CENTURY.
VACOMAGI, The.
A tribe in ancient Caledonia, whose territory extended along
the border of the Highlands, from the Moray Firth to the Tay.
See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES.
VACSLAV.
See WENCESLAUS.
VADIMONIAN LAKE, Battle of the.
See ROME: B. C. 295-191.
VAISYAS.
See CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA.
VALDEMAR I. (called The Great), King of Denmark, A. D. 1157-1182.
Valdemar I., King of Sweden, 1266-1275.
Valdemar II., King of Denmark, 1202-1241.
Valdemar III., King of Denmark, 1340-1375.
VALDEVEZ, The Tourney of.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.
VALEA ALBA, Battle of (1476).
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:
14-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, ETC.)
VALENCIA: A. D. 1031-1092.
The seat of a Moorish kingdom.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1031-1086.
----------VALENCIENNES: Start--------
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1566.
Crushing of the first revolt against Spanish tyranny in the
Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1566-1568.
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1576.
The Spanish Fury.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1583.
Submission to Spain.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1656.
Siege and failure of Turenne.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1656.
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1677.
Taken by Louis XIV.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1679.
Cession to France.
See NIMEGUEN, THE PEACE OF.
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1793.
Siege and capture by the Austrians.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER) PROGRESS OF THE WAR.
VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1794.
Recovery by the French.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (JANUARY-JULY).
----------VALENCIENNES: End--------
VALENS, Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 364-378.
VALENTIA.
One of the Roman provinces formed in Britain, extending from
the wall of Hadrian to the wall of Antoninus, covering
southern Scotland. It was named in honor of the Emperor
Valentinian.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 323-337; and 367-370.
VALENTINE, Pope, A. D. 827, September to October.
VALENTINIAN I., Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 364-375.
Valentinian II., Roman Emperor (Western), 375-392.
Valentinian III., Roman Emperor (Western), 425-455.
VALERIAN, Roman Emperor, A. D. 253-260.
VALERIAN LAWS.
See ROME: B. C. 509.
VALERIO-HORATIAN LAWS, The.
See ROME: B. C. 449.
VAL-ES-DUNES, Battle of (1047).
See NORMANDY: A. D. 1035-1063.
VALLACHIA.
See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.
VALLACHS, The.
See WALLACHS.
VALLADOLID, Battle of (1813).
See MEXICO: A. D. 1810-1819.
VALLANDIGHAM, Clement L., The arrest of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (MAY-JUNE).
VALLEY FORGE:
Washington's army in winter quarters.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).
VALLI.
VALLUM.
See CASTRA.
VALMY, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).
VALOIS, The House of.
The direct line of the Capetian kings of France, descendants
of Hugh Capet, ended in 1328, with the death of Charles IV.
The crown then passed to the late king's cousin, Philip of
Valois, son of Charles Count of Valois, who was the second son
of Philip III. He became Philip VI. in the series of French
kings, and with him began the royal dynasty or House of
Valois, which came to an end in 1589, on the assassination of
Henry III., yielding the throne to the Bourbon family.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1328.
For source of the name.
See BOURBON, THE HOUSE OF.
VALOUTINA, Battle of.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
VALTELINE, Annexation to the Cisalpine Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).
VALTELINE WAR.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
VAN BUREN, Martin.
Presidential election and administration.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836, to 1841.
Defeat in Presidential Election.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840.
The Free Soil Movement.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.
VANCOUVER'S ISLAND.
See BRITISH COLUMBIA.
VANDALIA, The proposed western colony of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.
----------VANDALS: Start--------
VANDALS:
Origin and early movements.
"Gibbon declares that a striking resemblance, in manners,
complexion, religion, and language, indicates that the Goths
and Vandals were originally one great people; and he cites the
testimony of Pliny and Procopius in support of this belief.
According to this theory, therefore, the Vandals are of the
Teutonic stock. Other learned men have endeavoured to identify
them with the Wendes; and the Wendes, as we have seen,
according to the authority of Jornandes and others, were
members of the Slavic race. The question has been examined,
with great learning and ingenuity, by M. L. Marcus, Professor
at the College of Dijon, in a work upon Vandal history. His
conclusion, drawn from a comparison of what Tacitus, Pliny,
Procopius, and Jornandes have left us upon the subject, is
favourable to the hypothesis of Gibbon. Between the Wendes and
the Vindili of Pliny, who were undoubtedly Vandals, he
considers that no nearer point of union can be found than that
of the Asiatic origin common to all nations of Slavic and
Teutonic blood.
{3595}
He accounts for the fact that some confusion upon the subject
subsists in ancient writers, by the supposition that the
Slaves, after the great migration of Goths and Vandals to the
South, occupied the locality they had abandoned on the coasts
of the Baltic, and became inheritors of the name, as well as
of the land, of their predecessors. Hence they were commonly,
though incorrectly, called Vindili, or Vandals. … The earliest
locality of the tribe, so far as authentic history can trace
them, seems to have been the district between the Vistula and
the Elbe. Here they were found by the Langobardi, in their
migration towards the South. … In the time of Pliny, we have
that writer's testimony to the fact that the Vandals were
still to be found between the two rivers. But during the next
two centuries their unwarlike habits must have tended to
diminish their importance among their fierce and active
neighbours, of whom the Goths were the most formidable, and
probably the most aggressive. Tacitus, at any rate, in his
tractate upon the Germans [A. D. 100], merely notices them by
name. … Another half-century finds them in a strong position
among the mountains which form the northern frontier of

T. Hodgkin,
Italy and Her Invaders,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 2).
VENICE: A. D. 554-800.
A dukedom under the Exarchs of Ravenna.
See ROME: A. D. 554-800.
VENICE: A. D. 568.
A refuge from the invading Lombards.
See LOMBARDS: A. D. 568-573.
VENICE: A. D. 697-810.
The early constitution of government.
Origin of the Doges.
Resistance to Pippin, king of the Lombards.
Removal to the Rialto and founding of the new capital city.
"Each island had at first its own magistrate: the magistrates
of the most considerable being called Tribunes Major, the
others, Tribunes Minor, and the whole being equally subject to
the council-general of the community; which thus constituted a
kind of federal republic. This lasted nearly three hundred
years, when it was found that the rising nation had fairly
outgrown its institutions. Dangerous rivalries arose among the
tribunes. … At a meeting of the Council-General in A. D. 697,
the Patriarch of Grado proposed the concentration of power in
the hands of a single chief, under the title of Doge or Duke.
The proposition was eagerly accepted, and they proceeded at
once to the election of this chief. 'It will be seen (remarks
Daru) that the Dogeship saved independence and compromised
liberty. It was a veritable revolution, but we are ignorant by
what circumstances it was brought about. Many historians
assert that the change was not effected till the permission of
the Pope and the Emperor was obtained.' The first choice fell
on Paolo Luca Anabesto. It was made by twelve electors, the
founders of what were thenceforth termed the electoral
families. The Doge was appointed for life: he named his own
counsellors: took charge of all public business; had the rank
of prince, and decided all questions of peace and war. The
peculiar title was meant to imply a limited sovereignty, and
the Venetians uniformly repudiated, as a disgrace, the bare
notion of their having ever submitted to a monarch. But many
centuries passed away before any regular or well-defined
limits were practically imposed; and the prolonged struggle
between the people and the Doges, depending mainly on the
personal character of the Doge for the time being, constitutes
the most startling and exciting portion of their history." The
third Doge, one Urso, alarmed the people by his pretensions to
such a degree that they slew him, and suppressed his office
for five years, substituting a chief magistrate called
"maestro dell a milizia." "The Dogeship was then [742]
restored in the person of Theodal Urso (son of the last Doge),
who quitted Heraclea [then the Venetian capital] for
Malamocco, which thus became the capital." In his turn,
Theodal Urso lost the favor of the people and was deposed and
blinded. "It thenceforth became the received custom in Venice
to put out the eyes of deposed Doges." Later in the 8th
century the Dogeship was secured by a family which went far
towards making it hereditary, and rendering it boldly
tyrannical; but the yoke of the would-be despots—Giovanni and
Maurice, father and son—was broken in 804, and they were
driven to flight. The head of the conspiracy which expelled
them, Obelerio, was then proclaimed Doge.
{3603}
"The events of the next five years are involved in obscurity.
One thing is clear. Pepin, King of the Lombards [son of
Charlemagne], either under the pretence of a request for aid
from the new Doge, or to enforce some real or assumed rights
of his own, declared war against the Republic, and waged it
with such impetuosity that his fleet and army, after carrying
all before them, were only separated from Malamocco, the
capital, by a canal. In this emergency, Angelo Participazio,
one of those men who are produced by great occasions to mark
an era, proposed that the entire population should remove to
Rialto, which was separated by a broader arm of the sea from
the enemy, and there hold out to the last. No sooner proposed
than done. They hastily embarked their all; and when Pepin
entered Malamocco, he found it deserted. After losing a large
part of his fleet in an ill-advised attack on Rialto, he gave
up the enterprise, and Angelo Participazio was elected Doge in
recognition of his services, with two tribunes for
counsellors. One of his first acts was to make Rialto the
capital, instead of Malamocco or Heraclea, which had each been
the seat of Government at intervals. 'There were round Rialto
some sixty islets, which the Doge connected by bridges. They
were soon covered with houses. They were girt with a
fortification; and it was then that this population of
fugitives gave to this rising city, which they had just
founded in the middle of a morass, the name of Venetia, in
memory of the fair countries from which their fathers had been
forcibly expatriated. The province has lost its name, and
become subject to the new Venice.'"
The Republic of Venice
(Quarterly Review, October, 1874, volume 137), pages 417-420.
In 803 Charlemagne concluded a treaty, at Aix-la-Chapelle,
with Nicephorus I. the Byzantine or Eastern Emperor,
establishing boundaries between the two empires which disputed
the Roman name. "In this treaty, the supremacy of the Eastern
Empire over Venice, Istria, the maritime parts of Dalmatia,
and the south of Italy, was acknowledged; while the authority
of the Western Empire in Rome, the exarchate of Ravenna, and
the Pentapolis, was recognised by Nicephorus. The commerce of
Venice with the East was already so important, and the
Byzantine administration afforded so many guarantees for the
security of property, that the Venetians, in spite of the
menaces of Charlemagne, remained firm in their allegiance to
Nicephorus. … Venice, it is true, found itself in the end
compelled to purchase peace with the Frank empire, by the
payment of an annual tribute of thirty-six pounds of gold, in
order to secure its commercial relations from interruption;
and it was not released from this tribute until the time of
Otho the Great. It was during the reign of Nicephorus that the
site of the present city of Venice became the seat of the
Venetian government, Rivalto (Rialto) becoming the residence
of the duke and the principal inhabitants, who retired from
the continent to escape the attacks of Pepin [king of Italy,
under his father, Charlemagne]. Heraclea had previously been
the capital of the Venetian municipality. In 810 peace was
again concluded between Nicephorus and Charlemagne, without
making any change in the frontier of the two empires."
G. Finlay,
Byzantine Empire, 716-1057,
book 1, chapter 2, section 1.
ALSO IN:
H. F. Brown,
Venice,
chapters 1-2.
VENICE: 8th Century:
Still subject to the Eastern Empire.
See ROME: A. D. 717-800.
VENICE: A. D. 810-961.
Spread of commerce and naval prowess.
Destruction of Istrian pirates.
Conquests in Dalmatia.
"During the ninth, and the first sixty years of the tenth
centuries,—from the government of Angelo Participazio, to the
coming into Italy of Otho the Great,—the Venetian affairs,
with brief intervals of repose, were wholly occupied with
civil commotions and naval wars. The doges of the republic
were often murdered; its fleets were sometimes defeated; but,
under every adverse circumstance, the commercial activity, the
wealth, and the power of the state were still rapidly
increasing. In the ninth century the Venetians, in concert
with the Greeks, encountered, though with indifferent success,
the navies of the Saracens; but the Narentines, and other
pirates of Dalmatia, were their constant enemies, and were
frequently chastised by the arms of the republic The Venetian
wealth invited attacks from all the freebooters of the seas,
and an enterprise undertaken by some of them who had
established themselves on the coast of Istria deserves, from
its singularity and the vengeance of the republic, to be
recorded in this place. According to an ancient custom, the
nuptials of the nobles and principal citizens of Venice were
always celebrated on the same day of the year and in the same
church. … The Istrian pirates, acquainted with the existence
of this annual festival, had the boldness [A. D. 944] to
prepare an ambush for the nuptial train in the city itself.
They secretly arrived over night at an uninhabited islet near
the church of Olivolo, and lay hidden behind it with their
barks until the procession had entered the church, when
darting from their concealment they rushed into the sacred
edifice through all its doors, tore the shrieking brides from
the arms of their defenceless lovers, possessed themselves of
the jewels which had been displayed in the festal pomp, and
immediately put to sea with their fair captives and their
booty. But a deadly revenge overtook them. The doge, Pietro
Candiano III., had been present at the ceremony: he shared in
the fury and indignation of the affianced youths: they flew to
arms, and throwing themselves under his conduct into their
vessels, came up with the spoilers in the lagunes of Caorlo. A
frightful massacre ensued: not a life among the pirates was
spared, and the victors returned in triumph with their brides
to the church of Olivolo. A procession of the maidens of
Venice revived for many centuries the recollection of this
deliverance on the eve of the purification. But the doge was
not satisfied with the punishment which he had inflicted on
the Istriots. He entered vigorously upon the resolution of
clearing the Adriatic of all the pirates who infested it: he
conquered part of Dalmatia, and he transmitted to his
successors, with the ducal crown, the duty of consummating his
design."
G. Procter,
History of Italy,
chapter 1, part 2.
{3604}
VENICE: A. D. 829.
The translation of the body of St. Mark.
The Winged Lion of St. Mark.
"In the second year of the reign of Doge Giustiniano
Particiacio there was brought to Venice from Alexandria the
body of the holy evangelist St. Mark. For, as Petrus Damianus
says, Mark was brought from Alexandria into Venice, that he
who had shone in the East like the morning star might shed his
rays in the regions of the West. For Egypt is held to be the
East and Venice the West. There he had held the rule of the
Church of Alexandria, and here, being, as it were, born again,
he obtained the sovereignty of Aquileia. Now this is how the
thing was done. The king of the Saracens wishing to build
himself a palace in Babylon, gave command that stones should
be taken from the Christian churches and other public places,
that they might build him a splendid house. And at that time
there came by chance to the Church of St. Mark, Bon, tribune
of Malamocco, and Rustico da Torcello, who had been forced by
the wind, contrary to the edicts of Venice, to put in to the
harbour of Alexandria with ten ships laden with merchandise,
and they observing the sadness of the guardians of the church
(two Greeks, by name Stauratio, a monk, and Theodoro, a
priest), inquired the cause. And they answered that by reason
of the impious edict of the king they feared the ruin of the
church. Thereupon they prayed them to give them the holy body
that they might carry it to Venice, promising them that the
Doge of Venice would receive it with great honour. But the
keepers of the church were filled with fear at their petition,
and answered reproaching them and saying: 'Know ye not how the
blessed St. Mark, who wrote the Gospel, St. Peter dictating at
his request, preached in these parts and baptised into the
faith the men of these regions? If the faithful should become
aware, we could not escape the peril of death.' But to that
they answered: 'As for his preaching, we are his firstborn
sons, for he first preached in the parts of Venetia and
Aquileia. And in peril of death it is commanded, "If they
persecute you in one city, flee ye to another," which the
evangelist himself obeyed when in the persecution at
Alexandria he fled to Pentapolis.' But the keepers said:
'There is no such persecution now that we should fear for our
persons.' But while they spake, came one and broke down the
precious stones of the church, and when they would not suffer
it they were sorely beaten. Then the keepers seeing the
devastation of the church, and their own great danger,
listened to the prayer of the Venetians and appointed them a
day when they should receive the holy body. Now the body was
wrapped in a robe of silk sealed with many seals from the head
to the feet. And they brought the body of St. Claudia, and
having cut the robe at the back and taken away the body of St.
Mark, they placed in its stead the blessed Claudia, leaving
the seals unbroken. But a sweet odour quickly spread into the
city, and all were filled with astonishment, and not doubting
that the body of the evangelist had been moved, they ran
together to the church. But when the shrine was opened and
they saw the garment with the seals unbroken, they returned
quickly to their homes. And when the body should be borne to
the boats, they covered it with herbs and spread over it
pork-flesh for the passers-by to see, and went crying,
'Khanzir, khanzir!' which is the Saracen's abomination. And
when they reached the ships they covered it with a sail while
they passed through the Saracen ships. And as they sailed to
Venice the ship which bore it with many others was saved from
peril of shipwreck. For when the ships had been driven in the
night by a tempestuous wind and were not far from Monte, the
blessed St. Mark appeared to the Monk Dominic and bade him
lower the sails of the ships. Which, when they had done, the
dawn appearing, they found themselves close to the island
which is called Artalia. And ten of them, having asked and
obtained pardon for breaking the edicts of the Doge, they came
to the port of Olivola. And the Doge, and the clergy, and the
people came to meet them, and brought the body, with songs of
thanksgiving, to the Doge's chapel."
Old Chronicle;
translated in "The City in the Sea,"
by the Author of "Belt and Spur,"
chapter 3.
"Our fathers did not welcome the arrival of the captured
eagles of France, after the field of Waterloo, with greater
exultation than the people of Venice the relics of the blessed
Evangelist. They abandoned themselves to processions, and
prayers, and banquets, and public holidays. … The winged 'Lion
of St. Mark' was blazoned on the standards, and impressed on
the coinage of the Republic. … The Lion became the theme of
many political symbols. Thus it was represented with wings to
show that Venetians could strike with promptitude; sitting, as
a sign of their gravity in counsel—far such is the usual
attitude of sages; with a book in its paws, to intimate their
devotion to commerce; in war time the book was closed, and a
naked sword substituted."
W. H. D. Adams,
The Queen of the Adriatic,
pages 42-43.
See, also, LION OF ST. MARK.
VENICE: A. D. 1032-1319.
Development of the constitution of the aristocratic Republic.
The Grand Council.
The Council of Ten.
The Golden Book.
"It was by slow and artfully disguised encroachments that the
nobility of Venice succeeded in substituting itself for the
civic power, and investing itself with the sovereignty of the
republic. During the earlier period, the doge was an elective
prince, the limit of whose power was vested in assemblies of
the people. It was not till 1032 that he was obliged to
consult only a council, formed from amongst the most
illustrious citizens, whom he designated. Thence came the name
given them of 'pregadi' (invited). The grand council was not
formed till 1172, 140 years later, and was, from that time,
the real sovereign of the republic. It was composed of 480
members, named annually on the last day of September, by 12
tribunes, or grand electors, of whom two were chosen by each
of the six sections of the republic. No more than four members
from one family could be named. The same counsellors might be
re-elected each year. As it is in the spirit of a corporation
to tend always towards an aristocracy, the same persons were
habitually re-elected; and when they died their children took
their places. The grand council, neither assuming to itself
nor granting to the doge the judicial power, gave the first
example of the creation of a body of judges, numerous,
independent, and irremovable; such, nearly, as was afterwards
the parliament of Paris. In 1179, it created the criminal
'quarantia'; called, also, the 'vecchia quarantia,' to
distinguish it from two other bodies of forty judges, created
in 1229. The grand council gave a more complete organization
to the government formed from among its members. It was
com·posed of a doge; of six counsellors of the red robe, who
remained only eight months in office, and who, with the doge,
formed the 'signoria'; and of the council of pregadi, composed
of 60 members, renewed each year. …
{3605}
In 1249, the sovereign council renounced the election of the
doge, and intrusted it to a commission drawn by lot from among
the whole council; this commission named another: which,
reduced by lot to one fourth, named a third; and by these
alternate operations of lot and election, at length formed the
last commission of 41 members, who could elect the doge only
by a majority of 25 suffrages. It was not till towards the end
of the 13th century that the people began to discover that
they were no more than a cipher in the republic, and the doge
no more than a servant of the grand council,—surrounded,
indeed, with pomp, but without any real power. In 1289, the
people attempted themselves to elect the doge; but the grand
council obliged him whom the popular suffrages had designated
to leave Venice, and substituted in his place Pietro
Gradenigo, the chief of the aristocratic party. Gradenigo
undertook to exclude the people from any part in the election
of the grand council, as they were already debarred from any
participation in the election of a doge. … The decree which he
proposed and carried on the 28th of February, 1297, is famous
in the history of Venice, under the name of 'serrata del
maggior consiglio' (shutting of the grand council). He legally
founded that hereditary aristocracy,—so prudent, so jealous,
so ambitious,—which Europe regarded with astonishment;
immovable in principle, unshaken in power; uniting some of the
most odious practices of despotism with the name of liberty;
suspicious and perfidious in politics; sanguinary in revenge;
indulgent to the subject; sumptuous in the public service,
economical in the administration of the finances; equitable
and impartial in the administration of justice; knowing well
how to give prosperity to the arts, agriculture, and commerce;
beloved by the people who obeyed it, whilst it made the nobles
who partook its power tremble. The Venetian aristocracy
completed its constitution, in 1311, by the creation of the
Council of Ten, which, notwithstanding its name, was composed
of 16 members and the doge. Ten counsellors of the black robe
were annually elected by the great council, in the months of
August and September; and of the six counsellors of the red
robe, composing a part of the signoria, three entered office
every four months. The Council of Ten, charged to guard the
security of the state with a power higher than the law, had an
especial commission to watch over the nobles, and to punish
their crimes against the republic. In this they were
restrained by no rule: they were, with respect to the
nobility, the depositaries of the power of the great council,
or rather of a power unlimited, which no people should intrust
to any government. Some other decrees completed the system of
the 'serrata del maggior consiglio.' It was forbidden to the
quarantia to introduce any 'new man' into power. In 1315, a
register was opened, called the Golden Book, in which were
inscribed the names of all those who had sat in the great
council. In 1319, all limitation of number was suppressed;
and, from that period, it sufficed to prove that a person was
the descendant of a counsellor, and 25 years of age, to be by
right a member of the grand council of Venice."
J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 5.
"When the Republic was hard pressed for money, inscriptions in
the Golden Book were sold at the current price of 100,000
ducats. … Illustrious foreigners were admitted, as they are
made free of a corporation amongst us. … The honour was not
disdained even by crowned heads. … The original 'Libro d' oro'
was publicly burned in 1797, but extracts, registers, and
other documents are extant from which its contents might be
ascertained."
The Republic of Venice
(Quarterly Review, volume 137, page 433).
ALSO IN:
E. Flagg,
Venice, the City of the Sea,
introduction.
Mrs. Oliphant,
The Makers of Venice,
chapter 4.
H. F. Brown,
Venice,
chapters 5 and 9.
VENICE: A. D. 1085.
Acquires the sovereignty of Dalmatia and Croatia.
See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1081-1085.
VENICE: A. D. 1099-1101.
The first Crusade.
"The movement of the crusades brings Venice to the very
forefront of European history. Her previous development had
been slowly preparing the way for her emergence. The Council,
held at Clermont in 1095, resolved that the armament should
leave Europe early in the following year. The Pope and the
leaders of the Crusades were obliged to turn their attention
to the question of transport for the vast and amorphous mob,
which, without discipline, with no distinction of ranks, with
no discrimination between soldier and monk, between merchant
and peasant, between master and man, was now bent on reaching
the Holy Land, almost as eager to die there as to achieve the
object of their mission, the recovery of the Sepulchre. The
three maritime states of Italy—Genoa, Pisa, and Venice—were
each ready to offer their services. Each was jealous of the
other, and each determined to prevent the other from reaping
any signal commercial advantage from the religious enthusiasm
of Europe. Venice was not only the most powerful, but also the
most eastern, of the three competitors. It was natural that
the choice should fall on her. When the Pope's invitation to
assist in the Crusade reached the city, however, it seems that
the Government did not at once embrace the cause officially in
the name of the whole Republic. There was, at first, a
tendency to leave the business of transport to private
enterprise. But on receipt of the news that Jerusalem had
fallen, the Venetian Government began to take active steps in
the matter. … The Crusade was accepted with enthusiasm. The
whole city engaged in preparing a fleet which should be worthy
of the Republic. Then, after a solemn mass in S. Mark's, at
which the standard of the Cross and the standard of the
Republic were presented to the leaders, the soldiers of the
Cross embarked on the fleet which numbered 200 ships, and set
sail down the Adriatic, making for Rhodes, where they were to
winter. At Rhodes two incidents of great significance in
Venetian history took place. The Eastern Emperors had never
viewed with favour the incursion of the Crusaders. The
creation of the kingdom of Jerusalem was really a usurpation
of Imperial territory. Alexius I. now endeavoured to persuade
the Venetians to withdraw from the enterprise. In this he
failed; Venice remained true to the Cross, and to her
commercial interests. It is at this point that we find the
beginnings of that divergence between Constantinople and the
Republic, which eventually declared itself in open hostility,
and led up to the sack of Constantinople in the fourth
Crusade.
{3606}
Alexius, finding that the Venetians were not inclined to obey
him, resolved to punish them. An instrument was ready to his
hand. The Pisans saw with disfavour the advent of their
commercial rivals in Eastern waters. They were willing to
hoist the Imperial standard as opposed to the crusading cross,
and to sail down upon the Venetians at Rhodes. They were
defeated. The Venetians released all the prisoners except
thirty of the more prominent among them who were detained as
hostages. The first fruits of the Crusade, as far as Venice
was concerned, were the creation of two powerful enemies, the
Emperor and the Pisans."
H. F. Brown,
Venice,
chapter 6.
VENICE: A. D. 1102.
Hungarian conquest of Dalmatia.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 972-1114.
VENICE: A. D: 1114-1141.
Wars for Dalmatia with the Hungarians.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301.
VENICE: A. D. 1127-1128.
Beginning of quarrels with the Byzantine Empire.
"Previous to this time [about 1127], the Venetian republic had
generally been a firm ally of the Byzantine empire, and, to a
certain degree, it was considered as owing homage to the
Emperor of Constantinople. That connection was now dissolved,
and those disputes commenced which soon occupied a prominent
place in the history of Eastern Europe. The establishment of
the Crusaders in Palestine had opened a new field for the
commercial enterprise of the Venetians, and in a great measure
changed the direction of their maritime trade; while the
frequent quarrels of the Greeks and Franks compelled the
trading republics of Italy to attach themselves to one of the
belligerent parties, in order to secure a preference in its
ports. For a short time, habit kept the Venetians attached to
the empire; but they soon found that their interests were more
closely connected with the Syrian trade than with that of
Constantinople. They joined the kings of Jerusalem in
extending their conquests, and obtained considerable
establishments in all the maritime cities of the kingdom. From
having been the customers and allies of the Greeks, they
became their rivals and enemies. The commercial fleets of the
age acted too often like pirates; and it is not improbable
that the Emperor John had good reason to complain of the
aggressions of the Venetians. Hostilities commenced; the Doge
Dominico Michieli, one of the heroes of the republic,
conducted a numerous fleet into the Archipelago, and plundered
the islands of Rhodes and Chios, where he wintered. Next year
he continued his depredations in Samos, Mitylene, Paros, and
Andros. … Peace was re-established by the emperor reinstating
the Venetians in the enjoyment of all the commercial
privileges they had enjoyed before the war broke out."
G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires,
book 3, chapter 2, section 2.
VENICE: A. D. 1177.
Pretended Papal Grant of the sovereignty of the Adriatic.
Doubtful story of the humiliation of Frederick Barbarossa.
A "notable epoch in early Venetian history is the grant on
which she based her claim to the sovereignty of the Adriatic.
In the course of the fierce struggle between Alexander III.
and Frederick Barbarossa [see ITALY: A. D. 1174-1183], the
Pope, when his fortunes were at the lowest, took refuge with
the Venetians, who, after a vain effort at reconciliation,
made common cause with him, and in a naval encounter obtained
so signal a victory that the Emperor was compelled to sue for
peace and submit to the most humiliating terms. The crowning
scene of his degradation has been rendered familiar by the
pencil, the chisel, and the pen. … The Emperor, as soon as he
came into the sacred presence, stripped off his mantle and
knelt down before the Pope to kiss his feet. Alexander,
intoxicated with his triumph and losing all sense of
moderation or generosity, placed his foot on the head or neck
of his prostrate enemy, exclaiming, in the words of the
Psalmist, 'Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis' &c. ('Thou
shalt tread upon the asp and the basilisk' …). 'Non tibi, sed
Petro' ('Not to thee, but Peter'), cried the outraged and
indignant Emperor. 'Et mihi et Petro' ('To both me and
Peter'), rejoined the Pope, with a fresh pressure of his heel.
… Sismondi (following a contemporary chronicler} narrates the
interview without any circumstance of insult, and describes it
as concluding with the kiss of peace. There are writers who
contend that Alexander was never at Venice, and that the
Venetians obtained no victory on his behalf. But the weight of
evidence adduced by Daru strikes us to be quite conclusive in
favour of his version. … In return for the good offices of
Venice on this occasion … Alexander presented the reigning
Doge, Ziani, with a ring, saying, 'Receive this ring, and with
it, as my donation, the dominion of the sea, which you, and
your successors, shall annually assert on an appointed day, so
that all posterity may understand that the possession of the
sea was yours by right of victory, and that it is subject to
the rule of the Venetian Republic, as wife to husband.' … The
well-known ceremony of wedding the Adriatic, religiously
observed with all its original pomp and splendour during six
centuries, was in itself a proclamation and a challenge to the
world. It was regularly attended by the papal nuncio and the
whole of the diplomatic corps, who, year after year, witnessed
the dropping of a sanctified ring into the sea, and heard
without a protest the prescriptive accompaniment: 'Desponsamus
te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique domini' (we espouse thee,
sea, in sign of true and perpetual dominion)."
The Republic of Venice
(Quarterly Review, October, 1874, volume 137),
pages 421-423.
ALSO IN:
G. B. Testa,
History of the War of Frederick I.
against the Communes of Lombardy,
book 11.
Mrs. W. Busk,
Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2).
VENICE: A. D. 1201.
Cause of Hostility to Constantinople.
"Of late years the Venetians had had difficulties with the New
Rome. … These difficulties arose, in great measure, from the
fact that the influence of Venice in Constantinople was no
longer sufficient to exclude that of the other Italian
republics. … But the hostility to Constantinople reached its
height when the Venetians learned that Alexis had, in May
1201, received an embassy from Genoa, and was negotiating with
Ottobono della Croce, its leader, for the concession of
privileges for trade in Romania which Venice had hitherto
regarded as exclusively her own. From this time the Doge
appears to have determined to avenge the wrongs of his state
on the ruler who had ventured to favour his rivals."
E. Pears,
The Fall of Constantinople,
chapter 8.
{3607}
VENICE: A. D. 1201-1203.
Perfidious part in the conquest of Constantinople.
See CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1203.
VENICE: A. D. 1204.
Share of the Republic in the partition of the Byzantine Empire.
See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1204-1205.
VENICE: A. D. 1216.
Acquisition of the Ionian Islands.
See CORFU: A. D. 1216-1880;
and IONIAN ISLANDS: To 1814.
VENICE: A. D. 1256-1258.
Battles with the Genoese at Acre.
"At the period of the Crusades, it was usual in those cities
or towns where the Christians held sway, to assign to each of
the mercantile communities which had borne a part in the
conquest or recovery of the particular district, a separate
quarter where they might have their own mill, their own oven,
their own bath, their own weights and measures, their own
church, and where they might be governed by their own laws,
and protected by their own magistrates. … At Saint Jean
d'Acre, however, the Church of Saint Sabbas was frequented by
the Venetians and the Genoese in common; and it happened that,
in course of time, both nations sought to found a right to the
exclusive property of the building." Collisions ensued, in one
of which (1256), the Genoese drove the Venetians from their
factory at Acre and burned the church of Saint Sabbas. The
Venetians retaliated by sending a squadron to Acre which
destroyed all the Genoese shipping in the port, burned their
factory, and reduced a castle near the town which was held by
a Genoese garrison. Early in 1257 the fleets of the two
republics met and fought a battle, between Acre and Tyre, in
which the Venetians were the victors. On the 24th of June,
1258, a second battle was fought very nearly on the same spot,
and again Venice triumphed, taking 2,600 prisoners and 25
galleys. Through the efforts of the Pope, a suspension of
hostilities was then brought about; but other causes of war
were working in the east, which soon led to fresh encounters
in arms between the two jealous commercial rivals.
W. C. Hazlitt,
History of the Venetian Republic,
chapter 11 (volume 1).
VENICE: A. D. 1261-1263.
The supplanting of the Venetians by the Genoese at
Constantinople and in the Black Sea.
War between the Republics.
The victory at Malvasia.
See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.
VENICE: A. D. 1294-1299.
War with Genoa.
Disastrous defeat at Curzola.
See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.
VENICE: 14th Century.
Fleets.
Commerce.
Industries.
"In the 14th century Venice had 3,000 merchantmen manned by
25,000 sailors. A tenth part of these were ships exceeding 700
tons burden. There were besides 45 war-galleys manned by
11,000 hands; and 10,000 workmen, as well as 36,000 seamen,
were employed in the arsenals. The largest of the war-galleys
was called the Bucentaur; it was a state vessel of the most
gorgeous description. Every year the Doge of Venice, seated
upon a magnificent throne surmounted by a regal canopy,
dropped from this vessel a ring into the Adriatic, to
symbolise the fact that land and sea were united under the
Venetian flag. This ceremony commemorated the victory gained
over the fleet of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa In 1177,
when the Venetians obliged him to sue for peace.
See VENICE: A. D. 1177.
Ascension Day was selected for its celebration, and the
Bucentaur, glorious with new scarlet and gold, its deck and
seats inlaid with costly woods, and rowed with long banks of
burnished oars, for many years bore the Doge to plight his
troth with the words, 'We espouse thee, O Sea! in token of
true and eternal sovereignty.' The merchant fleet of Venice
was divided into companies sailing together according to their
trade. Their routes, and the days for departure and return,
their size, armament, crew, and amount of cargo, were all
defined. In those times the seas were as much infested with
pirates as the deserts with robbers; each squadron therefore
hired a convoy of war-galleys for its protection on the
voyage. There were six or seven such squadrons in regular
employment. The argosies of Cyprus and Egypt, and the vessels
engaged in the Barbary and Syrian commerce, concentrated their
traffic chiefly at Alexandria and Cairo. The so-called
Armenian fleet proceeded to Constantinople and the Euxine,
visiting Kaffa and the Gulf of Alexandretta. A Catalonian
fleet traded with Spain and Portugal, and another with France;
while the most famous of all, the Flanders galleys, connected
the seaports of France, England, and Holland with the great
commercial city of Bruges. The internal traffic with Germany
and Italy was encouraged with equal care, oriental produce
arriving from Constantinople and Egypt, and many other
commodities being distributed, at first by way of Carinthia,
and afterwards of the Tyrol. Germans, Hungarians, and
Bohemians conducted this distribution. In Venice a bonded
warehouse (fondaco dei tedeschi), or custom-house, was
accorded to the Germans, where they were allowed to offer
their wares for sale, though only to Venetian dealers. Similar
privileges were granted to the Armenians, Moors, and Turks,
but not to the Greeks, against whom a strong animosity
prevailed. … The ancient industries of preparing salt and
curing fish were never disregarded. The Adriatic sands
supplied material adapted for a glass of rare beauty and
value, of which mirrors and other articles of Venetian
manufacture were made. Venetian goldsmiths' work was
universally famed. Brass and iron foundries prepared the raw
material for the armourers, whose weapons, helmets, and
bucklers were unsurpassed for strength and beauty.
Ship-building, with a people whose principle it was always to
have more ships than any other state, was necessarily a very
important branch of industry. Not satisfied with penetrating
to every part already opened to enterprise, the Venetians
travelled into regions before unknown, and gave to the world
the record of their daring adventures. Maffeo and Nicolo Polo
spent fifteen years visiting Egypt, Persia, India, the Khan of
Tartary, and the Grand Khan or Emperor of China. Marco Polo,
son of Nicolo, as well as Barthema and Joseph Barbaro,
extended the knowledge obtained by their precursors in
northern Europe and Asia."
J. Yeats,
Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce,
page 98-101.
See (In Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.
ALSO IN:
A. Anderson,
Origin of Commerce,
volume 1.
Venetian Commerce
(Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, volume 5, pages 393-411).
VENICE: A. D. 1336-1338.
Alliance with Florence against Mastino della Scala.
Conquest of Treviso and other territory on the mainland.
See VERONA: A. D. 1260-1338.
{3608}
VENICE: A. D. 1351-1355.
Alliance with the Greeks and Aragonese in war with Genoa.
See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.
VENICE: A. D. 1358.
Loss of Dalmatia.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.
VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379.
Renewed war with Genoa.
The defeat at Pola.
The treaty of June, 1355, between Venice and Genoa (see
CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355), established a peace which
lasted only until April, 1378, when, "a dispute having arisen
between the rival States in relation to the island of Tenedos,
which the Venetians had taken possession of, the Signory
formally declared war against Genoa, which it denounced as
false to all its oaths and obligations. On the 26th of this
month, Vettore Pisani was invested with the supreme command of
the naval forces of the republic. … The new commander-in-chief
was the son of Nicolo Pisani, and had held a commission in the
Navy for 25 years. … Of the seamen he was the idol. … Pisani
sailed from Venice early in May, with 14 galleys; and, on the
30th of the month, while cruising off Antium, came across a
Genoese squadron of 10 galleys, commanded by Admiral Fieschi.
It was blowing a gale at the time, and five of Pisani's
vessels, which had parted company with him, and fallen to
leeward, were unable to rejoin him, while one of Fieschi's
drifted ashore, and was wrecked. Thus the battle which
immediately ensued was between equal forces; but the Genoese
admiral was no match for Vettore Pisani," and sustained a
disastrous defeat, losing four vessels, with all their
officers and crew. "During the summer, Pisani captured great
numbers of the enemy's merchantmen; but was unable to find
their fleet, which, under Luciano Doria, was actively engaged
in cutting up Venetian commerce in the East. In November he
asked permission to return to Venice to refit his vessels,
which were in a very bad condition, but this was denied him;
and, being kept constantly cruising through the winter, at its
expiration only six of his vessels were found to be seaworthy.
Twelve others, however, were fitted out at their own expense
and sent to him by his friends, who perceived that his
political enemies were making an effort to ruin him. At the
end of February, 1379, Michele Steno and Donato Zeno were
appointed by the Government' proveditori' of the fleet. These
officers, like the field deputies of the Dutch republic in
later times, were set as spies over the commander-in-chief,
whose operations they entirely controlled. On the 1st of May,
Pisani left Brindisi, bound to Venice, having a large number
of merchantmen in charge, laden with wheat; and, on the 6th
instant, as the weather looked squally, put into Pola, with
his convoy, for the night. On the following morning, at
day-break, it was reported to him that Doria was off the port
with 25 vessels; whereupon he determined not to leave his
anchorage until Carlo Zeno, whom he was expecting with a
reenforcement of 10 galleys, should be seen approaching. But
the Proveditori, loudly denouncing such a determination as a
reflection upon the valor of his officers and men, ordered
him, peremptorily, in the name of the Senate, to engage the
enemy without delay." The result was an overwhelming defeat,
out of which Pisani brought six galleys, only—" which were all
that were saved from this most terrible engagement, wherein
800 Venetians perished and 2,000 were taken prisoners. …
Pisani was now violently assailed by his enemies; although
they well knew that he had fought the battle of Pola against
his own judgment, and agreeably to the wishes of the
government, as made known to him by its accredited agents,
Michele Steno and Donato Zeno. The Great Council decreed his
immediate removal from the supreme command, and he was brought
to Venice loaded with chains." Condemned, upon trial before
the Senate, he was sentenced to imprisonment for six months.
F. A. Parker,
The Fleets of the World,
pages 100-105.
VENICE: A. D. 1379-1381.
The war of Chioggia.
The dire extremity of the Republic and her deliverance.
After the great victory of Pola, which cost the Genoese the
life of Luciano D'Oria, they lost no time in pressing their
beaten enemy, to make the most of the advantage they had won.
"Fresh galleys were forthwith placed under the command of
Pietro, another of the noble D'Oria family; and before the
eyes of all Genoa, and after the benediction of the
archbishop, the fleet sailed from the harbour, and a great cry
was raised from roof to roof, and from window to window, and
each alley and each street re-echoed it with enthusiasm, 'to
Venice! to Venice!' On arriving in the Adriatic, Pietro D'Oria
joined the fleet already there, and prepared for his attack on
Venice. These were pitiful days for the Queen of the Adriatic,
the days of her greatest peril and humiliation. The Lord of
Padua joined the Genoese; the King of Hungary sent troops, as
did also the Marquis of Friuli, and all seemed lost to her
both by sea and land. Everywhere within the city was misery
and dismay. … To possess himself of Chioggia, which was 25
miles distant from Venice, was D'Oria's first plan. It was the
key of the capital, commanded the entrance to the harbour, and
cut off any assistance which might come from Lombardy.
Chioggia was very strong in itself, defended by bastions on
all sides; its weak point lay in being built on two sides of a
river, which was spanned by a large wooden bridge. It was the
first care of the defenders to block up the mouth of this
river. After a few days of gallant defence, and a few days of
gallant attack by sea and land, the defenders of Chioggia were
reduced to the last extremity. The entrance to the river was
broken open, and the bridge, which for some time was a
stumbling-block to the besiegers, was destroyed with all the
soldiers upon it by the bravery of a Genoese sailor, who took
a boat laden with tar and wool and other combustible
materials, and set fire to it, escaping by means of swimming.
The defenders having thus perished in the flames, and Chioggia
being taken [August, 1379], the triumph of the Genoese was at
its height. It now seemed as if Pietro D'Oria had but the word
of command to give, and Venice would have met with the same
fate as Pisa had but a century before. But with this the
fortune of the Ligurians began to wane. One small cannon of
leather, with a wooden car, brought from Chioggia as a trophy
to Genoa, is all that exists to-day to testify to their
victory." The Venetians, in consternation at the fall of
Chioggia, sent a deputation to D'Oria humbly offering to
submit to any terms of peace he might dictate; but the
insolent victor ordered them home with the message that there
could be no peace until he had entered their city to bridle
the bronze horses which stand on the Piazza of St. Mark.
{3609}
This roused the indignation and courage of Venice anew, and
every nerve was strained in the defense of the port. "Vettor
Pisani, who since the defeat at Pola had languished in prison,
was brought out by unanimous consent, and before an assembled
multitude he quietly and modestly accepted the position of
saviour of his country. … The one saving point for Venice lay
in the arrival of a few ships from Constantinople, which …
Carlo Zeno had under his command, endeavouring to make a
diversion in the favour of the Venetians at the Eastern
capital. Pending the return of this fleet, the Venetians made
an attack on Chioggia. And an additional gleam of hope raised
the spirits of Pisani's men in the disaffection of the King of
Hungary from the Genoese cause; and gradually, as if by the
magic hand of a fickle fortune, Pietro D'Oria found himself
and his troops besieged in Chioggia, instead of going on his
way to Venice as he had himself prophesied. But the Genoese
position was still too strong, and Pisani found it hopeless to
attempt to dislodge them; his troops became restless: they
wished to return to Venice, though they had sworn never to go
back thither except as conquerors. It was in this moment of
dire distress that the ultimate resort was vaguely whispered
from the Venetian Council Hall to the Piazza. A solemn decree
was passed, 'that if within four days the succour from Carlo
Zeno did not arrive, the fleet should be recalled from
Chioggia, and then a general council should be held as to
whether their country could be saved, or if another more
secure might not be found elsewhere.' Then did the law-givers
of Venice determine that on the fifth day the lagunes should
be abandoned, and that they should proceed en masse to Crete
or Negropont to form for themselves a fresh nucleus of power
on a foreign soil. It is indeed hard to realize that the fate
of Venice, associated with all that is Italian, the offspring
of the hardy few who raised the city from the very waves, once
hung in such a balance. But so it was, when towards the
evening of the fourth day [January 1, 1380] sails were
descried on the horizon, and Carlo Zeno arrived to save his
country from so great a sacrifice. Meanwhile, at Chioggia the
Genoese were day by day becoming more careless; they felt
their position so strong, they talked merrily of fixing the
day when they should bivouac on the Piazza of St. Mark. Little
did they dream of the net of misfortune into which they were
being drawn so fast. Besides reinforcements by sea, assistance
by land flocked in towards Venice. Barnabo Visconti, and his
company of the Star, a roving company of Germans, and the
celebrated Breton band under Sir John Hawkwood, the
Englishman, all hurried to assist the fallen banner of St.
Mark. Pietro D'Oria did all he could to maintain discipline
amongst his troops; but when he fell one day in an engagement,
through being struck by a Venetian arrow, a general
demoralization set in, and their only thought was how to save
themselves and abandon Chioggia. … On the 18th of February,
1380, the Venetians made another gallant attack. Both sides
fought with desperation, the Genoese for life, their rivals
for their country and their country's fame. Fearful slaughter
occurred amongst the Genoese, and they were obliged to retire
within the walls. … Driven to extremities, on the 22nd of June
In that year, 4,000 Genoese were taken to the public prisons
in Venice. … Since both parties were tired of war, and
weakened with these extreme efforts, it was no difficult
matter to establish a peace [August 8, 1381]."
J. T. Bent,
Genoa,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
W. O. Hazlitt,
History of the Venetian Republic,
chapter 20 (volume 3).
H. F. Brown,
Venice,
chapter 12.
VENICE: A. D. 1386.
Acquisition of Corfu.
See Corfu: A. D. 1216-1880.
VENICE: A. D. 1406-1447.
Acquisition of neighboring territory in northeastern Italy.
On the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the first Duke of
Milan (see MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447), the eastern parts of his
duchy, "Padua, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, were gradually added
to the dominion of Venice. By the middle of the 15th century,
that republic had become the greatest power In northern
Italy."
E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
page 241.
See ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406.
VENICE: A. D. 1426-1447.
League with Florence, Naples, Savoy, and other States
against the Duke of Milan.
See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.
VENICE: A. D. 1450-1454.
War with Milan and Florence.
Alliance with Naples and Savoy.
See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.
VENICE: A. D. 1454-1479.
Treaty with the Turks, followed by war.
Loss of ground in Greece and the islands.
See GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479.
VENICE: A. D. 1460-1479.
Losing struggle with the Turks in Greece and the Archipelago.
See TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481;
and ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.
VENICE: A. D. 1469-1515.
The early Printers.
The Aldine Press.
See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1469-1515.
VENICE: A. D. 1489.
Acquisition of Cyprus.
See Cyprus: A. D.1489-1570.
VENICE: A. D. 1492-1496.
The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France.
Alliance with Naples, Milan, Spain, the Emperor and the Pope.
Expulsion of the French.
See ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494; and 1494-1496.
VENICE: A. D. 1494-1503.
The rising power and spreading dominion of the republic.
The fears and jealousies excited.
"The disturbances which had taken place In Italy since Charles
VIII.'s advent there, came very opportunely for their [the
Venetians'] plans and policy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496; 1499-1500; 1501-1504.
On every available occasion the Venetians spread their power
all round about them. In the struggle between Charles and
Ferrantino [or Ferdinand, of Naples] they acquired five fine
cities in Apulia, excellently situated for their requirements,
which they peopled by the reception of fugitive Jews from
Spain. Moreover, in the kingdom of Naples, one party had
declared for them. … Tarento raised their standard. During the
Florentine disorders they were within an ace of becoming
masters of Pisa. In the Milanese feuds they acquired Cremona
and Ghiara d'Adda. Their power was all the more terrible, as
they had never been known to lose again anything which they
had once gotten. No one doubted that their aim was the
complete sovereignty over the whole of Italy.
{3610}
Their historians always talked as if Venice was the ancient
Rome once more. … The Turkish war, which had kept them a while
employed, now at an end, they next tried their fortune in
Romagna, and endeavoured, availing themselves of the quarrels
between the returning nobles and Cesar [Borgia, son of Pope
Alexander VI.], to become, if not the sole, at all events the
most powerful, vassals of the papal chair. … The Venetians
prepared to espouse the cause of those whom Cesar had
suppressed. The cities reflected how genuine and substantial
that peace was that the lion of Venice spread over all its
dependencies. Having appeared in this country at the end of
October, 1503, and having first promised the Malatesti other
possessions in their own country, they took Rimini, with the
concurrence of the prince and citizens. Without ado they
attacked Faenza. … They continued their conquests, and, in the
territories of Imola, Cesena, and Forli, took stronghold after
stronghold. … Then it was that the first minister of France
stated his belief that, 'had they only Romagna, they would
forthwith attack Florence, on account of a debt of 180,000
guilders owing them.' If they were to make an inroad into
Tuscany, Pisa would fall immediately on their arrival. Their
object in calling the French into the Milanese territory was,
that they considered them more fitted to make a conquest than
to keep it; and, in the year 1504, they were negotiating how
it were possible to wrest Milan again from them. Could they
only succeed in this, nothing in Italy would be able longer to
withstand them. 'They wanted,' as Macchiavelli said, 'to make
the Pope their chaplain.' But they met with the staunchest
resistance in Julius [the Pope, Julius II.], as in him they
could discover no weak point to attack. As pointedly as he
could express himself, he declared to them, on the 9th
November, 1503, that, 'though hitherto their friend, he would
now do his utmost against them, and would besides incite all
the princes of Christendom against them.'"
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations,
book 2, chapter 3.
VENICE: A. D. 1498-1502.
War with the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1498-1502.
VENICE: A. D. 1499-1500.
Alliance with France against the Duke of Milan.
French conquest of the duchy.
Acquisition of Cremona.
See ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.
VENICE: 15-17th Centuries.
The decline of Venetian commerce and its causes.
"Commerce was for a long time free at Venice; and the republic
only began to decline when its government had caused the
source of its prosperity to be exhausted by monopoly. At first
all the young patricians were subjected to the most severe
ordeals of a commercial training. They were often sent as
novices on board state-vessels to try fortune with a light
venture, so much did it enter into the views of the
administration to direct all citizens toward industrial
occupations! The only reproach that can be brought against the
Venetians, is the effort to exclude foreigners from all
competition with them. Although commercial jealousy had not
yet erected prohibitions into a system, and the ports of the
republic were open to all the merchandise of the world, yet
the Venetians only permitted its transportation in their own
ships; and they reigned as absolute masters over all the
Mediterranean. War had given them security from the Pisans,
the Sicilians and the Genoese. Spain, long occupied by the
Moors, gave them little occasion of offence. France disdained
commerce; England had not yet begun to think of it; the
republic of Holland was not in existence. Under cover of the
right of sovereignty on the gulf, which she had arrogated to
herself, Venice reserved the almost exclusive right to
navigate. Armed flotillas guarded the mouths of all her
rivers, and allowed no barque to enter or depart without being
vigorously examined. But what profited that jealous solicitude
for the interests of her navigation? A day came when the
Portuguese discovered the Cape of Good Hope, and all that
structure of precautions and mistrust suddenly fell to pieces.
Here begin the first wars of customs-duties, and political
economy receives from history valuable instruction. The
Venetians had levelled all obstacles, but for themselves
alone, and to the exclusion of other nations. Their
legislation was very strict in respect to foreigners, in the
matter of commerce. The laws forbade a merchant who was not a
subject of the republic to be even received on board a vessel
of the state. Foreigners paid customs-duties twice as high as
natives. They could neither build nor buy vessels in Venetian
ports. The ships, the captains, the owners, must all be
Venetian. Every alliance between natives and strangers was
interdicted; there was no protection, no privileges and no
benefits save for Venetians: the latter, however, all had the
same rights. In Venice itself, and there alone, was it
permitted to negotiate with the Germans, Bohemians and
Hungarians. As national manufactures acquired importance, the
government departed from the liberal policy it had hitherto
pursued, and the manufacturers obtained an absolute
prohibition of such foreign merchandise as they produced. In
vain, in the 17th century, did declining commerce urge the
reestablishment of former liberties and the freedom of the
port: the attempt was made for a brief moment, but the spirit
of restriction won the day, and the prohibitory regime early
prepared the way for the death of the republic. The people of
Ita]y, however, pardoned the Venetians for their commercial
intolerance, because of the moderate price at which they
delivered all commodities. The Jews, Armenians, Greeks and
Germans flocked to Venice and engaged with safety in
speculations, which were always advantageous, because of the
security which the credit institutions gave and the recognized
probity of the merchants. But soon Venice saw numerous
manufactures spring up in Europe rivaling her own, and her
commerce encountered most formidable competition in that of
the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and English. The discovery of
the Cape of Good Hope took away from her the monopoly of the
spices of the Indies.
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498.
The taking of Constantinople, by Mahomet II, had already
deprived her of the magnificent privileges which her subjects
enjoyed in that rich capital of the Orient. But the discovery
of America and the vigorous reprisals of Charles V, who, at
the commencement of his reign, in 1517, doubled the
customs-duties which the Venetians paid in his states,
completed the ruin of that fortunate monopoly which had made
all Europe tributary. Charles V raised the import and export
duties on all Venetian merchandise to twenty per cent; and
this tariff, which would to-day appear moderate, sufficed then
to prevent the Venetians from entering Spanish ports.
{3611}
Such was the origin of the exclusive system, the fatal
invention which the republic of Venice was so cruelly to
expiate. So long as she sought fortune only in the free
competition of the talent and capital of her own citizens, she
increased from age to age and became for a moment the arbiter
of Europe; but as soon as she wished to rule the markets by
the tyranny of monopoly, she saw a league formed against her
commerce, formidable for a very different reason from that of
Cambray."
J. A. Blanqui,
History of Political Economy in Europe,
chapter 20.
See, also (in Supplement) COMMERCE, MODERN.
VENICE: A. D. 1501.
Hostile schemes of the Emperor and the King of France.
See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.
VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.
The League of Cambrai.
The republic despoiled of her continental provinces.
"The craving appetite of Louis XII., … sharpened by the loss
of Naples, sought to indemnify itself by more ample
acquisitions in the north. As far back as 1504, he had
arranged a plan with the emperor for the partition of the
continental possessions of Venice. …
See ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506.
The scheme is said to have been communicated to Ferdinand [of
Aragon] in the royal interview at Savona [1507]. No immediate
action followed, and it seems probable that the latter
monarch, with his usual circumspection, reserved his decision
until he should be more clearly satisfied of the advantages to
himself. At length the projected partition was definitely
settled by the celebrated treaty of Cambray, December 10th,
1508, between Louis XII. and the emperor Maximilian, in which
the Pope, King Ferdinand, and all princes who had any claims
for spoliations by the Venetians, were invited to take part.
The share of the spoil assigned to the Catholic monarch
[Ferdinand] was the five Neapolitan cities, Trani, Brindisi,
Gallipoli, Pulignano, and Otranto, pledged to Venice for
considerable sums advanced by her during the late war. The
Spanish court, and, not long after, Julius II., ratified the
treaty, although it was in direct contravention of the avowed
purpose of the pontiff, to chase the 'barbarians' from Italy.
It was his bold policy, however, to make use of them first for
the aggrandisement of the church, and then to trust to his
augmented strength and more favorable opportunities for
eradicating them altogether. Never was there a project more
destitute of principle or sound policy. There was not one of
the contracting parties who was not at that very time in close
alliance with the state, the dismemberment of which he was
plotting. As a matter of policy, it went to break down the
principal barrier on which each of these powers could rely for
keeping in check the overweening ambition of its neighbors,
and maintaining the balance of Italy. The alarm of Venice was
quieted for a time by assurances from the courts of France and
Spain that the league was directed solely against the Turks,
accompanied by the most hypocritical professions of good will,
and amicable offers to the republic. The preamble of the
treaty declares that, it being the intention of the allies to
support the pope in a crusade against the infidel, they first
proposed to recover from Venice the territories of which she
had despoiled the church and other powers, to the manifest
hindrance of these pious designs. … The true reasons for the
confederacy are to be found in a speech delivered at the
German diet, some time after, by the French minister Hélian.
'We,' he remarks, after enumerating various enormities of the
republic, 'wear no fine purple; feast from no sumptuous
services of plate; have no coffers overflowing with gold. We
are barbarians. Surely,' he continues in another place, 'if it
is derogatory to princes to act the part of merchants, it is
unbecoming in merchants to assume the state of princes.' This,
then, was the true key to the conspiracy against Venice; envy
of her superior wealth and magnificence, hatred engendered by
her too arrogant bearing, and lastly the evil eye with which
kings naturally regard the movements of an active, aspiring
republic. To secure the co-operation of Florence, the kings of
France and Spain agreed to withdraw their protection from
Pisa, for a stipulated sum of money.
See PISA: A. D. 1494-1509.
There is nothing in the whole history of the merchant princes
of Venice so mercenary and base as this bartering away for
gold the independence for which this little republic had been
so nobly contending for more than 14 years. Early in April,
1509, Louis XII. crossed the Alps at the head of a force which
bore down all opposition. City and castle fell before him, and
his demeanor to the vanquished, over whom he had no rights
beyond the ordinary ones of war, was that of an incensed
master taking vengeance on his rebellious vassals. In revenge
for his detention before Peschiera, he hung the Venetian
governor and his son from the battlements. This was an outrage
on the laws of chivalry, which, however hard they bore on the
peasant, respected those of high degree. … On the 14th of May,
1509, was fought the bloody battle of Agnadel, which broke the
power of Venice and at once decided the fate of the war.
Ferdinand had contributed nothing to these operations, except
by his diversion on the side of Naples, where he possessed
himself without difficulty of the cities allotted to his
share. They were the cheapest, and, if not the most valuable,
were the most permanent acquisitions of the war, being
reincorporated in the monarchy of Naples. Then followed the
memorable decree by which Venice released her continental
provinces from their allegiance, authorizing them to provide
in any way they could for their safety; a measure which,
whether originating in panic or policy, was perfectly
consonant with the latter. The confederates, who had remained
united during the chase, soon quarrelled over the division of
the spoil. Ancient jealousies revived. The republic, with cool
and consummate policy, availed herself of this state of
feeling. Pope Julius, who had gained all that he had proposed,
and was satisfied with the humiliation of Venice, now felt all
his former antipathies and distrust of the French return in
full force. The rising flame was diligently fanned by the
artful emissaries of the republic, who at length effected a
reconciliation on her behalf with the haughty pontiff. The
latter … planned a new coalition for the expulsion of the
French, calling on the other allies to take part in it."
W. H. Prescott,
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,
part 2, chapter 22 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
T. A. Trollope,
History of the Commonwealth of Florence,
book 9, chapter 10 (volume 4).
The City in the Sea,
chapter 21.
M. Creighton,
History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation,
book 5, chapter 14.
L. von Ranke,
History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514,
book 2, chapter 3.
H. F. Brown,
Venice,
chapters 17-18.
{3612}
VENICE: A. D. 1510-1513.
The breaking of the League of Cambrai.
The" Holy League" of Pope Julius with Venice,
Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Henry VIII. against France.
The French expelled from Italy.
The Republic recovers its domain.
See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.
VENICE: A. D. 1517.
Peace with the Emperor Maximilian.
Recovery of Verona.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.
VENICE: A. D. 1526.
The Holy League against the Emperor, Charles V.
See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527.
VENICE: A. D. 1527.
Fresh alliance with France and England against the Emperor.
See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.
VENICE: A. D. 1570-1571.
Holy League with Spain and the Pope against the Turks.
Great battle and victory of Lepanto.
See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.
VENICE: A. D. 1572.
Withdrawal from the Holy League.
Separate peace with the Turks.
See TURKS: A. D. 1572-1573.
VENICE: 16th Century.
The Art of the Renaissance.
"It was a fact of the greatest importance for the development
of the fine arts in Italy that painting in Venice reached
maturity later than in Florence. Owing to this circumstance
one chief aspect of the Renaissance, its material magnificence
and freedom, received consummate treatment at the hands of
Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. To idealise the sensualities
of the external universe, to achieve for colour what the
Florentines had done for form, to invest the worldly grandeur
of human life at one of its most gorgeous epochs with the
dignity of the highest art, was what these great artists were
called on to accomplish. Their task could not have been so
worthily performed in the fifteenth century as in the
sixteenth, if the development of the æsthetic sense had been
more premature among the Venetians. Venice was precisely
fitted for the part her painters had to play. Free, isolated,
wealthy, powerful; famous throughout Europe for the pomp of
her state equipage, and for the immorality of her private
manners; ruled by a prudent aristocracy, who spent vast wealth
on public shows and on the maintenance of a more than imperial
civic majesty: Venice with her pavement of liquid chrysoprase,
with her palaces of porphyry and marble, her frescoed façades,
her quays and squares aglow with the costumes of the Levant,
her lagoons afloat with the galleys of all nations, her
churches floored with mosaics, her silvery domes and ceilings
glittering with sculpture bathed in molten gold: Venice
luxurious in the light and colour of a vaporous atmosphere,
where sea-mists rose into the mounded summer clouds; arched
over by the broad expanse of sky, bounded only by the horizon
of waves and plain and distant mountain ranges, and reflected
in all its many hues of sunrise and sunset upon the glassy
surface of smooth waters: Venice asleep like a miracle of opal
or of pearl upon the bosom of an undulating lake:—here and
here only on the face of the whole globe was the unique city
wherein the pride of life might combine with the lustre of the
physical universe to create and stimulate in the artist a
sense of all that was most sumptuous in the pageant of the
world of sense. … The Venetians had no green fields and trees,
no garden borders, no blossoming orchards, to teach them the
tender suggestiveness, the quaint poetry of isolated or
contrasted tints. Their meadows were the fruitless furrows of
the Adriatic, hued like a peacock's neck; they called the
pearl-shells of their Lido flowers, fior di mare. Nothing
distracted their attention from the glories of morning and of
evening presented to them by their sea and sky. It was in
consequence of this that the Venetians conceived colour
heroically, not as a matter of missal-margins or of
subordinate decoration, but as a motive worthy in itself of
sublime treatment. In like manner, hedged in by no limitary
hills, contracted by no city walls, stifled by no narrow
streets, but open to the liberal airs of heaven and ocean, the
Venetians understood space and imagined pictures almost
boundless in their immensity. Light, colour, air, space: those
are the elemental conditions of Venetian art; of those the
painters weaved their ideal world for beautiful and proud
humanity. … In order to understand the destiny of Venice in
art, it is not enough to concentrate attention on the
peculiarities of her physical environment. Potent as these
were in the creation of her style, the political and social
conditions of the Republic require also to be taken into
account. Among Italian cities Venice was unique. She alone was
tranquil in her empire, unimpeded in her constitutional
development, independent of Church interference, undisturbed
by the cross purposes and intrigues of the despots, inhabited
by merchants who were princes, and by a free-born people who
had never seen war at their gates. The serenity of undisturbed
security, the luxury of wealth amassed abroad and liberally
spent at home, gave a physiognomy of ease and proud
self-confidence to all her edifices. The grim and anxious
struggles of the Middle Ages left no mark on Venice. How
different was this town from Florence, every inch of whose
domain could tell of civic warfare. … It is not an
insignificant, though a slight, detail, that the predominant
colour of Florence is brown, while the predominant colour of
Venice is that of mother-of-pearl, concealing within its
general whiteness every tint that can be placed upon the
palette of a painter. The conditions of Florence stimulated
mental energy and turned the forces of the soul inwards. Those
of Venice inclined the individual to accept life as he found
it. Instead of exciting him to think, they disposed him to
enjoy, or to acquire by industry the means of manifold
enjoyment. To represent in art the intellectual strivings of
the Renaissance was the task of Florence and her sons; to
create a monument of Renaissance magnificence was the task of
Venice."
J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Fine Arts,
chapter 7.
{3613}
VENICE: A. D. 1606-1607.
The Republic under the guidance of Fra Paolo Sarpi.
Conflict with the Pope.
The Interdict which had no terrors.
"In the Constitution of the Republic at this time [1606] there
were three permanent officials called Counsellors of Law, or
State Counsellors, whose duties were to instruct the Doge and
Senate on the legal bearings of any question in dispute in
which the Republic was involved. But at the beginning of this
year, because of the ecclesiastical element that frequently
appeared in these quarrels (for they were mostly between the
State and the Pope), the Senate resolved to create a new
office, namely, that of 'Teologo-Consultore,' or Theological
Counsellor. In looking about for one to fill this office the
choice of Doge and Senate unanimously fell upon Fra Paolo
Sarpi. … I have called Fra Paolo Sarpi the greatest of the
Venetians. … Venice has produced many great men—Doges,
soldiers, sailors, statesmen, writers, poets, painters,
travellers—but I agree with Mrs. Oliphant that Fra Paolo is 'a
personage more grave and great, a figure unique in the midst
of this ever animated, strong, stormy, and restless race'; and
with Lord Macaulay, who has said of him that 'what he did, he
did better than anybody.' … He was supreme as a thinker, as a
man of action, and as a transcript and pattern of every
Christian principle. … Foreigners who came to Venice sought
above all things to see him as 'the greatest genius of his
age.' … On the 28th of January, 1606, he entered upon his
public duties." From that time until his death, seventeen
years later, he not only held the office of Theological
Counsellor, but the duties of the three Counsellors of Law
were gradually transferred to him, as those offices were
vacated, in succession, by death. "During this time question
after question arose for settlement, many of which were of
momentous import, the resolution of which bore, not upon the
interests of Venice merely, but of Europe; and affected, not
the then living generation only, but a remote posterity. In
every case Fra Paolo's advice was sought, in every case it was
followed, and in every case it was right. The consequence was
that the history of the Republic during these seventeen years
was one unbroken record of great intellectual and moral
victories. … Never was there in any land, by any Government, a
servant more honoured and more beloved. The solicitude of the
Doge, of the dreaded Council of Ten, of the Senate, of the
whole people, for the safety and well-being of their
Consultore, was like that of a mother for her only child.
'Fate largo a Fra Paolo'—'Make room for Fra Paolo,' was often
heard as he passed along the crowded Merceria. Fra Paolo loved
Venice with an undying devotion, and Venice loved him with a
romantic and tender affection. The Pope, whose quarrels with
the Republic were the chief cause of the creation of the
office of Theological Counsellor, and of Fra Paolo's election
to it, was Paul V. … Strained relations … [had] existed
between Venice and the Vatican during the last years of
Clement VIII.'s Pontificate. His seizure of the Duchy of
Ferrara, his conduct in the matter of the Patriarch Zane's
appointment, his attempt to cripple the book-trade of Venice
by means of the Index Expurgatorius, all led to serious
disputes, in everyone of which he got the worst of it. Pope
Paul V., who was then Cardinal Borghese, chafed at what he
considered Clement's pusillanimity. Talking of these matters
to the Venetian ambassador at Rome, Leonardo Donato, he once
said, 'If I were Pope, I would place Venice under an interdict
and excommunication;' 'And if I were Doge,' was the reply, 'I
would trample your interdict and excommunication under foot.'
Curiously enough, both were called upon to fill these offices,
and both proved as good as their words. … Paul V. … found
several excuses for quarrel. The Patriarch, Matteo Zane—he
whose appointment had been a matter of dispute with Clement
VIII.—died, and the Senate appointed Francesco Vendramin as
his successor. Pope Paul claimed the right of presentation,
and demanded that he should be sent to Rome for examination
and approval. The Senate replied by ordering his investiture,
and forbidding him to leave Venice. Again, money had to be
raised in Brescia for the restoration of the ramparts, and the
Senate imposed a tax on all the citizens—laymen and
ecclesiastics alike. Pope Paul V. claimed exemption for the
latter, as being his subjects. The Senate refused to listen to
him. … These differences were causing both the Pope and the
Republic to look to their armoury and to try the temper of
their weapons, when two more serious matters occurred which
brought them into open warfare. The prologue was passed, the
drama was about to open. First, two priests in high position
were leading flagrantly wicked and criminal lives. … The
Senate sent its officers, and had the offenders seized and
brought to Venice, and locked up from further mischief in the
dungeons of the Ducal Palace. Pope Paul V. angrily
remonstrated, and peremptorily demanded their instant
liberation, on the ground that being priests they were not
amenable to the secular arm. … Secondly, two ecclesiastical
property laws were in force throughout the Republic; by one
the Church was prohibited from building any new monasteries,
convents, or churches without the consent of the Government
under penalty of forfeiture; and by the other it was
disqualified from retaining property which it might become
possessed of by donation or by inheritance, but was bound to
turn it into money. … Pope Paul V. … demanded the repeal of
these property laws. These two demands, regarding the
imprisoned ecclesiastics and the property laws, were first put
forward in October, 1605. … Early in December, the Pope,
impatient to bring the quarrel to a head, threatened to place
Venice under interdict and excommunication if it did not yield
to his demands. … It was at this acute stage of the quarrel
that the Republic laid hold of Fra Paolo Sarpi, and, as we
have already noted, made him its Theological Counsellor, and
the struggle henceforth became, to a large extent, a duel
between 'Paul the Pope, and Paul the Friar.' On the very day
that Fra Paolo accepted this office he informed the Senate
that two courses of action were open to them. They could argue
the case either de jure or de facto. First, de jure, that is,
they could appeal against the judgment of the Pope to a Church
Council. … Secondly, the Republic could adopt the de facto
course; that is, it could rely on its own authority and
strength. It could set these over against the Pope's, and
whilst willing to argue out the matter in a spirit of reason
with him, yet meet his force with opposing force. If he turned
a deaf ear to right, there was no help for it but to make it a
question of might. The de facto course was therefore the one
Fra Paolo recommended; adding very significantly, 'He who
appeals to a Council admits that the righteousness of his
cause may be questioned, whereas that of Venice is
indisputable.'
{3614}
The Senate hailed the advice thus given, and instructed him to
draw out a reply to the Pope's brief in accordance with it. …
From the moment this reply was received a bitter controversy
was set on foot. Renewed demands came from Rome, and renewed
refusals were sent from Venice. … Meanwhile the eyes of all
the Courts of Europe were directed to the great struggle, and
Venice made them more than spectators by laying its case as
prepared by their Consultore fairly and fully before them. The
time had not arrived for any nation to enter as a party into
the contest, but all frankly expressed their opinions, which
were, with the exception of that of Spain, unequivocally on
the side of Venice. … At last the Pope determined to put into
execution the threats contained in the briefs, and to place
the Republic under interdict and excommunication. On the 17th
of April, 1606, the bull of interdict and excommunication was
launched; twenty-four days being allowed Venice for
repentance, with three more added of the Pope's gracious
clemency. The die was thus cast by Pope Paul V., by which he
was either to humble the Republic, or discredit himself and
his 'spiritual arms' in the sight of Europe. The bull was a
sweeping one. … No more masses were to be said. Baptism,
marriage, and burial services were to cease. The churches were
to be locked up, and the priests could withdraw from the
devoted land. All social relationships were dissolved.
Marriages were declared invalid, and all children born were
illegitimate. Husbands could desert their wives, and children
disobey their parents. Contracts of all kinds were declared
null and void. Allegiance to the Government was at an end."
A. Robertson,
Fra Paolo Sarpi,
chapter 5, and preface.
"It was proposed in the college of Venice to enter a solemn
protest, as had been done in earlier times; but this proposal
was rejected, on the ground that the sentence of the pope was
in itself null and void, and had not even a show of justice.
In a short proclamation, occupying only a quarto page,
Leonardo Donato made known to the clergy the resolution of the
republic to maintain the sovereign authority, 'which
acknowledges no other superior in worldly things save God
alone.' Her faithful clergy would of themselves perceive the
nullity of the 'censures' issued against them, and would
continue the discharge of their functions, the cure of souls
and the worship of God, without interruption. No alarm was
expressed, no menaces were uttered, the proclamation was a
mere expression of confidence and security. It is, however,
probable that something more may have been done by verbal
communication. By these proceedings, the question of claim and
right became at once a question of strength and of possession.
Commanded by their two superiors—the pope and the republic—to
give contradictory proofs of obedience, the Venetian clergy
were now called on to decide to which of the two they would
render that obedience. They did not hesitate; they obeyed the
republic: not a copy of the brief was fixed up. The delay
appointed by the pope expired; public worship was everywhere
conducted as usual. As the secular clergy had decided, so did
also the monastic orders. The only exception to this was
presented by the orders newly instituted, and in which the
principle of ecclesiastical restoration was more particularly
represented; these were the Jesuits, Theatines, and Capuchins.
The Jesuits, in so far as they were themselves concerned, were
not altogether decided; they first took counsel of their
Provincial at Ferrara, and afterwards of their General in
Rome, who referred the question to the pope himself. Paul V.
replied that they must either observe the interdict, or shake
the dust from their feet and leave Venice. A hard decision
assuredly, since they were distinctly informed that they would
never be permitted to return; but the principle of their
institution allowed them no choice. Embarking in their boats,
they departed from the city, and took shelter in the papal
dominions. Their example influenced the other two orders. A
middle course was proposed by the Theatines, but the Venetians
did not think it advisable; they would suffer no division in
their land, and demanded either obedience or departure. The
deserted churches were easily provided with other priests, and
care was taken that none should perceive a deficiency. … It is
manifest that the result was a complete schism. The pope was
amazed; his exaggerated pretensions were confronted by the
realities of things with the most unshrinking boldness. Did
any means exist by which these might be overcome? Paul V.
thought at times of having recourse to arms. … Legates were
despatched, and troops fitted out; but in effect they dared
not venture to attempt force. There would have been cause to
apprehend that Venice would call the Protestants to her aid,
and thus throw all Italy, nay the Catholic world at large,
into the most perilous commotions. They must again betake
themselves, as on former occasions, to political measures, for
the adjustment of these questions touching the rights of the
Church. … I have neither inclination nor means for a detailed
account of these negotiations through the whole course of the
proceedings. … The first difficulty was presented by the pope,
who insisted, before all things, that the Venetian laws, which
had given him so much offence, should be repealed; and he made
the suspension of his ecclesiastical censures to depend on
their repeal. But the Venetians, also, on their part, with a
certain republican self-complacency, were accustomed to
declare their laws sacred and inviolable. When the papal
demand was brought under discussion in January, 1607, although
the college wavered, yet at last it was decidedly rejected in
the senate. The French, who had given their word to the pope,
succeeded in bringing the question forward once more in March,
when of the four opponents in the college, one at least
withdrew his objections. After the arguments on both sides had
again been fully stated in the senate, there was still, it is
true, no formal or express repeal of the laws, but a decision
was adopted to the effect that 'the republic would conduct
itself with its accustomed piety.' However obscure these words
appear, the ambassador and the pope thought they discovered in
them the fulfilment of their wishes. The pope then suspended
his censures."
L. Ranke,
History of the Popes,
book 6, section 12 (volume 2).
"The moral victory remained with Venice. She did not recall
her laws as to taxation of the clergy and the foundation of
new churches and monasteries [nor permit the Jesuits to
return, until many years later]. … The hero of the whole
episode, Fra Paolo Sarpi, continued to live quietly in his
convent of the Servites at S. Fosca.
{3615}
The Government received warning from Rome that danger was
threatening. In its turn it cautioned Fra Paolo. But he paid
little or no heed." On the 25th of October, 1607, towards five
o'clock in the evening, as he was returning to his convent, he
was attacked by three assassins, who inflicted serious wounds
upon him and left him for dead. By great care, however, Fra
Paolo's life was saved, and prolonged until 1623. The would-be
assassins escaped into the Papal States, where "they found not
only shelter but a welcome."
H. F. Brown,
Venice,
chapter 20.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
T. A. Trollope,
Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar.
See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.
VENICE: A. D. 1620-1626.
The Valteline War.
Alliance with France and Savoy against the Austro-Spanish power.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
VENICE: A. D. 1629-1631.
League with France against Spain and the Emperor.
The Mantuan War.
See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.
VENICE: A. D. 1645-1669.
The war of Candia with the Turks.
Loss of Crete.
See TURKS: A. D. 1645-1669.
VENICE: A. D. 1684-1696.
War of the Holy League against the Turks.
Siege and capture of Athens.
Conquest of the Morea and parts of Dalmatia and Albania.
See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.
VENICE: A. D. 1699.
Peace of Carlowitz with the Sultan.
Turkish Cession of part of the Morea and most of Dalmatia.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.
VENICE: A. D. 1714-1718.
War with the Turks.
The Morea lost.
Defense of Corfu.
Peace of Passarowitz.
See TURKS: A. D. 1714-1718.
VENICE: A. D. 1767.
Expulsion of the Jesuits.
See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.
VENICE: A. D. 1796.
Bonaparte's schemes for the destruction of the Republic.
The picking of the quarrel.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).
VENICE: A. D. 1797.
The ignominious overthrow of the Republic by Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL);
and 1797 (APRIL-MAY).
VENICE: A. D. 1797 (October).
City and territories given over to Austria
by the Treaty of Campo-Formio.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).
VENICE: A. D. 1805.
Territories ceded by Austria to the kingdom of Italy.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.
VENICE: A. D. 1814.
Transfer of Venetian states to Austria.
Formation of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE);
VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF; AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846;
and ITALY: A. D. 1814-1815.
VENICE: A. D. 1815.
Restoration of the Bronze Horses taken away by Napoleon.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JULY-NOVEMBER).
VENICE: A. D. 1848-1849.
Insurrection.
Expulsion of the Austrians.
Provisional government under Daniel Manin.
Renewed subjugation.
See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.
VENICE: A. D. 1859.
Grievous disappointment in the Austro-Italian war.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.
VENICE: A. D. 1866.
Relinquishment by Austria.
Annexation to the kingdom of Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.
----------VENICE: End--------
VENICONII, The.
See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
VENLOO, Surrender of.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586.
VENNER'S INSURRECTION.
See FIFTH MONARCHY MEN.
VENNONES, The.
See RHÆTIA.
VENTA.
Three important cities in Roman Britain bore the name of
Venta; one occupying the site of modern Winchester, a second
standing near Norwich, the third at Caerwent in Wales. They
were distinguished, respectively, as Venta Belgarum, Venta
Icenorum and Venta Silurum.
T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon.
VENTÔSE, The month.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER) NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.
VERA CRUZ, Mexico: A. D. 1519.
Founded by Cortes.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1519 (JUNE-OCTOBER).
VERA CRUZ, Mexico: A. D. 1839.
Attacked by the French.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1828-1844.
VERA CRUZ, Mexico: A. D. 1847.
Bombardment and capture by the Americans.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1847 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).
VERAGUA: A. D. 1502.
Attempted settlement by Columbus.
See AMERICA: A D. 1498-1505.
VERAGUA: A. D. 1509.
Attempted settlement by Nicuesa.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1500-1511.
VERCELLI: A. D. 1638-1659.
Siege and capture by the Spaniards.
Restoration to Savoy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
VERDUN: A. D. 1552-1559.
Possession taken by France.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
VERDUN: A. D. 1648.
Ceded to France in the Peace of Westphalia.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
VERDUN, The Treaty of: A. D. 843.
The contest and civil war which arose between the three
grandsons of Charlemagne resulted in a treaty of partition,
brought about in 843, which forever dissolved the great Frank
Empire of Clovis, and of the Pippins and Karls who finished
what he began. "A commission of 300 members was appointed to
distribute itself over the surface of the empire, and by an
exact examination of the wealth of each region, and the wishes
of its people, acquire a knowledge of the best means of making
an equitable division. The next year the commissioners
reported the result of their researches to the three kings,
assembled at Verdun, and a treaty of separation was drawn up
and executed, which gave Gaul, from the Meuse and Saone as far
as the Pyrenees, to Karl; which gave Germany, beyond the
Rhine, to Ludwig the Germanic; and which secured to Lother
Italy, with a broad strip on the Rhine, between the dominions
of Karl and Ludwig, under the names of Lotheringia or
Lorraine. This was the first great treaty of modern Europe; it
began a political division which lasted for many centuries;
the great empire of Karl was formally dismembered by it, and
the pieces of it scattered among his degenerate descendants."
P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapter 18.
{3616}
"The treaty of Verdun, in 843, abrogated the sovereignty that
had been attached to the eldest brother and to the imperial
name in former partitions; each held his respective kingdom as
an independent right. This is the epoch of a final separation
between the French and German members of the empire. Its
millenary was celebrated by some of the latter nation in
1843."
H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 1 (volume l).
See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 814-962.
VERGARA, Treaty of (1839).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1833-1846.
VERGENNES, Count de,
and the French alliance with the revolted American Colonies.
See UNITED STATES OF AM.: A. D. 1776-1778;
1778 (FEBRUARY): 1778-1779,
and 1782 (SEPTEMBER) and (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).
VERGNIAUD AND THE GIRONDISTS.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER),
to 1793 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).
VERGOBRET, The.
The chief magistrate of the tribe of Gauls known as the Ædui
was called the vergobret. "Cæsar terms this magistrate
vergobretus, which Celtic scholars derive from the words
'ver-go-breith,' ('homme de jugement,' O'Brien, Thierry). He
was elected by a council of priests and nobles, and had the
power of life and death. But his office was only annual."
Divitiacus, the Æduian friend of Cæsar and the Romans, had
been the vergobret of his tribe.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 6, foot-note.
VERMANDOIS, House of.
The noble House of Vermandois which played an important part
in French history during the Middle Ages, boasted a descent
from Charlemagne, through his best loved son, Pippin, king of
Italy. "Peronne and the Abbey of Saint-Quintin composed the
nucleus of their Principality; but, quietly and without
contradiction, they had extended their sway over the heart of
the kingdom of Soissons; and that antient Soissons, and the
rock of Lâon, and Rheims, the prerogative city of the Gauls,
were all within the geographical ambit of their territory. In
such enclavures as we have named, Vermandois did not possess
direct authority. Lâon, for example, had a Count and a bishop,
and was a royal domain."
Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
book 1, chapter 5, section 6 (volume 1).
----------VERMONT: Start--------
VERMONT: A. D. 1749-1774.
Beginning of settlement.
The New Hampshire Grants and the conflict with New York.
Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys.
"Among the causes of the controversies which existed between
the colonies in early times, and continued down to the
revolution, was the uncertainty of boundary lines as described
in the old charters. … A difficulty of this kind arose between
the colony of New York and those of Connecticut,
Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. By the grant of King Charles
II. to his brother, the Duke of York, the tract of country
called New York was bounded on the east by Connecticut River,
thus conflicting with the express letter of the Massachusetts
and Connecticut charters, which extended those colonies
westward to the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean. After a long
controversy, kept up at times with a good deal of heat on both
sides, the line of division between these colonies was fixed
by mutual agreement at 20 miles east of Hudson's River,
running nearly in a north and south direction. … The
Massachusetts boundary was decided much later to be a
continuation of the Connecticut line to the north, making the
western limit of Massachusetts also 20 miles from the same
river. … Meantime New Hampshire had never been brought into
the controversy, because the lands to the westward of that
province beyond Connecticut River had been neither settled nor
surveyed. There was indeed a small settlement at Fort Dummer
on the western margin of the River, which was under the
protection of Massachusetts. … Such was the state of things
when Benning Wentworth became governor of New Hampshire, with
authority from the King to issue patents for unimproved lands
within the limits of his province. Application was made for
grants to the west of Connecticut River, and even beyond the
Green Mountains, and in 1749 he gave a patent for a township 6
miles square, near the north west angle of Massachusetts, to
be so laid out, that its western limit should be 20 miles from
the Hudson, and coincide with the boundary line of Connecticut
and Massachusetts continued northward. This township was
called Bennington. Although the governor and council of New
York remonstrated against this grant, and claimed for that
colony the whole territory north of Massachusetts as far
eastward as Connecticut River, yet Governor Wentworth was not
deterred by this remonstrance from issuing other patents,
urging in his justification, that New Hampshire had a right to
the same extension westward as Massachusetts and Connecticut."
After the British conquest of Canada, 1760, "applications for
new patents thronged daily upon Governor Wentworth, and within
four years' time the whole number of townships granted by him,
to the westward of Connecticut River, was 138. The territory
including these townships was known by the name of the New
Hampshire Grants, which it retained till the opening of the
revolution, when its present name of Vermont began to be
adopted."
J. Sparks,
Life of Ethan Allen
(Library of American Biographies, volume 1).
"Lieutenant Governor Colden, acting chief magistrate of New
York in the absence of General Monckton, perceiving the
necessity of asserting the claims of that province to the
country westward of the Connecticut river, wrote an energetic
letter to Governor Wentworth, protesting against his grants.
He also sent a proclamation among the people, declaring the
Connecticut river to be the boundary between New York and New
Hampshire. But protests and proclamations were alike unheeded
by the governor and the people until the year 1764, when the
matter was laid before the King and council for adjudication.
The decision was in favor of New York. Wentworth immediately
bowed to supreme authority, and ceased issuing patents for
lands westward of the Connecticut. The settlers, considering
all questions in dispute to be thus finally disposed of, were
contented, and went on hopefully in the improvement of their
lands. Among these settlers in the Bennington township were
members of the Allen family, in Connecticut, two of whom,
Ethan and Ira, were conspicuous in public affairs for many
years, as we shall hereafter have occasion to observe. The
authorities of New York, not content with the award of
territorial jurisdiction over the domain, proceeded, on the
decision of able legal authority, to assert the right of
property in the soil of that territory, and declared
Wentworth's patents all void.
{3617}
They went further. Orders were issued for the survey and sale
of farms in the possession of actual settlers, who had bought
and paid for them, and, in many instances, had made great
progress in improvements. In this, New York acted not only
unjustly, but very unwisely. This oppression, for oppression
it was, was a fatal mistake. It was like sowing dragons' teeth
to see them produce a crop of full-armed men. The settlers
were disposed to be quiet, loyal subjects of New York. They
cared not who was their political master, so long as their
private rights were respected. But this act of injustice
converted them into rebellious foes, determined and defiant. …
Meanwhile speculators had been purchasing from New York large
tracts of these estates in the disputed territory, and were
making preparations to take possession. The people of the
Grants sent one of their number to England, and laid their
cause before the King and council. He came back in August,
1767, armed with an order for the Governor of New York to
abstain from issuing any more patents for lands eastward of
Lake Champlain. But as the order was not 'ex post facto' in
its operations, the New York patentees proceeded to take
possession of their purchased lands. This speedily brought on
a crisis, and for seven years the New Hampshire Grants formed
a theater where all the elements of civil war, except actual
carnage, were in active exercise. … The hardy yeomanry who
first appeared in arms for the defense of their territorial
rights, and afterwards as patriots in the common cause when
the Revolution broke out, were called Green Mountain Boys."
B. J. Lossing,
Life and Times of Philip Schuyler,
volume 1, chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
S. Williams,
History of Vermont,
chapter 9.
W. Slade, editor,
Vermont State Papers,
pages 1-49.
Vermont Historical Society Collection,
volumes 1 and 3.
VERMONT: A. D. 1775.
Ticonderoga surprised by the Green Mountain Boys.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (MAY).
VERMONT: A. D. 1777.
Stark's victory at Bennington.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).
VERMONT: A. D. 1777-1778.
State independence declared and constitution framed.
Admission to the Union denied.
"The settlers in the land which this year [1777] took the name
of Vermont refused by a great majority to come under the
jurisdiction of New York; on the 15th of January 1777, their
convention declared the independence of their state. At
Windsor, on the 2d of June, they appointed a committee to
prepare a constitution; and they hoped to be received into the
American union. But, as New York opposed, congress, by an
uncertain majority against a determined minority, disclaimed
the intention of recognising Vermont as a separate state. … On
the 2d of July the convention of Vermont reassembled at
Windsor. The organic law which they adopted, blending the
culture of their age with the traditions of Protestantism,
assumed that all men are born free and with inalienable
rights; that they may emigrate from one state to another, or
form a new state in vacant countries; that 'every sect should
observe the Lord's day, and keep up some sort of religious
worship'; that every man may choose that form of religious
worship 'which shall seem to him most agreeable to the
revealed will of God. 'They provided for a school in each
town, a grammar-school in each county, and a university in the
state. All officers, alike executive and legislative, were to
be chosen annually and by ballot; the freemen of every town
and all one year's residents were electors. Every member of
the house of representatives must declare his 'belief in one
God …; in the divine inspiration of the scriptures; and in the
Protestant religion.' The legislative power was vested in one
general assembly, subject to no veto. … Slavery was forbidden
and forever; and there could be no imprisonment for debt. …
After the loss of Ticonderoga, the introduction of the
constitution was postponed [until March, 1778], lest the
process of change should interfere with the public defence."
G. Bancroft,
History of the United States (Author's last revision),
volume 5, pages 157, and 161-162.
ALSO IN;
Ira Allen,
History of Vermont
(Vermont Historical Society Collection,
volume 1, pages 375-393).
Vermont Historical Society Collection,
volume 3.
R. E. Robinson,
Vermont: a Study of Independence,
chapters 10-14.
VERMONT: A. D. 1781.
Negotiations with the British authorities
as an independent State.
Vermont had repeatedly applied for admission into the Union;
but the opposition of her neighbors, who claimed her
territory, and the jealousy of the southern states, who
objected to the admission of another northern state, prevented
favorable action in Congress. In 1780 a fresh appeal was made
with a declaration that if it failed the people of the Green
Mountains would propose to the other New England states and to
New York, "an alliance and confederation for mutual defense,
independent of Congress and of the other states." If neither
Congress nor the northern states would listen to them, then,
said the memorial, "they are, if necessitated to it, at
liberty to offer or accept terms of cessation of hostilities
with Great Britain without the approbation of any other man or
body of men." "The British generals in America had for some
time entertained hopes of turning the disputes in relation to
Vermont to their own account, by detaching that district from
the American cause and making it a British province. But the
first intimation of their views and wishes was communicated in
a letter from Colonel Beverly Robinson to Ethan Allen; dated
New York, March 30th, 1780. In July, this letter was delivered
to Allen in the street in Arlington, by a British soldier in
the habit of an American farmer. Allen perused the letter, and
then told the bearer that he should consider it, and that he
might return. … Allen immediately communicated the contents of
this letter to Governor Chittenden and some other confidential
friends, who agreed in opinion, that no answer should be
returned. Robinson, not receiving a reply to his letter and
supposing it to have been miscarried, wrote again to Allen on
the 2d of February, 1781, enclosing his former letter. In his
second letter, after saying he had received new assurances of
the inclination of Vermont to join the king's cause, he said
that he could then write with more authority; and assured
Allen that he and the people of Vermont could obtain the most
favorable terms, provided they would take a decisive and
active part in favor of Great Britain. He requested an answer;
and that the way might be pointed out for continuing the
correspondence; and desired to be informed in what manner the

Castlereagh, gave priority to the Polish question; but
Talleyrand saw that Saxony, not Poland, was the lever by which
he could throw half of Europe on to the side of France; and
before the four Allied Courts had come to any single
conclusion, the French statesman had succeeded, on what at
first passed for a subordinate point, in breaking up their
concert. For a while the Ministers of Austria, Prussia, and
England appeared to be acting in harmony; and throughout the
month of October all three endeavoured to shake the purpose of
Alexander regarding Warsaw. Talleyrand, however, foresaw that
the efforts of Prussia in this direction would not last very
long, and he wrote to Louis XVIII. asking for his permission
to make a definite offer of armed assistance to Austria in
case of need. Events took the turn which Talleyrand expected.
… He had isolated Russia and Prussia, and had drawn to his own
side not only England and Austria but the whole body of the
minor German States. … On the 3rd of January, 1815, after a
rash threat of war uttered by Hardenberg, a secret treaty was
signed by the representatives of France, England, and Austria,
pledging these Powers to take the field, if necessary, against
Russia and Prussia in defence of the principles of the Peace
of Paris. The plan of the campaign was drawn up, the number of
the forces fixed. Bavaria had already armed; Piedmont,
Hanover, and even the Ottoman Porte, were named as future
members of the alliance. It would perhaps be unfair to the
French Minister to believe that he actually desired to kindle
a war on this gigantic scale. Talleyrand had not, like
Napoleon, a love for war for its own sake. His object was
rather to raise France from its position as a conquered and
isolated Power; to surround it with allies. … The conclusion
of the secret treaty of January 3rd marked the definite
success of his plans. France was forthwith admitted into the
council hitherto known as that of the Four Courts, and from
this time its influence visibly affected the action of Russia
and Prussia, reports of the secret treaty having reached the
Czar immediately after its signature. The spirit of compromise
now began to animate the Congress. Alexander had already won a
virtual decision in his favour on the Polish question, but he
abated something of his claims, and while gaining the lion's
share of the Duchy of Warsaw, he ultimately consented that
Cracow, which threatened the Austrian frontier, should be
formed into an independent Republic, and that Prussia should
receive the fortresses of Dantzic and Thorn on the Vistula,
with the district lying between Thorn and the border of
Silesia. This was little for Alexander to abandon; on the
Saxon question the allies of Talleyrand gained most that they
demanded. The King of Saxony was restored to his throne, and
permitted to retain Dresden and about half of his dominions.
Prussia received the remainder. In lieu of a further expansion
in Saxony, Prussia was awarded territory on the left bank of
the Rhine, which, with its recovered Westphalian provinces,
restored the monarchy to an area and population equal to that
which it had possessed in 1805. But the dominion given to
Prussia beyond the Rhine, though considered at the time to be
a poor equivalent for the second half of Saxony, was in
reality a gift of far greater value.
{3626}
It made Prussia, in defence of its own soil, the guardian and
bulwark of Germany against France. … It gave to Prussia
something more in common with Bavaria and the South, and
qualified it, as it had not been qualified before, for its
future task of uniting Germany under its own leadership. The
Polish and Saxon difficulties, which had threatened the peace
of Europe, were virtually settled before the end of the month
of January."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Modern Europe,
volume 2, chapter 1.
"Prussia obtained Posen with the town of Thorn in the east,
and in the west all that had been lost by the treaty of
Tilsit, the duchies of Jülich and Berg, the old electoral
territories of Cologne and Trier with the city of Aachen, and
parts of Luxemburg and Limburg. Russia received the whole of
the grand-duchy of Warsaw except Posen and Thorn, and
Alexander fulfilled his promises to the Poles by granting them
a liberal constitution. … Swedish Pomerania had been ceded by
the treaty of Kiel to Denmark, but had long been coveted by
Prussia. The Danish claims were bought off with two million
thalers and the duchy of Lauenburg, but Hanover had to be
compensated for the latter by the cession of the devotedly
loyal province of East Friesland, one of the acquisitions of
Frederick the Great. Hanover, which now assumed the rank of a
kingdom without opposition, was also aggrandised by the
acquisition of Hildesheim, Goslar, and other small districts.
Austria was naturally one of the great gainers by the
Congress. Eastern Galicia was restored by Russia, and the
Tyrol, Salzburg, and the Inn district by Bavaria. As
compensation for the Netherlands, Venetia and Lombardy became
Austrian provinces. Bavaria, in return for its losses in the
east, received Würzburg, Aschaffenburg, and its former
possessions in the Palatinate. Long discussions took place
about the constitution to be given to Germany, and here the
hopes of the national party were doomed to bitter
disappointment. … Finally a Confederation was formed which
secured the semblance of unity, but gave almost complete
independence to the separate states.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820.
The members numbered thirty-eight, and included the four
remaining free cities, Frankfort, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen,
and the kings of Denmark and the Netherlands. … In Italy the
same process of restoration and subdivision was carried out.
Victor Emmanuel I. recovered his kingdom of Sardinia, with the
addition of Genoa as compensation for the portion of Savoy
which France retained. Modena was given to a Hapsburg prince,
Francis IV., son of the archduke Ferdinand, and Beatrice the
heiress of the house of Este. Tuscany was restored to
Ferdinand III., a brother of the Austrian Emperor. Charles
Louis, son of the Bourbon king of Etruria, was compensated
with Lucca and a promise of the succession in the duchy of
Parma, which was for the time given to Napoleon's wife, Maria
Louisa. Pius VII. had already returned to Rome, and the Papal
states now recovered their old extent. But Pius refused at
first to accept these terms because he was deprived of Avignon
and the Venaissin, and because Austrian garrisons were in
occupation of Ferrara and Comacchio. Naples was left for a
time in the hands of Joachim Murat, as a reward for his
desertion of Napoleon after the battle of Leipzig. Switzerland
was declared independent and neutral, but its feudal unity was
loosened by a new constitution (August, 1815). The number of
cantons were raised to twenty-two by the addition of Geneva,
Wallis (Vallais), and Neufchâtel the last under Prussian
suzerainty. The position of capital was to be enjoyed in
rotation by Berne, Zurich, and Lucerne. The kingdom of the
Netherlands was formed for the house of Orange by the union of
Holland and Belgium and the addition of Luxemburg, which made
the king a member of the German Confederation. The professed
object of this artificial union of Catholics and Protestants
was the erection of a strong bulwark against French
aggressions."
R. Lodge,
History of Modern Europe,
chapter 24, section 52.
ALSO IN:
E. Hertslet,
The Map of Europe by Treaty,
volume 1, number 27.
Prince Talleyrand,
Memoirs,
part 8 (volume 2).
Prince Talleyrand,
Correspondence with Louis XVIII.
during the Congress of Vienna.
Prince Metternich,
Memoirs,
volume 2, pages 553-599.
J. R. Seeley,
Life and Times of Stein,
part 8 (volume 3).
Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 92 (volume 19).
VIENNA, Imperial Library of.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN: EUROPE.
VIENNA,
Treaty of (1725).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.
Treaty of (1735).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.
Treaty of (1864).
See GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.
VIENNE, OR VIENNA, on the Rhone.
Vienne, on the Rhone, was the chief town of the Allobroges in
ancient times,—subsequently made a Roman colony. It was from
Vienne that Lugdunum (Lyons) was originally colonized.
VIENNE on the Rhone: A. D. 500.
Under the Burgundians.
See BURGUNDIANS: A. D. 500.
VIENNE on the Rhone: 11th Century.
Founding of the Dauphiny.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1032.
VIENNE on the Rhone: A. D. 1349.
The appanage of the Dauphins of France.
See DAUPHINS;
also, BURGUNDY: A. D. 1127-1378.
VIGILANCE COMMITTEE OF SAN FRANCISCO, The.
See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1856.
VIGO BAY, The Destruction of Spanish treasure ships in.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1702.
VIKINGS.
See NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: 8-9TH CENTURIES.
VILAGOS, Hungarian surrender at (1849).
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.
VILLA VICIOSA,
VILLA VIÇOSA, Battle of (1665).
See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1637-1668.
VILLA VICIOSA: Battle of (1710).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.
VILLAFRANCA. Peace of.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.
VILLALAR, Battle of (1521).
See SPAIN: A. D. 1518-1522.
VILLEIN TAX, OR TAILLE.
See TAILLE AND GABELLE.
VILLEINAGE. Tenure in.
See FEUDAL TENURES; and MANORS.
VILLEINS.
VILLANI.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN (ESPECIALLY UNDER ENGLAND);
also, DEDITITIUS.
VILLERSEXEL, Battle of (1871).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.
VILLMERGEN, Battles of(1656, 1712, and 1841).
See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1652-1789: and 1803-1848.
{3627}
VIMIERO, Battle of (1808).
See SPAIN: A. D.: 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).
VIMINAL, The.
See SEVEN HILLS OF ROME.
VIMORY, Battle of (1587).
See FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.
VINCENNES, Indiana: A. D. 1735.
Founded by the French.
See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.
VINCENNES, Indiana: A. D. 1778-1779.
Taken and retaken from the British by
the Virginian General Clark.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779
CLARK'S CONQUEST.
VINCENTIAN CONGREGATION, The.
See LAZARISTS.
VINCI, Battle of (A. D. 717).
See FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.
VINDALIUM, Battle at (B. C. 121).
See ALLOBROGES, CONQUEST OF THE.
VINDELICIANS, The.
See RHÆTIA.
VINDOBONA.
Vindobona, modern Vienna, on the Danube, originally a town of
the Celts, in Pannonia, became a Roman military and naval
station and a frontier city of importance. Marcus Aurelius
died at Vindobona, A. D. 180.
VINEÆ.
The vineæ of Roman siege operations were "covered galleries,
constructed of wicker work (vimina) generally, and sometimes
of wood, for the purpose of covering the approach of the
besiegers."
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 4, chapter 3, foot-note.
VINLAND.
See AMERICA: 10-11TH CENTURIES.
VIONVILLE, Battle of.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST).
VIRCHOW, and Cellular Pathology.
See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19TH CENTURY.
VIRGATE.
See HIDE OF LAND;
also, MANORS.
----------VIRGINIA: Start--------
VIRGINIA.
The aboriginal inhabitants.
See AMERICAN ABORIGINES, POWHATAN CONFEDERACY,
ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH,
and CHEROKEES.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1584.
The name given first to Raleigh's Roanoke settlement,
on the Carolina coast.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1584-1586.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607.
The Virginia Company of London and its charter.
The colony planted at Jamestown.
"The colonization of the North American coast had now become
part of the avowed policy of the British government. In 1606 a
great joint-stock company was formed for the establishment of
two colonies in America. The branch which was to take charge
of the proposed southern colony had its headquarters in
London; the management of the northern branch was at Plymouth
in Devonshire. Hence the two branches are commonly spoken of
as the London and Plymouth Companies. The former was also
called the Virginia Company, and the latter the North Virginia
Company, as the name of Virginia was then loosely applied to
the entire Atlantic coast north of Florida. The London Company
had jurisdiction from 34° to 38° north latitude; the Plymouth
Company had jurisdiction from 45° down to 41°; the intervening
territory, between 38° and 41° was to go to whichever company
should first plant a self-supporting colony."
J. Fiske,
The Beginnings of New England,
chapter 2.
"The charter for colonizing the great central territory of the
North American continent, which was to be the chosen abode of
liberty, gave to the mercantile corporation nothing but a
wilderness, with the right of peopling and defending it. By an
extension of the prerogative, which was in itself illegal, the
monarch assumed absolute legislative as well as executive
powers. … The general superintendence was confided to a
council in England; the local administration of each colony to
a resident council. The members of the superior council in
England were appointed exclusively by the king, and were to
hold office at his good pleasure. Their authority extended to
both colonies, which jointly took the name of Virginia. Each
of the two was to have its own resident council, of which the
members were from time to time to be ordained and removed
according to the instructions of the king. To the king,
moreover, was reserved supreme legislative authority over the
several colonies, extending to their general condition and the
most minute regulation of their affairs. … The summer was
spent in preparations for planting the first colony, for which
the king found a grateful occupation in framing a code of
laws. The superior council in England was permitted to name
the colonial council, which was independent of the emigrants,
and had power to elect or remove its president, to remove any
of its members, and to supply its own vacancies. Not an
element of popular liberty or control was introduced. Religion
was established according to the doctrine and rites of the
church within the realm. … Then, on the 19th day of December,
in the year of our Lord 1606, one hundred and nine years after
the discovery of the American continent by Cabot, forty-one
years from the settlement of Florida, the squadron of three
vessels, the largest not exceeding 100 tons' burden, with the
favor of all England, stretched their sails for 'the dear
strand of Virginia, earth's only paradise.' … The enterprise
was ill concerted. Of the 105 on the list of emigrants, there
were but 12 laborers and few mechanics. They were going to a
wilderness, in which, as yet, not a house was standing; and
there were 48 gentlemen to 4 carpenters. Neither were there
any men with families. Newport, who commanded the ships, was
acquainted with the old passage, and sailed by way of the
Canaries and the West India Islands. As he turned to the
north, a severe storm, in April, 1607, carried his fleet
beyond the settlement of Raleigh, into the magnificent bay of
the Chesapeake. The headlands received and retain the names of
Cape Henry and Cape Charles, from the sons of King James; the
deep water for anchorage, 'putting the emigrants in good
Comfort,' gave a name to the northern point; and within the
capes a country opened which appeared to 'claim the
prerogative over the most pleasant places in the world.' … A
noble river was soon entered, which was named from the
monarch; and, after a search of seventeen days, … on the 13th
of May they reached a peninsula about 50 miles above the mouth
of the stream, where the water near the shore was so very deep
that the ships were moored to trees.
{3628}
Here the council, except Smith, who for no reason unless it
were jealousy of his superior energy was for nearly a month
kept out of his seat, took the oath of office, and the
majority elected Edward Maria Wingfield president for the
coming year. Contrary to the earnest and persistent advice of
Bartholomew Gosnold, the peninsula was selected for the site
of the colony, and took the name of Jamestown."
G. Bancroft,
History of the United States,
part 1, chapter 6 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
E. D. Neill,
History of the Virginia Company of London,
chapter 1,
and Virginia Vetusta,
chapters 1-2.
J. Burk,
History of Virginia,
volume 1, chapter 3.
E. M. Wingfield,
Discourse of Virginia,
edited by C. Deane (Archœologia Americana, volume 4).
H. W. Preston,
Documents Illustrative of American History,
page 1.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1607-1610.
The settlement at Jamestown and the services
of Captain John Smith.
"Among the leaders of the expedition were Gosnold, the voyager
and discoverer, and a prime mover in the affair; Wingfield,
one of the first-named patentees, John Smith, Ratcliffe,
Martin, Kendall, and Percy. Of these men John Smith has become
famous. He has taken place among the founders of states, and a
romantic interest has attached itself to his name. For
centuries his character and deeds have been applauded, while
in late years they have become a theme for censure and
detraction. Modern investigation has relentlessly swept a way
the romance, and torn in pieces many of the long accepted
narratives in which Smith recorded his own achievements. Yet
it was not wholly by a false and fluent pen that Smith
obtained and held his reputation. He was something more than a
plausible writer of fiction. He was the strongest and most
representative man among the Virginian colonists. … With this
hopeful company Newport left the Downs on the 1st of January,
1607. The worthy Richard Hakluyt sent them a paper containing
much good advice and some ingenious geographical speculations,
and Drayton celebrated their departure in clumsy verses filled
with high-flown compliments. The advice of the priest and the
praise of the poet were alike wasted. By an arrangement
ingeniously contrived to promote discord, devised probably by
royal sagacity, the box containing the names of the council
was not to be opened until the voyagers reached their
destination. Dissension broke out almost immediately. Whatever
the merits of the differences, this much is certain, that
Smith was the object of the concentrated jealousy and hatred
of his companions. … On the 13th of May, 1607, the settlers
landed at Jamestown, sent out exploring parties, and began
fortifications. A fortnight later, under the command of
Wingfield, they repulsed an attack by the Indians; and on the
22d of June Newport sailed for England, and left them to their
own resources. The prospect must have been a dreary one:
nothing answered to their expectations. Instead of valuable
mines, the adventurers found only a most fertile soil; instead
of timid, trusting South American Indians, they encountered
wild tribes of hardy, crafty, and hostile savages; instead of
rich, defenceless, and barbarian cities, an easy and splendid
spoil, they found a wilderness, and the necessity of hard
work. From the miserable character of the settlers, dangerous
factions prevailed from the first, until Smith obtained
control, and maintained some sort of order—despotically,
perhaps, but still effectually. No one would work, and famine
and the Indians preyed upon them mercilessly. A small fort and
a few wretched huts, built after much quarrelling, represented
for many months all that was accomplished. The only relief
from this dark picture of incompetent men perishing, without
achievement, and by their own folly, on the threshold of a
great undertaking, is to be found in the conduct of Smith.
Despite almost insurmountable obstacles, Smith kept the colony
together for two years. He drilled the soldiers, compelled
labor, repaired the fort, traded with the Indians, outwitted
them and kept their friendship, and made long and daring
voyages of discovery. He failed to send home a lump of gold,
but he did send an excellent map of the Company's territory.
He did not discover the passage to the South Sea, but he
explored the great bays and rivers of Virginia. He did not
find Raleigh's lost colonists, but he managed to keep his own
from total destruction. The great result of all Smith's
efforts was the character of permanency he gave to the
settlement. Because he succeeded in maintaining an English
colony for two consecutive years in America, the London
Company had courage to proceed; and this is what constitutes
Smith's strongest claim to the admiration and gratitude of
posterity. To suppose that he had the qualities of a founder
of a state is a mistake, although in some measure he did the
work of one. … His veracity as a historian in the later years
of his life has been well-nigh destroyed. But little faith can
be placed in the 'Generall Historie,' and modern investigation
has conclusively relegated to the region of legend and of
fiction the dramatic story of Smith's rescue by Pocahontas.
The shadow of doubt rests upon all his unsupported statements;
but nothing can obscure his great services, to which the world
owes the foundation of the first English colony in America.
Yet, after all his struggles, Smith was severely blamed by the
Company, apparently because Virginia was not Peru. In a manly
letter he sets forth the defects of the colony, the need of
good men with families, industrious tradesmen and farmers, not
'poor gentlemen and libertines.' Before, however, the actual
orders came to supersede him, Smith resigned, or was forced
out of the government, and returned to England. The feeble
life of the colony wasted fast after his departure and during
the sickness of Percy, who succeeded to the command."
H. C. Lodge,
Short History of the English Colonies in America,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
Captain John Smith,
General Historie of Virginia,
books 2-3.
J. Ashton,
Adventures and Discoveries of Captain John Smith,
newly ordered,
chapters 6-21.
W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 1, chapter 11.
E. Eggleston and L. E. Seelye,
Pocahontas.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1609-1616.
The new Charter.
The colony taking root.
Introduction of Tobacco culture.
"The prospects of the colony were so discouraging at the
beginning of the year 1609, that, in the hope of improving
them, the Company applied for a new charter with enlarged
privileges. This was granted to them, on the 23d of May, under
the corporate name of 'The Treasurer and Company of Adventurers
and Planters of the City of London for the first Colony in
Virginia.'
{3629}
The new Association, which embraced representatives of every
rank, trade, and profession, included twenty-one peers, and
its list of names presents an imposing array of wealth and
influence. By this charter Virginia was greatly enlarged, and
made to comprise the coast-line and all islands within 100
miles of it,—200 miles north and 200 south of Point
Comfort,—with all the territory within parallel lines thus
distant and extending to the Pacific boundary; the Company was
empowered to choose the Supreme Council in England, and, under
the instructions and regulations of the last, the Governor was
invested with absolute civil and military authority. … Thomas
West (Lord Delaware), the descendant of a long line of noble
ancestry, received the appointment of Governor and
Captain-General of Virginia. The first expedition under the
second charter, which was on a grander scale than any
preceding it, and which consisted of nine vessels, sailed from
Plymouth on the 1st of June, 1609. Newport, the commander of
the fleet, Sir Thomas Gates, Lieutenant-General, and Sir
George Somers, Admiral of Virginia, were severally authorized,
whichever of them might first arrive at Jamestown, to
supersede the existing administration there until the arrival
of Lord Delaware, who was to embark some months later; but not
being able to settle the point of precedency among themselves,
they embarked together in the same vessel, which carried also
the wife and daughters of Gates. … On the 23d of July the
fleet was caught in a hurricane; a small vessel was lost,
others damaged, and the 'Sea Venture,' which carried Gates,
Somers, and Newport, with about 150 settlers, was cast ashore
on the Bermudas. … Early in August the 'Blessing,' Captain
Archer, and three other vessels of the delayed fleet sailed up
James River, and soon after the 'Diamond,' Captain Ratcliffe,
appeared, without her mainmast, and she was followed in a few
days by the 'Swallow,' in like condition. The Council being
all dead save Smith, he, obtaining the sympathy of the
sailors, refused to surrender the government of the colony;
and the newly arrived settlers elected Francis West, the
brother of Lord Delaware, as temporary president. The term of
Smith expiring soon after, George Percy—one of the original
settlers, a brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and a brave
and honorable man—was elected president. … Smith, about
Michaelmas (September 29), departed for England, or, as all
contemporary accounts other than his own state, was sent
thither 'to answer some misdemeanors.' These were doubtless of
a venial character; but the important services of Smith in the
sustenance of the colony appear not to have been as highly
esteemed by the Company as by Smith himself. He complains that
his several petitions for reward were disregarded, and he
never returned to Virginia. … At the time of his departure for
England he left at Jamestown three ships, seven boats, a good
stock of provisions, nearly 500 settlers, 20 pieces of cannon,
300 guns, with fishing-nets, working-tools, horses, cattle,
swine, etc. Jamestown was strongly fortified with palisades,
and contained between fifty and sixty houses. … No effort by
tillage being made to replenish their provisions, the stock
was soon consumed, and the horrors of famine were added to
other calamities. The intense sufferings of the colonists were
long remembered, and this period is referred to as 'the
starving time.' In six months their number was reduced to 60,
and such was the extremity of these that they must soon have
perished but for speedy succor. The passengers of the wrecked
'Sea Venture,' though mourned for as lost, had effected a safe
landing at the Bermudas, where, favored by the tropical
productions of the islands, they, under the direction of Gates
and Somers, constructed for their deliverance two vessels from
the materials of the wreck and cedar-wood, the largest of the
vessels being of 80 tons burden. … Six of the company,
including the wife of Sir Thomas Gates, died on the island.
The company of 140 men and women embarked on the completed
vessels—which were appropriately named the 'Patience' and the
'Deliverance'—on the 10th of May, 1610, and on the 23d they
landed at Jamestown. … So forlorn was the condition of the
settlement that Gates reluctantly resolved to abandon it." The
whole colony was accordingly embarked and was under sail down
the river, when it met a fleet of three vessels, bringing
supplies and new settlers from England, with Lord Delaware,
who had resolved to come out in person, as Governor and
Captain-General of Virginia. Gates and his disheartened
companions turned back with these new comers, and all were set
vigorously at work to restore the settlement. "The
administration of Delaware, though ludicrously ostentatious
for so insignificant a dominion, was yet highly wholesome, and
under his judicious discipline the settlement was restored to
order and contentment." His health failing, Lord Delaware
returned to England the following spring, whither Sir Thomas
Gates had gone. Sir Thomas Dale had already been sent out with
the appointment of high marshal, bearing a code of
extraordinary laws which practically placed the colony under
martial rule. Gates returned in June, 1611, with 300
additional settlers and a considerable stock of cows and other
cattle. During that year and the next several new settlements
were founded, at Dutch Gap, Henrico, and Bermuda Hundred,
individual grants of property began to be made, and many signs
of prosperity appeared. The year 1612 "was a marked one, in
the inauguration by John Rolfe [who married Pocahontas two
years later, having lost his first wife] of the systematic
culture of tobacco,—a staple destined to exert a controlling
influence in the future welfare and progress of the colony,
and soon, by the paramount profit yielded by its culture, to
subordinate all other interests, agricultural as well as
manufacturing." In the spring of 1613, Sir Thomas Gates left
the colony, finally, returning to England, and the government
fell to the hands of Dale, who remained at the head until
1616.
R. A. Brock,
Virginia, 1606-1689
(Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 3, chapter 5).
ALSO IN:
W. Stith,
History of Virginia,
book. 3.
J. H. Lefroy,
Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement
of the Bermudas,
volume 1, chapter 1.
J. E. Cooke,
Virginia,
chapters 13-16.
H. W. Preston,
Documents Illustrative of American History,
page 14.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1613.
The French settlements in Acadia destroyed by Argall
and the Dutch at New York forced to promise tribute.
See CANADA: A. D. 1610-1613;
and NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.
{3630}
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1617-1619.
The evil days of Argall, and the better
administration that followed.
Meeting of the first provincial Assembly.
"A party of greedy and unprincipled adventurers headed by Lord
Rich, soon after the Earl of Warwick, acquired sufficient
influence in the Company to nominate a creature of their own
as Deputy-Governor. Their choice of Argall [Samuel Argall]
would in itself have tainted their policy with suspicion.
Whether dealing with the Indians, the French, or the Dutch, he
had shown himself able, resolute, and unscrupulous.
See CANADA: A. D. 1610-1613;
and NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.
To do him justice, he seems at least to have understood the
principle of Tiberius, that a shepherd should shear his sheep,
not flay them. His first measure was to provide a sufficient
supply of corn for the maintenance of the colony. With that he
appeared to think that his duty to the settlers was at end. …
An event soon occurred which released Argall from the fear of
a superior, and probably emboldened him in his evil courses.
Lord Delaware, who had sailed in a large vessel with 200
emigrants," died on the voyage. "Argall now began to show that
his care for the well-being of the colony was no better than
the charity of the cannibal who feeds up his prisoner before
making a meal on him. Trade with the Indians was withheld from
individuals, but, instead of being turned to the benefit of
the Company, it was appropriated by Argall. The planters were
treated as a slave-gang working for the Deputy's own private
profit. The Company's cattle were sold, and the proceeds never
accounted for. During this time a great change had come over
the Company at home. An energetic and public-spirited party
had been formed, opposed alike to Sir Thomas Smith and to Lord
Rich. Their leader was Sir Edwin Sandys, a member of that
country party which was just beginning to take its stand
against the corruptions of the court policy. Side by side with
him stood one whose name has gained a wider though not a more
honourable repute, the follower of Essex, the idol of
Shakespeare, the brilliant, versatile Southampton. … The …
year 1619 was remarkable in the annals of the colony. It is
hardly an exaggeration to say that it witnessed the creation
of Virginia as an independent community. From the beginning of
that year we may date the definite ascendancy of Sandys and
his party, an ascendancy which was maintained till the
dissolution of the Company, and during which the affairs of
Virginia were administered with a degree of energy,
unselfishness, and statesmanlike wisdom, perhaps unparalleled
in the history of corporations. One of the first measures was
to send out Yeardley to supersede Argall. … When Yeardley
arrived he found that Argall had escaped. No further attempt
seems to have been made to bring him to justice. In the next
year he was commanding a ship against the Algerines." Soon
afterwards, Sir Edwin Sandys was placed officially at the head
of the Company, by his election to be Treasurer, in the place
of Sir Thomas Smith. "About the same time that these things
were doing in England, a step of the greatest importance was
being taken in Virginia. Yeardley, in obedience to
instructions from the Company, summoned an Assembly of
Burgesses from the various hundreds and plantations. At one
step Virginia, from being little better than a penal
settlement, ruled by martial law, became invested with
important, though not full, rights of self-government. Though
we have no direct evidence of the fact, there is every
probability that during the administrations of Yeardley and
Argall the number of independent planters possessing estates
of their own, with labourers employed in the service of their
masters, not of the Company, had increased. Unless such an
influence had been at work, it is scarcely possible that the
experiment of constitutional government should have succeeded,
or even have been tried. On the 30th of July, 1619, the first
Assembly met in the little church at Jamestown. … In England
the Company under its new government set to work with an
energy before unknown to it, to improve the condition of the
colony. … To check the over-production of tobacco a clause was
inserted in all fresh patents of land binding the holder to
cultivate a certain quantity of other commodities. Everything
was done to encourage permanent settlers rather than mere
traders. Apprentices, unmarried women, and neat cattle were
sent out. New forms of industry, too, were set on foot, such
as timber yards, silk manufactures, iron foundries, and
vineyards. … In the year 1619 alone over 1,200 persons were
sent out, half as private settlers or servants, half at the
expense of the Company."
J. A. Doyle,
The English in America: Virginia, &c.,
chapter 6.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1619.
Introduction of Negro Slavery.
"In the month of August, 1619, five years after the commons of
France had petitioned for the emancipation of every serf in
every fief, a Dutch man-of-war entered James River and landed
20 negroes for sale. This is the sad epoch of the introduction
of negro slavery; but the traffic would have been checked in
its infancy had it remained with the Dutch. Thirty years after
this first importation of Africans, Virginia to one black
contained fifty whites; and, after seventy years of its
colonial existence, the number of its negro slaves was
proportionably much less than in several of the northern
states at the time of the war of independence."
G. Bancroft,
History of the United States (Author's last revision),
part 1, chapter 8 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
G. W. Williams,
History of the Negro Race in America,
part 2, chapter 12 (volume 1).
G. P. Fisher,
The Colonial Era,
chapter 4.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1622-1624.
Plot and Massacre by the Indians.
Arbitrary dissolution of the Virginia Company by King James.
"On the 22nd of March, 1622, a memorable massacre occurred in
the Colony. … On the evening before, and on that morning, the
savages as usual came unarmed into the houses of the planters,
with fruits, fish, turkies and venison to sell. In some places
they actually sate down to breakfast with the English. At
about the hour of noon, the savages rising suddenly and
everywhere at the same time, butchered the colonists with
their own implements, sparing neither age, sex, nor condition.
Three hundred and forty-seven men, women and children fell in
a few hours. … The destruction might have been universal but
for the disclosure of a converted Indian, named Chanco, who,
during the night before the massacre, revealed the plot to one
Richard Pace, with whom he lived.
{3631}
Pace … repaired before day to Jamestown and gave the alarm to
Sir Francis Wyatt, the Governor. His vigilance saved a large
part of the Colony. … The court of James I., jealous of the
growing power of the Virginia Company and of its too
republican spirit, seized upon the occasion of the massacre to
attribute all the calamities of the Colony to its
mismanagement and neglect, and thus to frame a pretext for
dissolving the charter." The Company, supported by the
colonists, resisted the high-handed proceedings of the King
and his officers, but vainly. In November, 1624, "James I.
dissolved the Virginia Company by a writ of Quo Warranto,
which was determined only upon a technicality in the
pleadings. The company had been obnoxious to the ill will of
the King on several grounds. The corporation had become a
theatre for rearing leaders of the opposition, many of its
members being also members of parliament. … Charles I.
succeeding [1625] to the crown and principles of his father,
took the government of Virginia into his own hands. The
company thus extinguished had expended £150,000 in
establishing the Colony, and transported 9,000 settlers
without the aid of government. The number of stockholders, or
adventurers, as they were styled, was about 1,000, and the
annual value of exports from Virginia was, at the period of
the dissolution of the charter, only £20,000. The company
embraced much of the rank, wealth, and talent of the kingdom.
… As the act provided no compensation for the enormous
expenditure incurred, it can be looked upon as little better
than confiscation effected by chicane and tyranny.
Nevertheless the result was undoubtedly favorable to the
Colony."
C. Campbell,
Introduction to the History of the Colony
and Ancient Dominion of Virginia,
chapters 15-16.
ALSO IN:
W. Stith,
History of Virginia,
books 4-5.
E. D. Neill,
History of the Virginia Company of London,
chapters 14-17.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1628.
Attempted settlement by Lord Baltimore.
See MARYLAND: A. D. 1632.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1635-1638.
The Clayborne quarrel with Lord Baltimore
and the Maryland colony.
See MARYLAND: A. D. 1635-1638.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1639-1652.
Loyalty to King Charles.
The Refuge of the Cavaliers.
"Under Charles I. little worthy of notice occurred in the
political history of Virginia. … Attempts were made to raise a
revenue on tobacco, and subsequently to establish a royal
monopoly of the tobacco trade. The attempts were averted, and
the king contented himself with the preemption of the
Virginian tobacco, and with enacting that no foreign vessel
should be allowed to trade with Virginia, or to carry
Virginian goods. In 1639 an attempt was made to re-establish
the authority of the company, but was strenuously and
successfully opposed by the assembly. That the royal
government sat lightly on Virginia may be inferred from the
loyal tone which had thus early become a characteristic of the
colony. After the establishment of the commonwealth, 'Virginia
was whole for monarchy and the last country belonging to
England that submitted to obedience to the commonwealth of
England,' and under Berkeley's government the plantation was a
safe refuge for the defeated cavaliers. … But as soon as two
or three parliamentary ships appeared [1652] all thoughts of
resistance were laid aside. Yet, whether from lenity or
caution, the parliament was satisfied with moderate terms. The
submission of the colonists was accepted as free and
voluntary."
J. A. Doyle,
The American Colonies,
chapter 2.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1644.
Fresh Indian outbreak and massacre of whites.
"After a peace of five or six years, the Indians, provoked by
continued encroachments on their lands, and instigated, it is
said, by the aged chief Opechancanough, formed a new scheme
for the extermination of the colonists. They were encouraged
by signs of discord among the English, having seen a fight in
James River between a London ship for the Parliament and a
Bristol ship for the king. Five hundred persons perished in
the first surprise, which took place, according to Winthrop,
the day before Good Friday, appointed by the governor, 'a
courtier, and very malignant toward the way of our churches,'
to be observed as a fast for the good success of the king. For
defense, the planters were concentrated in a few settlements;
… forts were built at the points most exposed; and a ship was
sent to Boston for powder, which, however, the General Court
declined to furnish. This occasion was taken by 'divers
godly-disposed persons' of Virginia to remove to New England.
… The Indians were presently driven from their fastnesses.
Opechancanough, decrepit and incapable of moving without
assistance, … was taken prisoner and carried to Jamestown,
where he was shot in the back by a vindictive soldier
appointed to guard him. The Indian towns were broken up, and
their 'clear lands possessed by the English to sow wheat in.'
Opechancanough's successor submitted; and a peace was made by
act of Assembly, the Indians ceding all the lands between
James and York Rivers. No Indian was to come south of York
River under pain of death. The Powhatan confederacy was
dissolved. The Indians of lower Virginia sunk into servile
dependence, and dwindled away, or, migrating to the south and
west, were mingled and confounded with other tribes."
R. Hildreth,
History of the United States,
chapter 11 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
J. E. Cooke,
Virginia,
part 2, chapter 5.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1650-1660.
Under the Commonwealth and Cromwell, and the Stuart Restoration.
Two sides of the story.
Origin of the name of "The Old Dominion."
"After this, Sir William Berkeley [governor] made a new peace
with the Indians, which continued for a long time unviolated.
… But he himself did not long enjoy the benefit of this
profound peace; for the unhappy troubles of king Charles the
first increasing in England, proved a great disturbance to him
and to all the people. They, to prevent the infection from
reaching that country, made severe laws against the Puritans,
though there were as yet none among them. But all
correspondence with England was interrupted, supplies
lessened, and trade obstructed. … At last the king was
traitorously beheaded in England, and Oliver installed
Protector. However, his authority was not acknowledged in
Virginia for several years after, till they were forced to it
by the last necessity. For in the year 1651, by Cromwell's
command, Captain Dennis, with a squadron of men of war,
arrived there from the Carribbee islands, where they had been
subduing Bardoes. The country at first held out vigorously
against him, and Sir William Berkeley, by the assistance of
such Dutch vessels as were then there, made a brave
resistance.
{3632}
But at last Dennis contrived a stratagem which betrayed the
country. He had got a considerable parcel of goods aboard,
which belonged to two of the Council, and found a method of
informing them of it. By this means they were reduced to the
dilemma, either of submitting or losing their goods. This
occasioned factions among them; so that at last, after the
surrender of all the other English plantations, Sir William
was forced to submit to the usurper on the terms of a general
pardon. However, it ought to be remembered, to his praise, and
to the immortal honor of that colony, that it was the last of
all the king's dominions that submitted to the usurpation; and
afterwards the first that cast it off, and he never took any
post or office under the usurper. Oliver had no sooner subdued
the plantations, but he began to contrive how to keep them
under, that so they might never be able for the time to come
to give him farther trouble. To this end, he thought it
necessary to break off their correspondence with all other
nations, thereby to prevent their being furnished with arms,
ammunition, and other warlike provisions. According to this
design, he contrived a severe act of Parliament [1651],
whereby he prohibited the plantations from receiving or
exporting any European commodities but what should be carried
to them by Englishmen, and in English built ships. …
See NAVIGATION ACT, ENGLISH.
Notwithstanding this act of navigation, the Protector never
thought the plantations enough secured, but frequently changed
their governors, to prevent their intriguing with the people.
So that, during the time of the usurpation, they had no less
than three governors there, namely, Diggs, Bennet and Mathews.
The strange arbitrary curbs he put upon the plantations
exceedingly afflicted the people … and inspired them with a
desire to use the last remedy, to relieve themselves from this
lawless usurpation. In a short time afterwards a fair
opportunity happened; for Governor Mathews died, and no person
was substituted to succeed him in the government. Whereupon
the people applied themselves to Sir William Berkeley (who had
continued all this time upon his own plantation in a private
capacity) and unanimously chose him their governor again
[March, 1660]. Sir William … told the people … that if he
accepted the government it should be upon their solemn
promise, after his example, to venture their lives and
fortunes for the king, who was then in France. This was no
great obstacle to them, and therefore with an unanimous voice
they told him they were ready to hazard all for the king. …
Sir William Berkeley embraced their choice, and forthwith
proclaimed Charles II. king of England, Scotland, France,
Ireland and Virginia, and caused all process to be issued in
his name. Thus his majesty was actually king in Virginia
before he was so in England. But it pleased God to restore him
soon after to the throne of his ancestors."
R. Beverley,
History of Virginia,
book 1, chapter 4.
"The government of Virginia, under the Commonwealth of
England, was mild and just. While Cromwell's sceptre commanded
the respect of the world, he exhibited generous and politic
leniency towards the infant and loyal colony. She enjoyed
during this interval free trade, legislative independence and
internal peace. The governors were men who by their virtues
and moderation won the confidence and affections of the
people. No extravagance, rapacity, or extortion, could be
alleged against the administration. Intolerance and
persecution were unknown, with the single exception of a
rigorous act banishing the Quakers. But rapine, extravagance,
extortion, intolerance and persecution were all soon to be
revived under the auspices of the Stuarts. … Richard Cromwell
resigned the protectorate in March, 1660. Matthews,
governor-elect, had died in the January previous. England was
without a monarch; Virginia without a governor. Here was a two
fold interregnum. The assembly, convening on the 13th of
March, 1660, declared by their first act that, as there was
then in England 'noe resident absolute and generall confessed
power,' therefore the supreme government of the colony should
rest in the assembly. By the second act, Sir William Berkeley
was appointed governor, and it was ordered that all writs
should issue in the name of the assembly. … No fact in our
history has been more misunderstood and misrepresented than
this reappointment of Sir William Berkeley, before the
restoration of Charles II. … Sir William was elected, not by a
tumultuary assemblage of the people, but by the assembly; the
royal standard was not raised upon the occasion, nor was the
king proclaimed. Sir William, however, made no secret of his
loyalty. … Sir William was elected on the 21st of the same
month, about two months before the restoration of Charles II.
Yet the word king, or majesty, occurs no where in the
legislative records, from the commencement of the Commonwealth
in England until the 11th of October, 1660—more than four
months after the restoration. Virginia was indeed loyal, but
she was too feeble to express her loyalty."
C. Campbell,
Introduction to the History of the Colony
and Ancient Dominion of Virginia,
chapters 21-22.
"There is no doubt whatever that if the Virginians could have
restored the King earlier they would have done so; and
Berkeley, who is known to have been in close communication and
consultation with the leading Cavaliers, had sent word to
Charles II. in Holland, toward the end of the Commonwealth,
that he would raise his flag in Virginia if there was a
prospect of success. This incident has been called in
question. It is testified to by William Lee, Sheriff of
London, and a cousin of Richard Lee, Berkeley's emissary, as a
fact within his knowledge. Charles declined the offer, but was
always grateful to the Virginians. The country is said to have
derived from the incident the name of the 'Old Dominion,'
where the King was King, or might have been, before he was
King in England."
J. E. Cooke,
Virginia,
part 2, chapter 10.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1651-1672.
The English Navigation Acts and trade restrictions.
See NAVIGATION LAWS;
also UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672.
VIRGINIA: A. D. 1660-1677.
The Restoration and its rewards to Virginia loyalty.
Oppression, discontent, and Bacon's Rebellion.
At the time of the restoration of the English monarchy, in the
person of Charles II., the colony of Virginia "numbered not
far from 50,000 souls, a large proportion of whom, especially,
we may suppose, those of middle life and most active habits,
were natives of the soil, bound to it by the strongest ties of
interest and affection, and by their hopes of what it was
destined to become in the opening future.
{3633}
Here was a state of things, comprising, in the apprehensions
of the people, many of the elements of the highest happiness
and prosperity. … But all this was totally and suddenly
changed, and universal distress brought upon the land, by the
new restrictive clauses added to the original Navigation Act,
by the first Parliament of Charles. By the act of the Long
Parliament it had been simply provided that foreign vessels
should import into England no other products than such as were
grown or manufactured in their own country; a shaft aimed
principally at the Dutch. … By Charles's Commons this first
hint was … expanded into a voluminous code of monopolizing
enactments, by which the trade of the world was regulated on
the principle of grasping for England every possible
commercial advantage, and inflicting upon all other nations
the greatest possible commercial injury. … Upon the colonies,
one and all, this cruel policy bore with a weight which almost
crushed them. … From 1660, when this monopolizing policy took
its beginning, the discontent of the people increased day by
day, as each new prohibition was proclaimed. Commerce lay
dead. Tobacco would no longer pay for its cultivation, much
less enrich the laborious planter; manufactures, as that of
silk, after being attempted, failed to bring the hoped-for
relief, and there seemed no prospect but starvation and ruin.
What wonder that mischief lay brewing in the hearts of a