Chapter II: Part 2

In 1615 Davies published at Dublin _Le Primer Discours des Cases et
Matters in Ley resolues et adjudges en les Courts del Roy en cest
Realme_ (reprinted 1628). He issued an edition of his poems in 1622.
His prose publications were mainly posthumous. _The Question
concerning Impositions, Tonnage, Poundage ..._ was printed in 1656,
and four of the tracts relating to Ireland, with an account of Davies
and his services to that country, were edited by G. Chalmers in 1786.
His works were edited by Dr A. B. Grosart (3 vols. 1869-1876), with a
full biography, for the Fuller Worthies Library.

He is not to be confounded with another poet, JOHN DAVIES of Hereford
(1565?-1618), among whose numerous volumes of verse may be mentioned
_Mirum in modum_ (1602), _Microcosmus_ (1603), _The Holy Roode_
(1609), _Wittes Pilgrimage_ (c. 1610), _The Scourge of Folly_ (c.
1611), _The Muses Sacrifice_ (1612) and _Wittes Bedlam_ (1607); his
_Scourge of Folly_ contains verses addressed to many of his
contemporaries, to Shakespeare among others; he also wrote _A Select
Second Husband for Sir Thomas Overbury's Wife_ (1616), and _The
Writing Schoolmaster_ (earliest known edition, 1633); his works were
collected by Dr A. B. Grosart (2 vols., 1873) for the Chertsey
Worthies Library.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Edited by Henry Morley in his _Ireland under Elizabeth and James
I._ (1890).

DAVIES (DAVISIUS), JOHN (1679-1732), English classical scholar and critic, was born in London on the 22nd of April 1679. He was educated at Charterhouse and Queens' College, Cambridge, of which society he was elected fellow (July 7th, 1701). He subsequently became rector of Fen Ditton, prebendary of Ely, and president of his college. He died on the 7th of March 1731-1732, and was buried in the college chapel. Davies was considered one of the best commentators on Cicero, his attention being chiefly devoted to the philosophical works of that author. Amongst these he edited the _Tusculanae disputationes_ (1709), _De natura deorum_ (1718), _De divinatione_ and _De fato_ (1725), _Academica_ (1725), _De legibus_ (1727), _De finibus_ (1728). His nearly finished notes on the _De officiis_ he bequeathed to Dr Richard Mead, with a view to their publication. Mead, finding himself unable to carry out the undertaking, transferred the notes to Thomas Bentley (nephew of the famous Richard Bentley), by whose carelessness they were burnt. Davies's editions, which were intended to supplement those of Graevius, show great learning and an extensive knowledge of the history and systems of philosophy, but he allows himself too much licence in the matter of emendation. He also edited Maximus of Tyre's _Dissertationes_ (1703); the works of Caesar (1706); the _Octavius_ of Minucius Felix (1707); the _Epitome divinarum institutionum_ of Lactantius (1718). Although on intimate terms with Richard Bentley, he found himself unable to agree with the great scholar in regard to his dispute with Trinity College.

DAVIES, SIR LOUIS HENRY (1845- ), Canadian politician and jurist, was born in Prince Edward Island in 1845, of Huguenot descent. From 1869 to 1879 he took part in local politics, and was premier from 1876-1879; in 1882 he entered the Canadian parliament as a Liberal, and from 1896 to 1901 was minister of marine and fisheries. In the latter year he became one of the judges of the supreme court of Canada. In 1877 he was counsel for Great Britain before the Anglo-American fisheries arbitration at Halifax; in 1897 he was a joint delegate to Washington with Sir Wilfrid Laurier on the Bering Sea seal question; and in 1898-1899 a member of the Anglo-American joint high commission at Quebec.

DAVIES, RICHARD (c. 1505-1581), Welsh bishop and scholar, was born in North Wales, and was educated at New Inn Hall, Oxford, becoming vicar of Burnham, Buckinghamshire, in 1550. Being a reformer he took refuge at Geneva during the reign of Mary, returning to England and to parochial work after the accession of Elizabeth in 1558. His connexion with Wales was renewed almost at once; for, after serving on a commission which visited the Welsh dioceses, he was, in January 1560, consecrated bishop of St Asaph, whence he was translated, early in 1561, to the bishopric of St Davids. As a bishop Davies was an earnest reformer, very industrious, active and liberal, but not very scrupulous with regard to the property of the church. He was a member of the council of Wales, was very friendly with Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, and was regarded both by Parker and by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, as a trustworthy adviser on Welsh concerns. Another of the bishop's friends was Walter Devereux, first earl of Essex. Assisting William Salisbury, Davies took part in translating the New Testament into Welsh, and also did some work on the Welsh translation of the Book of Common Prayer. He helped to revise the "Bishops' Bible" of 1568, being himself responsible for the book of Deuteronomy, and the second book of Samuel. He died on the 7th of November 1581, and was buried in Abergwili church.

DAVILA, ENRICO CATERINO (1576-1631), Italian historian, was descended from a Spanish noble family. His immediate ancestors had been constables of the kingdom of Cyprus for the Venetian republic since 1464. But in 1570 the island was taken by the Turks; and Antonio Davila, the father of the historian, had to leave it, despoiled of all he possessed. He travelled into Spain and France, and finally returned to Padua, and at Sacco on the 30th of October 1576 his youngest son, Enrico Caterino, was born. About 1583 Antonio took this son to France, where he became a page in the service of Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II. In due time he entered the military service, and fought through the civil wars until the peace in 1598. He then returned to Padua, where, and subsequently at Parma, he led a studious life until, when war broke out, he entered the service of the republic of Venice and served with distinction in the field. But during the whole of this active life, many details of which are very interesting as illustrative of the life and manners of the time, he never lost sight of a design which he had formed at a very early period, of writing the history of those civil wars in France in which he had borne a part, and during which he had had so many opportunities of closely observing the leading personages and events. This work was completed about 1630, and was offered in vain by the author to all the publishers in Venice. At last one Tommaso Baglioni, who had no work for his presses, undertook to print the manuscript, on condition that he should be free to leave off if more promising work offered itself. The printing of the _Istoria delle guerre civili di Francia_ was, however, completed, and the success and sale of the work were immediate and enormous. Over two hundred editions followed, of which perhaps the best is the one published in Paris in 1644. Davila was murdered, while on his way to take possession of the government of Cremona for Venice in July 1631, by a ruffian, with whom some dispute seems to have arisen concerning the furnishing of the relays of horses ordered for his use by the Venetian government.

The _Istoria_ was translated into French by G. Baudouin (Paris, 1642);
into Spanish by Varen de Soto (Madrid, 1651, and Antwerp, 1686); into
English by W. Aylesbury (London, 1647), and by Charles Cotterel
(London, 1666), and into Latin by Pietro Francesco Cornazzano (Rome,
1745). The best account of the life of Davila is that by Apostolo
Zeno, prefixed to an edition of the history printed at Venice in 2
vols. in 1733. Peter Bayle is severe on certain historical
inaccuracies of Davila, and it is true that Davila must be read with
due remembrance of the fact that he was not only a Catholic but the
especial protege of Catherine de' Medici, but it is not to be
forgotten that Bayle was as strongly Protestant.

DAVIS, ANDREW JACKSON (1826-1910), American spiritualist, was born at Blooming Grove, Orange county, New York, on the 11th of August 1826. He had little education, though probably much more than he and his friends pretended. In 1843 he heard lectures in Poughkeepsie on "animal magnetism," as the phenomena of hypnotism was then termed, and found that he had remarkable clairvoyant powers; and in the following year he had, he said, spiritual messages telling him of his life work. For the next three years (1844-1847) he practised magnetic healing with much success; and in 1847 he published _The Principles of Nature_, _Her Divine Revelations_, and a _Voice to Mankind_, which in 1845 he had dictated while in a trance to his "scribe," William Fishbough. He lectured with little success and returned to writing (or "dictating") books, publishing about thirty in all, including _The Great Harmonia_ (1850-1861), an "encyclopaedia" in six volumes; _The Philosophy of Special Providences_ (1850), which with its evident rehash of old arguments against special providences and miracles would seem to show that Davis's inspiration was literary; _The Magic Staff: an Autobiography_ (1857), which was supplemented by _Arabula: or the Divine Guest, Containing a New Collection of New Gospels_ (1867), the gospels being those "according to" St Confucius, St John (G. Whittier), St Gabriel (Derzhavin), St Octavius (Frothingham), St Gerrit (Smith), St Emma (Hardinge), St Ralph (W. Emerson), St Seiden (J. Finney), St Theodore (Parker), &c.; and _A Stellar Key to the Summer Land_ (1868) and _Views of Our Heavenly Home_ (1878), each with illustrative diagrams. Davis was much influenced by Swedenborg and by the Shakers, who reprinted his panegyric of Ann Lee in an official _Sketch of Shakers and Shakerism_ (1884).

DAVIS, CHARLES HOWARD (1857- ), American landscape painter, was born at East Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 2nd of February 1857. A pupil of the schools of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, he was sent to Paris in 1880. Having studied at the Academy Julian under Lefebvre and Boulanger, he went to Barbizon and painted much in the forest of Fontainebleau under the traditions of the "men of thirty." He became a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1906, and received many awards, including a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. He is represented by important works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington; the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

DAVIS, CUSHMAN KELLOGG (1838-1900), American political leader and lawyer, was born in Henderson, New York, on the 16th of June 1838. He was taken by his parents to Wisconsin Territory in the year of his birth, and was educated at Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin, and at the university of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1857. After studying law in the office of Alexander W. Randall, he was admitted to the bar in 1860. During the Civil War, as a first lieutenant of Federal volunteers, he served in the western campaigns of 1862 and 1863, and in 1864 was an aide to General Willis A. Gorman (1814-1876). Resigning his commission (1864) on account of ill-health, he soon settled in St Paul, Minnesota, where he practised law in partnership with General Gorman, and soon became prominent both at the bar and, as a Republican, in politics. He served in the state House of Representatives in 1867, 1868-1873 was United States district attorney for Minnesota. In 1874-1876 he was governor of the state, and from 1887 until his death was a member of the United States Senate. In the Senate he was one of the acknowledged leaders of his party, an able and frequent speaker and a committee worker of great industry. In March 1897 he became chairman of the committee on foreign relations at a time when its work was peculiarly influential in shaping American foreign policy. His extensive knowledge of international law, and his tact and diplomacy, enabled him to render services of the utmost importance in connexion with the Spanish-American War, and he was one of the peace commissioners who negotiated and signed the treaty of Paris by which the war was terminated. He died at St Paul on the 27th of November 1900. Few public men in the United States since the Civil War have combined skill in diplomacy, constructive statesmanship, talent for political organization, oratorical ability and broad culture to such a degree as Senator Davis. In addition to various speeches and public addresses, he published an essay entitled _The Law of Shakespeare_ (1899).

DAVIS, HENRY WILLIAM BANKS (1833- ), English painter, received his art training in the Royal Academy schools, where he was awarded two silver medals. He was elected an associate of the Academy in 1873, and academician in 1877. He made a considerable reputation as an accomplished painter of quiet pastoral subjects and carefully elaborated landscapes with cattle. His pictures, "Returning to the Fold" (1880), and "Approaching Night" (1899), bought for the Chantrey Fund Collection, are now in the National Gallery of British Art (Tate Gallery).

DAVIS, HENRY WINTER (1817-1865), American political leader, was born at Annapolis, Maryland, on the 16th of August 1817. His father, Rev Henry Lyon Davis (1775-1836), was a prominent Protestant Episcopal clergyman of Maryland, and for some years president of St John's College at Annapolis. The son graduated at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in 1837, and from the law department of the university of Virginia in 1841, and began the practice of law in Alexandria, Virginia, but in 1850 removed to Baltimore, Maryland, where he won a high position at the bar. Early becoming imbued with strong anti-slavery views, though by inheritance he was himself a slave holder, he began political life as a Whig, but when the Whig party disintegrated, he became an "American" or "Know-Nothing," and as such served in the national House of Representatives from 1855 to 1861. By his independent course in Congress he won the respect and esteem of all political groups. In the contest over the speakership at the opening of the Thirty-Sixth Congress (1859) he voted with the Republicans, thereby incurring a vote of censure from the Maryland legislature, which called upon him to resign. In 1860, not being quite ready to ally himself wholly with the Republican party, he declined to be a candidate for the Republican nomination for the vice-presidency, and supported the Bell and Everett ticket. He was himself defeated in this year for re-election to Congress. In the winter of 1860-1861 he was active on behalf of compromise measures. Finally, after President Lincoln's election, he became a Republican, and as such was re-elected in 1862 to the national House of Representatives, in which he at once became one of the most radical and aggressive members, his views commanding especial attention owing to his being one of the few representatives from a slave state. From December 1863 to March 1865 he was chairman of the committee on foreign affairs; as such, in 1864, he was unwilling to leave the delicate questions concerning the French occupation of Mexico entirely in the hands of the president and his secretary of state, and brought in a report very hostile to France, which was adopted in the House, but fortunately, as it proved later, was not adopted by the Senate. With other radical Republicans Davis was a bitter opponent of Lincoln's plan for the reconstruction of the Southern States, and on the 15th of February 1864 he reported from committee a bill placing the process of reconstruction under the control of Congress, and stipulating that the Confederate States, before resuming their former status in the Union, must disfranchise all important civil and military officers of the Confederacy, abolish slavery, and repudiate all debts incurred by or with the sanction of the Confederate government. In his speech supporting this measure Davis declared that until Congress should "recognize a government established under its auspices, there is no government in the rebel states save the authority of Congress." The bill--the first formal expression by Congress with regard to Reconstruction--did not pass both Houses until the closing hours of the session, and failed to receive the approval of the president, who on the 8th of July issued a proclamation defining his position. Soon afterwards, on the 5th of August 1864, Davis joined Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, who had piloted the bill through the Senate, in issuing the so-called "Wade-Davis Manifesto," which violently denounced President Lincoln for encroaching on the domain of Congress and insinuated that the presidential policy would leave slavery unimpaired in the reconstructed states. In a debate in Congress some months later he declared, "When I came into Congress ten years ago this was a government of law. I have lived to see it a government of personal will." He was one of the radical leaders who preferred Fremont to Lincoln in 1864, but subsequently withdrew his opposition and supported the President for re-election. He early favoured the enlistment of negroes, and in July 1865 publicly advocated the extension of the suffrage to them. He was not a candidate for re-election to Congress in 1864, and died in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 30th of December 1865. Davis was a man of scholarly tastes, an orator of unusual ability and great eloquence, tireless and fearless in fighting political battles, but impulsive to the verge of rashness, impractical, tactless and autocratic. He wrote an elaborate political work entitled _The War of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Nineteenth Century_ (1853), in which he combated the Southern contention that slavery was a divine institution.

See _The Speeches of Henry Winter Davis_ (New York, 1867), to which is
prefixed an oration on his life and character delivered in the House
of Representatives by Senator J. A. J. Creswell of Maryland.

DAVIS, JEFFERSON (1808-1889), American soldier and statesman, president of the Confederate states in the American Civil War, was born on the 3rd of June 1808 at what is now the village of Fairview, in that part of Christian county, Kentucky, which was later organized as Todd county. His father, Samuel Davis (1756-1824), who served in the War of Independence, was of Welsh, and his mother, Jane Cook, of Scotch-Irish descent; during his infancy the family moved to Wilkinson county, Mississippi. Jefferson Davis was educated at Transylvania University (Lexington, Kentucky) and at the United States Military Academy at West Point. From the latter he graduated in July 1828, and became by brevet a second lieutenant of infantry. He was assigned for duty to Jefferson Barracks at St Louis, and on reaching this post was ordered to Fort Crawford, near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. In 1833 he took part in the closing scenes of the Black Hawk War, was present at the capture of Black Hawk, and was sent to Dixon, Illinois, to muster into service some volunteers from that state. Their captain was Abraham Lincoln, and Lieutenant Davis is said to have administered to him his first oath of allegiance. In June 1835 he resigned from the army, married Miss Knox Taylor, daughter of Colonel (later General) Zachary Taylor, and became a cotton planter in Warren county, Miss. In September of the same year, while visiting in Louisiana to escape the fever, his wife died of it and Davis himself was dangerously ill. For the next few months he travelled to regain his health; and in the spring of 1836 returned to his cotton plantation, where for several years he devoted his time largely to reading political philosophy, political economy, public law and the English classics, and by careful management of his estate he acquired considerable wealth. In 1843 Davis entered the field of politics as a Democrat, and exhibited great power as a public speaker. In 1844 he was chosen as a presidential elector on the Polk and Dallas ticket; in February 1845 he married Miss Varina Howell (1826-1906) of Mississippi (a granddaughter of Governor Richard Howell of New Jersey), and in the same year became a Democratic representative in Congress. From the beginning of his political career he advocated a strict construction of the Federal constitution. He was an ardent admirer of John C. Calhoun, and eventually became his successor as the leader of the South. In his rare speeches in the House of Representatives he clearly defined his position in regard to states rights, which he consistently held ever afterwards. During his first session, war with Mexico was declared, and he resigned his seat in June 1846 to take command of the first regiment raised in his state--the Mississippi Rifles. He served in the Northern Campaign under his father-in-law, General Taylor, and was greatly distinguished for gallantry and soldierly conduct at Monterey and particularly at Buena Vista, where he was severely wounded early in the engagement, but continued in command of his regiment until victory crowned the American arms. While still in the field he was appointed (May 1847) by President Polk to be brigadier-general of volunteers; but this appointment Davis declined, on the ground, as he afterwards said, "that volunteers are militia and the Constitution reserves to the state the appointment of all militia officers." Afterwards, Davis himself, as president of the Confederate States, was to appoint many volunteer officers.

Upon his return to his home late in 1847 he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate, and in 1850 he was elected for a full term of six years. He resigned in 1851, but was again elected in 1857, and continued as a member from that year until the secession of his State in 1861. As a senator he stood in the front rank in a body distinguished for ability; his purity of character and courteous manner, together with his intellectual gifts, won him the esteem of all parties; and he became more and more the leader of the Southern Democrats. He was, however, possessed of a logical rather than an intuitive mind. In his famous speech in the Senate on the 12th of July 1848, on the question of establishing a government for Oregon Territory, he held that a slave should be treated by the Federal government on the same basis as any other property, and therefore that it was the duty of Congress to protect the owner's right to his slave in whatever state or territory of the Union that slave might be. In the debates on the Compromise Measures of 1850 he took an active part, strongly opposing these measures, while Henry Stuart Foote (1800-1880), the other Mississippi senator, was one of their leading advocates. But although still holding to the theory expounded in his July speech of 1848, he was now ready with the proposal that slavery might be prohibited north of latitude 36 deg. 30' N. provided it should not be interfered with in any territory south of that line. He resigned from the Senate in 1851 to become a candidate of the Democratic States-Rights party for the governorship of his state against Foote, the candidate of the Union Democrats. In the campaign he held, in opposition to the wishes of the more radical members of his party, that although secession might be resorted to as a last alternative the circumstances were not yet such as to justify it. A temporary loss of eyesight interfered with his canvass, and he was defeated by a small majority (1009), the campaign having been watched with the greatest interest throughout the country. In 1853 he accepted the position of secretary of war in the cabinet of President Pierce, and for four years performed the duties of the office with great distinction and with lasting benefit to the nation. He organized the engineer companies which explored and reported on the several proposed routes for a railway connecting the Mississippi valley with the Pacific Ocean; he effected the enlargement of the army, and made material changes in its equipment of arms and ammunition, utilizing the latest improvements; he made his appointments of subordinates on their merits, regardless of party considerations; he revised the system of tactics, perfected the signal corps service, and enlarged the coast and frontier defences of the country. During all this time he was on terms of intimate friendship with the president, over whom he undoubtedly exerted a powerful, but probably not, as is often said, a dominating influence; for instance he is generally supposed to have won the president's support for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. After the passage of this bill, Davis, who as secretary of war had control of the United States troops in Kansas, sympathized strongly with the pro-slavery party there. At the end of his service in the cabinet, he was returned to the Senate. To his insistence in 1860 that the Democratic party should support his claim to the protection of slavery in the territories by the Federal government, the disruption of that party was in large measure due. At the same time he practically told the Senate that the South would secede in the event of the election of a radical Republican to the presidency; and on the 10th of January 1861, not long after the election of Lincoln, he argued before that body the constitutional right of secession and declared that the treatment of the South had become such that it could no longer remain in the Union without being degraded. When his state had passed the ordinance of secession he resigned his seat, and his speech on the 21st of January was a clear and able statement of the position taken by his state, and a most pathetic farewell to his associates.

On the 25th of January 1861 Davis was commissioned major-general of the forces Mississippi was raising in view of the threatened conflict. On the 9th of February he received the unanimous vote of the Provisional Congress of the seceded states as president of the "Confederate States of America." He was inaugurated on the 18th of February, was subsequently, after the adoption of the permanent constitution, regularly elected by popular vote, for a term of six years, and on the 22nd of February 1862 was again inaugurated. He had not sought the office, preferring service in the field. His brilliant career, both as a civilian and as a soldier, drew all eyes to him as best fitted to guide the fortunes of the new Confederacy, and with a deep sense of the responsibility he obeyed the call. He heartily approved of the peace conference, which attempted to draw up a plan of reconciliation between the two sections, but whose failure made war inevitable. Montgomery, in Alabama, was the first Confederate capital, but after Virginia joined her sister states, the seat of government was removed to Richmond, on the 29th of May 1861. How Davis--of whom W. E. Gladstone, in the early days of English sympathy with the South, said that he had "made a nation"--bore himself in his most responsible position during the gigantic conflict which ensued, cannot here be related in detail. (See CONFEDERATE STATES; and AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.) In the shortest time he organized and put into the field one of the finest bodies of soldiers of which history has record. Factories sprang up in the South in a few months, supplying the army with arms and munitions of war, and the energy of the president was everywhere apparent. That he committed serious errors, his warmest admirers will hardly deny. Unfortunately his firmness developed into obstinacy, and exhibited itself in continued confidence in officers who had proved to be failures, and in dislike of some of his ablest generals. He committed the great mistake, too, of directing the movements of distant armies from the seat of government, though those armies were under able generals. This naturally caused great dissatisfaction, and more than once resulted in irreparable disaster. Moreover, he was not, like Lincoln, a great manager of men; he often acted without tact; he was charged with being domineering and autocratic, and at various times he was seriously hampered by the meddling of the Confederate Congress and the opposition of such men as the vice-president, A. H. Stephens, Governor Joseph E. Brown of Georgia, and Governor Zebulon Vance of North Carolina.

During the winter of 1864-1865 the resources of the government showed such exhaustion that it was apparent that the end would come with the opening of the spring campaign. This was clearly stated in the reports of the heads of departments and of General Lee. President Davis, however, acted as if he was assured of ultimate success. He sent Duncan F. Kenner as special commissioner to the courts of England and France to obtain recognition of the Confederacy on condition of the abolition of slavery. When a conference was held in Hampton Roads on the 3rd of February 1865 between President Lincoln and Secretary Seward on the one side, and A. H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter, and Judge James A. Campbell, representing President Davis, on the other, he instructed his representatives to insist on the recognition of the Confederacy as a condition to any arrangement for the termination of the war. This defeated the object of the conference, and deprived the South of terms which would have been more beneficial than those imposed by the conqueror when the end came a few weeks later. The last days of the Confederate Congress were spent in recriminations between that body and President Davis, and the popularity with which he commenced his administration had almost entirely vanished. In January 1865 the Congress proposed to supersede the president and make General Lee dictator,--a suggestion, however, to which the Confederate commander refused to listen.

After the surrender of the armies of Lee and Johnston in April 1865, President Davis attempted to make his way, through Georgia, across the Mississippi, in the vain hope of continuing the war with the forces of Generals Smith and Magruder. He was taken prisoner on the 10th of May by Federal troops near Irwinville, Irwin county, Georgia, and was brought back to Old Point, Virginia, in order to be confined in prison at Fortress Monroe. In prison he was chained and treated with great severity. He was indicted for treason by a Virginia grand jury, persistent efforts were made to connect him with the assassination of President Lincoln, he was unjustly charged with having deliberately and wilfully caused the sufferings and deaths of Union prisoners at Andersonville and for two years he was denied trial or bail. Such treatment aroused the sympathy of the Southern people, who regarded him as a martyr to their cause, and in a great measure restored him to that place in their esteem which by the close of the war he had lost. It also aroused a general feeling in the North, and when finally he was admitted to bail (in May 1867), Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith, and others in that section who had been his political opponents, became his sureties. Charles O'Conor, a leader of the New York bar, volunteered to act as his counsel. With him was associated Robert Ould of Richmond, a lawyer of great ability. They moved to quash the indictment on which he was brought to trial. Chief Justice Chase and Judge John C. Underwood constituted the United States circuit court sitting for Virginia before which the case was brought in December 1868; the court was divided, the chief justice voting to sustain the motion and Underwood to overrule it. The matter was thereupon certified to the Supreme Court of the United States, but as the general amnesty of the 25th of December 1868 included Davis, an order of _nolle prosequi_ was entered in February 1869, and Davis and his bondsmen were thereupon released. After his release he visited Europe, and spent the last years of his life in retirement, during which he wrote his _Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_ (2 vols., 1881). In these volumes he attempted to vindicate his administration, and in so doing he attacked the records of those generals he disliked. He also wrote a _Short History of the Confederate States of America_ (1890). He died on the 6th of December 1889, at New Orleans, leaving a widow and two daughters--Margaret, who married J. A. Hayes in 1877, and Varina Anne (1864-1898), better known as "Winnie" Davis, the "daughter of the Confederacy," who was the author of several books, including _A Sketch of the Life of Robert Emmet_ (1888), a novel, _The Veiled Doctor_ (1895), and _A Romance of Summer Seas_ (1898). A monument to her, designed by George J. Zolnay, and erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy, was unveiled in Hollywood cemetery, Richmond, Va., on the 9th of November 1899. Mrs Davis, who exerted a marked influence over her husband, survived him many years, passed the last years of her life in New York City, and died there on the 16th of October 1906.

AUTHORITIES.--Several biographies and memoirs of Davis have been
published, of which the best are: _Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of
the Confederate States_ (2 vols., New York, 1890), by his widow; F. H.
Alfriend's _Life of Jefferson Davis_ (Cincinnati, 1868), which
defended him from the charges of incompetence and despotism brought
against him; E. A. Pollard's _Life of Jefferson Davis, with a Secret
History of the Southern Confederacy_ (Philadelphia, 1869), a somewhat
partisan arraignment by a prominent Southern journalist; and W. E.
Dodd's _Jefferson Davis_ (Philadelphia, 1907), which embodies the
results of recent historical research. _The Prison Life of Jefferson
Davis_ (New York, 1866) by John J. Craven (d. 1893), a Federal army
surgeon who was Davis's physician at Fortress Monroe, was long
popular; it gives a vivid and sympathetic picture of Mr Davis as a
prisoner, but its authenticity and accuracy have been questioned.
(W. W. H.*; N. D. M.)

DAVIS (or DAVYS), JOHN (1550?-1605), one of the chief English navigators and explorers under Elizabeth, especially in Polar regions, was born at Sandridge near Dartmouth about 1550. From a boy he was a sailor, and early made several voyages with Adrian Gilbert; both the Gilbert and Raleigh families were Devonians of his own neighbourhood, and through life he seems to have profited by their friendship. In January 1583 he appears to have broached his design of a north-west passage to Walsingham and John Dee; various consultations followed; and in 1585 he started on his first north-western expedition. On this he began by striking the ice-bound east shore of Greenland, which he followed south to Cape Farewell; thence he turned north once more and coasted the west Greenland littoral some way, till, finding the sea free from ice, he shaped a "course for China" by the north-west. In 66 deg. N., however, he fell in with Baffin Land, and though he pushed some way up Cumberland Sound, and professed to recognize in this the "hoped strait," he now turned back (end of August). He tried again in 1586 and 1587; in the last voyage he pushed through the straits still named after him into Baffin's Bay, coasting west Greenland to 73 deg. N., almost to Upernavik, and thence making a last effort to find a passage westward along the north of America. Many points in Arctic latitudes (Cumberland Sound, Cape Walsingham, Exeter Sound, &c.) retain names given them by Davis, who ranks with Baffin and Hudson as the greatest of early Arctic explorers and, like Frobisher, narrowly missed the discovery of Hudson's Bay via Hudson's Straits (the "Furious Overfall" of Davis). In 1588 he seems to have commanded the "Black Dog" against the Spanish Armada; in 1589 he joined the earl of Cumberland off the Azores; and in 1591 he accompanied Thomas Cavendish on his last voyage, with the special purpose, as he tells us, of searching "that north-west discovery upon the back parts of America." After the rest of Cavendish's expedition returned unsuccessful, he continued to attempt on his own account the passage of the Strait of Magellan; though defeated here by foul weather, he discovered the Falkland Islands. The passage home was extremely disastrous, and he brought back only fourteen of his seventy-six men. After his return in 1593 he published a valuable treatise on practical navigation in _The Seaman's Secrets_ (1594), and a more theoretical work in _The World's Hydrographical Description_ (1595). His invention of back-staff and double quadrant (called a "Davis Quadrant" after him) held the field among English seamen till long after Hadley's reflecting quadrant had been introduced. In 1596-1597 Davis seems to have sailed with Raleigh (as master of Sir Walter's own ship) to Cadiz and the Azores; and in 1598-1600 he accompanied a Dutch expedition to the East Indies as pilot, sailing from Flushing, returning to Middleburg, and narrowly escaping destruction from treachery at Achin in Sumatra. In 1601-1603 he accompanied Sir James Lancaster as first pilot on his voyage in the service of the East India Company; and in December 1604 he sailed again for the same destination as pilot to Sir Edward Michelborne (or Michelbourn). On this journey he was killed by Japanese pirates off Bintang near Sumatra.

_A Traverse Book made by John Davis in 1587_, an _Account of his
Second Voyage in 1586_, and a _Report of Master John Davis of his
three voyages made for the Discovery of the North West Passage_ were
printed in Hakluyt's collection. Davis himself published _The Seaman's
Secrets, divided into two Parts_ (London, 1594), _The World's
Hydrographical Description ... whereby appears that there is a short
and speedy Passage into the South Seas, to China, Molucca, Philippina,
and India, by Northerly Navigation_ (London, 1595). Various references
to Davis are in the _Calendars of State Papers, Domestic_ (1591-1594),
and _East Indies_ (1513-1616). See also _Voyages and Works of John
Davis_, edited by A. H. Markham (London, Hakluyt Society, 1880), and
the article "John Davys" by Sir J. K. Laughton in the _Dictionary of
National Biography_. (C. R. B.)

DAVIS, THOMAS OSBORNE (1814-1845), Irish poet and journalist, was born at Mallow, Co. Cork, on the 14th of October 1814. His father, James Thomas Davis, a surgeon in the royal artillery, who died in the month of his son's birth, belonged to an English family of Welsh extraction, and his mother, Mary Atkins, belonged to a Protestant Anglo-Irish family. Davis graduated B.A. at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1836, and was called to the bar two years later. Brought up in an English and Tory circle, he was led to adopt nationalist views by the study of Irish history, a complicated subject in which text-books and the ordinary guides to knowledge were then lacking. In 1840 he made a speech appealing to Irish sentiment before the college historical society, which had been reorganized in 1839. With a view to indoctrinating the Irish people with the idea of nationality he joined John Blake Dillon in editing the _Dublin Morning Register_. The proprietor very soon dismissed him, and Davis saw that his propaganda would be ineffective if he continued to stand outside the national organization. He therefore announced himself a follower of Daniel O'Connell, and became an energetic worker (1841) on the committee of the repeal association. He helped Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy to found the weekly newspaper, _The Nation_, the first number of which appeared on the 15th of October 1842. The paper was chiefly written by these three promoters, and its concentrated purpose and vigorous writing soon attracted attention. Davis, who had never written verse, was induced to attempt it for the new undertaking. The "Lament of Owen Roe O'Neill" was printed in the sixth number, and was followed by a series of lyrics that take a high place in Irish national poetry--"The Battle of Fontenoy," "The Geraldines," "Maire Bhan a Stoir" and many others. Davis contemplated a history of Ireland, an edition of the speeches of Irish orators, one volume of which appeared, and a life of Wolfe Tone. These projects remained incomplete, but Davis's determination and continuous zeal made their mark on his party. Differences arose between O'Connell and the young writers of _The Nation_, and as time went on became more pronounced. Davis was accused of being anti-Catholic, and was systematically attacked by O'Connell's followers. But he differed, said Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, from earlier and later Irish tribunes, "by a perfectly genuine desire to remain unknown, and reap neither recognition nor reward for his work." His early death from scarlet fever (September 15th, 1845) deprived "Young Ireland" of its most striking personality.

His _Poems_ and his _Literary and Historical Essays_ were collected in
1846. There is an edition of his prose writings (1889) in the _Camelot
Classics_. See the monograph on _Thomas Davis_ by Sir Charles Gavan
Duffy (1890, abridged ed. 1896), and the same writer's _Young Ireland_
(revised edition, 1896).

DAVISON, WILLIAM (c. 1541-1608), secretary to Queen Elizabeth, was of Scottish descent, and in 1566 acted as secretary to Henry Killigrew (d. 1603), when he was sent into Scotland by Elizabeth on a mission to Mary, queen of Scots. Remaining in that country for about ten years, Davison then went twice to the Netherlands on diplomatic business, returning to England in 1586 to defend the hasty conduct of his friend, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. In the same year he became member of parliament for Knaresborough, a privy councillor, and assistant to Elizabeth's secretary, Thomas Walsingham; but he soon appears to have acted rather as the colleague than the subordinate of Walsingham. He was a member of the commission appointed to try Mary, queen of Scots, although he took no part in its proceedings. When sentence was passed upon Mary the warrant for her execution was entrusted to Davison, who, after some delay, obtained the queen's signature. On this occasion, and also in subsequent interviews with her secretary, Elizabeth suggested that Mary should be executed in some more secret fashion, and her conversation afforded ample proof that she disliked to take upon herself any responsibility for the death of her rival. Meanwhile, the privy council having been summoned by Lord Burghley, it was decided to carry out the sentence at once, and Mary was beheaded on the 8th of February 1587. When the news of the execution reached Elizabeth she was extremely indignant, and her wrath was chiefly directed against Davison, who, she asserted, had disobeyed her instructions not to part with the warrant. The secretary was arrested and thrown into prison, but, although he defended himself vigorously, he did not say anything about the queen's wish to get rid of Mary by assassination. Charged before the Star Chamber with misprision and contempt, he was acquitted of evil intention, but was sentenced to pay a fine of 10,000 marks, and to imprisonment during the queen's pleasure; but owing to the exertions of several influential men he was released in 1589. The queen, however, refused to employ him again in her service, and he retired to Stepney, where he died in December 1608. Davison appears to have been an industrious and outspoken man, and was undoubtedly made the scapegoat for the queen's pusillanimous conduct. By his wife, Catherine Spelman, he had a family of four sons and two daughters. Two of his sons, Francis and Walter, obtained some celebrity as poets.

Many state papers written by him, and many of his letters, are extant
in various collections of manuscripts. See Sir N. H. Nicolas, _Life of
W. Davison_ (London, 1823); J. A. Froude, _History of England_
(London, 1881 fol.); _Calendar of State Papers 1580-1609_; and
_Correspondence of Leicester during his Government of the Low
Countries_, edited by J. Bruce (London, 1844).

DAVIS STRAIT, the broad strait which separates Greenland from North America, and connects Baffin Bay with the open Atlantic. At its narrowest point, which occurs just where the Arctic Circle crosses it, it is nearly 200 m. wide. This part is also the shallowest, a sounding of 112 fathoms being found in the centre, whereas the depth increases rapidly both to north and to south. Along the western shore (Baffin Land) a cold current passes southward; but along the east there is a warm northward stream, and there are a few Danish settlements on the Greenland coast. The strait takes its name from the explorer John Davis.

DAVITT, MICHAEL (1846-1906), Irish Nationalist politician, son of a peasant farmer in Co. Mayo, was born on the 25th of March 1846. His father was evicted for non-payment of rent in 1851, and migrated to Lancashire, where at the age of ten the boy began work in a cotton mill at Haslingden. In 1857 he lost his right arm by a machinery accident, and he had to get employment as a newsboy and printer's "devil." He drifted into the ranks of the Fenian brotherhood in 1865, and in 1870 he was arrested for treason-felony in arranging for sending fire-arms into Ireland, and was sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. After seven years he was released on ticket of leave. He at once rejoined the "Irish Republican Brotherhood," and went to the United States, where his mother, herself of American birth, had settled with the rest of the family, in order to concert plans with the Fenian leaders there. Returning to Ireland he helped C. S. Parnell to start the Land League in 1879, and his violent speeches resulted in his re-arrest and consignment to Portland by Sir William Harcourt, then home secretary. He was released in 1882, but was again prosecuted for seditious speeches in 1883, and suffered three months' imprisonment. He had been elected to parliament for Meath as a Nationalist in 1882, but being a convict was disqualified to sit. He was included as one of the respondents before the Parnell Commission (1888-1890) and spoke for five days in his own defence, but his prominent association with the revolutionary Irish schemes was fully established. (See PARNELL.) He took the anti-Parnellite side in 1890, and in 1892 was elected to parliament for North Meath, but was unseated on petition. He was then returned for North-East Cork, but had to vacate his seat through bankruptcy, caused by the costs in the North Meath petition. In 1895 he was elected for West Mayo, but retired before the dissolution in 1900. He died on the 31st of May 1906, in Dublin. A sincere but embittered Nationalist, anti-English to the backbone, anti-clerical, and sceptical as to the value of the purely parliamentary agitation for Home Rule, Davitt was a notable representative of the survival of the Irish "physical force" party, and a strong link with the extremists in America. In later years his Socialistic Radicalism connected him closely with the Labour party. He wrote constantly in American and colonial journals, and published some books, always with the strongest bias against English methods; but his force of character earned him at least the respect of those who could make calm allowance for an open enemy of the established order, and a higher meed of admiration from those who sympathized with his objects or were not in a position to be threatened by them.

DAVOS (Romonsch _Tavau_, a name variously explained as meaning a sheep pasture or simply "behind"), a mountain valley in the Swiss canton of the Grisons, lying east of Coire (whence it is 40 m. distant by rail), and north-west of the Lower Engadine (accessible at Sus in 18 m. by road). It contains two main villages, 2 m. from each other, Dorfli and Platz (the chief hamlet), which are 5015 ft. above the sea-level, and had a population in 1900 of 8089, a figure exceeded in the Grisons only by the capital Coire. Of the population 5391 were Protestants, 2564 Romanists, and 81 Jews; while 6048 were German-speaking and 486 Romonsch-speaking. In 1860 the population was only 1705, rising to 2002 in 1870, to 2865 in 1880, to 3891 in 1888, and to 8089 in 1890. This steady increase is due to the fact that the valley is now much frequented in winter by consumptive patients, as its position, sheltered from cold winds and exposed to brilliant sunshine in the daytime, has a most beneficial effect on invalids in the first stages of that terrible disease. A local doctor, by name Spengler, first noticed this fact about 1865, and the valley soon became famous. It is now provided with excellent hotels, sanatoria, &c., but as lately as 1860 there was only one inn there, housed in the 16th-century _Rathhaus_ (town hall), which is still adorned by the heads of wolves shot in the neighbourhood. At the north end of the valley is the fine lake of Davos, used for skating in the winter, while from Platz the splendidly engineered _Landwasserstrasse_ leads (20 m.) down to the Alvaneubad station on the Albula railway from Coire to the Engadine.

We first hear of Tavaus or Tavauns in 1160 and 1213, as a mountain pasture or "alp." It was then in the hands of a Romonsch-speaking population, as is shown by many surviving field names. But, some time between 1260 and 1282, a colony of German-speaking persons from the Upper Valais (first mentioned in 1289) was planted there by its lord, Walter von Vaz, so that it has long been a Teutonic island in the midst of a Romonsch-speaking population. Historically it is associated with the Prattigau or Landquart valley to the north, as it was the most important village of the region, and in 1436 became the capital of the League of the Ten Jurisdictions. (See GRISONS.) It formerly contained many iron mines, and belonged from 1477 to 1649 to the Austrian Habsburgs. In 1779 Davos was visited and described by Archdeacon W. Coxe. (W. A. B. C.)

DAVOUT, LOUIS NICOLAS, duke of Auerstadt and prince of Eckmuhl (1770-1823), marshal of France, was born at Annoux (Yonne) on the 10th of May 1770. His name is also, less correctly, spelt Davout and Davoust. He entered the French army as a sub-lieutenant in 1788, and on the outbreak of the Revolution he embraced its principles. He was _chef de bataillon_ in a volunteer corps in the campaign of 1792, and distinguished himself at Neerwinden in the following spring. He had just been promoted general of brigade when he was removed from the active list as being of noble birth. He served, however, in the campaigns of 1794-1797 on the Rhine, and accompanied Desaix in the Egyptian expedition of Bonaparte. On his return he took part in the campaign of Marengo under Napoleon, who placed the greatest confidence in his abilities, made him a general of division soon after Marengo, and in 1801 gave him a command in the consular guard. At the accession of Napoleon as emperor, Davout was one of the generals who were created marshals of France. As commander of the III. corps of the _Grande Armee_ Davout rendered the greatest services. At Austerlitz, after a forced march of forty-eight hours, the III. corps bore the brunt of the allies' attack. In the Jena campaign Davout with a single corps fought and won the brilliant victory of Auerstadt against the main Prussian army. (See NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS.) He took part, and added to his renown, in the campaign of Eylau and Friedland. Napoleon left him as governor-general in the grand-duchy of Warsaw when the treaty of Tilsit put an end to the war (1807), and in 1808 created him duke of Auerstadt. In the war of 1809 Davout took a brilliant part in the actions which culminated in the victory of Eckmuhl, and had an important share in the battle of Wagram (q.v.). He was created prince of Eckmuhl about this time. It was Davout who was entrusted by Napoleon with the task of organizing the "corps of observation of the Elbe," which was in reality the gigantic army with which the emperor invaded Russia in 1812. In this Davout commanded the I. corps, over 70,000 strong, and defeated the Russians at Mohilev before he joined the main army, with which he continued throughout the campaign and the retreat from Moscow. In 1813 he commanded the Hamburg military district, and defended Hamburg, a city ill fortified and provisioned, and full of disaffection, through a long siege, only surrendering the place on the direct order of Louis XVIII. after the fall of Napoleon in 1814.