August 1st
Born: Tiberius Claudius Drusus,
Roman emperor, uncle and successor of Caligula,
B.C.
11, Lyons.
Died: Marcus Ulpius Trajanus
Crinitus (Trojan), Roman emperor, 117, Minus, in
Cilicia; Pope Celestine I, 432; Louis VI, surnamed
Le Gros, king of France, 1137; Stephen Marcel,
insurrectionary leader, slain at Paris, 1358; Cosmo de
Medici, the elder, grandfather of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, 1464, Florence; Lorenzo Valla,
distinguished Latin scholar, 1457 or 1465, Rome; Anne,
queen of England, 1714; Jacques Boileau, theologian,
brother of the satirist, 1716, Paris; Admiral Sir John
Leake, great naval commander, 1720, Greenwich; Richard
Savage, poet and friend of Johnson, 1743, Bristol;
Bernard Siegfried Albinus, celebrated anatomist, 1770,
Leyden; Dr. Shebbcare, notorious political writer,
1788; Mrs. Elizabeth Inchbald, actress and dramatist,
1821; Rev. Robert Morrison, D.D., first Protestant
missionary to China, 1834, Canton; Harriet Lee,
novelist, 1851, Clifton; Bayle St. John, miscellaneous
writer, 1859, London.
Feast Day: St. Peter ad Vincula, or St. Peter's
Chains. The Seven Machabees,
brothers, and their mother, martyrs. Saints Faith,
Hope, and Charity, virgins and martyrs, 2nd century.
St. Pellegrini or Peregrinus, hermit, 643. St.
Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, confessor, 984.
LAMMAS
This was one of the four great
pagan festivals of Britain, the others being on 1st
November, 1st February, and 1st May. The festival of
the Gule of August, as it was called, probably
celebrated the realisation of the first-fruits of the
earth, and more particularly that of the
grain-harvest. When Christianity was introduced, the
day continued to be observed as a festival on these
grounds, and, from a loaf being the usual offering at
church, the service, and consequently the day, came to
be called Half-mass, subsequently shortened into
Lammas, just as hlaf-dig (bread-dispenser), applicable
to the mistress of a house, came to be softened into
the familiar and extensively used term, lady. This we
would call the rational definition of the word Lammas.
There is another, but in our opinion utterly
inadmissible derivation, pointing to the custom of
bringing a lamb on this day, as an offering to the
cathedral church of York. Without doubt, this custom,
which was purely local, would take its rise with
reference to the term Lammas, after the true original
signification of that word had been forgotten.
It was once customary in
England, in contravention of the proverb, that a cat
in mittens catches no mice, to give money to servants
on Lammas-day, to buy gloves; hence the term
Glove-Silver. It is mentioned among the ancient
customs of the abbey of St. Edmund's, in which the
clerk of the cellarer had 2d.; the cellarer's squire,
11d.; the granger, 11d.; and the cowherd a penny.
Anciently, too, it was customary for every family to
give annually to the pope on this day one penny, which
was thence called Denarius Sancti Petri, or Peter's
Penny.'�Hampson's Medii AEvi Kalendarium.
What appears as a relic of the
ancient pagan festival of the Gule of August, was
practised in Lothian till about the middle of the
eighteenth century. From the unenclosed state of the
country, the tending of cattle then employed a great
number of hands, and the cow-boys, being more than
half idle, were much disposed to unite in seeking and
creating amusement. In each little district, a group
of them built, against Lammas-day, a tower of stones
and sods in some conspicuous place. On Lammas-morning,
they assembled here, bearing flags, and blowing
cow-horns�breakfasted together on bread and cheese, or
other provisions�then set out on a march or
procession, which usually ended in a foot-race for
some trifling prize. The most remarkable feature of
these rustic fetes was a practice of each party
trying, before or on the day, to demolish the sod
fortalice of some other party near by. This, of
course, led to great fights and brawls, in which blood
was occasionally spilt. But, on the whole, the Lammas
Festival of Lothian was a pleasant affair,
characteristic of an age which, with less to gain, had
perhaps rather more to enjoy than the present
COSMO DE MEDICIS
The Florentine family of the
Medicis, which made itself in various ways so notable
in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
centuries, may be said to have been founded by Cosmo,
who died in 1464. This gentleman, for he was of no
higher rank, by commerce acquired wealth comparable to
that of kings, which enabled him to be the friend of
the poor, to enrich his friends, to ornament his
native city with superb edifices, and to call to
Florence the Greek savans chased out of
Constantinople. His counsels were, during thirty
years, the laws of the republic, and his benefactions
its sole intrigues. Florence, by common consent,
inscribed his tomb with the noble legend: 'THE FATHER
OF HIS COUNTRY.'
MRS. INCHBALD
Biography does not perhaps
afford a finer example of industry, prudence,
self-denial, and beneficence, than the story of Mrs.
Inchbald. Starting in life with the merest rudiments
of education, she managed to make a living in
literature; her personal expenditure she governed with
a severity which Franklin's 'Poor Richard' might have
applauded; her charity she dispensed with a lavish
generosity; her path lay through scenes proverbial for
their dangers, yet she preserved a spotless name; and
the world's copious flattery of her beauty and abilities�an
intoxication which but few of the strongest heads can
wholly withstand�left the even tenor of her conduct
unaffected. It was not that she was a block of
indifference; she was a woman of warm affections and
delicate sensibilities; but a lively common-sense,
cultivated by much experience in the hard school of
adversity, ruled supreme in her mind, and when success
and honour fell to her lot, she stood proof to all
their wiles.
Elizabeth Inchbald was the
daughter of Simpson, a Suffolk farmer, and was born at
Standingfield, near Bury St. Edmunds, on the 15th of
October 1753. She very early took a fancy for the
stage, and when about eighteen, she eloped from her
mother's care, and made her way to London in search of
an engagement as an actress. After sundry perilous
adventures among the theatres, she married, in 1772,
Mr. Inchbald, a second-rate actor, twice her own age.
With him she strolled for seven years from city to
city of the three kingdoms, sometimes in the enjoyment
of plenty, and some-times in such poverty that they
were glad to make a dinner by the roadside out of a
turnip-field.
In 1779, Mr. Inchbald died suddenly at
Leeds, leaving his young widow with funds in hand to
the amount of �350. She started for London, and was
engaged at Covent Garden for 26s. 8d. a week, and
subsequently by Colman at the Haymarket for 30s.
Whilst acting for Colman in 1784, she took it into her
head to write a farce, The Mogul Tale, which not only
pleased the town, but drew from Colman the grateful
assurance that, as a dramatist, she might earn as much
money as she wanted. Thus encouraged, she went on
writing play after play to the number of about a
score, and for some of which she received large sums.
Every One has His Fault brought her �700, and
To Marry
or Not to Marry, �600.
She was a favourite performer,
but she owed her popularity more to her piquant beauty
than to her histrionic powers. She had, moreover, an
impediment in her speech, which only with great
difficulty she could conceal. Having there-fore
discovered an easier means of livelihood, she retired
from the stage in 1789. She next tried her hand as a
novelist, and in 1791, published. A Simple Story, and
in 1796, Nature and Art, which carried her fame into
regions where her dramas were unknown. Respected by
all, and loved by those who intimately knew her, she
died in Kensington on the 1st of August 1821, leaving
a little fortune in the funds which had been yielding
her �260 a year.
Mrs. Inchbald's relations were
poor, and some unfortunate, and she ministered to
their necessities with a liberality which, measured by
her income, was really extraordinary. To a widowed
sister, Mrs. Hunt, she allowed a pension of .�100 a
year. To meet such sacrifices, she pinched herself to
a degree that would have done credit to a saint of the
Catholic church, to which church, by birth and
conviction, she belonged. On the death of Mrs. Hunt,
she wrote to a friend: 'Many a time this winter, when
I cried with cold, I said to myself�but, thank God, my
sister has not to stir from her room: she has her fire
lighted every morning; all her provisions bought, and
brought to her ready cooked: she would be less able to
bear what I bear; and how much more should. I have to
suffer but for this reflection! It almost made me warm
when I thought that she suffered no cold.'
To save
money for the use of others, she lived in cheap
lodgings, migrating from one neighbourhood to another,
in the hope of discomforts as amusing as pitiful. With
a milliner in the Strand she stayed some years, and
she thus depicts the accommodation she enjoyed:
'My present apartment is so
small, that I am all over black and blue with thumping
my body and limbs against my furniture on every side;
but, then, I have not far to walk to reach anything I
want, for I can kindle my fire as I lie in bed, and
put on my cap as I dine, for the looking-glass is
obliged to stand on the same table with my dinner. To
be sure, if there was a fire in the night, I must
inevitably be burned, for I am at the top of the
house, and so removed from the front part of it, that
I cannot hear the least sound of anything from the
street; but, then, I have a great deal of fresh air,
more daylight than most people in London, and the
enchanting view of the Thames and the Surrey Hills.'
She was accustomed to wait on herself and clean out
her room, as the following passage from one of her
letters will prove: 'I have been very ill indeed, and
looked worse than I was; but since the weather has
permitted me to leave off making my fire, scouring the
grate, sifting the cinders, and all the et cetera of
going up and down three pair of long stairs with water
and dirt, I feel quite another creature.' And again:
'Last Thursday morning, I finished scouring my
bed-chamber, while a coach with a coronet and two
footmen waited at the door to take me an airing.'
Money, so precious to her, she
was able to decline when its purchase was at the cost
of good taste. She had written her Memoirs, and twice
was offered. �1000 for the manuscript; but it seemed
to her that its publication would cause suffering and
irritation, and she took counsel with her spiritual
adviser. Her diary thus records her heroic decision:
'Query. What I should wish
done at the instant of death?
Dr. Pointer. Do it now.
Four volumes destroyed.'
Mrs. Inchbald was rather tall,
and of a striking figure. She was fair, slightly
freckled, and her hair of a sandy-auburn hue. Her face
was lovely, and full of spirit and sweetness. ' Her
dress,' records one of her admirers, 'was always
becoming, and very seldom worth so much as eightpence.'
She had many suitors, young, rich, and noble, but none
among them did she care to accept. She fell in love
with her physician, Dr. Warren, but he was a married
man; and whilst, like a true woman, she suppressed her
feelings, she sometimes yielded so far as to pace
Sackville Street at night, for the pleasure of seeing
the light in his window.
With all her prudence she was
frank in speech, and loved gaiety and frolic. Here is
what Leigh Hunt calls 'a delicious
memorandum' from
her diary:
'On Sunday, dined, drank tea,
and supped with Mrs. Whitfield. At dark, she, and I,
and her son William walked out; and I rapped at doors
in New Street and King Street, and ran away.'
This was in 1788, when she was
five-and-thirty. 'But,' says Leigh Hunt, 'such people
never grow old. Imagine what the tenants would have
thought, could anybody have told them that the
runaway-knocks were given by one of the most
respectable of women�a lady midway between thirty and
forty, and authoress of the Simple Story!'
GREAT FIRES A CAUSE OF
RAIN:
ESPY'S THEORY
There is extant a letter,
dated the 1st of August 1636, from the Earl of
Pembroke and Montgomery to the high-sheriff of
Staffordshire, stating that the king was about to pass
through that county, and having heard there was an
opinion in it that the burning of fern brought down
rain, he desired that such practice should be forborne
for the time, 'that the country and himself may enjoy
fair weather as long as he remains in those parts.'
In Scotland, it is customary
in spring to burn large tracts of heather, in order
that herbage may grow in its place; and there also it
is a common remark that the moor-burn, as it is
called, generally brings rain.
The idea looks very like a
piece of mere folklore, devoid of a foundation in
truth; but it is very remarkable that, in our own age,
a scientific American announced a theory involving
this amongst other conclusions, that extensive fires
on the surface of the earth were apt to produce rainy
weather. He was a simple-hearted man, named James P.
Espy, who for many years before his death in 1860 had
occupied a post under the American government at
Washington. It is undoubted that he made an immense
collection of facts in support of his views, and
though most of his scientific friends thought he was
too ready to adopt conclusions, and too little
disposed to review and test them, yet it must be
admitted that his law of storms,' as he called it, was
entitled to some measure of consideration. It may be
thus briefly stated:
When a body passes from a
solid to a fluid state, it absorbs a large amount of
caloric. In passing from a liquid to a solid state,
this caloric of fluidity is given out. In the same
manner liquids passing into vapour absorb, and vapours
condensed to liquids give out the caloric of
elasticity. The former is 140�
,
the latter no less than 103�
.
The evaporation of water cools the earth, by its
absorption of this caloric of elasticity. The
condensation of vapour into clouds sets free this
latent caloric, which rarefies the surrounding
atmosphere, and produces an upward current of air.
When the atmosphere is well
charged with vapour, an ascending current, however
produced, causes condensation, by exposing the vapour
to cold. This condensation, setting free latent
caloric, produces a further upward movement and
condensation. The air rushes in on every side to fill
the partial vacuum. This air takes the upward
movement, with the accompanying phenomena of
condensation and the attendant rarefaction, until the
clouds so formed are precipitated in rain; or where
the movement is more powerful, in hail, sometimes
accompanied by water-spouts and tornadoes.
All storms, Mr. Espy held,
have these characteristics. There is a central upward
movement, with condensation of vapour, forming clouds.
The wind blows from every side toward the centre. When
the movement is very powerful, in level countries and
hot climates, it has the character of a tornado, in
the track of which he always found trees fallen in
every direction, but always toward the centre. The
water-spout forms the centre of the tornado at sea.
The formation of hail has long
puzzled men of science. Why should drops of water,
falling from a cloud, be frozen while passing through
a still warmer atmosphere, and even in hot climates?
Mr. Espy's upward current solves the difficulty. The
rain-drops are first carried up into the region of
congelation, and being thrown outward, fall to the
earth. So great masses of water, carried up in
water-spouts, fall in a frozen state, in lumps which
have sometimes measured fifteen inches in
circumference. In the same manner Mr. Espy accounts
for the occasional raining of frogs, fishes, sand,
seeds, and stranger substances; but he does not
account for such matters being kept in the clouds for
several days, and carried over hundreds of miles'
distance from the place where they were carried up in
tornado or water-spout. They may have been carried up
by the force of a�rial currents, but it does not
appear that they could be kept up for any length of
time by such currents. Thousands of tons of water are
swept into the clouds by water-spouts, but what power
prevents it from pouring down again in torrents?
Still the theory of Mr. Espy
is very ingenious, and has the merit of affording a
reasonable explanation to many, if not all, phenomena.
The committee of the French Academy called his
attention to the connection of electricity with
meteoric phenomena, but he does not appear to have
pursued that branch of investigation. It is our
opinion that a certain electrical condition of bodies
in the atmosphere gives them a repulsion to the earth,
and that gravitation has no effect upon such bodies,
until there is a change in their electrical condition.
The earth is a magnet which may either attract or
repel bodies, as they are positive or negative to it.
Only in this, or in some such way, can we account for
solid bodies, often of considerable density, being
sustained for days in the atmosphere. It may be
admitted, in conformity with Mr. Espy's theory, that
such bodies may have been carried upward in a tornado,
and it may be that the atmospheric movements may
develop their electrical condition. It was to these
matters, doubtless, that the French Academy wished to
direct his attention.
Mr. Espy was very anxious that
the American government should make appropriations to
test the utility of a practical application of his
theory. He always asserted that, in a certain
condition of the atmosphere, as of a high dew-point in
a season of drouth, it was practicable to make it rain
by artificial means. Nothing was necessary but to make
an immense fire. This would produce an upward current,
vapour would condense, the upward movement would
thereby be increased, currents of air would flow in,
with more condensation, until clouds and rain would
spread over a great surface of country, so that for a
few thousands of dollars a rain would fall worth
millions. Mr. Espy had observed that the burning of
forests and prairies in America is often followed by
rain. He believed that the frequent showers in London
and other large cities have a similar origin. Rains
have even been supposed to be caused by great battles.
There is little doubt that they are caused by volcanic
eruptions. An eruption in Iceland has been followed by
rains over all Europe. In 1815, during an eruption of
a volcano in one of the East India Islands, of a
population of 12,000, all but 26 were killed by a
series of terrific tornadoes.
In this case there were
phenomena strongly corroborative of Mr. Espy's theory.
Large trees, torn up by the tornadoes, appear to have
been carried upward by an ascending current formed
first by the heat of the volcano, and then by the rush
of winds from every quarter, for these trees, after
being carried up to a vast height, were thrown
out-ward and descended, scorched by the volcanic
fires.
INSTITUTION OF THE ORDER OF St. MICHAEL AUGUST 1, 1469
There had been an order of the
Star in France, but it had fallen into oblivion. When
Louis XI resolved that it was necessary there should
be an order of knighthood in his kingdom, he reflected
that it was easier to create a new, than to revive the lustre of an old one. As
to a name for his proposed
fraternity, there was no being of reality held in
greater esteem in that age than the archangel Michael.
It was believed that this celestial person-age had
fought visibly for the French at Orleans. The
superstitious king worshipped him probably more
vehemently than he did his God. Accordingly, he chose
for his new order the name of St. Michael. The
knights, thirty-six in number, all men of name and of
birth, could only be degraded for three crimes�heresy,
treason, and cowardice.
THOMAS DOGGET AND THE
WATERMEN'S ROWING-MATCH
Annually, on the 1st of
August, there takes place one of the great rowing
matches, or races, on the Thames. The competitors are
six young watermen, whose apprenticeship ends in the
same year�the prize, a waterman's coat and silver
badge. The distance rowed extends from the Old Swan at
London Bridge, to the White Swan at Chelsea, against
an adverse tide; so none but men of great strength,
skill, and endurance need attempt the arduous
struggle. The prize, though not of much intrinsic
value, may be termed the Red Ribbon of the river,
being an important step towards the grand Cordon
Bleu�the championship of the Thames.
The founder of this annual
contest was one Thomas Dogget, a native of Dublin, and
a very popular actor in the early part of the
eighteenth century. He is described as ' a little,
lively, spract man, who danced the Cheshire Rounds
full as well as the famous Captain George, but with
more nature and nimbleness.' Tony Aston, in the rarest
of theatrical pamphlets, tells us that he travelled
with Dogget when the latter was manager of a
strolling-company, and he gives a very different idea
of a stroller's life, as it was then, from that
generally entertained. Each member of the company wore
a brocaded waistcoat, kept his own horse, on which he
rode from town to town, and was everywhere respected
as a gentleman�seemingly better off than even those in
the old ballad quoted by Hamlet, when he says: 'Then
came each actor on his ass.'
Colley Cibber describes Dogget
as the most original and the strictest observer of
nature of all his contemporaries. He borrowed from
none, though he was imitated by many. In dressing a
character to the greatest exactness, he was
remark-ably skilful; the least article of whatever
habit hewore, seemed in some degree to speak and mark
the different humour he represented. He could be
extremely ridiculous without stepping into the least
impropriety, and knew exactly when and where to stop
the current of his jokes. He could, with great
exactness, paint his face to resemble any age from
manhood to extreme senility, which caused Sir Godfrey
Kr-teller to say that Dogget excelled him in his own
art; for he could only copy nature from the originals
before him, while the actor could vary them at
pleasure, and yet always preserve a true resemblance.
Dogget was an ardent
politician, and an enthusiastic advocate of the
Hanoverian succession. It was in honour of this event
that he gave a water-man's coat and badge to be rowed
for on the first anniversary of the accession of the
First George to the British throne. And at his death
he bequeathed a sum of money, the interest of which
was to be appropriated annually, for ever, to the
purchase of a like coat and badge, to be rowed for on
the 1st of August, in honour of the day. And with the
minute attention to matters of dress which
distinguished him as an actor, and in accordance with
his political principles, he directed that the coat
should be of an orange colour, and the badge should
represent the white horse of Hanover.
Almost as we write, on the
12th of February 1863, the Prince of Wales visits the
worshipful company of Fishmongers, in their own
magnificent hall at London Bridge. And a newspaper
paragraph, describing the festival, says, ' With
singular appropriateness and good taste, eighteen
watermen, who had at various periods, since the year
1824, been winners of Dogget's coat and badge, arrayed
in the garb which testifies to their prowess, and of
which the Fishmongers' Company are trustees, were
substituted for the usual military guard of honour in
the vestibule.'
A more stalwart set of
fellows, in more quaintly antique costume, could
scarcely be found in any country, to serve as an
honorary guard on 'the expectancy and rose of the fair
state.'
LONDON BRIDGE�NEW
AND OLD
On the day when William IV
and Queen Adelaide opened New London Bridge (August 1,
1831), the vitality of the old bridge may be said to
have ceased; a bridge which had had more commerce
under and over it perhaps than any other in the world.
Eight centuries at least had elapsed since the
commencement of that bridge-traffic.
There were three
or four bridges of wood successively built at this
spot before 1176
A.D
., in which year the stone
structure was commenced; and this was the veritable 'Old London Bridge,' which
served the citizens for more
than six hundred and fifty years. A curious fabric it
was, containing an immense quantity of stone arches of
various shapes and sizes, piers so bulky as to render
the navigation between them very dangerous, and (until
1754) a row of buildings a-top.
The bridge suffered by
fire in 1212, again in 1666, and again in 1683. So
many were the evils which accumulated upon, around,
and under it, that a new bridge was resolved upon in
1823 �against strong opposition on the part of the
corporation. John Rennie furnished the plans, and his
son, Sir John, carried them out. The foundation-stone
was laid in 1825 by the Duke of York and the lord
mayor; and the bridge took six years in building. The
cost, with the approaches at both ends, was not less
than two millions sterling, and was defrayed by a
particular application of the coal-tax. The ceremonial
attending the opening, on the 1st of August 1831,
comprised the usual routine of flags, music,
procession, addresses, speeches, &c. The old bridge
finally disappeared towards the end of 1832; and then
began in earnest the career of that noble structure,
the new bridge, which. is now crossed every day by a
number of persons equal to the whole population of
some of our largest manufacturing towns.
Strictly, the Old London
Bridge, for a water-way of 900 feet, had eighteen
solid stone piers, varying from 25 to 34 feet in
thickness; thus confining the flow of the river within
less than half its natural channel. That this arose
simply from bad engineering, is very probable; but it
admitted of huge blocks of building being placed on
the bridge, with only a few inter-spaces, from one end
to the other.
These formed houses of four
stories in height, spanning across the passage-way for
traffic, most of which was, of course, as dark as a
railway - tunnel. Nestling about the basement-floors
of these buildings were shops, some of which, as we
learn from old title-pages, were devoted to the
business of bookselling and publishing. It is obvious
that the inhabitants of these dwellings must have been
sadly pent up and confined; it would be, above all, a
miserable field for infant life; yet nothing can be
more certain than that they were packed with people as
full as they could hold. About the centre, on a pier
larger that the rest, was reared a chapel, of Gothic
architecture of the twelfth century, 60 feet by 20,
and of two floors, dedicated to St. Thomas of
Canterbury, and styled St. Peter's of the Bridge; a
strange site, one would think, for an edifice of that
sacred character, and yet we are assured that to rear
religious houses upon bridges was by no means an
uncommon practice in medieval times.
In the
earlier days of London
Bridge, the gate at the end towards the city was that
on which the heads of executed traitors were
exhibited; but in the reign of Elizabeth, this grisly
show was transferred to the gate at the Southwark end,
which consequently became recognised as the TRAITORS'
GATE. A representation of this gate, with the row of
heads above it, is here given, mainly as it appears in
Vischer's View of London (seventeenth century).
There was one clear space upon
the bridge, of such extent that it was deemed a proper
place for joustings or tournaments; and here, on St.
George's Day 1390, was performed a tilting of
extraordinary character. John de Wells, the English
ambassador in Scotland, having boasted of the prowess
of his countrymen at the Scottish court, a famous
knight of that country, David Lindsay, Earl of
Crawford, offered to put all questions on that point
to trial by a combat on London Bridge. He was enabled
by a royal safe-conduct to travel to London with a
retinue of twenty-nine persons. The ground was duly
prepared, and a great concourse of spectators took
possession of the adjacent houses. To follow the
narrative of Hector Baece:
The signal being given,
tearing their barbed horses with their spurs, they
rushed hastily together, with a mighty force, and with
square-ground spears, to the conflict. Neither party
was moved by the vehement impulse and breaking of the
spears; so that the common people affected to cry out
that David was bound to the saddle of his horse,
contrary to the law of arms, because he sat unmoved
amidst the splintering of the lances on his helmet and
visage.
When Earl David heard this, he
presently leaped off his charger, and then as quickly
vaulted again upon his back without any assistance;
and, taking a second hasty course, the spears were a
second time shivered by the shock, through their
burning desire to conquer.
And now a third time were
these valorous enemies stretched out and running
together; but then the English knight was cast down
breathless to the earth, with great sounds of mourning
from his countrymen that he was killed. Earl David,
when victory appeared, hastened to leap suddenly to
the ground; for he had fought without anger, and but
for glory, that he might shew himself to be the
strongest of the champions, and casting himself upon
Lord Wells, tenderly embraced him until he revived,
and the surgeon came to attend him. Nor, after this,
did he omit one day to visit him in the gentlest
manner during his sickness, even like the most
courteous companion. He remained in England three
months, by the king's desire, and there was not one
person of nobility who was not well affected towards
him.'
EMANCIPATION
OF BRITISH SLAVES
The 1st of August 1834 was the
day on which the slaves in the British colonies were
assigned, not to their actual freedom, but to a
so-called 'apprenticeship' which was to precede and
prepare for freedom. Lord (then Mr.) Brougham brought
forward a measure to this great end in 1830; and Mr. Fowell Buxton another in
1832; but no act was passed
till 1833. It provided that on the 1st of August in
the following year, all slaves should become
'apprenticed labourers' to their masters, in two
classes; that in 1838 and 1840, respectively, these
two classes should receive their actual freedom; that
twenty millions sterling should ultimately be paid to
the masters, who would then lose the services of their
slaves; and that this sum would be distributed
rateably, according to the market-price of slaves in
each colony, during the eight years 1823�1830. Many
subsequent statutes modified the minor details, but
left the main principle untouched. It was found, on a
careful analysis, that on the 1st of August 1834 (all
negroes born after that date, were born free), there
were 770,280 slaves in the colonies affected by the
Emancipation Act.
A remarkable address was
issued on this occasion by the Marquis of Sligo,
governor of Jamaica: remarkable in relation to the
paternal tone in which the negroes were addressed, as
children to whom freedom was an unknown privilege, and
who might possibly like a lazy life better than an
industrious one, when enforced labour should cease:
'My Friends!�Our good king,
who was himself in Jamaica long time ago, still
thinks and talks a great deal of this island. He has
sent me out here to take care of you, and to protect
your rights; but he has also ordered me to see
justice done to your owners, and to punish those who
do wrong. Take my advice, for I am your friend, be
sober, honest, and work well when you become
apprentices; for should you behave ill, and refuse
to work because you are no longer slaves, you will
assuredly render yourselves liable to punishment.
The people of England are your friends and
fellow-subjects; they have shewn themselves such by
passing a bill to make you all free. Your masters
are also your friends; they have proved their kind
feeling towards you all, by passing in the House of
Assembly the same bill. The way to prove that you
are deserving of all this goodness, is by labouring
diligently during your apprenticeship.
You will, on the 1st of
August next, no longer be slaves; from that day you
will be apprenticed to your former owners, for a few
years, in order to fit you all for freedom. It will
therefore depend entirely upon your own conduct,
whether your apprenticeship shall be short or long;
for should you run away, you will be brought back by
the Maroons and the police, and have to remain in
apprenticeship longer than those who behave well.
You will only be required to work four days and a
half in each week; the remaining day and a half in
each week will be your own time, and you may employ
it for your own benefit. Bear in mind, that every
one is obliged to work: some work with their hands,
some with their heads; but no one can live and be
considered respectable with-out some employment.
Your lot is to work with your hands.
I pray you, therefore, do
your part faithfully; for if you neglect your duty,
you will be brought before the magistrates whom the
king has sent out to watch you; and they must act
fairly, and do justice to all, by punishing those
who are badly disposed. Do not listen to the advice
of bad people; for should any of you refuse to do
what the law requires of you, you will bitterly
repent it; for when at the end of the appointed
time, all your fellow-labourers are released from
apprenticeship, you will find yourselves condemned
to hard labour in the workhouse for a lengthened
period, as a punishment for your disobedience. If
you follow my advice, and con-duct yourselves well,
nothing can prevent your being your own masters, and
to labour only for yourselves, your wives and
children, at the end of four or six years, according
to your respective classes.
I have not time to go about
to all the properties in this island, and tell you
this myself. I have ordered this letter of advice to
be printed, and to be read to you all, that you may
not be deceived, and bring yourselves into trouble
by bad advice or mistaken motives. I trust you will
be obedient and diligent subjects to our good king,
so that he may never have reason to be sorry for all
the good he has done for you.'
August 2nd
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