Chapter CXLII: Act 1895: , may be given to a married woman on applying to (31)

AUTHORITIES.--The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Captain Mahan, gives the best critical examination of the naval aspects of the war. The French side will be found in the Histoire de la marine francaise pendant la Guerre de l'Independence americaine (Paris, 1877), by Captain Chevalier. For accounts of the American navy see C. O. Paullin, The Navy of the American Revolution (Chicago, 1906); E. S. Maclay, History of the U.S. Navy, vol. i. (New York, 1897): C. H. Lincoln, Naval Records of the American Revolution (Washington, 1906); and Edward Field, Esek Hopkins, Commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolution (Providence, R.I., 1898). For details of actions the reader may be referred to Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783 (London, 1804), and to Sir W. Laird Clowes's The Royal Navy: A History (London, 1897, &c.). (D. H.)

AMERICAN WAR OF 1812. The war between the United States and Great Britain, commonly known as "of 1812," began by the American declaration of war on the 18th of June of that year, and lasted till the beginning of 1815. The treaty of peace signed at Ghent on the 24th of December 1814 was ratified by the president of the United States on the 17th of February 1815. These two years and a half of conflict were filled with isolated encounters which can hardly be reduced to coherent and ordered operations. Although the outbreak of war had been preceded by years of angry diplomatic dispute, the United States were absolutely unready, while Great Britain was still hard pressed by the hostility of Napoleon, and was compelled to retain the greater part of her forces and her best crews in European waters, till the ruin of the Grande Armee in Russia and the rising of Germany left her free to send an overwhelming force of ships to American waters.

The forces actually available on the American side when the war began consisted of a small squadron of very fine frigates and sloops in an efficient state. Twenty-two was the extreme limit of the naval force the States were able to commission. The paper strength of the army was 35,000, but the service was voluntary and unpopular, while there was an almost total want of trained and experienced officers. The available strength was a bare third of the nominal. The militia, called in to aid the regulars, proved untrustworthy. They objected to serve beyond the limits of their states, were not amenable to discipline, and behaved as a rule very ill in the presence of the enemy. On the British side, the naval force in American waters under Sir John Borlase Warren, who took up the general command on the 26th of September 1812, consisted of ninety-seven vessels in all, of which eleven were of the line and thirty-four were frigates, a power much greater than the national navy of America, but inadequate to the blockade of the long coast from New Brunswick to Florida. The total number of British troops present in Canada in July 1812 was officially stated to be 5004, consisting in part of Canadians.

The scene of operations naturally divided into three sections:--(1) the ocean; (2) the Canadian frontier, from Lake Huron, by Lakes Erie and Ontario, the course of the St Lawrence and Lake Champlain; (3) the coast of the United States. As the operations on these three fields had little interaction on one another, it will be more convenient to take them separately than to follow the confusing chronological order. Operations on the Ocean.--These cover all cruises of sea-going ships, even when they did not go far from the coast. They again subdivide into the actions of national vessels, and the raids of the privateers. The first gave to the United States the most brilliant successes of the war. When it began two small squadrons were getting ready for sea at New York; the frigate "President" (44) and sloop "Hornet" (18), under Commodore John Rodgers, who had also the general command; and the frigates "United States" (44) and "Congress" (38), with the brig "Argus" (16) to which two guns were afterwards added, under Captain Stephen Decatur. Rodgers would have preferred to keep his command together, and to strike with it at the main course of British commerce, but he was overruled. He sailed on the 21st of June, and after chasing the British frigate "Belvidera" (36), which escaped into Halifax by throwing boats, &c., overboard, stood across the North Atlantic in search of a West Indian convoy, which he failed to sight, returning by the 31st of August to Boston. While he was absent, Captain Isaac Hull, commanding the "Constitution" (44), sailed from the Chesapeake, and after a narrow escape from a British squadron, which pursued him from the 18th to the 20th of July, reached Boston. Going to sea again on the 2nd of August he captured and burned the British frigate "Guerriere," (38). On the 8th of October Rodgers and Decatur sailed--the first on a cruise to the east, the second to the south. Commodore Rodgers met with no marked success, but on the 25th of October Captain Decatur in the "United States" captured the British frigate "Macedonian" (38), which he carried back to port. At the close of the month Captain Bainbridge sailed with the "Constitution," "Essex" (32) and "Hornet" (18) on a southerly cruise. On the 20th of December, when off Bahia, he fell in with the British frigate "Java" (38), which was carrying General Hislop, the governor of Bombay, to India, and took her after a sharp action. The "Essex" and "Hornet" were not in company. The first, under the command of Captain David Porter, went on to the Pacific, where she did great injury to British trade, till she was captured off Valparaiso by the British frigate "Phoebe" (38) and the sloop "Cherub" (24) on the 28th of March 1814. In these actions, except the last, the Americans had the advantage of greater size and a heavier broadside, but they showed excellent seamanship and gunnery. The capture of three British frigates one after another caused a painful impression in Great Britain and stimulated her to greater exertions. Vessels were accumulated on the American sea-board, and the watch became more strict. On the 1st of June 1813 the capture of the U.S. frigate "Chesapeake" (38), by the British frigate "Shannon" (38), a vessel of equal force, counterbalanced the moral effect of previous disasters. The blockade of American ports was already so close that the United States ships found it continually more difficult to get to sea, or to keep the sea without meeting forces of irresistibly superior strength.

The operations of American privateers were too numerous and far- ranging to be told in detail. They continued active till the close of the war, and were only partially baffled by the strict enforcement of convoy by the British authorities. A signal instance of the audacity of the American cruisers was the capture of the U.S. sloop "Argus" (20) by the British sloop "Pelican" (18) so far from home as St David's Head in Wales on the 14th of August 1813. The "Pelican's" guns were heavier than those of the "Argus."

Operations on the Lakes.--The American people, who had expected little from their diminutive navy, had calculated with confidence on being able to overrun Canada. As, however, they had taken no effectual measures to provide a mobile force they were disappointed. The British general, Sir George Prevost, was neither able nor energetic, but his subordinate, Major-General Isaac Brock, was both. In July, before the Americans were ready, Brock seized Mackinac at the head of Lake Huron; and on the 16th of August Detroit in the channel between Huron and Erie was surrendered. Kingston was held at the east end of Ontario. Montreal on the St Lawrence was a strong position on the British side to which, however, the Americans had an easy road of approach by Lake Champlain. Sound reasoning would have led the Americans to direct their chief attacks on Kingston and Montreal, since success at those points would have isolated the British posts on Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron. But they were much influenced by fear of the Indians, who had been won over to the British side by the energy of Brock. They therefore looked more carefully to the lakes than to the course of the St Lawrence, and it may be added that their leaders showed an utter want of capacity for the intelligent conduct of war.

The impracticable character of the communications by land made it absolutely necessary for both parties to obtain control of the water. Neither had made any preparations, and the war largely resolved itself into a race of shipbuilding. The Americans, who had far greater facilities for building than the British, allowed themselves to be forestalled. In the second half of 1812 the British general, Sir Isaac Brock, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, adopted measures for opposing the Americans on the frontier line, between Huron and Erie. The American brigadier-general William Hull invaded Canada on the 12th of July from Detroit, just below the small Lake of St Clair between Huron and Erie. His army was mainly composed of militiamen, who behaved very badly, and his papers having been captured in a boat, his plans were revealed. General Brock drove him back and forced him to surrender at Detroit on the 16th of August. Brock now promptly transferred himself to the western end of Erie, where the American general Henry Dearborn was attempting another invasion. Brock fell in action on the 13th of October, while repulsing Dearborn's subordinate Van Rensselaer, a politician named to command by favour, and ignorant of a soldier's business. The Americans were driven back. In this field also their militia behaved detestably. The Canadians on the other hand, both the French who were traditionally amenable to authority and those of English descent, who being largely sons of loyalists of the War of Independence had a bitter hatred of the Americans, did excellent service. The discontent of New England with the war both hampered the American generals and also aided the British, who drew their supplies to a great extent from United States territory. On the 22nd of January 1813, at Frenchtown, the American troops under Winchester surrendered to a British and Indian force under Procter.

During the winter both sides were busy in building ships. On Ontario the Americans pushed on their preparations at Sackett's Harbour under Isaac Chauncey; the English were similarly engaged at Kingston. Sir James Lucas Yeo took command on the 15th of May 1813. On Erie the American headquarters were at Presqu' Isle, now the city of Erie; the English at Fort Malden. The American commander was Captain Oliver Perry, the British commander, Captain Robert Barclay. On Lake Ontario Yeo formed a more mobile though less powerful force than Chauncey's, and therefore manoeuvred to avoid being brought to close action. Three engagements, on the 10th of August, 11th of September and 28th of September, led to no decisive result. By the close of the war Yeo had constructed a ship of 102 guns which gave him the superiority, and the British became masters of Lake Ontario. On Lake Erie the energy of Captain Perry, aided by what appears to have been the misjudgment of Barclay, enabled him to get a superior force by the 4th of August, and on the 10th of September he fought a successful action which left the Americans masters of Lake Erie. The military operations were subordinate to the naval. In April 1813 the Americans took York (now Toronto), and in May moved on Fort George; but a counter-attack by Yeo and Prevost on Sackett's Harbour, on the 29th of May, having made the Americans anxious about the safety of their base, naval support failed the American generals, and they were paralysed. A success was gained by them (October 5) at the Thames, where the Indian chief Tecumseh fell, but they made no serious progress. The Americans turned to the east of Ontario, intending to assail Montreal by the St Lawrence in combination with their forces at Lake Champlain. But the combination failed; they were severely harassed on the St Lawrence, and the invasion was given up.

The operations of 1814 bear a close resemblance to those of 1813, with, however, one important difference. The American generals, having by this time brought their troops to order, were able to fight with much better effect. Their attack on the Niagara peninsula led to hot fighting at Chippewa (July 5) and Lundy's Lane (July 25), the first a success for the Americans, the second a drawn battle. The fall of Napoleon having now freed the British government from the obligation to retain its army in Europe, troops from Spain began to pour in. But on the Canadian frontier they made little difference. In August 1814 Sir George Prevost attacked the American forces at Champlain. But his naval support, ill prepared, was hurried into action by him at Plattsburg on the 11th of September, and defeated. Prevost then retired. His management of the war, more especially on Lake Champlain, was severely criticized, and he was threatened with a court-martial, but died before the trial came on. A British occupation of part of the coast of Maine proved to be mere demonstration.

Operations on the American Coast.--When the war began the British naval forces were unequal to the work of blockading the whole coast. They were also much engaged in seeking for the American cruisers under Rodgers, Decatur and Bainbridge. The British government, having need of American foodstuffs for its army in Spain, was willing to benefit by the discontent of the New Englanders. No blockade of New England was at first attempted. The Delaware and Chesapeake were declared in a state of blockade on the 26th of December 1812. This was extended to the whole coast south of Narragansett by November 1813, and to the whole American coast on the 31st of May 1814. In the meantime much illicit trade was carried on by collusive captures arranged between American traders and British officers. American ships were fraudulently transferred to neutral flags. Eventually the United States government was driven to issue orders for the purpose of stopping illicit trading, and the commerce of the country was ruined. The now overpowering strength of the British fleet enabled it to occupy the Chesapeake and to execute innumerable attacks of a destructive character on docks and harbours. The burning by the American general McClure, on the 10th of December 1813, of Newark (Niagara on the Lake), for which severe retaliation was taken at Buffalo, was made the excuse for much destruction. The most famous of these destructive raids was the burning of the public buildings at Washington by Sir Alexander Cochrane, who succeeded Warren in April in the naval command, and General Robert Ross. The expedition was carried out between the 19th and 29th of August 1814, and was well organized and vigorously executed.1 On the 24th the American militia, collected at Bladensburg to protect the capital, fled almost before they were attacked. A subsequent attack on Baltimore, in which General Ross was killed (September 12, 1814), was a failure. The expedition to New Orleans (q.v.) is separately dealt with.

AUTHORITIES.--In his Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Captain Mahan has given a careful account of the war by land and sea with reference to services. The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1882), is lively but somewhat passionate, and not free from prejudice. A vehement statement of the Canadian side will be found in How Canada was held for the Empire, by James Hannay (London, Edinburgh, Toronto, 1903). See also The Canadian War of 1812, by Charles P. Lucas (Oxford, 1906). (D. H.)

1 The burning of Washington was an act of vandalism by no means approved of by many of the British officers who were compelled to take part in it. (See SMITH, Sir HENRY GEORGE WAKELYN.)

AMERICUS, a city and the county-seat of Sumter county, Georgia, U.S.A., about 71 m. S.S.W. of Macon. Pop. (1880) 3635; (1890) 6398; (1900) 7674, of whom 4661 were of negro descent. It is served by the Central of Georgia and the Seaboard Air Line railways, and is the seat of the Third Congressional District Agricultural High School, a branch of the state university of Georgia. The city is in a rich sugar-cane and fruit country, is a large cotton and mule and horse market, and has division shops of the Seaboard Air Line railway. Among the city's manufactures are cotton-seed oil, fertilizers, chemicals, iron, carriages and wagons and harness (especially horse collars). The city owns the waterworks; the water-supply is obtained from artesian wells. Americus was settled in 1832, and was first chartered as a city in 1855.

AMERSFOORT, a town in the province of Utrecht, Holland, on the navigable Eem, and a junction station 14 m. by rail N.E. by E. of Utrecht. Pop. (1900) 19,089. It is situated in the midst of picturesque and undulating country, consisting of wide sandy heaths and woods, and dotted with many fine country houses. One of the most interesting of its few historic monuments is the Koppelpoort, an old gateway situated at the end of a fine avenue of trees bordering the canal. Close by is a lofty Gothic tower (1500), which belonged to the ancient church of St Mary, which was wrecked by an explosion of gunpowder in 1787. The large plain church of St George dates from the first half of the 13th century. There is also a Jansenist church, to which a seminary is attached. Besides these there are a town hall, a court of primary jurisdiction, industrial and other schools. Amersfoort has a large garrison, consisting chiefly of artillery, and manufactures woollen goods, cotton, silk, glass and brandy. It has also a considerable trade in tobacco, grown in the neighbourhood, and in corn and fish.

AMERSHAM, a market town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 24 m. W.N.W. of London by the Metropolitan railway. Pop. (1901) 2674. It is pleasantly situated in the narrow valley of the Misbourne stream, which is flanked by the well-wooded slopes of the Chiltern Hills. The church of St Mary is almost entirely Perpendicular, and has a beautiful south porch, brasses of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and numerous monuments, several of which, in a chantry, commemorate members of the family of Drake, lords of the manor. The town hall was built by Sir William Drake in 1642. At Coleshill, near Amersham, Edmund Waller the poet was born in 1606; he sat in parliament for the former borough of Amersham. The town has flour mills and breweries, and some straw-plaiting and lace-making are carried on in the vicinity. The district is one of the most beautiful near London; the village of Chenies, overlooking the valley of the Chess, is especially picturesque.

Amersham (Elmodesham, Agmondesham, Hagmondesham, Aumundesham, Homersham) at the time of the Domesday Survey was divided into no less than six holdings. The manor, or chief of them, was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville. At the time of Edward the Confessor it was held by Queen Edith. The manor afterwards descended to the families of Fitz Piers, Bohun and Stratford, and was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir John Russell, ancestor of the earls of Bedford. In 1638 Francis, earl of Bedford, conveyed it to William Drake, by whose descendants it is still held. The north chapel in the church of St Michael, Chenies, has been the burial-place of the Russell family since its erection in 1556, and contains a number of fine memorials, notably that of Anne, countess of Bedford (d. 1558), who founded the chapel. Amersham was formerly a parliamentary borough by prescription, and returned two members in 1300, 1306, 1307 and 1309. In 1623 this privilege was restored, and was only annulled by the Reform Bill of 1832. The annual fair, in September, is held under a charter secured by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of Essex, in 1200, that on Whit Monday under a charter of 1614, secured by Edward, earl of Bedford, which transferred the Friday market, also granted under the earlier charter, to Tuesday.

AMES, FISHER (1758-1808), American statesman, orator and political writer, son of Nathaniel Ames, a physician, was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April 1758. He graduated at Harvard College in 1774, and began the practice of the law at Dedham in 1781, but eventually abandoned that profession for the more congenial pursuit of politics. He was a prominent member of the Massachusetts convention which (February 1788) ratified for that state the Federal Constitution, and in the same year, having entered the lower house in the state legislature, he distinguished himself greatly by his eloquence and readiness in debate. During the eight years of Washington's administration (1789-1797) he was a prominent Federalist member of the national House of Representatives. On the 28th of April 1796, when the Republicans, hostile to the Jay Treaty, were on the point of holding up the appropriation necessary for its execution, Ames, who had just arisen from a sick-bed, made what has been considered the greatest speech of his life; before the delivery of his speech his opponents had claimed a majority of six, but the appropriation was finally passed, in the committee of the whole, by the casting vote of the chairman. When Washington retired from the presidency, Congress voted him an address and chose Ames to deliver it. In 1797 he returned to Dedham to resume the practice of the law, which the state of his health after a few years obliged him to relinquish. He published numerous essays, chiefly in relation to the contest between Great Britain and revolutionary France, as it might affect the liberty and prosperity of America. Ames was one of the group of New England ultra-Federalists known as the "Essex Junto," who opposed the French policy of President John Adams in 1798, and were conspicuous for their British sympathies. Four years before his death he was chosen president of Harvard College, an honour which his broken state of health obliged him to decline. He died on the 4th of July 1808.

His writings and speeches, which abound in sparkling passages, displaying great fertility of imagination, were collected and published, with a memoir of the author, in 1809, by the Rev. Dr J. T. Kirkland, in one large octavo volume. A more complete edition in two volumes was published by his son, Seth Ames, at Boston, Mass., in 1854.

AMES, JOSEPH (1689-1759), English author, was born at Yarmouth on the 23rd of January 1689. He wrote an account of printing in England from 1471 to 1600, Typographical Antiquities (1749). Ames sent out circular letters with a list of two hundred and fifteen English printers with whose works he intended to deal, asking for any available information. He earned the gratitude of subsequent bibliographers by disregarding printed lists and consulting the title- pages of the books themselves. An interleaved copy of the work with many notes in the author's hand is now in the British Museum. Editions of his works were published with added information by William Herbert (3 vols., 1785-1790), and T. F. Dibdin (4 vols., 1810-1819). Ames's occupation is variously given. It is uncertain whether he was a ship-chandler, a patten-maker, a plane-iron maker or an ironmonger; but he led a prosperous life at Wapping, and amassed valuable collections of antiquities. He died on the 7th of October 1759. His other works are catalogues of English printers, of the collection of coins which belonged to the earl of Pembroke, of some two thousand English portraits, and Parentalia (1750), a memoir of the Wrens, undertaken in conjunction with Sir Christopher Wren's grandson, Stephen Wren. Part of his correspondence in bibliography is included in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes and Illustrations.

AMES, OAKES (1804-1873), American manufacturer, capitalist and politician, was born in Easton, Massachusetts, on the 10th of January 1804. As a manufacturer of shovels, in association with his father and his brother Oliver (1807-1877), he amassed a large fortune. In 1860 he became a member of the executive council of Massachusetts, and from 1863 to 1873 was a republican member of the national House of Representatives. As a member of the committee on railroads he became interested in the project, greatly aided by the government, to build a trans-continental railway, connecting the eastern states with California. Others having failed, he was induced in 1865 to assume the direction of the work, and to him more than to any other one man the credit for the construction of the Union Pacific railway was due. The execution was effected largely through a construction company, the Credit Mobilier Company of America. In disposing of some of the stock of this company, Ames in 1867-1871 sold a number of shares to members of Congress at a price much below what these shares eventually proved to be worth. This, on becoming known, gave rise in 1872-1873 to a great congressional scandal. After an investigation by a committee of the House, which recommended the expulsion of Ames, a resolution was passed on the 28th of February 1873, "that the House absolutely condemns the conduct of Oakes Ames...in seeking to secure congressional attention to the affairs of a corporation in which he was interested, and whose interest directly depended upon the legislation of Congress, by inducing members of Congress to invest in the stocks of said corporation." Many have since attributed this resolution to partisanship, and the influence of popular clamour, and in 1883 the legislature of Massachusetts passed a resolution vindicating Ames. He died at North Easton, Mass., on the 8th of May 1873. His son, OLIVER AMES (1831-1895), was lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts from 1883 until 1887, and governor from 1887 to 1890.

See CREDIT MOBILIER OF AMERICA and the references there given. For a defence of Oakes Ames, see Oakes Ames, A Memorial Volume (Cambridge, Mass., 1884).

AMES, WILLIAM (1576-1633), English Puritan divine, better known, especially in Europe, as Amesius, was born of an ancient family at Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1576, and was educated at the local grammar school and at Christ's College, Cambridge, where, as throughout his life, he was an omnivorous student. He was considerably influenced by his tutor, the celebrated William Perkins, and by his successor, a man of kindred intellect and fervour, Paul Bayne. He graduated B.A. and M.A. in due course, and was chosen to a fellowship in Christ's College. He was universally beloved in the university. His own college (Christ's) would have chosen him for the mastership; but a party opposition led to the election of Valentine Cary, who had already quarrelled with Ames for disapproving of the surplice and other outward symbols. One of Ames's sermons became historical in the Puritan controversies. It was delivered on St Thomas's day (1609) before the feast of Christ's nativity, and in it he rebuked sharply "lusory lotts" and the "heathenish debauchery" of the students during the twelve days ensuing. The scathing vehemence of his denunciations led to his being summoned before the vice-chancellor, who suspended him "from the exercise of his ecclesiastical function and from all degrees taken or to be taken." After Cary's election he left the university and would have accepted the great church of Colchester, but the bishop of London refused to grant institution and induction. Like persecution awaited him elsewhere, and at last he passed over to Holland, being aided by certain wealthy English merchants who wished him to controvert the supporters of the English church in Leiden. At Rotterdam, clad in the fisherman's habit donned for the passage, he opposed Grevinchovius (Nicholas Grevinckhoven, d. 1632), minister of the Arminian or Remonstrant church, and overwhelmed him with his logical reasoning from Phil. ii. 13, "It is God that worketh in us both to will and to do." The fisherman-controversialist made a great stir, and from that day became known and honoured in the Low Countries. Subsequently Ames entered into a controversy in print with Grevinchovius on universal redemption and election, and cognate problems. He brought together all he had maintained in his Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem--his most masterful book, which figures largely in Dutch church history. At Leiden, Ames became intimate with the venerable Mr Goodyear, pastor of the English church there. While thus resident in comparative privacy he was sent for to the Hague by Sir Horatio Vere, the English governor of Brill, who appointed him a minister in the army of the states-general, and of the English soldiers in their service, a post held by some of the greatest of England's exiled Puritans. He married a daughter of Dr Burgess, who was Vere's chaplain, and, on his father-in-law's return to England, succeeded to his place.

It was at this time he began his memorable controversy with Episcopius, who, in attacking the Coronis, railed against the author as having been "a disturber of the public peace in his native country, so that the English magistrates had banished him thence; and now, by his late printed Coronis, he was raising new disturbances in the peaceable Netherlands." It was a miserable libel and was at once rebutted by Goodyear. The Coronis had been primarily prepared for the synod of Dort, which sat from November 1618 until May 1619. At this celebrated synod the position of Ames was a peculiar one. The High Church party in England had induced Vere to dismiss him from the chaplaincy; but he was still held, deservedly, in such reverence, that it was arranged he should attend the synod, and accordingly he was retained by the Calvinist party at four florins a day to watch the proceedings on their behalf and advise them when necessary. A proposal to make him principal of a theological college at Leiden was frustrated by Archbishop Abbot; and when later invited by the state of Friesland to a professoriate at Franeker, the opposition was renewed, but this time abortively. He was installed at Franeker on the 7th of May 1622, and delivered a most learned discourse on the occasion on "Urim and Thummin." He soon brought renown to Franeker as professor, preacher, pastor and theological writer. He prepared his Medulla Theologiae, a manual of Calvinistic doctrine, for his students. His De Conscientia, ejus Jure et Casibus (1632), an attempt to bring Christian ethics into clear relation with particular cases of conduct and of conscience, was a new thing in Protestantism. Having continued twelve years at Franeker (where he was rector in 1626), his health gave way, and he contemplated removal to New England. But another door was opened for him. He yearned for more frequent opportunities of preaching to his fellow-countrymen, and an invitation to Rotterdam gave him such opportunity. His friends at Franeker were passionately opposed to the transference, but ultimately acquiesced. At Rotterdam he drew all hearts to him by his eloquence and fervour in the pulpit, and his irrepressible activity as a pastor. Home-controversy engaged him again, and he prepared his Fresh Suit against Ceremonies--the book which made Richard Baxter a Nonconformist. It ably sums up the issues between the Puritan school and that of Hooker. It was posthumously published. He did not long survive his removal to Rotterdam. Having caught a cold from a flood which inundated his house, he died in November 1633, at the age of fifty-seven, apparently in needy circumstances. He left, by a second wife, a son and a daughter. His valuable library found a home in New England.

Few Englishmen have exercised so formative and controlling an influence on European thought and opinion as Ames. He was a master in theological controversy, shunning not to cross swords with the formidable Bellarmine. He was a scholar among scholars, being furnished with extraordinary resources of learning. His works, which even the Biographia Britannica (1778) testifies were famous over Europe, were collected at Amsterdam in 5 vols. 4to. Only a very small proportion was translated into his mother tongue. His Lectiones in omnes Psalmos Davidis (1635) is exceedingly suggestive and terse in its style, reminding of Bengel's Gnomon, as does also his Commentarius utriusque Epist. S. Petri. His "Replies" to Bishop Morton and Dr Burgess on "Ceremonies" tell us that even kinship could not prevent him from "contending earnestly for the faith."

See John Quick's MS. Icones Sacrae Anglicanae, which gives the fisherman anecdote on the personal authority of one who was present; Life by Nethenus prefixed to collected edition of Latin works (5 vols., Amsterdam, 1658); Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. pp. 346- 347; Heal's Puritans, i. 532; Fuller's Cambridge (Christ's College); Hanbury's Hist. Memorials, i. 533; Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. vi., fourth series, 1863, pp. 576-577.

AMES, a city of Story county, Iowa, U.S.A., about 35 m. N. of Des Moines, at the intersection of two lines of the Chicago & North- Western railway. Pop. (1890) 1276; (1900) 2422; (1905, state census) 4223. The city is the seat of the state college of agriculture and mechanic arts; this institution, opened in 1869, has for its use about 1175 acres of land, on which the state has erected, at a cost of $1,200,000, thirty-two college buildings, besides dwelling-houses and buildings for farm purposes. On the college campus are beautiful groves containing several hundred varieties of trees, and in a central position stands a campanile with excellent chimes. The college offers four-year courses in agronomy, animal husbandry, dairying, domestic economy, general science, veterinary medicine, and civil, mechanical, electrical and mining engineering. In 1909-1910 it had an enrollment of 2631 students (including 796 in the winter short course) and a library Of 23,000 volumes. The cost of instruction and experimentation is met by the income from national grants (under the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1882) and by state appropriations. Ames has a Carnegie library, and owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and waterworks. It was laid out as a town in 1864 and was named in honour of Oakes Ames, at the time one of the proprietors of the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River railway (now part of the Chicago & North- Western); five years later it was incorporated.

AMESBURY, a small town in the Wilton parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 8 m. N. of Salisbury, on the London & South- Western railway. Pop. (1901) 1143. It stands on a wooded upland, amid the chalk downs of Salisbury Plain. The church of St Mary is cruciform, with a low square tower, and is largely Early English, with some richly decorated windows in the chancel. A curious two-storeyed building which adjoins the north transept consists of a chapel with a piscina below and a priest's chamber above. Amesbury Abbey, a beautiful house built by Inigo Jones for the dukes of Queensberry, stands close to the village, in a park watered by the river Avon, here famous for its trout. Stonehenge (q.v.), the greatest surviving megalithic work in the British Isles, is a mile and a half distant; and on a hill near the village is Vespasian's Camp or the Ramparts, a large earthwork, which is undoubtedly of British, not Roman, origin.

At Amesbury (Ambresberia, Aumbresbery) a witenagemot was held in 932, while about 980 AElfthryth (Ethelfrida), queen-dowager of Edgar, erected here a nunnery in expiation of the murder of her stepson. The house afterwards acquired such ill repute that in 1177 the nuns were dispersed and the house was attached to the abbey of Fontevrault, by whom it was re-established. From this date, by a succession of royal charters and private gifts, the nunnery amassed vast wealth and privileges, and became a fashionable retreat for ladies of high rank, among whose number were Eleanor, widow of Henry III., and Mary, daughter of Edward I. After the dissolution in 1540 the site was granted to Edward, earl of Hertford, afterwards duke of Somerset and protector of the kingdom. It subsequently passed to the duke of Queensberry. According to the Domesday, Amesbury was a royal manor and did not pay geld, but was under the obligation of providing one night's entertainment for the king. In 1317 the prioress obtained a Saturday market and a three days' fair at the feast of St Melor (Meliorus). The market was subsequently changed to Friday, and three additional fairs were granted. Pipeclay abounds in the neighbourhood, and in the 17th century Amesbury was famous for the best pipes in England, many of which are preserved in Salisbury museum.

See Victoria County History--Wiltshire; Sir Richard Colt Hoare, History of Modern Wiltshire (1822-1844).

AMESBURY, a township of Essex county, in N.E. Massachusetts, U.S.A., situated on the Merrimac river, about 6 m. above its mouth. Pop. (1890) 9798; (1900) 9473, of whom 2448 were foreign-born; (1905, state census), 8840. Amesbury is served by two divisions of the Boston & Maine railway, and is connected by electric line with Haverhill and Newburyport, Mass., and with Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and Salisbury Beach, Mass., two summer resorts. The township covers a land area of about 13 sq. m. The surface is hilly. The Powow river, a small stream, passes through the centre of the township. There is a public library. Among Amesbury's manufactures are hats, cotton goods, carriages, automobile bodies, carriage and automobile lamps, thermometers, brass castings and motor boats. In 1905 the factory products were valued at $3,614,692. Amesbury was settled about 1644 as a separate part of Salisbury, and in 1654, by mutual agreement of the old and new "towns," became practically independent, although not legally a township until 1666 (named Amesbury, from the English town in Wilts, in 1667). It suffered repeatedly in the course of the colonial Indian wars. Quakers settled here as early as 1701. Josiah Bartlett (1729-1795), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born here, and is commemorated by a statue (1888) by Karl Gerhardt. Shipbuilding was an important industry in the 18th and especially the first quarter of the 19th century, and the U.S. frigate "Alliance" was built at Salisburypoint in 1778. A nail factory, one of the earliest in the country, was built on the Powow in 1796. The manufacture of iron began about 1710, of hats in 1769, of carriages in 1800 and of cotton goods in 1812. Paul Moody, who with F. C. Lowell constructed in 1814 at Waltham the first successful power-loom in America, was engaged in the manufacture of cotton goods in Amesbury. The township was the home of John G. Whittier from 1836 to 1892; here were written most of the poems of his middle and later life, many of which describe the surrounding country. In 1876 Merrimac township was created out of the territory of Amesbury; in 1886 the west part of the old township of Salisbury was united to Amesbury.

See Joseph Merrill, History of Amesbury (Haverhill, 1880); S. T. Pickard, Whittier-land, A Handbook of North Essex (Boston, New York, 1904).

AMETHYST, a violet or purple variety of quartz used as an ornamental stone. The name is generally said to be derived from the Gr. a, "not," and methbskein, "to intoxicate," expressing the old belief that the stone protected its owner from strong drink. It was held that wine drunk out of a cup of amethyst would not intoxicate. According, however, to the Rev. C. W. King, the word may probably be a corruption of an Eastern name for the stone.

The colour of amethyst is usually attributed to the presence of manganese, but as it is capable of being much altered and even discharged by heat it has been referred by some authorities to an organic source. Ferric thiocyanate has been suggested, and sulphur is said to have been detected in the mineral. On exposure to heat, amethyst generally becomes yellow, and much of the cairngorm or yellow quartz of jewellery is said to be merely "burnt amethyst." Veins of amethystine quartz are apt to lose their colour on the exposed outcrop.

Amethyst is composed of an irregular superposition of alternate lamellae of right-handed and left-handed quartz. (See QUARTZ.) It has been shown by Prof. J. W. Judd that this structure may be due to mechanical stresses. In consequence of this composite formation, amethyst is apt to break with a rippled fracture, or to show "thumb markings," and the intersection of two sets of curved ripples may produce on the fractured surface a pattern something like that of "engine turning." Some mineralogists, following Sir D. Brewster, apply the name of amethyst to all quartz which exhibits this structure, regardless of its colour.

The amethyst was used as a gem-stone by the ancient Egyptians, and was largely employed in antiquity for intaglios. Beads of amethyst are found in Anglo-Saxon graves in England. Amethyst is a very widely distributed mineral, but fine clear specimens fit for cutting as ornamental stones are confined to comparatively few localities. Such crystals occur either in cavities in mineral-veins and in granitic rocks, or as a lining in agate geodes. A huge geode, or "amethyst- grotto," from near Santa Cruz in southern Brazil, was exhibited at the Dusseldorf Exhibition of 1902. Many of the hollow agates of Brazil and Uruguay contain a crop of amethyst-crystals in the interior. Much fine amethyst comes from Russia, especially from near Mursinka in the Ekaterinburg district, where it occurs in drusy cavities in granitic rocks. Many localities in India yield amethyst; and it is found also in Ceylon, chiefly as pebbles.

Purple corundum, or sapphire of amethystine tint, is called (Oriental amethyst, but this expression is often applied by jewellers to fine examples of the ordinary amethystine quartz, even when not derived from Eastern sources.

Amethyst occurs at many localities in the United States, but rarely fine enough for use in jewellery. Among these may be mentioned Amethyst Mountain, Texas; Yellowstone National Park; Delaware Co., Pennsylvania; Haywood Co., North Carolina; Deer Hill, and Stow, Maine. It is found also in the Lake Superior district. See G. F. Kunz, Gems &c. of North America (1890),and Report for 12th Census (vol. "Mines and Quarries"). (F. W. R.*)

AMHARA, the central province of Abyssinia. The chief town, Gondar (q.v.), by which name the province is also known, was the residence of the negus negusti, or emperor, of Abyssinia from the middle ages up to 1854. The speech of the inhabitants, Amharic, which differs in several features from the dialects spoken in Tigre and Shoa, is the official language of Abyssinia.

AMHERST, JEFFREY AMHERST, BARON (1717-1797), British soldier, was the son of Jeffrey Amherst of Riverhead, Kent, and by the interest of the duke of Dorset obtained an ensigncy in the Guards in 1731. He served in Germany and the Low Countries as aide-de-camp to General (Lord) Ligonier, and was present at Dettingen, Fontenoy and Roucoux. He then served on Cumberland's staff, and took part with the duke in the later campaigns of the Austrian Succession war, in the battle of Val, and the North German campaign of 1757, including the battle of Hastenbeck. A year previously he had been promoted to a lieutenant- colonelcy. In 1758 William Pitt caused Amherst to be made a major- general, and gave him command of an expedition to attack the French in North America. For the great plan of conquering Canada, Pitt chose young and ardent officers, with Amherst, distinguished for steadiness and self-control, as their commander-in-chief. The first victory of the expedition, the capture of Louisburg (July 26, 1758), was soon followed by other successes, and Amherst was given the chief command of all the forces in the theatre of war. In the campaign of 1759 Amherst's own share was the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, while Fort Niagara fell to another column, and Quebec was taken by Wolfe. In 1760 a concentric march on Montreal was carried out with complete success, Amherst was immediately appointed governor-general of British North America, and in the following year was made a K.B. His conduct of the operations against the Indians under Pontiac was, however, far from being as successful as his generalship against regular troops; and he returned to England in 1763, being made governor of Virginia and colonel of the 60th regiment in the same year. In 1768 the king, who had had a quarrel with Amherst, made amends by giving him another colonelcy; in 1770 he was made governor of Guernsey; and two years later, though not yet a full general, he was made lieutenant-general of the ordnance and acting commander-in- chief of the forces. In this capacity he was the chief adviser at headquarters during the American War of Independence. He was created a peer in 1776, was promoted general in 1778 and became colonel of the 2nd Horse Grenadiers (2nd Life Guards) two years later. He aided in suppressing the Gordon riots of 1780. The rest of his active life, with a short interval in 1782-1783, he spent at the Horse Guards as commander-in-chief, but he was no longer capable of good service, and in 1795 he was succeeded by the duke of York. In 1796 Lord Amherst was made field-marshal; and he died on the 3rd of August 1797 at "Montreal," his residence in Kent.

AMHERST, WILLIAM PITT AMHERST, EARL (1773-1857), governor- general of India, was the nephew of Jeffrey, Baron Amherst, and succeeded to his title in 1797 by the remainder provided when the patent of nobility was renewed in 1788. In 1816 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the court of China, with a view of establishing more satisfactory commercial relations between that country and Great Britain. On arriving in the Peiho he was given to understand that he could only be admitted to the emperor's presence on condition of performing the ko-tou (kow-tow), a ceremony which Western nations consider degrading, and which is, indeed, a homage exacted by a Chinese sovereign from his tributaries. To this Lord Amherst, following the advice of Sir George T. Staunton, who accompanied him as second commissioner, refused to consent, as Lord Macartney had done in 1793, unless the admission was made that his sovereign was entitled to the same show of reverence from a mandarin of his rank. In consequence of this he was not allowed to enter Pekin, and the object of his mission was frustrated. His ship, the "Alceste," after a cruise along the coast of Korea and to the Loo-Choo Islands, on proceeding homewards was totally wrecked on a sunken rock in Gaspar Strait. Lord Amherst and part of his shipwrecked companions escaped in the ship's boats to Batavia, whence relief was sent to the rest. The ship in which he returned to England in 1817 having touched at St Helena, he had several interviews with the emperor Napoleon (see Ellis's Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, 1817; M'Leod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. "Alceste," 1817). Lord Amherst held the office of governor-general of India from August 1823 to February 1828. The principal event of his government was the first Burmese war of 1824, resulting in the cession of Arakan and Tenasserim to Great Britain. He was created Earl Amherst of Arakan in 1826. On his return to England he lived in retirement till his death in March 1857.

See A. Thackeray and R. Evans, Lord Amherst ("Rulers of India" series), 1894.

AMHERST, a town and district in the Tenasserim division of Lower Burma. The town is situated about 30 m. S. of Moulmein. It was founded by the British in 1826 on the restoration of the town of Martaban to the Burmese, and named in compliment to the governor- general of India of that day; but in 1827 the headquarters were transferred to Moulmein. Amherst has been eclipsed in prosperity by the latter city, and is now merely a bathing-place for Moulmein.

The district forms a narrow strip of land between the Indian Ocean and the mountains which separate it from the independent kingdom of Siam. It has an area of 7062 sq. m. and had a population in 1901 of 300,173; it consists partly of fertile valleys formed by spurs of mountain system which divides it from Siam, and partly of a rich alluvial tract created by the great rivers which issue from them. The most important of these are the Salween and the Gyaing, formed by the junction of the Hlaingbwe and Haungtharaw rivers. The river highways bring down inexhaustible supplies of rice to Moulmein, the chief town of the district, as also of the province of Tenasserim. The district is subject to very heavy rainfall approaching 150 in. in the year, and has a uniform temperature of about 80 deg. F. throughout the twelvemonth.

AMHERST, a village of Amherst township, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 7 m. N.E. of Northampton. Pop. of the township (1890) 4512; (1900) 5028; (1905, state census) 5313. It is served by the Boston & Maine and the Central Vermont railways, and by interurban electric railways to Northampton, Holyoke, Sunderland and Pelham. The village is picturesquely situated on a plateau within a rampart of hills on the E. side of the Connecticut river valley. About 3 m. to the S. are the Holyoke Mountains (so called), while on the three remaining sides the land slopes to meadows, beyond which rise on the W. the Hampshire and Berkshire Hills, on the E. the Sugar Loaf Mountains and Mt. Toby, and on the E. the Pelham Hills, including Mt Lincoln (1246 ft.). Two small rivers (Mill and Fort) flow through the township. Amherst is a quiet, pleasing, academic village of attractive homes. It is noteworthy as the seat of Amherst College, one of the best known of the smaller colleges of the United States. Amherst Academy (opened about 1814, chartered 1816), a co-educational school at which Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke College, was educated, preceded the college (not co-educational), which was opened in 1821 and was chartered in 1825. It was originally a collegiate charitable institution, its basis being a fund for the schooling of ministers, and the charity element has remained very large relatively to other colleges. The principal college buildings are College Hall (1828); College Chapel (1828); the Henry T. Morgan Library; Williston Hall, containing the Mather Art Museum, the rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association, and several lecture-rooms; Walker Hall, with college offices and lecture-rooms; Hitchcock Hall; Barrett Hall (1859), the first college gymnasium built in the United States, now used as a lecture hall; the Pratt Gymnasium and Natatorium and the Pratt Health Cottage, whose donors also gave to the college the Pratt Field; an astronomical observatory; and the two dormitories, North College and South College, supplemented by several fraternity houses. The natural history collections (including the very large ichnological collection of President Hitchcock, and Audubon's collection of birds) are of exceptional richness. At Amherst is also the Massachusetts Agricultural College (co-educational; 1867) and experiment station (1887). Among the presidents of Amherst College have been in 1845- 1854 and in 1876-1890 respectively--Edward Hitchcock, the famous geologist, and the Rev. Julius H. Seelye (1824-1895), a well-known educationalist. The township seems to have been first settled in 1731; it was incorporated in 1759 as a "district" (i.e. having all the rights of a township save corporate representation in the legislature) and in 1776 as a "town" (township). It was originally part of Hadley. Its name was given to it in honour of General Jeffrey Amherst (1717-1797). During the Shays' Rebellion Amherst was a centre of disaffection and a rallying-point of the insurgents. Noah Webster lived in the village from 1812 to 1822, when working on his Dictionary; and Emily Dickinson and Helen M. Fiske (later Helen Hunt- Jackson, "H. H.") were born here.

See William Seymour Tyler, A History of Amherst College (New York, 1896), and Carpenter and Morehouse, The History of the Town of Amherst (New York, 1896).

AMHERST, the county town of Cumberland county, and port of entry in Novia Scotia, Canada, at the head of Chignecto Bay and on the Intercolonial railway, 138 m. from Halifax. Pop. (1901) 4964. It is situated in a rich agricultural and mining district, and contains county and railway buildings and numerous mills and factories. It is the distributing centre for the surrounding district, and exports railway carriages, engines, boilers, stoves, &c.