25 



GAMA, VASCO DE. 



GANS, EDWARD. 



boat, strictly charging his officers, in case he should be murdered, to 

 return immediately to Portugal and there announce to the king the 

 disco?eries made and his fate. On landing he was received with great 

 pomp and ceremony by the natives, who conducted him through the 

 town to a house in the country, where on the following day the 

 zamarin granted him an audience. At first his reception was very 

 favourable, but the tone of the prince soon changed a circumstance 

 which the Portuguese attribute to the intrigues of the Moors and 

 Arabs, who were jealous of the new comers. The ill-humour of the 

 zamarin was not soothed by an unluckly omission. Qama had not 

 brought any suitable presents, and the few paltry things he offered 

 were rejected with contempt by the officer appointed to inspect them. 

 Whatever may have been the designs of the zamarin against the Portu- 

 guese, Gama, it is said, at last succeeded in convincing him of the great 

 advantages he might derive from a commercial and friendly inter- 

 course with the Portuguese ; and he certainly was allowed to get back 

 to bis ships in safety. As soon as he was on board he made sail, and 

 after repairing his ships at the Angedive Isles, on the coast a little 

 to the north of Calicut, he again stood across the Indian Ocean. He 

 touched at Magadoxa, or Mukdeesha, on the eastern coast of Africa 

 and nearer to the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb than he had gone on his 

 outer voyage. Ue next anchored at Melinda, and took on board an 

 ambassador from the Mohammedan prince of that place. He arrived 

 at LUbon in September 1499, having been absent about two years and 

 two months. His sovereign received him with high honours, and con- 

 ferred on him the sounding title of Admiral of the Indian, Persian, 

 and Arabian seas. 



This voyage of Gama is a great epoch in commercial history : it 

 showed the nations of the West the sea-road to the remote East ; it 

 diverted the trade of the East from the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, 

 Asin Minor, Egypt, and Italy, the routes in which it had run for 1400 

 years ; and it led ultimately to the establishment in India of a vast 

 empire of European merchants. The effect it had upon Italy was 

 most disadvantageous, and though there were other causes at work, 

 the decline of the great trading republics of Venice and Genoa may 

 be traced to the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good 

 Hope. Soon after Gama's return Emanuel Hunt out a second fleet to 

 India, under the command of Pedro Alvares de Cabral. The most 

 remarkable incident of this voyage was the accidental discovery of 

 Brazil. From Brazil however the little fleet got to India, and Cabral 

 established a factory at Calicut the first humble settlement made by 

 the Europeans in that part of the world. But Cabral had scarcely 

 departed when all the Portuguese he left behind were massacred by 

 the natives or Moors, or by both. The Portuguese government now 

 resolved to employ force. Twenty ships were prepared and distributed 

 into three squadrons ; Gama set sail with the largest division, of ten 

 ships the others were to join him in the Indian seas. After doubling 

 the Cape, he ran down the eastern coast of Africa, taking vengeance 

 upon those towns which had been unfriendly to him during his former 

 voyage. He settled a factory at Sofula, and another at Mozambique. 

 On approaching the coast of India he captured a rich ship belonging 

 to the Soldau of Egypt, and after removing what suited him he set fire 

 to the vessel ; all the crew were burned or drowned, or stabbed by the 

 Portuguese. Ho then went to Cananore, and forced tha prince of that 

 country to enter into an alliance with him ; on arriving at Calicut, the 

 main object of his voyage, he seized all the ships in that port. Alarmed 

 at his diajilay of force for Gama had been joined by some of the 

 other ten ships the zamariu condescended to treat; but the Portu- 

 guese admiral would listen to no propositions unless a full and san- 

 guinary satisfaction were given for the murder of bis countrymen in 

 the factory. Gama waited three days, and then barbarously hanged at 

 his yard-Arms fifty Malabar sailors whom he had taken in the port 

 On the next day he cannonaded the town, and having destroyed the 

 greater part of it, he left some of the ships to blockade the port, and 

 sailed away with the rest to Cochin, the neighbouring state to Calicut. 

 These neighbours being old enemies, it was easy for Gama to make a 

 treaty with the sovereign of Cochin, whom he promised to assist in 

 hU wars with Calicut. It is not quite clear whether a war existed at 

 the time, or whether Cochin was driven into one by the manoeuvres of 

 the Portuguese ; and according to some accounts, Gama only renewed 

 a treaty which had been made by Cabral two years earlier. It was 

 Gama however who first established a factory in Cochin, at the end of 

 1502. In the following year, the Albuquerqueg obtained permission 

 to build a fort on the tame spot ; the Portuguese then became masters 

 of the port and the sea-coast, and Cochin was thus the cradle of their 

 future power in India. Gama left the zamariu of Calicut with a war with 

 Cochin on his hands; and five ships remained on the coast of Malabar 

 to protect the settlement. The admiral arrived at Lisbon with thirteen 

 of the ships in the month of December 1503. The court created him 

 Count of Videqueyra. Gama however was not rcappointed to the 

 command in India, where the career of conquest was prosecuted by 

 Albuquerque, Vajconcellos, and others. In 1524, eight years after 

 the death of the great Albuquerque, Gama, who had been living 

 quietly at home for nearly twenty years, was appointed viceroy of 

 Portuguese India, being the first man that held that high title. He 

 died in December 1 ilia, shortly after his arrival at Cochin. His body 

 was buried at that place, and lay there till 153S, when, by order of 

 John III., his remains were carried to Portugal. 



Vasco de Gama was a brave -and skilful man, but owing to several 

 circumstances his fame has been raised somewhat above his real 

 merits. The main cause of this is probably to be found in the great 

 national poem of the immortal Camoens, of a portion of which Gama 

 is the hero, the adventures of his first voyage to India being described 

 with even more than the usual brilliancy and amplification of poetry. 



(Barros, Decades ; Castanheda and Lantau, Hist. Oonqu. Portug. ; 

 Cooley, Hist. Mar. Discov. ; Camoens.) 



GANDON, JAMES, an eminent architect, was born about 1741-2. 

 He studied under Sir William Chambers, and was the first who 

 obtained the gold medal for architecture at the Royal Academy, on 

 which occasion Reynolds is said to have complimented him, and to 

 have predicted his future fame. He began to make himself known 

 in his profession by undertaking a continuation of Campbell's ' Vitru- 

 vius Britannicus," the first volume of which, or fourth of the series, 

 appeared in 1767, and the second in 1771. Though he had John 

 Woolfe for his coadjutor in the work, Gandon appears to have taken 

 the chief share of the management and editorship upon himself. The 

 work is however a very poor one, being sadly deficient in regard to 

 sections; and while many buildings of considerable interest are 

 omitted, several are given which possess very little interest or merit ; 

 neither does the letter-press afford that information easily given at 

 the time as to dates, architects, and other particulars, which would 

 now be valuable. So far from being descriptive and explanatory of 

 the respective buildings, the letter-press, which appears to have been 

 written by Gandou himself, and which certainly does not say much 

 for his literary abilities, tells us very little more than what may be 

 made out from the plates themselves. Even as an architect Gaudou 

 does not appear to any particular advantage in the ' Vitruvius,' his 

 ' Court-Hall ' at Nottingham (vol. v.) being of little and that negative 

 merit. Gandon however tells us that he made five different designs 

 for that building, and that he was obliged to pare down his ideas to 

 suit the notions aud the frugality of his employers. Still his building 

 at Nottingham obtained for him the notice of Sir George Saville, 

 Mason the poet, aud other persons of distinction, and probably brought 

 him professional employment, as he discontinued the ' Vitruvius ' 

 after the second supplementary volume. 



Gandon's architectural talents however found their true field 

 opened to them in Ireland. On premiums being offered by advertise- 

 ment for the best design for a Royal Exchange at Dublin, Gandon's 

 obtained the second, and those by Cooley [CooLEY] aud Thomas 

 Sandby the first and second prizes. What Gandou's design was is 

 not known, but its merits attracted the attention of the Earl of 

 Charleinout, Colonel Burton Couynghaui, and other admirers and 

 patrons of art. Nor was it long before an opportunity presented 

 itself in the Irish capital very far exceeding the Exchange both in 

 magnitude and importance. The Custoni-House of Dublin, a mag- 

 nificent pile of 375 by 209 feet (begun in 1781 and finished 1791), is 

 one of the noblest structures of the kind in the world perhaps the 

 noblest of all and would of itself alone suffice for the fame of any 

 architect. Dublin is also indebted to him for several others of its 

 finest buildings, the eastern front and Curiuthiau portico of the 

 House of Lords, now the Bank of Ireland ; the Four Courts (begun 

 by Cooloy, but complete.! by him, with great alterations from the 

 original design), and the King's luus. He also built the Court-House 

 at Waterford, and probably many other edifices besides, although 

 they have not obtained distinct notice. It is to be regretted that 

 Gandou did not perform for himself and his own works the same 

 office as he had in the earlier part of his life demo for those of other 

 architects ; and that he did not bequeath us such an autobiography 

 of his professional career. Gandou died at Cannonbrook, near Lucau, 

 Ireland, at the beginning of 1824. 



GANGANELH. [CLEMENT XIV.] 



GANS, EDWARD, was born at Berlin on the 22nd of March 1798, 

 and descended from Jewish parents of great respectability. His 

 father was a wealthy man, noted for his sarcastic wit, and highly 

 esteemed for his patriotism : he enjoyed the particular confidence of 

 the Prussian state chancellor, the Baron (afterwards Prince) Hardon- 

 berg. After having been educated at the gymnasium called ' Dag 

 Graue Kloster ' (the Grey Cloister), in his native town, Gans entered 

 the University of Berlin, in 1816, as a student of law. In tho 

 following year he went to Gottiugen, and there, at the age of nine- 

 teen, obtained the prize for the best answer to the question proposed 

 by the faculty of law on the history and the civil and political laws 

 of the island of Rhodes : the dissertation which he wrote on the 

 subject was printed at the expense of the faculty. In 1818 he left 

 Gottingen, aud went to Heidelberg, where he enjoyed the friendship 

 and esteem of Thibaut the jurist aud Hegel the philosopher, and 

 his intercourse with these celebrated men had a lasting influence on 



he gave eminent proofs of his talents and learning. He took the 

 degree of doctor in law in 1819, in the same university, aud there 

 also published a little work 'Ueber Rornisches Obligatiouen-Recht.' 



In 1820 Gans returned to Berlin, was admitted by the university 

 as public lecturer on law, and in the same year published a work 

 which created general sensation, namely, ' Scholien zuiu Gajus,' Th 



The 



