William Paterson

“ The Blast remained in the West Indies until the peace of 1783, when she returned to England, and was put out of commission. At the commencement of the war with the French republic, Captain Paterson obtained the command of the Gorgon store-ship, in which he proceeded with the late Viscount Hood to the Mediterranean, where he was promoted by his Lordship to post rank in the Ariadne, of 20 guns, by commission dated Jan. 20, 1794; and in the course of the same year removed into the Melpomene, a fine frigate taken possession of at Calvi, when that place surrendered to the British arms [6] . ”

“ Paterson believed that thus the late disasters would be more than retrieved. (2) A Proposal to plant a Colony in Darien to protect the Indians against Spain, and to open the Trade of South America to all Nations (1701) . This was the Darien scheme on a new and broader basis. It points out in detail the advantages to be gained: free trade would be advanced over all the world, and Great Britain would largely profit. (3) Wednesday Club Dialogues upon the Union (London, 1706) . These were imaginary conversations in a club in the city of London about the union with Scotland. ”

“ In the autumn of the year 1874 Miss Paterson was married to Mr. William Allingham, the well-known poet, editor of Fraser’s Magazine, and friend of so many of the celebrities in literature, science, and art of the middle of the last century, amongst whom may be mentioned Carlyle, Ruskin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Browning, and Tennyson. It was to be near the first named that the newly married couple went to reside in Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, where they passed the next seven years of their married life, namely until 1881. ”

“ There is singular fitness in the motto “Sic vos non vobis” inscribed under the only portrait of him we possess.
See Life of W. Paterson, by S. Bannister (Edinburgh, 1858) ; Paterson's Works, by S. Bannister (3 vols., London, 1859) ; The Birthplace and Parentage of W. Paterson, by W. Pagan (Edinburgh, 1865) ; Eng. Hist. Review, xi. 260. The brilliant account of the Darien scheme in the fifth volume of Macaulay's History is incorrect and misleading; that in Burton's Hist. of Scotland (vol. viii. ch. 84) is much truer. ”

“ Another visitor to Addison Mansions in latter days was William Romaine Paterson, better known as “Benjamin Swift”—a man of extraordinary ability, whom I should not be surprised to see in a Radical Cabinet. The moment you meet him you are aware that you are in the presence of an intellect of the first rank, and an uncompromising personality. A deep reader and thinker, he has the gift of clear expression and glittering sarcasm. I have seldom heard a more effective speaker. He has already written a number of remarkable novels. ”

“ Paterson is the hero of Eliot Warburton's novel Darien, or the Merchant Prince, an historical romance, London, 1852; and to Paterson is dedicated Paul Coq's treatise La Monnaie de Banque ou l'espèce et le portefeuille, Paris, 1863, to which is prefixed a memoir, in which full justice is done to Paterson's supreme business talents. ”

“ In 1695 he went to Scotland, where Andrew Fletcher [q. v.] of Saltoun introduced him to members of the administration, and his scheme was eagerly taken up. Paterson himself framed the first draft of the act establishing the Scottish Africa and India Company (26 June 1695) . He raised 300,000l., the maximum fixed for any one subscription in England, and 400,000l. in Scotland, besides obtaining subscriptions from abroad; he himself subscribed 3,000l. But pressure by Spain, France, and Holland compelled the English government to publicly withdraw their support ”

“ He went to the continent and pressed it to no purpose in Hamburg, Amsterdam and Berlin, and on his return to London he engaged in trade and rapidly amassed a considerable fortune. About 1690 he was occupied in the formation in the Hampstead Water Company, and in 1694 he founded the Bank of England. The government required money, and the country, rapidly increasing in wealth, required a bank. The subscribers lent their money to the nation, and this debt became the bank stock. The credit of having formulated the scheme and persuaded its adoption is due to Paterson. ”

“ John's Church.—A Silver Jubilee.—A Life Devoted to the Service of the Almighty.—The Choir of the Church.—Various Societies of the Congregation.
No person in Paterson has done harder and more energetic work in the cause of Catholicism than the reverend pastor of St. John's congregation, Father William McNulty. His pluck, untiring zeal, kind disposition and many other laudable characteristics have endeared him to all. ”

“ Even when you do get him the case isn’t over, because the jury will side with Peggy. They’ll sympathise with her efforts to prove herself an honest woman. It isn’t marrying too much that will get her into trouble—it’s the other thing. But we have the date and place of her alleged marriage with William Grant; and if this old Considine can prove, by documents, mind you, not by his own simple word—because it’s a hundred to one the jury wouldn’t believe him—I say, if he can prove that she married him on that very day and at that very place, then she’s beaten. ”

“ Paterson, on the other hand, firmly believed himself to have discovered the means of making any state which would follow his counsel great and prosperous in a time which, when compared with the life of an individual, could hardly be called long, and which, in the life of a nation, was but as a moment. ”

“ How far did you come last night?' 'A hundred miles since the sun went down.' And his wife got round, and an oath he passed, So long as he or one of his breed Could raise a coin, though it took their last The Swagman never should want a feed. And Kate Carew, when her father died, She kept the horse and she kept him well: The pride of the district far and wide, He lived in style at the bush hotel. Such was the Swagman; and Ryan knew Nothing about could pace the crack; Little he'd care for the man in blue If once he got on the Swagman's back. ”

“ No contrast could be greater than between Patience Harrison and George Paterson: the man so full of life, and the enjoyment of life; the woman so languid and weary-looking. He seemed as if the world were a pleasant place to him, she as if it were a waste and a wilderness. ”

“ Ewing—She is a Girl of Reading, Taste, & Delicacy; has a good share of personal Beauty, open, sociable, & kind in her manner, & on the whole agreeable—Mr Paterson seemed always to me formal, has a peculiar, universal Fondness for the Fair is a great mathematician, a good English Scholar & Philosopher, & is frugal & industrious. I rode with Mr Patterson to Mr Hunters, he informed me many things concerning the new School or small Acadamy lately instituted at Wilmington, in which he is second Master. Evening I wrote a sentimental Letter to Miss Beatty. ”

“ On 4 Feb. 1809 he and Bligh signed the convention by which the latter consented to go home ‘with the utmost despatch,’ but Bligh had not gone further than Tasmania by March, and continued to give trouble. Paterson was relieved on 31 Dec. 1809 by the arrival of the new governor, Lachlan Macquarie [q. v.] His corps—now become the 102nd regiment—was ordered home, and he left the colony in May 1810, amid the enthusiastic farewells of the colonists. He died on the passage home, on board her majesty's ship Dromedary, on 21 June 1810. ”

“ Paterson is the very man we want. He is sensible, friendly, and, as far as I am capable of judging, profound in the law. He is to examine me on Saturday or Monday on what I have read, and I am preparing accordingly. I have heard him examine Noel yesterday on the practice, and I find his examinations are critical. In a couple of months I expect to be as far advanced in the practice as Noel. ”

“ National antipathy operated on some minds, religious antipathy on others. But it is impossible to deny that the anger which Paterson's schemes excited throughout the south of the island was, in the main, just and reasonable. Though it was not yet generally known in what precise spot his colony was to be planted, there could be little doubt that he intended to occupy some part of America; and there could be as little doubt that such occupation would be resisted. There would be a maritime war; and such a war Scotland had no means of carrying on. ”

“ The conversation between Mr. Pulitzer and Paterson, or, rather, Paterson's frequently interrupted monologue, lasted until we had all finished dinner, and the butler had lighted Mr. Pulitzer's cigar. In the middle of an eloquent passage from Paterson, Mr. Pulitzer rose, turned abruptly toward me, held out his hand, and said, "I'm very glad to have met you, Mr. Ireland; you have entertained me very much. Please come here to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and I'll take you out for a drive. Good-night." He took Paterson's arm and left the room. ”

“ I want a witness with me when I catch Red Mick with these sheep, or else fifty of his clan will swear that he has been in bed for six weeks, or something like that.”
“Then,” she said firmly, gathering up the reins in her daintily gloved hands as she spoke, “I’m going with you. I’m just as good a witness as Poss or Binjie.”
“No, no, no,” said Hugh, “that won’t do. There may be a row. It’s a rough sort of place, and a rough lot of people. Now look here, Miss Grant, oblige me and go home. The horse will take you straight back.” ”

“ The cry of the whole community was that death was all around them, and that they must, while they still had strength to weigh an anchor or spread a sail, fly to some less fatal region. The men and provisions were equally distributed among three ships, the Caledonia, the Unicorn, and the Saint Andrew. Paterson, though still too ill to sit in the Council, begged hard that he might be left behind with twenty or thirty companions to keep up a show of possession, and to await the next arrivals from Scotland. So small a number of people, he said, might easily subsist by catching fish and turtles. ”

“ When the Queen's Record Reign was being celebrated in Perth, Mr. Paterson was a moving spirit in the festivities, being chairman of the Decoration Committee. He has always been an active member of the Australian Natives' Association, and is an ex-president of the Western Australian branch. He takes an interest in athletic sports of all kinds, and is vice-president of a number of sporting combinations. There is a refreshing geniality and frankness about Mr. Paterson. No one is more zealous than he of the welfare of Perth. ”

“ In other words, we fear that by that time he will be, in the common but hideously significant phrase, another man. Now, it is this horrible fairy tale of a man constantly changing into other men that is the soul of the Decadence. That John Paterson should, with apparent calm, look forward to being a certain General Barker on Monday, Dr. Macgregor on Tuesday, Sir Walter Carstairs on Wednesday, and Sam Slugg on Thursday, may seem a nightmare; but to that nightmare we give the name of modern culture. ”

“ There's some is grown and gone away, but some is childer yet, And times is very bad indeed — a livin's hard to get. 'There's Min and Sis and little Chris, they stops at home with me, And Sal has married Greenhide Bill that breaks for Bingeree. And Fred is drovin' Conroy's sheep along the Castlereagh, And Charley's shearin' down the Bland, and Peter is away.' The lawyer wrote the details down in ink of legal blue — 'There's Minnie, Susan, Christopher, they stop at home with you; There's Sarah, Frederick, and Charles, I'll write to them to-day, But what about the other one — the one who is away? ”

“ On Monday, Hugh, Poss, and Binjie had to go out to an outlying paddock to draft a lot of station-sheep from a mob of travelling-sheep. As this meant a long, hard job, the three breakfasted by candlelight—a good old fashion, this, but rather forgotten lately—and Blake also turned out for early breakfast, as he wanted to get his drive to Tarrong over while the weather was cool. Of the women-folk, Ellen alone was up, boiling eggs, and making tea on a spirit-lamp; laughing and chattering meanwhile, and keeping them all amused ”

“ A cemetery adjoins the church.
Father Hens's first assistant was Father Kars, who is now the pastor of St Mary's Church in Gloucester, N. J. Then came Father Dernis, at present pastor of the Catholic church in Salem, N. J. Father Dernis was succeeded by Father Geissler, who was the first person baptized in Paterson by Father Hartlaub. After Father Geissler came Father J. W. Grieff, who by his eloquence, affability and energy has made himself beloved and respected by all. Father Hens also derives material assistance from the Franciscan Fathers in this city. ”

“ It became a delicate and troublesome task to select from such a throng of eager volunteers, for, of course, all could not go, and, alas! for the success of the enterprise, in too many cases family interest or personal influence prevailed to find a place for some good-for-nothing scapegrace instead of an honest, hard-working man, who would have been a valuable addition. If only Mr. Paterson had been able to inspire those associated with him with his own unselfish zeal and high integrity, there might have been a different story to tell. ”

“ It will, however, show to the rising generation to whom they are indebted for the success [Pg 14] of the church in Paterson: who the men and women were whom God made his instruments in establishing Catholicism in Passaic County.
Agnew, Patrick, was among the earliest Catholic settlers in Paterson. He was for some time employed in the Phœnix Mill but subsequently kept a store in Cross street. His son John is in business in this city; his son Thomas is in business in San Francisco and his daughter Margaret is the wife of Charles H. O'Neill, of Jersey City. ”