BEN 



211 



BEN 



ber of Turks, Persians, and Armenians are constantly in the 

 city. Several of the natives are men of great wealth, who 

 act as bankers, and have been accustomed to facilitate the 

 money operations of the East India Company. Some also 

 are dealers in diamonds and other precious gems, which are 

 brought to Benares from Bundelcund. 



A great part of the instruction formerly given at Benares 

 was gratuitous, from the prevailing idea that all the religious 

 merit of the act would be lost if any payment were taken 

 from the pupils. It does not appear, however, that the 

 teachers had any scruples about receiving donations from 

 pilgrims or from Hindu princes. At the time of the esta- 

 blishment of the British empire in India, the schools of 

 Benares were in a declining condition. The Hindu Sanscrit 

 College of this city was established by the English resident, 

 Mr. Duncan, in 1791. This institution has since been prin- 

 cipally supported by the Company's government : some of 

 the scholars contribute towards the expenses. An English 

 class was added to this college in 1827, when the number of 

 students was 259; in 1830 the number was increased to 

 287. Other schools have been established in Benares during 

 the present century, and have been partly endowed by na- 

 tive inhabitants. In one of these schools nearly 200 children 

 are instructed in the English, Persian, and Hindustannee 

 languages, as well as in writing, arithmetic, general history, 

 geography, and astronomy. 



The government of the city, as well as of the district of 

 which it is the capital, has been virtually exercised by the 

 British since 1775. The rajah of Benares holds merely a 

 nominal authority, and is a stipendiary of the Company. His 

 residence is at Ramnaghur, about a mile from the city on 

 the opposite side of the river. 



Benares is 83 miles travelling distance from Allahabad, 

 460 miles from Calcutta, 130 from Oude, 189 from Luck- 

 now, 950 from Bombay, and 1 103 from Madras. 



(Rennell's Memoir of a Map of Hindustan ; Mill's His- 

 tory of British India; Tennant's Indian Recreations; 

 Hodge's Travels in India; Report of Committee of the 

 H'iun of Commons on the Affairs of India, 1832, public 

 anil political sections.) 



BENAVI'DES was a native of Quirihue, in the pro- 

 vinre of Concepcion, in Chili. Himself and a younger bro- 

 ther entered the patriot army at the beginning of the revo- 

 lution. The elder brother attained the rank of a serjeant in 

 a Buenos Ayres battalion. In 1814 both brothers were 

 found guilty of some capital offence, and sentenced to death. 

 Being placed in the condemned cell, they contrived to make 

 their escape, set fire, as it is supposed, to the field depflt, 

 and went over to the royalists, in whose service they were 

 the scourge of Chili for four years. At the battle of Maypo, 

 in 1818, they were made prisoners, but not being recognised 

 till the Chilian general had offered a general amnesty to 

 all military offenders, they escaped unpunished. The 

 supreme director, however, desiring to rid the country of 

 them, sent them with a strong escort to the province of La 

 Plata. Not far from Santiago, the officer of the escort 

 discovering that the prisoners had attempted to bribe the 

 men to let them escape, ordered them both to be executed. 

 The two brothers, tied together, were made to kneel on the 

 ground, and a volley was fired upon them. The younger 

 Benavides was shot dead. The elder received two balls, one 

 of which passed through his right shoulder, and the other 

 through his left side. The serjeant of the detachment also 

 gave him a cut with his sword in revenge for the loss of his 

 family, whom Benavides had destroyed, and the soldiers, 

 after throwing some earth and stones upon the bodies, 

 withdrew. Benavides, when he found that his executioners 

 had left him, with great difficulty threw off the earth and 

 stones, and having untied the cords with which he was 

 fastened, he stripped his dead brother of his shirt, in order 

 to bind his wounds with it. Notwithstanding the acute pain 

 of his wounds, he reached the hut of a poor old man, 

 where, without any other cure than washing his wounds 

 every day with water, in little more than two weeks he found 

 himself strong enough to undertake his journey. He set 

 out accordingly towards Santiago, and contrived to enter 

 the city secretly. His wife solicited, through a great patriot, 

 her relative, and a particular friend of General San Martin, 

 an interview between that general and her husband ; and 

 Benavides engaged himself again to serve in the patriot 

 army, the general having first given him a written promise 

 that he would keep his name secret. San Martin sent Be- 

 navides, under the charge of one of his officers, who did 



not know him, to General Valcarce, then commanding the 

 republican forces near Concepcion, with an order to place 

 him on his staff, and, while keeping a sharp eye over him, 

 to avail himself of Benavides's knowledge of the country, of 

 his great influence over the Araucanian Indians, and oi'his 

 former connexion with the Spaniards. To Benavides's ad- 

 vice and counsel the patriots were indebted for the conquest 

 of the district of Lajas, and of the Fort del Nacimiento. Un- 

 fortunately General Valcarce made Colonel Freire, then 

 governor of Concepcion, acquainted with the secret, and that 

 officer, in a warm discussion with Benavides, had the impru- 

 dence to tell him that a man of his character was not to be 

 trusted. Irritated at the insult, Benavides disappeared two 

 days after, and went over to the Spaniards. General San- 

 chez, who commanded at that time the Spanish forces on 

 the frontier of Chili near Concepcion, gave him a commis- 

 sion in Arauco, and from that moment Benavides com- 

 menced the most cruel and desolating war against the inde- 

 pendent Chilians. In the space of two years, with the help 

 of the Araucanian Indians, he committed cruelties upon 

 the patriots too revolting to relate. In 1821 the Chilians 

 armed an expedition 'against him, and Benavides being 

 abandoned by all his followers, sailed for Arica, with the 

 intention of joining the Spaniards in Peru. His launch 

 having entered a cove near Valparaiso in quest of water, 

 one of his own men betrayed him. He was taken and exe- 

 cuted at Santiago on the 23rd of February, 1823. (Memoirs 

 of General Miller.) 



BENBOW, VICE-ADMIRAL, was born in 1650. His 

 whole life, from boyhood to his death, was spent in active ser- 

 vice at sea ; and though he was by no means a very successful 

 or brilliant commander, he was distinguished throughout his 

 career for his courage and professional enterprise. He early 

 attracted the favourable notice of James II., the great re"- 

 former of our naval sen-ice ; and after the revolution was 

 much employed by King William. An anecdote, involving 

 a punning play upon words, which was by no means a 

 frequent pastime of the last-named monarch, is told with 

 reference to Benbow, which well illustrates the estimation 

 in which he was held by him. It was proposed to send out 

 a naval expedition to the West Indies, to watch the pro- 

 ceedings of the French in that quarter ; and after several 

 names were proposed for the command of the expedition, 

 William exclaimed, 'No; these are all fresh-water beaus ; 

 but the service requires a beau of another sort therefore 

 we must send Admiral BenAozr.' 



The service by which Benbow is best known in our naval 

 history was his last. On the llth of July, 1702, he left 

 Port Royal in Jamaica, in quest of a French squadron, com- 

 manded by M. du Casse, a very brave and skilful officer. 

 On the 1 9th of August, Benbow came up with the French 

 force, and though inferior in number and weight of metal, 

 immediately attacked them. A running fight was kept up 

 for four days ; but owing to the cowardice or treachery of 

 the officers under his command, the brunt of the engage- 

 ment was thrown upon Benbow's own vessel. On the 

 morning of the fifth day he renewed the chase and fight, 

 but was wounded by a chain-shot, which broke his right 

 leg to pieces. He was carried below, but very soon ordered 

 his cradle to be brought upon the quarter-deck, so as to 

 command a view of the action as he lay there. The 

 engagement lasted till it was dark; but so far from re- 

 ceiving any assistance from his officers, they addressed a 

 written remonstrance to him, in which they declared the 

 inability of the English force to contend with that under 

 Du Casse. Thus counteracted, he sailed back to Jamaica, 

 had the officers immediately put under an arrest, and tried 

 by court-martial. They were condemned on the clearest 

 evidence ; two of the captains were shot, and the rest were 

 visited with various degrees of punishment. Benbow sur- 

 vived just long enough to hear his own conduct vindicated 

 and applauded. He died of the wound in his leg, on the 

 4th of November, 1 702. (Biographia Britannica ; Tindal, 

 Continuation of Rapin's Hist, of England.) 



BENCH. [See BANK.] 



BENCHER. [See INNS OF COHRT.] 



BENCOOLEN, a settlement in the possession of the 

 Dutch on the west coast of the island of Sumatra, in 4 10' 

 S. lat., and 10250'E. long. 



In order to carry on the pepper trade with advantage, the 

 English East India Company formed an establishment at 

 Bencoolen in 1685, to which they afterwards gave the name 

 of Fort Marlborough. This settlement did not at first fulfil 



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