Francis Espinasse

“ Marrying at an imprudently early age, he and his family knew actual want at times of depression in his trade, and he afterwards described himself as ‘for whole days without food.’ He turned, however, his enforced leisure to account, and when half-starved studied assiduously his own few books, and such as he could borrow, teaching himself French and Latin, and acquiring some knowledge of physics, mathematics, and natural history. ”

“ In 1709 was published, also anonymously, at Edinburgh, Law's second pamphlet, 'Money and Trade considered, with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money.' Law starts here with the assertion that the trade of a country depends on its possession of a supply of money equal in quantity to the demand for it in all departments of industry. ”

“ After being several years at Shanghai Goodwin was transferred to Yokohama, where he spent three years as acting judge of the supreme court. He retained this position in 1876 when he returned to Shanghai, and he remained there, a visit to England intervening, until his death, after a long illness, in January 1878. The event caused the deepest regret among the British residents at Shanghai and Yokohama. Goodwin had endeared himself to all his friends as a delightful companion, cheerful and unaffected, his great acquirements being unaccompanied by the slightest trace of pedantry or pretension. ”

“ Cockburn died 26 April 1854 at Bonaly, the house and grounds of which he had greatly improved, extended, and embellished, and he was buried in the Dean cemetery, Edinburgh, near the grave of his friend, Lord Jeffrey. He was below the middle height, with a handsome and intellectual face, fond of outdoor exercises, and a devoted lover of nature. ”

“ Fletcher's scheme of security was only to take effect if Queen Anne's successor on the throne of England should also be sovereign of Scotland. He proposed that in this contingency the Scotch executive should be chosen not by the sovereign of both countries, but by a committee of the parliament of Scotland. The Scotch parliament was to meet annually, and the votes in it were to be taken by ballot. For every nobleman added to the parliament a ‘lesser baron,’ or county member, was to be added. A national militia was to be established as soon as the Act of Security became law. ”

“ With the rebellion of 1745 Drummond was foremost in calling for and organising resistance on the part of the citizens of Edinburgh to its occupation by the rebels. Through his efforts a body of volunteers was raised, and at his persuasion they were ready to march out of Edinburgh, and, with some regulars, meet the enemy in the open. Drummond, who was captain of the first or College company, found himself, however, unsupported by the authorities, and the zeal of the volunteers melted away until the only course left was to consent to their disbandment. ”

“ A man of untiring industry and considerable accomplishment, Campbell is described as gentle in manner and of kindly disposition. There are several interesting references to him in Boswell's ‘Life of Johnson,’ to both of whom he was known personally, Johnson being in the habit of going to the literary gatherings on Sunday evenings at Campbell's house in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, until ‘I began,’ he said, ‘to consider that the shoals of Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably say, when anything of mine was well done, “Ay, ay, he has learnt this of Cawmell.” ”

“ Law maintained that paper-money, as yet unknown in Scotland, was not only in itself a much more convenient currency than specie, with which the country was scantily supplied, but could be easily and safely issued in quantities adequate to the demand if it represented not gold and silver, but non-metallic objects possessing real value, especially land. ”

“ Yorkshire had for centuries been a principal seat of the woollen manufacture, and at Doncaster Cartwright invented a wool-combing machine which contributed greatly to lessen the cost of that manufacture. It was an invention more original than his power-loom. No method of combing wool but by hand appears to have been so much as thought of when Cartwright took out, in 1789, his first patent for a wool-combing machine. ”

“ Acland desired a modified application of the principle. He proposed that ‘there should be established, by the authority of parliament, throughout the whole of the kingdom of England, one general club or society’ for the support of the poor in sickness, in old age, and when out of work. With certain exceptions, every adult male or female receiving a certain wage was to be compelled to contribute to this fund, and a similar obligation was imposed on the bulk of the community. ”

“ Educated at Kendal grammar school he was sent to London, and ultimately apprenticed to Senex, a well-known map and globe maker, who encouraged his desire for the acquisition of knowledge. While thus occupied he formed the design of compiling a cyclopædia on a larger scale than that of John Harris's ‘Lexicon Technicum,’ the first edition of which had been published in 1704, and was the only work of the kind in the language. After he had begun the enterprise he quitted Senex and took chambers in Gray's Inn, where he completed it. ”

“ Specialists in isolated sections of peerage history have pointed out serious mistakes in the work, none with more acrimony than the author of ‘Three Letters containing remarks on some of the numberless errors and defects in Dugdale's “Baronage,”’ &c., 1730–8, attributed in the ‘Biographia Britannica’ (art. ‘Dugdale’) —where characteristic extracts from it are given—to a certain Charles Hornby, secondary of the pipe office, but by the Gloucester bookseller who reprinted them in 1801 to Rawlinson the antiquary. ”

“ As long as prices steadily rose he argued that though more money might be taken out of the taxpayer's pocket, the quantity of commodities which the sum levied by taxation would purchase steadily decreased, and that thus if 'burden' were interpreted to be the amount of commodities of the power of purchasing which the community was deprived by taxation, its increase need not be and had not been at all proportionate to the increase of charge. ”

“ His father, John Drinkwater, formerly a surgeon in the navy, was at the time of his birth a medical practitioner at Salford, then a suburb of Manchester. At the age of fifteen he joined as an ensign a regiment of volunteers raised by a subscription in Manchester, at a time of indignant excitement produced by the news of General Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga. The Manchester regiment, as it was called, more properly the 72nd regiment of the line, or Royal Manchester Volunteers, was not, however, sent to America, but to Gibraltar. ”

“ In the second ‘Discourse’ Fletcher proposed a sweeping measure of social reform. He estimated at two hundred thousand at that time of scarcity, and at one hundred thousand in ordinary times, the number of beggars and vagrants who infested and preyed upon Scotland. He proposed that every man of a certain estate should be obliged to take a proportional number of them into his service. ”

“ Before the close of the century the firm of Longman & Rees had become, both as publishers and booksellers, one of the greatest in London ; among the earliest of the valuable Copyrights which they acquired being that of Limley Murray's ' English Grammar.' With large capital at their command, they bought up businesses and copyrights in town and country. ”

“ His father, William Law, great-grand-nephew of James Law [q.v.] , archbishop of Glasgow, was a prosperous Edinburgh 'goldsmith,' a business which then included money-lending and banking. He acquired the estate of Lauriston, a few miles from Edinburgh, in the parish of Cramond, and died in 1684. John was educated at Edinburgh, and was early remarkable for his proficiency in arithmetic and algebra. He grew up a handsome, accomplished, and foppish young man of dissipated habits, and a great gambler. ”

“ In advanced age the dignity of his person was such that, according to Dr. Somerville (p. 45) , a stranger entering a meeting of Edinburgh citizens for the consideration of important business would at once have selected Drummond as the fittest person to take the lead in council. He was an easy and graceful public speaker. There are specimens of his official correspondence in Maitland's ‘History of Edinburgh,’ and a few of his letters on university matters in Thomson's ‘Life of Cullen,’ 1832. ”

“ Composed in the form of annals, it is not merely a record of commercial progress and colonial enterprise, but a history of the political, industrial, and social development of all civilised countries, and especially of Great Britain and Ireland. Abstracts of all treaties, acts of parliament, and pamphlets in any way bearing on commerce or kindred matters, are added, together with statistical accounts of the national finances, of prices, currency, and population. ”

“ Sir Henry Chauncy, the historian of Hertfordshire, who knew him, describes him as 'adorned with a modest and grave aspect, a sweet and pleasant countenance, a comely presence,' as 'a learned man' who 'delighted much in his library,' and further as possessed of all the virtues. ”

“ With Drummond's first provostship began a new era in the history of modern Edinburgh. The government and patronage of the university were in the hands of the town council, and from 1715 until Drummond's death nothing was done without his advice. A medical faculty was established and five new professorships instituted. Chairs were given to a number of eminent men, from Alexander Monro secundus and Colin M'Laurin to Adam Ferguson and Hugh Blair, and through Drummond Robertson the historian became principal of the university. ”