Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Liquid Gases" to "Logar"

Chapter XII: Front Matter (12)

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The trading fraternities assumed generally the character of corporations in the reign of Edward III. Many of them had been chartered before, but their privileges, hitherto exercised only on sufferance and by payment of their terms, were now confirmed by letters patent. Edward III. himself became a member of the fraternity of Linen Armourers, or Merchant Taylors, and other distinguished persons followed his example. From this time they are called livery companies, "from now generally assuming a distinctive dress or livery." The origin of the Grocers' Company is thus described: "Twenty-two persons, carrying on the business of pepperers in Soper's Lane, Cheapside, agree to meet together, to a dinner, at the Abbot of Bury's, St Mary Axe, and commit the particulars of their formation into a trading society to writing. They elect after dinner two persons of the company so assembled--Roger Osekyn and Lawrence de Haliwell--as their first governors or wardens, appointing, at the same time, in conformity with the pious custom of the age, a priest or chaplain to celebrate divine offices for their souls" (Heath's "Account of the Grocers' Company," quoted in Herbert's _Twelve Great Livery Companies_, 1836, i. 43). The religious observances and the common feasts were characteristic features of those institutions. They were therefore not merely trade unions in the current meaning of that phrase, but may rather be described as forms of industrial self-government, the basis of union being the membership of a common trade, and the authority of the society extending to the general welfare, spiritual and temporal, of its members. It must be remembered that they flourished at a time when the separate interests of master and servant had not yet been created; and, indeed, when that fundamental division of interests arose, the companies gradually lost their functions in the regulation of industry. The fact that the craftsmen were a homogeneous order will account for the wide authority claimed by their societies, and the important public powers which were conceded to them. In the regulation of trade they possessed extensive powers. They required every one carrying on the trade to join the company. In 1363, in answer to a remonstrance against the mischief caused by "the merchants called grocers who engrossed all manner of merchandize vendable, and who suddenly raised the prices of such merchandize within the realm," it was enacted "that all artificers and people of mysteries shall each choose his own mystery[1] before next Candlemas, and that, having so chosen it, he shall henceforth use no other." L. Brentano (_On Gilds_) holds that it is wrong to represent such regulations as monopolistic, inasmuch as there was no question whatever of a monopoly in that time nor until the degeneration of the craftgilds into limited corporations of capitalists. In the regulation of trade the right of search was an important instrument. The wardens of the grocers are to "assayen weights, powders, confeccions, platers, oyntments and all other things belonging to the same crafte." The goldsmiths had the assay of metals, the fishmongers the oversight of fish, the vintners of the tasting of wine, &c. The companies enforced their regulations on their members by force. Many of their ordinances looked to the domestic affairs and private conduct of the members. The grocers ordain "that no man of the fraternite take his neyghbor's house y^t is of the same fraternite, or enhaunce the rent against the will of the foresaid neyghbor." Perjury is to be punished by the wardens and society with such correction as that other men of the fellowship may be warned thereby. Members reduced to poverty by adventures on the sea, increased price of goods, borrowing and pledging, or any other misfortune, are to be assisted "out of the common money, according to his situation, if he could not do without."

Following what appears to be the natural law of their being, the companies gradually lost their industrial character. The course of decay would seem to have been the following. The capitalists gradually assumed the lead in the various societies, the richer members engrossed the power and the companies tended to become hereditary and exclusive. Persons might be members who had nothing to do with the craft, and the rise of great capitalists and the development of competition in trade made the regulation of industry by means of companies no longer possible. For an account of the "degeneration of craftgilds" a general reference may be made to Brentano, _On Gilds_ (1870), and C. Gross, _The Gild Merchant_ (2 vols., 1890). The usurpation of power on the part of the richer members was not always effected without opposition. Brentano refers to a pamphlet on the Clothworkers' Company, published in 1649, which asserts that "the commonalty" in the old charters meant, not the whole gild, but only the masters, wardens and assistants. Herbert records a dispute in the Goldsmiths' Company in 1529. The mode of electing officers, and the system of management generally, was challenged by three members who called themselves "artificers, poor men of the craft of goldsmiths." The company, or rather, the wardens, the assistants and livery presented a petition to the lord mayor, which was answered by the discontented craftsmen. The dispute was carried into the court of chancery and the star chamber. The artificers accused the company of subverting their grants, misappropriating the funds and changing the constitution of the society, and they complain of this being done by the usurpation of persons who "were but merchant goldsmiths, and had but little knowledge in the science." In 1531 the three complainants were expelled from the company, and then the dispute seems to have ended. In the last stage of the companies the members have ceased to have any connexion with the trades, and in most cases their regulative functions have disappeared. The one characteristic which has clung to them throughout is that of owners of property and managers of charitable trusts. The connexion between the companies and the municipality is shortly as follows. The ordinance of Edward II. required freemen of the city to be members of one or other of the companies. By the ordinance of 49 Edw. III. (1375), the trading companies were to nominate the members of common council, and the persons so nominated alone were to attend both at common councils and at elections. An ordinance in 7 Richard II. (1383) restored the elections of common councilmen to the wards, but corporate officers and representatives in parliament were elected by a convention summoned by the lord mayor from the nominees of the companies. An act of common council in 7 Edw. IV. (1467) appointed the election of mayor, sheriffs, &c., to be in the common council, together with the masters and wardens of the companies. By 15 Edw. IV. masters and wardens were ordered to associate with themselves the honest men of their mysteries, and come in their best liveries to the elections; that is to say, the franchise was restricted to the "liverymen" of the companies. At this time the corporation exercised supreme control over the companies, and the companies were still genuine associations of the traders and householders of the city. The delegation of the franchise to the liverymen was thus, in point of fact, the selection of a superior class of householders to represent the rest. When the corporation lost its control over the companies, and the members of the companies ceased to be traders and householders, the liverymen were no longer a representative class, and some change in the system became necessary. The Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 reformed the representation in several particulars. The liverymen of the companies, being freemen of the city, have still, however, the exclusive power of electing the lord mayor, sheriffs, chamberlain and other corporate officers.

The contributions made by the companies to the public purposes of the state and the city are interesting points in their early history. Their wealth and their representative character made them a most appropriate instrument for the enforcement of irregular taxation. The loan of £21,263, 6s. 8d. to Henry VIII. for his wars in Scotland, in 1544, is believed by Herbert to be the first instance of a pecuniary grant to the crown, but the practice rapidly gained ground. The confiscation of ecclesiastical property at the time of the Reformation affected many of the trusts of the companies; and they were compelled to make returns of their property devoted to religious uses, and to pay over the rents to the crown. In course of time the taxation of the companies became "a regular source of supply to government." The historians of the city have for the most part described these as unjust and tyrannical exactions, but, looking at the representative and municipal character of the companies, and the purposes to which their contributions were applied, we may regard them as a rough but not unfair mode of taxation. The government, when money was wanted for public works, informed the lord mayor, who apportioned the sums required among the various societies, and issued precepts for its payment. Contributions towards setting the poor to work, erecting the Royal Exchange, cleansing the city ditch, discovering new countries, furnishing military and naval armaments, for men, arms and ammunition for the defence of the city, are among what Herbert calls the sponging expedients of the government. The crown occasionally interfered in a more unjustifiable manner with the companies in the exercise of their patronage. The Stuarts made strenuous efforts to get the control of the companies. Terrified by the proceedings in the _quo warranto_ case, most of the companies surrendered their charters to the crown, but such surrenders were annulled by the act of 2 William and Mary (1690) reserving the judgment in _quo warranto_ against the city. The livery companies now in existence are the following:

The following are the twelve great companies in order of civic precedence: Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Taylors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, Cloth-workers. The "Irish Society" was incorporated in the 11 James I. as "the governor and assistants of the new plantation in Ulster, within the realm of Ireland." The twelve companies contributed in equal portions the sum of £60,000 for the new scheme, by which it was intended to settle a Protestant colony in the lands forfeited by the Irish rebels. The companies divided the settlement into twelve nearly equal parts, assigning one to each, but the separate estates are still held to be under the paramount jurisdiction of the Irish Society. The charter of the society was revoked by the court of star chamber in the reign of Charles I., but a new one was granted by Charles II., under which the society still acts.

Most of the companies administer charities of large value. Many of
them are governors of important schools, _e.g_. the Skinners have the
Tonbridge Grammar School; the Mercers, St Paul's School; the Merchant
Taylors, the school bearing their name, &c. The constitution of the
livery companies usually embraces (a) the court, which includes the
master and wardens, and is the executive and administrative body; (2)
the livery or middle class, being the body from which the court is
recruited; and (3) the general body of freemen, from which the livery
is recruited. Some companies admit women as freemen. The freedom is
obtained either by patrimony (by any person over twenty-one years of
age born in lawful wedlock after the admission of his father to the
freedom), by servitude (by being bound as an apprentice to a freeman
of the company) or by redemption. Admission to many of the companies
is subject to the payment of considerable fees. For example, in the
Merchant Taylors the fees are--upon taking up the freedom, by
patrimony or servitude, £1, 3s. 4d.; by redemption, £84; on admission
to the livery, £80, 8s.; on election to the court of assistants, £115,
10s. At one time the position of the livery companies was a subject of
much political discussion. Two parties threatened to attack them--on
one side those who were anxious for extensive reforms in the municipal
organization of London; on the other, those who wished to carry
forward the process of inspection and revision of endowments, which
had already overtaken the universities, schools and other charities. A
Royal Commission was appointed in 1880 to inquire into all the livery
companies, into the circumstances and dates of their foundation, the
objects for which they were founded, and how far those objects were
being carried into effect. A very valuable _Report and Appendix_ (4
vols., 1884) was published, containing, _inter alia_, information on
the constitution and powers of the governing bodies, the mode of
admission of members of the companies, the mode of appointment, duties
and salaries and other emoluments of the servants of the companies,
the property of, or held in trust for, the companies, its value,
situation and description. The companies very freely made returns to
the commission, the only ones not doing so being the Broderers,
Bowyers, Distillers, Glovers, Tin-Plate Workers and Weavers. The
Commission estimated the annual income of the companies to be from
£750,000 to £800,000, about £200,000 of that amount being trust
income, the balance corporate income.

AUTHORITIES.--In addition to the _Report_ referred to above the
following works may be consulted: H. T. Riley, _Memorials of London
and London Life_ (1868); _Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483_ (ed.
by Sir N. H. Nicolas and E. Tyrrel, 1827); _Munimenta Gildhallae
Londiniensis_, in Rolls Series, ed. by H. T. Riley (4 vols.,
1859-1862); J. Toulmin Smith, _English Gilds_ (published by Early
English Text Society), with essay by L. Brentano (1870); W. Herbert,
_History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies_ (1837); C. Gross, _The
Gild Merchant_ (2 vols., 1890); W. C. Hazlitt, _The Livery Companies
of the City of London_ (1892), contains a précis of the Royal
Commission; P. H. Ditchfield, _The City Companies of London_ (1904);
G. Unwin, _The Gilds and Companies of London_ (1908). (T. A. I.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Properly the word should be spelled, as it was originally,
"mistery;" it comes through the O. Fr. _mestier_, modern _métier_,
from Lat. _ministerium_, service, employment, and meant a trade or
craft, and hence the plays acted by craftsmen and members of gilds
were called "mystery plays" (see DRAMA). For the word meaning a
hidden or secret rite, with which this has so often been confused,
see MYSTERY.

LIVIA DRUSILLA (c. 55 B.C.-A.D. 29), Roman empress, was originally the wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero, by whom she had two sons, Drusus and Tiberius (afterwards emperor). But she attracted the attention of the future emperor Augustus, who in 38 compelled her husband to divorce her and married her himself, having first got rid of his own wife Scribonia. Her two sons, at their dying father's request, were entrusted to the guardianship of Augustus, to whom she bore no children. Livia was suspected of committing various crimes to secure the throne for Tiberius, whereas Augustus naturally favoured the claims of his blood-relatives. The premature deaths of his nephew Marcellus (whom he had at first fixed upon as his successor) and of his grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, the banishment of his grandson Agrippa Postumus, and even his own death, were attributed to her. But in any case Augustus's affection for his wife appears to have suffered no diminution up to the last; by his will he declared her and Tiberius (whom he had adopted in A.D. 4) his heirs; Livia inherited a third of his property; she was adopted into the Julian gens, and henceforth assumed the name of Julia Augusta. The senate also elected her chief priestess of the college founded in honour of the deified Augustus. She had now reached the summit of her ambition, and at first acted as joint-ruler with Tiberius. Tiberius, however, soon became tired of the maternal yoke; his retirement to Capreae is said to have been caused by his desire to escape from her. Livia continued to live quietly at Rome, in the full enjoyment of authority, until her death at an advanced age. Tiberius appears to have received the news with indifference, if not with satisfaction; he absented himself from the funeral, and refused to allow her apotheosis; her will was suppressed for a long time and only carried out, and the legacies paid, by Caligula.

See Tacitus, _Annals_, i. v.; Dio Cassius liii. 33, lv. 14-22, lviii.
2, lix. 2; Suetonius, _Tiberius_, 50, 51; J. Aschbach, _Livia,
Gemahlin des Kaisers Augustus_ (1864); V. Gardthausen, _Augustus und
seine Zeit_, i. 1018 foll., ii. 631 foll.

LIVINGSTON, EDWARD (1764-1836), American jurist and statesman, was born in Clermont, Columbia county, New York, on the 26th of May 1764. He was a great-grandson of Robert Livingston, the first of the family to settle in America (see LIVINGSTON, WILLIAM, below). He graduated at Princeton in 1781, was admitted to the bar in 1785, and began to practise law in New York City, rapidly rising to distinction. In 1795-1801 he was a Republican representative in Congress, where he was one of the leaders of the opposition to Jay's treaty, introduced the resolution calling upon President Washington for all papers relating to the treaty, and at the close of Washington's administration voted with Andrew Jackson and other radicals against the address to the president. He opposed the Alien and Sedition Laws, introduced legislation on behalf of American seamen, and in 1800 attacked the president for permitting the extradition by the British government of Jonathan Robbins, who had committed murder on an English frigate, and had then escaped to South Carolina and falsely claimed to be an American citizen. In the debate on this question Livingston was opposed by John Marshall. In 1801 Livingston was appointed U.S. district-attorney for the state of New York, and while retaining that position was in the same year appointed mayor of New York City. When, in the summer of 1803, the city was visited with yellow fever, Livingston displayed courage and energy in his endeavours to prevent the spread of the disease and relieve distress. He suffered a violent attack of the fever, during which the people gave many proofs of their attachment to him. On his recovery he found his private affairs in some confusion, and he was at the same time deeply indebted to the government for public funds which had been lost through the mismanagement or dishonesty of a confidential clerk, and for which he was responsible as district-attorney. He at once surrendered all his property, resigned his two offices in 1803, and removed early in 1804 to Louisiana. He soon acquired a large law practice in New Orleans, and in 1826 repaid the government in full, including the interest, which at that time amounted to more than the original principal.

Almost immediately upon his arrival in Louisiana, where the legal system had previously been based on Roman, French and Spanish law, and where trial by jury and other peculiarities of English common law were now first introduced, he was appointed by the legislature to prepare a provisional code of judicial procedure, which (in the form of an act passed in April 1805) was continued in force from 1805 to 1825. In 1807, after conducting a successful suit on behalf of a client's title to a part of the batture or alluvial land near New Orleans, Livingston attempted to improve part of this land (which he had received as his fee) in the Batture, Ste Marie. Great popular excitement was aroused against him; his workmen were mobbed; and Governor Claiborne, when appealed to for protection, referred the question to the Federal government. Livingston's case was damaged by President Jefferson, who believed that Livingston had favoured Burr in the presidential election of 1800, and that he had afterwards been a party to Burr's schemes. Jefferson made it impossible for Livingston to secure his title, and in 1812 published a pamphlet "for the use of counsel" in the case against Livingston, to which Livingston published a crushing reply. Livingston's final victory in the courts brought him little financial profit because of the heavy expenses of the litigation. During the war with England from 1812 to 1815 Livingston was active in rousing the mixed population of New Orleans to resistance. He used his influence to secure amnesty for Lafitte and his followers upon their offer to fight for the city, and in 1814-1815 acted as adviser and volunteer aide-de-camp to General Jackson, who was his personal friend. In 1821, by appointment of the legislature, of which he had become a member in the preceding year, Livingston began the preparation of a new code of criminal law and procedure, afterwards known in Europe and America as the "Livingston Code." It was prepared in both French and English, as was required by the necessities of practice in Louisiana, and actually consisted of four codes--crimes and punishments, procedure, evidence in criminal cases, reform and prison discipline. Though substantially completed in 1824, when it was accidentally burned, and again in 1826, it was not printed entire until 1833. It was never adopted by the state. It was at once reprinted in England, France and Germany, attracting wide praise by its remarkable simplicity and vigour, and especially by reason of its philanthropic provisions in the code of reform and prison discipline, which noticeably influenced the penal legislation of various countries. In referring to this code, Sir Henry Maine spoke of Livingston as "the first legal genius of modern times" (_Cambridge Essays, 1856_, p. 17). The spirit of Livingston's code was remedial rather than vindictive; it provided for the abolition of capital punishment and the making of penitentiary labour not a punishment forced on the prisoner, but a matter of his choice and a reward for good behaviour, bringing with it better accommodations. His Code of Reform and Prison Discipline was adopted by Guatemala. Livingston was the leading member of a commission appointed to prepare a new civil code,[1] which for the most part the legislature adopted in 1825, and the most important chapters of which, including all those on contract, were prepared by Livingston alone.

Livingston was again a representative in Congress during 1823-1829, a senator in 1829-1831, and for two years (1831-1833) secretary of state under President Jackson. In this last position he was one of the most trusted advisers of the president, for whom he prepared a number of state papers, the most important being the famous anti-nullification proclamation of the 10th of December 1832. From 1833 to 1835 Livingston was minister plenipotentiary to France, charged with procuring the fulfilment by the French government of the treaty negotiated by W. C. Rives in 1831, by which France had bound herself to pay an indemnity of twenty-five millions of francs for French spoliations of American shipping chiefly under the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the United States in turn agreed to pay to France 1,500,000 francs in satisfaction of French claims. Livingston's negotiations were conducted with excellent judgment, but the French Chamber of Deputies refused to make an appropriation to pay the first instalment due under the treaty in 1833, relations between the two governments became strained, and Livingston was finally instructed to close the legation and return to America. He died on the 23rd of May 1836 at Montgomery Place, Dutchess county, New York, an estate left him by his sister, to which he had removed in 1831. Livingston was twice married. His first wife, Mary McEvers, whom he married on the 10th of April 1788, died on the 13th of March 1801. In June 1805 he married Madame Louise Moreau de Lassy (d. 1860), a widow nineteen years of age, whose maiden name was Davezac de Castera, and who was a refugee in New Orleans from the revolution in Santo Domingo. She was a woman of extraordinary beauty and intellect, and is said to have greatly influenced her husband's public career.

See C. H. Hunt, _Life of Edward Livingston_ (New York, 1864);
Livingston's _Works_ (2 vols., New York, 1873); and Louise Livingston
Hunt, _Memoir of Mrs Edward Livingston_ (New York, 1886).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Preliminary work in the preparation of a new civil code had been
done by James Brown and Moreau Lislet, who in 1808 reported a "Digest
of the Civil Laws now in force in the Territory of Orleans with
Alterations and Amendments adapted to the present Form of
Government."

LIVINGSTON, ROBERT R. (1746-1813), American statesman, son of Robert R. Livingston (1718-1775; a justice of the New York supreme court after 1763) and brother of Edward Livingston (see above), was born in New York City, on the 27th of November 1746. He graduated at King's College, New York (now Columbia University), in 1765, was admitted to the bar in 1773, and for a short time was a law partner of John Jay. In 1773 he became recorder of New York City, but soon identified himself with the Whig or Patriot element there, and was forced to give up this position in 1775. He was a member of the second, third and fourth Provincial Congresses of New York (1775-1777), was a delegate from New York to the Continental Congress in 1775-1777 and again in 1779-1780, and was a member of the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence. He was prevented from signing that document by his absence at the time to attend a meeting of the fourth New York Provincial Congress, which on the 10th of July became the Convention of the Representatives of the state of New York, and by which at Kingston in 1777 the first state constitution was adopted, Livingston having been a member of the committee that drafted this instrument. He was the first chancellor of the state, from 1777 to February 1801, and is best known as "Chancellor" Livingston. In this capacity he administered the oath of office to Washington at his first inauguration to the presidency, in New York, on the 30th of April 1789. Previously, from October 1781 to June 1783, he had been the first secretary of foreign affairs under the Confederation, and his European correspondence, especially with Franklin, was of the utmost value in accomplishing peace with Great Britain. In 1788 he had been a member of the New York Convention, which ratified for that state the Federal Constitution. He became an anti-Federalist and in 1798 unsuccessfully opposed John Jay in the New York gubernatorial campaign. In 1801, having refused an appointment as secretary of the navy, he became minister to France on President Jefferson's appointment. He had refused this post when Washington offered it to him in 1794. He arrived in France in November 1801, and in 1803, in association with James Monroe, effected on behalf of his government the purchase from France of what was then known as "Louisiana," the credit for this purchase being largely his (see LOUISIANA PURCHASE). In 1804 Livingston withdrew from public life, and after a year of travel in Europe returned to New York, where he promoted various improvements in agriculture. He did much to introduce the use of gypsum as a fertilizer, and published an _Essay on Sheep_ (1809). He was long interested in the problem of steam navigation; before he went to France he received from the state of New York a monopoly of steam navigation on the waters of the state and assisted in the experiments of his brother-in-law, John Stevens; in Paris he met Robert Fulton, and with him in 1802 made successful trials on the Seine of a paddle wheel steamboat; in 1803 Livingston (jointly with Robert Fulton) received a renewal of his monopoly in New York, and the first successful steam-vessel, which operated on the Hudson in 1807, was named after Livingston's home, Clermont (N.Y.). He died at Clermont on the 26th of February 1813.

Livingston and George Clinton were chosen to represent New York state in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington, D.C.; the statue of Livingston is by E. D. Palmer.

See Frederick de Peyster, _Biographical Sketch of Robert R.
Livingston_ (New York, 1876); Robert K. Morton, "Robert R. Livingston:
Beginnings of American Diplomacy," in _The John P. Branch Historical
Papers of Randolph-Macon College_, i. 299-324, and ii. 34-46; and J.
B. Moore, "Robert R. Livingston and the Louisiana Purchase," in
_Columbia University Quarterly_, v. 6 (1904), pp. 221-229.

LIVINGSTON, WILLIAM (1723-1790), American political leader, was born at Albany, New York, probably on the 30th of November 1723. He was the son of Philip Livingston (1686-1749), and grandson of Robert Livingston (1654-1725), who was born at Ancrum, Scotland, emigrated to America about 1673, and received grants (beginning in 1686) to "Livingston Manor" (a tract of land on the Hudson, comprising the greater part of what are now Dutchess and Columbia counties). This Robert Livingston, founder of the American family, became in 1675 secretary of the important Board of Indian Commissioners; he was a member of the New York Assembly in 1711-1715 and 1716-1727 and its speaker in 1718-1725, and in 1701 made the proposal that all the English colonies in America should be grouped for administrative purposes "into three distinct governments."

William Livingston graduated at Yale College in 1741, studied law in the city of New York, and was admitted to the bar in 1748. He served in the New York legislature (1759-1760), but his political influence was long exerted chiefly through pamphlets and newspaper articles. The Livingston family then led the Dissenters, who later became Whigs, and the De Lancey family represented the Anglican Tory interests. Through the columns of the _Independent Reflector_, which he established in 1752, Livingston fought the attempt of the Anglican party to bring the projected King's College (now Columbia University) under the control of the Church of England. After the suspension of the _Reflector_ in 1753, he edited in the _New York Mercury_ the "Watch Tower" section (1754-1755), which became the recognized organ of the Presbyterian faction. In opposition to the efforts of the Anglicans to procure the establishment of an American episcopate, he wrote an open _Letter to the Right Reverend Father in God, John Lord, Bishop of Llandaff_ (1768), and edited and in large measure wrote the "American Whig" columns in the _New York Gazette_ (1768-1769). In 1772 he removed to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where after 1773 he lived on his estate known as "Liberty Hall." He represented New Jersey in the first and second Continental Congresses (1774,1775-1776), but left Philadelphia in June 1776, probably to avoid voting on the question of adopting the Declaration of Independence, which he regarded as inexpedient. He was chosen first governor of the state of New Jersey in 1776, and was regularly re-elected until his death in 1790. Loyal to American interests and devoted to General Washington, he was one of the most useful of the state executives during the War of Independence. While governor he was a frequent contributor to the _New Jersey Gazette_, and in this way he greatly aided the American cause during the war by his denunciation of the enemy and appeals to the patriotism of his countrymen. He was a delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, and supported the New Jersey small-state plan. In 1754 he joined with his brother, Philip Livingston, his brother-in-law, William Alexander ("Lord Stirling") and others in founding what is now known as the Society Library of New York. With the help of William Smith (1728-1793), the New York historian, William Livingston prepared a digest of the laws of New York for the period 1691-1756, which was published in two volumes (1752 and 1762). He died at Elizabeth, New Jersey, on the 25th of July 1790.

See Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., _Life of William Livingston_ (New York,
1833); and E. B. Livingston, _The Livingstons of Livingston Manor_
(1910).

His brother, PETER VAN BRUGH LIVINGSTON (1710-1792), was a prominent merchant and a Whig political leader in New York. He was one of the founders of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), was a member of the New York Council for some years before the War of Independence, a member and president of the First Provincial Congress of New York (1775), and a member of the Second Provincial Congress (1775-1776).

Another brother, PHILIP LIVINGSTON (1716-1778), was also prominent as a leader of the New York Whigs or Patriots. He was a member of the New York Assembly in 1759-1769, a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, a member of the Continental Congress from 1774 until his death and as such a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and in 1777-1778 was a member of the first state senate.

William's son, (HENRY) BROCKHOLST LIVINGSTON (1757-1823), was an officer in the American War of Independence, and was an able lawyer and judge. From 1807 until his death he was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, and he wrote political pamphlets under the pen-name "Decius."

LIVINGSTONE, DAVID (1813-1873), Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa, was born on the 19th of March 1813, at the village of Blantyre Works, in Lanarkshire, Scotland. David was the second child of his parents, Neil Livingston (for so he spelled his name, as did his son for many years) and Agnes Hunter. His parents were typical examples of all that is best among the humbler families of Scotland. At the age of ten years David left the village school for the neighbouring cotton-mill, and by strenuous efforts qualified himself at the age of twenty-three to undertake a college curriculum. He attended for two sessions the medical and the Greek classes in Anderson's College, Glasgow, and also a theological class. In September 1838 he went up to London, and was accepted by the London Missionary Society as a candidate. He took his medical degree in the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow in November 1840. Livingstone had set his heart on China, and it was a great disappointment to him that the society finally decided to send him to Africa. To an exterior in these early years somewhat heavy and uncouth, he united a manner which, by universal testimony, was irresistibly winning, with a fund of genuine but simple humour and fun that would break out on the most unlikely occasions, and in after years enabled him to overcome difficulties and mellow refractory chiefs when all other methods failed.

Livingstone sailed from England on the 8th of December 1840. From Algoa Bay he made direct for Kuruman, Bechuanaland, the mission station, 700 m. north, established by Robert Moffat twenty years before, and there he arrived on the 31st of July 1841. The next two years Livingstone spent in travelling about the country to the northwards, in search of a suitable outpost for settlement. During these two years he became convinced that the success of the white missionary in a field like Africa was not to be reckoned by the tale of doubtful conversions he could send home each year--that the proper work for such men was that of pioneering, opening up and starting new ground, leaving native agents to work it out in detail. The whole of his subsequent career was a development of this idea. He selected the valley of Mabotsa, on one of the sources of the Limpopo river, 200 m. north-east of Kuruman, as his first station. Shortly after his settlement here he was attacked by a lion which crushed his left arm. The arm was imperfectly set, and it was a source of trouble to him at times throughout his life, and was the means of identifying his body after his death. To a house, mainly built by himself at Mabotsa, Livingstone in 1844 brought home his wife, Mary Moffat, the daughter of Moffat of Kuruman. Here he laboured till 1846, when he removed to Chonuane, 40 m. farther north, the chief place of the Bakwain or Bakwena tribe under Sechele. In 1847 he again removed to Kolobeng, about 40 m. westwards, the whole tribe following their missionary. With the aid and in the company of two English sportsmen, William C. Oswell and Mungo Murray, he was able to undertake a journey to Lake Ngami, which had never yet been seen by a white man. Crossing the Kalahari Desert, of which Livingstone gave the first detailed account, they reached the lake on the 1st of August 1849. In April next year he made an attempt to reach Sebituane, who lived 200 m. beyond the lake, this time in company with his wife and children, but again got no farther than the lake, as the children were seized with fever. A year later, April 1851, Livingstone, again accompanied by his family and Oswell, set out, this time with the intention of settling among the Makololo for a period. At last he succeeded, and reached the Chobe (Kwando), a southern tributary of the Zambezi, and in the end of June reached the Zambezi itself at the town of Sesheke. Leaving the Chobe on the 13th of August the party reached Cape Town in April 1852. Livingstone may now be said to have completed the first period of his career in Africa, the period in which the work of the missionary had the greatest prominence. Henceforth he appears more in the character of an explorer, but it must be remembered that he regarded himself to the last as a pioneer missionary, whose work was to open up the country to others.

Having seen his family off to England, Livingstone left Cape Town on the 8th of June 1852, and turning north again reached Linyante, the capital of the Makololo, on the Chobe, on the 23rd of May 1853, being cordially received by Sekeletu and his people. His first object was to seek for some healthy high land in which to plant a station. Ascending the Zambezi, he, however, found no place free from the tsetse fly, and therefore resolved to discover a route to the interior from either the west or east coast. To accompany Livingstone twenty-seven men were selected from the various tribes under Sekeletu, partly with a view to open up a trade route between their own country and the coast. The start was made from Linyante on the 11th of November 1853, and, by ascending the Liba, Lake Dilolo was reached on the 20th of February 1854. On the 4th of April the Kwango was crossed, and on the 31st of May the town of Loanda was entered, Livingstone, however, being all but dead from fever, semi-starvation and dysentery. From Loanda Livingstone sent his astronomical observations to Sir Thomas Maclear at the Cape, and an account of his journey to the Royal Geographical Society, which in May 1855 awarded him its patron's medal. Loanda was left on the 20th of September 1854, but Livingstone lingered long about the Portuguese settlements. Making a slight détour to the north to Kabango, the party reached Lake Dilolo on the 13th of June 1855. Here Livingstone made a careful study of the hydrography of the country. He "now for the first time apprehended the true form of the river systems and the continent," and the conclusions he came to have been essentially confirmed by subsequent observations. The return journey from Lake Dilolo was by the same route as that by which the party came, Linyante being reached in the beginning of September.

For Livingstone's purposes the route to the west was unavailable, and he decided to follow the Zambezi to its mouth. With a numerous following, he left Linyante on the 8th of November 1855. A fortnight afterwards he discovered the famous "Victoria" falls of the Zambezi. He had already formed a true idea of the configuration of the continent as a great hollow or basin-shaped plateau, surrounded by a ring of mountains. Livingstone reached the Portuguese settlement of Tete on the 2nd of March 1856, in a very emaciated condition. Here he left his men and proceeded to Quilimane, where he arrived on the 20th of May, thus having completed in two years and six months one of the most remarkable and fruitful journeys on record. The results in geography and in natural science in all its departments were abundant and accurate; his observations necessitated a reconstruction of the map of Central Africa. When Livingstone began his work in Africa the map was virtually a blank from Kuruman to Timbuktu, and nothing but envy or ignorance can throw any doubt on the originality of his discoveries.

On the 12th of December he arrived in England, after an absence of sixteen years, and met everywhere the welcome of a hero. He told his story in his _Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa_ (1857) with straightforward simplicity, and with no effort after literary style, and no apparent consciousness that he had done anything extraordinary. Its publication brought what he would have considered a competency had he felt himself at liberty to settle down for life. In 1857 he severed his connexion with the London Missionary Society, with whom, however, he always remained on the best of terms, and in February 1858 he accepted the appointment of "Her Majesty's consul at Quilimane for the eastern coast and the independent districts in the interior, and commander of an expedition for exploring eastern and central Africa." The Zambezi expedition, of which Livingstone thus became commander, sailed from Liverpool in H.M.S. "Pearl" on the 10th of March 1858, and reached the mouth of the Zambezi on the 14th of May. The party, which included Dr (afterwards Sir) John Kirk and Livingstone's brother Charles, ascended the river from the Kongone mouth in a steam launch, the "Ma-Robert"; reaching Tete on the 8th of September. The remainder of the year was devoted to an examination of the river above Tete, and especially the Kebrabasa rapids. Most of the year 1859 was spent in the exploration of the river Shiré and Lake Nyasa, which was discovered in September; and during a great part of the year 1860 Livingstone was engaged in fulfilling his promise to take such of the Makololo home as cared to go. In January of next year arrived Bishop C. F. Mackenzie and a party of missionaries sent out by the Universities Mission to establish a station on the upper Shiré.

After exploring the river Rovuma for 30 m. in his new vessel the "Pioneer," Livingstone and the missionaries proceeded up the Shiré to Chibisa's; there they found the slave trade rampant. On the 15th of July Livingstone, accompanied by several native carriers, started to show the bishop the country. Several bands of slaves whom they met were liberated, and after seeing the missionary party settled in the highlands to the south of Lake Chilwa (Shirwa) Livingstone spent from August to November in exploring Lake Nyasa. While the boat sailed up the west side of the lake to near the north end, the explorer marched along the shore. He returned more resolved than ever to do his utmost to rouse the civilized world to put down the desolating slave-trade. On the 30th of January 1862, at the Zambezi mouth, Livingstone welcomed his wife and the ladies of the mission, with whom were the sections of the "Lady Nyassa," a river steamer which Livingstone had had built at his own expense. When the mission ladies reached the mouth of the Ruo tributary of the Shiré, they were stunned to hear of the death of the bishop and one of his companions. This was a sad blow to Livingstone, seeming to have rendered all his efforts to establish a mission futile. A still greater loss to him was that of his wife at Shupanga, on the 27th of April 1862.

The "Lady Nyassa" was taken to the Rovuma. Up this river Livingstone managed to steam 156 m., but farther progress was arrested by rocks. Returning to the Zambezi in the beginning of 1863, he found that the desolation caused by the slave trade was more horrible and widespread than ever. It was clear that the Portuguese officials were themselves at the bottom of the traffic. Kirk and Charles Livingstone being compelled to return to England on account of their health, the doctor resolved once more to visit the lake, and proceeded some distance up the west side and then north-west as far as the watershed that separates the Loangwa from the rivers that run into the lake. Meanwhile a letter was received from Earl Russell recalling the expedition by the end of the year. In the end of April 1864 Livingstone reached Zanzibar in the "Lady Nyassa," and on the 23rd of July Livingstone arrived in England. He was naturally disappointed with the comparative failure of this expedition. Still the geographical results, though not in extent to be compared to those of his first and his final expeditions, were of high importance, as were those in various departments of science, and he had unknowingly laid the foundations of the British protectorate of Nyasaland. Details will be found in his _Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries_, published in 1865.

By Sir Roderick Murchison and his other staunch friends Livingstone was as warmly welcomed as ever. When Murchison proposed to him that he should go out again, although he seems to have had a desire to spend the remainder of his days at home, the prospect was too tempting to be rejected. He was appointed British consul to Central Africa without a salary, and government contributed only £500 to the expedition. The chief help came from private friends. During the latter part of the expedition government granted him £1000, but that, when he learned of it, was devoted to his great undertaking. The Geographical Society contributed £500. The two main objects of the expedition were the suppression of slavery by means of civilizing influences, and the ascertainment of the watershed in the region between Nyasa and Tanganyika. At first Livingstone thought the Nile problem had been all but solved by Speke, Baker and Burton, but the idea grew upon him that the Nile sources must be sought farther south, and his last journey became in the end a forlorn hope in search of the "fountains" of Herodotus. Leaving England in the middle of August 1865, via Bombay, Livingstone arrived at Zanzibar on the 28th of January 1866. He was landed at the mouth of the Rovuma on the 22nd of March, and started for the interior on the 4th of April. His company consisted of thirteen sepoys, ten Johanna men, nine African boys from Nasik school, Bombay, and four boys from the Shiré region, besides camels, buffaloes, mules and donkeys. This imposing outfit soon melted away to four or five boys. Rounding the south end of Lake Nyasa, Livingstone struck in a north-north-west direction for the south end of Lake Tanganyika, over country much of which had not previously been explored. The Loangwa was crossed on the 15th of December 1866. On Christmas day Livingstone lost his four goats, a loss which he felt very keenly, and the medicine chest was stolen in January 1867. Fever came upon him, and for a time was his almost constant companion; this, with other serious ailments which subsequently attacked him, and which he had no medicine to counteract, told on even his iron frame. The Chambezi was crossed on the 28th of January, and the south end of Tanganyika reached on the 31st of March. Here, much to his vexation, he got into the company of Arab slave dealers (among them being Tippoo-Tib) by whom his movements were hampered; but he succeeded in reaching Lake Mweru (Nov. 1867). After visiting Lake Mofwa and the Lualaba, which he believed was the upper part of the Nile, he, on the 18th of July 1868, discovered Lake Bangweulu. Proceeding up the west coast of Tanganyika, he reached Ujiji on the 14th of March 1869, "a ruckle of bones." Livingstone recrossed Tanganyika in July, and passed through the country of the Manyema, but baffled partly by the natives, partly by the slave hunters, and partly by his long illnesses it was not till the 29th of March 1871 that he succeeded in reaching the Lualaba, at the town of Nyangwe, where he stayed four months, vainly trying to get a canoe to take him across. It was here that a party of Arab slavers, without warning or provocation, assembled one day when the market was busiest and commenced shooting the women, hundreds being killed or drowned in trying to escape. Livingstone had "the impression that he was in hell," but was helpless, though his "first impulse was to pistol the murderers." The account of this scene which he sent home roused indignation in England to such a degree as to lead to determined and to a considerable extent successful efforts to get the sultan of Zanzibar to suppress the trade. In sickened disgust the weary traveller made his way back to Ujiji, which he reached on the 13th of October. Five days after his arrival in Ujiji he was inspired with new life by the timely arrival of H. M. Stanley, the richly laden almoner of Mr Gordon Bennett, of the _New York Herald_. With Stanley Livingstone explored the north end of Tanganyika, and proved conclusively that the Rusizi runs into and not out of it. In the end of the year the two started eastward for Unyamwezi, where Stanley provided Livingstone with an ample supply of goods, and bade him farewell. Stanley left on the 15th of March 1872, and after Livingstone had waited wearily in Unyamwezi for five months, a troop of fifty-seven men and boys arrived, good and faithful fellows on the whole, selected by Stanley himself. Thus attended, he started on the 15th of August for Lake Bangweulu, proceeding along the east side of Tanganyika. His old enemy dysentery soon found him out. In January 1873 the party got among the endless spongy jungle on the east of Lake Bangweulu, Livingstone's object being to go round by the south and away west to find the "fountains." The doctor got worse and worse, and in the middle of April he had unwillingly to submit to be carried in a rude litter. On the 29th of April Chitambo's village on the Lulimala, in Ilala, on the south shore of the lake, was reached. The last entry in the journal is on the 27th of April: "Knocked up quite, and remain--recover--sent to buy milch goats. We are on the banks of the Molilamo." On the 30th of April he with difficulty wound up his watch, and early on the morning of the 1st of May the boys found "the great master," as they called him, kneeling by the side of his bed, dead. His faithful men preserved the body in the sun as well as they could, and, wrapping it carefully up, carried it and all his papers, instruments and other things across Africa to Zanzibar. It was borne to England with all honour, and on the 18th of April 1874, was deposited in Westminster Abbey. His faithfully kept journals during these seven years' wanderings were published under the title of the _Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa_, in 1874, edited by his old friend the Rev. Horace Waller. In Old Chitambo's the time and place of his death are commemorated by a permanent monument, which replaced in 1902 the tree on which his native followers had recorded the event.

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